total and positive separation is lawful and convenient P. 117. Where any Church retaining purity of Doctrine doth require the owning of and conforming to any unlawful or suspected practice men may lawfully deny Conformity to and Communion with that Church in such things without incurring the guilt of Schism P. 119. Let men turn and wind themselves which way they will by the very same argument that any will prove separation from the Church of Rome lawful because she required unlawful things as Conditions of her Communion it will be proved lawful not to Conform to any suspected or unlawful practice c. They lay the imputation of Schism on all them who require such Conditions of Communion and take it wholly off from those who refuse to Conform for Conscience sake A Premised explication of the Equivocal word CHURCH THE word CHURCH being Equivocal is unfit for our disputation till explained It signifieth being a Relative several sorts of related Assemblies which are distinct I. In their Matter A Church of Jews Turks Christians of Orthodox and of Hereticks being not one thing II. In the Efficient A Church of Gods instituting or a Church of mans III. In the Fnds. 1. A Christian Assembly at a Fair or Market or Court or Army c. is not the same with an Assembly for Religious exercises 2. Nor an Assembly for Legislation about Religion in Parliament or Consultation in Synods or Disputation in Schools the same thing as an Assembly for stated worship c. IV. In the Form or Constitutive Relation to the Correlate And so the great difference which now concerneth us to note is that a Church of Equals in Office and Power is one thing and a Political Society related as Governours and governed is another The first is either an accidental Assembly or else a designed Assemby by consent This last is either an Assembly of Lay-men which may be agreed hereafter to come under Government and may meet to worship God without a Pastor and this in Politicks is usually called a meer Community 2. Or an Assembly of Rulers or Pastors in equality as to Government there And this is called a Council Synod Dyet Parliament Convention c. V. A Governed or Political Church is of Three several Species at least as there are three Species of such Government I. A Christian Family consisting of the Family-Government and Governed living together in holy faith love worship and obedience to God the Master being their Teacher Ruler and Guide in worship II. A Pastoral-Church consisting of one or more Pastors and Christian people correlated as his flock for the benefit of his Pastoral office which essentially containeth a power to teach them lead them in worship and govern them by the Keys as a Ministerial Judg who is fit for that Commmunion All together is called also the Power of the Keys and is subordinate to Christs Teaching Priestly and Ruling Office III. A Royal or Magistratical Church consisting of a Christian Soveraign and Christian Subjects to be ruled by his sword or forcing power under Christ and his Laws for the spiritual and temporal welfare of the society and the glorifying and pleasing the Lord Redeemer And IV. The Universal Church comprehendeth all these three as parts and is most excellently properly and fully called the Church consisting of Jesus Christ the chief Pastor Teacher Priest and King an eminent perfect Policy with all Christians as the subject part It is visible in that the subjects and their profession and worship are visible aod Christ was visible on earth is visible in the Court of Heaven his Laws and Providence are visible and he will visibly judg the world and reign for ever And it is no further visible The constitutive essential parts are only Christ and his subject-body The noblest organical parts of that body are Prophets Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers In all this note 1. That we have no difference that I know of about the Church in any of these senses before mentioned except 1. How far men may invent Church-forms for Gods service without Gods particular prescript or institution 2. Whether it be true that the King is so persona mixta as some hold as to be King and Priest and to have the power of Church-Keys and Word and Sacraments 3. Whether over and above the lowest Pastoral Churches Christ hath instituted a direct superior Pastoral sort of Churches to rule the inferior in Faith Worship and the Keys of Discipline over Pastors and people And if so what are these superior Pastoral Churches whâ—ther Diocesan Provincial National Patriarchal Papal or all And if Christ made no such whether men may make them 2. And note that we are certainly agreed that the Magistratical form of forcing power and the Pastoral form of Sacerdotal power of the Keys are two though the subjects should be the same though usually the Church is in the Commonwealth as part And none of us deny a Christian Common-wealth Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical and though this power be over the Pastoral Church it is but Accidental and not Essential to it 3. And note that the chief questions which I put to the Dr. about this were 1. What is the Pastoral specifying form of the Church of England And 2. Whether it be of Divine or humane Institution And I have brought him to maintain that there is no such Church of England at all And of the Royal Church or Kingdom we are Members as well as he 4. And Lastly Note that as to a Pastoral Church we agree I suppose in distinguishing a Transient and a fixed relation And as he that is a Licensed Physician acteth as such where he cometh though related fixedly to no Hospital so if a lawful Minister of Christ either fixed in another Church or in none but the Universal be called pro tempore for a day to do his office in another Church he acteth as Christs Minister and their Pastor for that dayâ— And if a travelling Christian joyn with them he is a Member for that day Yea if the whole company intend to meet but that one day in the same relations to the same ends it is a temporary transient Pastoral Church But fixed Inhabitants for order and edification ought to fix their relation and practice Though most of this be said after where he calls me to it I thought meet here to premise the Explication of the word Church as in divers books largely I have done of the word Separation lest I imitate him in leaving my explication to the hinder part and we should dispute about a word which the Reader and perhaps our selves understand not But we have a greater controversie than this risen since A. Bishop Laud's and Grotius's Reconciling design v z. what the Catholick visible Church is 1. Protestants have hitherto held as the first point of difference from the Papists that the Universal Church hath no constitutive Head or supreme regent Power but Christ He hath setled no one
And as to his Accusation of my book for Concord I answer 1. Is it no Ministers work in a contending world to tell and prove what are Christs ordained termes of Christian Concord but his that is Christs plenipotentiary on Earth and were to set the termes of Peace and War Is this spoken like a peace maker and a Divine Doth not he pretend also in his way to declare the terms of Concord 2. But no man more heartily agreeth with him in lamenting the state of the Church on earth that when such men as Bishop Gunning Dean Stillingfleet Dr. Saywel c. on one side and such as I and many better men on the other side have so many years studied hard to know Gods will I am certain for my self and I hope it of them with an unseigned desire to find out the truth what ever it cost and I profess as going to God that would he but make me know that Popery silencing Prelacy imprisoning Banishing or ruining all Nonconformists Anabaptists Antinomians Quakers or any that ever I wrote against are in the right I would with greater joy and thankfulness recant and turne to them than I would receive the greatest preferment in the land I say that yet after all this we should so far differ as for one side to be confident that the others way of Concord is the ready way to ruin wickedness and confusion and to come to that boldness to proclaim this to the world alas how doleful a case is this What hope of Christian peace and concord when such excellent sober well studyed men as they quite above the common sort not byassed by honour or preferments or power by Bishopricks Deaneries Masterships plurality or love of any worldly wealth and such as we that study and pray as hard as they to know the truth are yet confident to the height that each others termes of Love and peace are but Sathans way to to destroy them both and introduce as Dr. Saywel saith Conventicles do Heresie Popery Ignorance Prophaneness and Confusion And what we are past doubt that their way will do experience saith more than we may do Oh what shall the poor people do in so great a temptation § 9. But I must pass from his Preface where I have noted 1. That he is yet so peaceable as to propose some sort of abatements for our Concord that the benifit may be sibi suis not reaching our necesseries but much better than nothing 2. That they are so ill agreed that Bishop Gunnings Chaplain writeth against it making the only way of Peace to be by the sword to force all men to full obedience to their Lordships in every thing injoyned not abating an Oath a Subscription a Covenant a Word a Ceremony without Comprehension or limited Toleration 3 And I could wish the Doctor would consent at least that Lords and Parliament men may have the liberty themselves of educating their own Sons so it be in the Christian Reformed Religion and to choose their Tutors and not confine them to Conformists only The Papists are tollerated in choosing Tutors for their Children The King of France hath not yet taken away this liberty from the Protestants Nor the Turks from the Greeks And must you needs take it away from all the Lords Knights Gentlemen Citizens and Free-holders of England Perhaps Beggars will consent if you will keep their Children or do what the Godfathers vow Most Gentlemen that keep Chaplains expect that they teach their Sons at home sometime at least what if a Lord or Knight have such a Chaplain as Hugh Broughton or Ainsworth or as Amesius Blondel Salmatius as Gataker Vines Burges c. must the Law forbid them to read Hebrew Philosophy or Divinity to their Sons I doubt you will scarce get the Parliament hereafter to make such a Law to fetter themselves lest next you would extend your dominion also to their Wives as well as Sons and forbid them marrying any but Conformists Is it not enough to turn us all out of the publick Ministry Methinks you might allow some the Office of a School-master or Houshold Tutor or Chaplain under the Laws of Peace unless the Sword be all that you trust too If it be it is an uncertain thing The minds of Princes are changable and all things in this World are on the Wheel when Peter flieth to the Sword Christ bids him put it up for they that so use it perish by it Hurting many forceth many to hurt you or to desire their own deliverance though by your hurt CHAP. III. The beginning of the Doctors unreasonable Accusations examined His stating of the Case of Separation § 1. THis much instead of an intelligible stating of our Controversie he giveth us Page 2. By separation we mean nothing else but withdrawing from the constant Communion of our Church and joyning with Separate Congregations for greater purity of worship and better means of Edification And may we be sene by this that we understand the difference 1. Whether by Our Church he meant the Parochial Church and if so whether some or all or the Diocesan Church or the Provincial or the National or all I know not But I know well that some withdraw from some Parish Churches which joyn with others And some think they withdraw not from the Diocesan or Provincial if they communicate with any one Parish Church in the Diocess And some renounce the Diocesan Church which constantly joyn with the Parochial And for the National Church who can tell whether we have Communion with it till we know what they mean by it Indeed in the latter part after the long dispute he condescendeth beyond expectation to explain that term But it s so as plainly to deny that there is any such thing as a Church of England in a Political sense that hath any constitutive Regent part But even there so late he maketh it not possible to us to know whether we be members of the Church or not For he maketh it to be but all the Christians and Churches in the Kingdom joyned by consent exprest by their Representatives in Parliament under the same civil Government and Rules of Religion Doctrine and Worship and Government 1. As it is a Christian Kingdom we are sure that we are members of it 2. As it is all the Churches of the Kingdom consenting to the Scriptures yea and to Articles of Doctrine and all that Christ or his Apostles taught we are sure that we withdraw not from it 3. But if every Chancellor Dean Commissary Surrogate c. Or every forme or word or Ceremonie be essential to their Church we cannot tell who is of it and who not Or really whether any reject not some one forme word or office If every such thing be not essential he never in all the book tels us what is or how to know it or who is of it § 2. And the word withdrawing seemeth to imply former Communion And if so he maketh
far to heal us could we obtain it He saith that any one that hath seen them knoweth it to be a mistake to say it was published by John Fox Ans His Reader must be a strong believer and take much on his word 1. I have seen them and spake with men of great understanding that have seen them that yet judge it no mistake 2. The Preface of the publisher is like his Style 3. It is called Praefatio I. F. And can every Reader know that I. F. meaneth not John Fox 4. Ordinary Tradition saith it was Fox's And what should I sooner believe in such a case Instead of proving that they have all a power to their condemnation which we see they exercise not let him procure a real power declared and granted and it will do more than these words Sect. 23. But when it comes to the question whether me may so much as call a sinner to repentance by name before the Church who rejecteth all more private admonition he puts the question whether the obligation to admonish publickly an offender or to deny him the Sacrament if he will come to it be so great as to bear him out in the violation of a Law made by publick authority c. Ans The first question is whether Christ have not made his Church so different a thing from the World that they should be openly differenced by a Communion of Saints 2. And whether he hath not instituted an office to judge of this and by Government execute it And 3. Whether any man have authority to suspend this Law or Office And then 4. I shall grant that not only Discipline but Preaching and Prayer and Sacraments may be forborn hic nunc in the present exercise when else the exercise would do more hurt than good 5. But are these Laws good that forbid it and should we Covenant never to endeavour an Alteration Sect. 24. He next tells us of the great difficulty of exercising true Discipline which is most true and seems thence to defend the forbearance of it with us Answ I have in my Treatise of Episcopacy and oft proved that it is of great importance to Christ's ends and that he would have it continued to the last and that the Communion of Saints is a practical Article of Faith and that making small difference between the Church and the World tends to Church destruction and to the reproach of Christianity and the utter undoing of millions of Souls And though Pope and Prelates have abused it to captivate Princes and Nations the just use of it he knoweth is mentioned by the Universal Church and visibly recorded in the Canons of the several ages Though some Erastians are of late against it And Jesuits and worldly Protestants can dispense with it when it would hurt their worldly Interest and turn it chiefly against Gods Servants that displease and cross them Sect. 25. p. 284. He saith The want of Discipline in the Parish Churches was never thought by old Nonconformists destructive to the being of them Answ They did not confound the Power and the Exercise Nor what the Ministers office is indeed and from God and what it is by the Bishops Mind and Rules of Conformity I say as they 1. The Exercise may be suspended without nulling the Power or Policy 2. They are true Pastors and Churches by Gods will against the will of those that would degrade them Sect. 26. But supposing every man left to his own Conscience for Communion 1. He saith the greatest Offenders generally excommunicate themselves Answ 1. And is it your way to leave all the rest to their Consciences and yet to preach and write against and lay in Jail dissenting godly People that communicate not with you 2. And are not all these Offenders still Members of your Church Albaspineus complaineth of their Roman French Church that he never knew any further cast out than from the Sacrament and left still to other parts of communion as Members And so do you by thousands who are all Sons of your Church but we are none He is again at it what Church I was of and I have told him oft enough CHAP. VIII What the National Church of England is Sect. 1. ACcording to the Doctors Method we come now to the Explication of one of the terms of our Controversie so long and loudly called for viz. what the National Church of England is which we must obey and from which we are said to separate p. 287. And the answer is such as may tell Dr. Fulwood and him that it's time to give over wondering that I understood not what they meant by it Sect. 2. Our question is of the Church Policy and Political Form All writers of Politicks difference a meer Community from a Political Body This is essentiated of the two constitutive Parts the Pars Regens and Pars subdita the former is much like the Soul and the later the Body The Ruling Part is called the Form by most and the sorts Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or mixt the form in Specie as the rational or sensitive Soul to Animals But the Relative Form is the Union of both in their proper order Such a body Politick is a Kingdom a City a Church in the proper and usual sense But in a loose sense many other things may be called a Church As 1. a Community prepared for a governing Form not yet received 2. An occasional Congregation about Religion as Prisoners that pray together Men that meet about a Religious Consultation or Dispute c. 3. Many Churches as under one Christian Magistrate as an accidental Head 4. Many Churches associated for mutual help and concord without any governing Head Either of one Kingdom or of many 5. Many Churches as meerly agreeing in Judgment and Love in distant parts of the World None of these are Churches in the political Sense but are equivocally so called But Politically 1. All the Christian World is one Church as formed by their Relation to Christ the Head 2. All single Churches that have Pastors to guide them in the Essentials of the Pastoral Office are true Churches formed by this mutual Relation These two are undoubted 3. The now Roman Catholick Church is one by Usurpation as informed by one Usurping head 4. A Patriarchal Church is one as Governed by a Patriarch 5. A Provincial Church is one as headed by the Metropolitan or as mixt where Aristocratically others are joyned with him 6. An Archiepiscopal or Diocesan Church that hath particular Churches and Bishops under it is one as headed by that Diocesane Jure an injuriâ I dispute not 7. A Diocesane Church of many score or hundred Parishes having no Episcopus Gregis or true Pastors and Pastoral Churches under him but only half Pastors and Chappels that are but partes Ecclesia is one even of the lowest sort in their opinion as headed by that Diocesane 8. A Presbyterian Classical Church is one as headed by the Classes 9. A
Presbyterian National Church is one as headed by the General Assembly 10. An Episcopal National Church is one either as headed by one National Bishop or else by a Synod of Bishops Aristocratically or else by a Synod of Bishops and Presbyters Aristocratically All these that are constituted of One Regent and a subdite Part are called Churches in a Political proper sense and not only equivocally Now the Question is Of which sort is the National Church of England And the Doctor saith page 287. 1. That the Society of all Christians is counted a true Catholick Church from their Union and Consent in some common things and so is ours c. Answ But in what common things Not in one Bible for so may Hereticks much less in one Liturgy If it be not a consent in one Governing Head it makes no proper Church 2. He supposeth an agreement in the same Faith and under the same Government and Discipline Answ That 's right But what Government is it Civil or Ecclesiastical The first is no essential part of a proper Church If it be the later is it one in specie or in individuâ— politico Not the former for a 100 Episcopal Churches in several Nations may have one species of Government as many Kingdoms may have It is therefore the later that is all my Question which is the Church-Head He saith As several Families make one Kingdom so several lesser Churches make one National Answ True if that National Church have one Constitutive Head as a Family hath It 's no Family without a Pater or Mater Familias And no Governed proper Church without Governours and there is no Governour where there is no supreme in his place and kind For inferiours have all their power from the supreme There is no Universal supreme but God but the King is subordinately the supreme in his Kingdom in respect to inferiours and so it is in other Governed Societies He addeth The name of a Church comprehended the Ecclesiastical Governours and People of whole Cities and so may be extended to many Cities united under one Civil Government and the same rules of Religion Answ 1. If the question were only de nomine we grant that Civil Courts even of Heathens are usually by Writers called Ecclesia and so is any Assembly If this be all you mean speak out 2. Many Nations may agree in the same Rules of Religion yea so all Christians do Doth this constitute National Churches 3. One Civil Government is of another species and not essential but accidental to a Church and therefore doth not constitute or individuate it One justice of Peace or Mayor in a Christian Corporation doth not make it one Parish Church But if this be all your meaning speak out we grant de re a Christian Kingdom and contend not de nomine if you call it a Church § 3. page 297. â— As to the difference of a National Church and Kingdom he granteth what we desire confessing the difference But asketh whence cometh all this zeal now against a National Church Answ An untrue insinuation 1. To desire to know what it is is untruly called zeal against it 2. And agreeing with you in the description is no zeal against it He adds The Presbyterians and Mr. Hudson write for it Answ Mr. Hudson is a Conformist And the Presbyterians tell you what they mean a Christian Nation of particular Churches Governed by One General Assembly as the Supreme Ecclesiastical Government Whether this be just or unjust is now none of our question I have oft told what I think of it Do you also tell us which is your National Church-power and I have done Are you loth to be understood § 4. But page 299. He cometh to his plain Answer viz. 1. The National Church of England diffusive is the whole Body of Christians in this Nation consisting of Pastors and People agreeing in that Faith Government and worship which are established by the Laws of this Realm And now he continues his wonder at those who so confidently say they cannot tell what we mean by the Church of England Answ Yea your wonder may increase that I less and less understand it if you did not after tell us better â—â—an in this unhappy definition 1. Is this called the Church diffusive one Governed body Politick If not it is no Church in the sense in question and I 'le not stick with you for an equivocal name 2. Do you mean by Government agreed in 1. The Civil Government 2. Or the Ecclesiastical Government of the particular Churches severally 3. Or one Government of all the National Church 1. The first makes it no Church in the sense in question 2. The second makes it no Church but an Association of many Churches such as a thousand Independent Churches may make or the Churches of many Kingdoms Many Families Associated are no City or one ruled Society if they agree in no Common Governours but only their several Family Governours Many Cities associated are no Commonwealth if they agree not in one supreme power It 's no political body without one common Governour Natural or Collective Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical And what is it of Worship established by Law that individuates your Church If all thâ—â— the Law hath established 1. Your Church hath oft changed its very being and may do at every Parliament 2. And the Church is small and unknown if all that differ in any point established are no parts of it But if it be not all established who knoweth by this definition what it is and what is the very matter of your Church So that here is a definition which neither notifieth matter or form § 5. Next he answereth the Question How all the Congregations in England make up this one Church and answereth By Unity of Consent as all particular Churches make one Catholick Answ Consent to what 1. If it be not to one common Government it is no Governed Church as one 2. Doth he think that the Catholick Church consenteth not to one Governing Head Christ And doth any thing else make them formally One Politick body or Church This were ill Doctrine § 6. Question How comes it to be One National Church Saith he I say because it was received by the common consent of the whole Nation in Parliament as other Laws of the Nation are Answ Whether How comes it Speak of the efficient cause or the formal or what it 's hard to know so singular are his Logical notions But the first is most likely And then 1. The question is still unanswered What is the One common Governing power in the Church which this Parliament consent hath â—â—t up He knows this is the question 2. And if it be by Parliament consent how old is your Church What Parliament first made it It 's not so old as Luther Is it no older than the Liturgy or Canons 3. Doth it die and live again as oft as Parliaments change it If the corruption of
Clergy represent the Laity in the Convocation 21. By your Rule if divers parties of Christians agree to set up divers forms of Church-Government with mutual forbearance they would be one National Church And so would Episcopal Presbyterians and Independants if the Law allowed them all 22. Was the Church of England the same thing in the days of H. 8. Ed. 6. Q. Mary Q. Eliz. c. 23. Who maketh National Churches in absolute Hereditary Monarchies where are no Parliaments to signifie popular consent 24. If every Law of Order be essential to your Church few Conformists are of it If only the true essentials why are not we also of it 25. How ill agree you with Mr. Cheny who maketh it Atheism Infidelity Blasphemy Impiety to assert Church-making consent or confederacies besides Baptism 26. But the best is you leave us in hope of Reformation for if Parliaments will but consent for us to take down Diocesanes lower and to reform Parish-Churches and alter Liturgy c. we are the National Church still And one prevailing Vote may prove us all consenters and make the Church quite another thing § 14. Yet he saith Page 299. By this description any one may see how easily the Church of England is distinguished from the Papists on one side and the Dissenters on the other Answ I am one and I cannot see it nor so much as see how to know the Church it self nor who is a Member of it nor how any man can know it but he seems to me to make it a Church invisible But I see the Dissenters must be none of it 1. How was the Church of England known from Papists in the beginning of H. 8. or in the middle or in the end or how known when it began How was it known in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths days when the Papists came to Church or now as to Church-Papists How shall we know to which Church the late Bishop Bramhall and other Doctors belong who would have the Pope Govern us according to the Canons as Patriarch of the West principium unitatatis universalis and all go for Schismaticks that deny it Some call this the New-Church of England differing from the old one which was before Bishop Laud. 2. How shall one know how far consent is necessary to a Member and dissent unchurcheth him Lately a Doctor was accused for saying he scrupled to call the King according to the Liturgy Our most Religious King Mr. Jole of Sarral was suspended for not oftner wearing the Surplice and denying to pray in the Litany for Our most Gracious Queen Katherine and James Duke of York But these are small dissents The sense is the Churches Law and Doctrine and not the sound of words in various senses I have oft shewed in how many contrary senses the Conformists take the 39 Articles the Liturgy the words of Subscription and Declaration and the Oaths imposed How shall one know among all these who are or are not of your Church When you tell us that it is Agreeing in the Faith Government and Worship which is established by Law and then speak so hotly against the need and being of any common Government save the Civil at all established over the Church as a. National body and never distinguish any necessary parts of Faith Government and Worship from the rest nor tell us how to know them And when Conformists dissent in so many things some from Lay Chancellours Government by the Keys some in the sense of the Articles and the Nonconâ—oâ—â—â—ists say they consent to all that Scripture requireth and the meer Circumstantials determined by Law how shall you be known Either it is in the Essentials only or the Integrals also or also in all the Laws de Accedentibus that the Church of England by agreement is made that One Church 1. If it be only in Essentials is there either Confession Rubrick Canon or any Writer that hath told us which be those and all those and only those Essentials I never met with man that pretendeth to know them and therefore never met with man that can thus tell whether he be of the Church of England or not nor that can tell of others and who is not 2. To say it must be consent also in the Integrals that is necessary ad esse is a contradiction and is to make Integrals Essentials To say that it must be consent in all Laws of Accidents also is to make that an essential part which is no part Our loose confounding Disputers when they have lost the truth in such contradictions may say as Mr. Dodwell doth to me that I Cavil But will that answer help down all absurdities with reasonable men It 's plain that as the Papists Doctrine of defining Church-Members and Christians by no Essential Articles of Faith but by Probable Proposal of more or less doth make their Church invisible so doth this definition of the Church of England by Doctor Stillingfleet make theirs and leave us uncertain who is of it It makes me think what I hear Oliver the Usurper said to a Bishop that now is as I am credibly told Doctor how know you that you are a true Minister of Christ who answered him on Mr. Dodwell's Principles Because I have received Ordination by uninterrupted successive conveyance from true Bishops from the Apostles Saith he Are you sure they were all true Bishops and the succession uninterrupted Doctor will you take your Oath that you are thus a true Minister At which when he stuck Come come Doctor saith he there is a surer and a nearer way Certain I am that if Agreement in the sense of the 39 Articles or in all Forms and Ceremonies be necessary to constitute a Member of the Church of England abundance that subscribe are none that now go for such But if not I pray tell us why such as I also are not Members of your Church Do I more differ from you than Doctor Heylin Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell and in a word than the party which adhered to Arch-bishop Laâ—d differed from the party which adhered to Bishop Abbot Whitgift and the Parliaments of those and after-times If the Church of England as such a one be constituted by no supreme Church-Government we are all of it so far as we consent to the Association and none as it is one Political body And what then becomes of its Laws and all the Treatises of its Church-Policy § 15. But yet the Doctor stops not here I unavoidably introduce Popery if I make a Constitutive Regent Church power necessary to a Church for then the Universal Church must have such Answ 1. It 's not necessary to an equivocal ungoverned Church such as our Worcestershire Association made But to a Political Governed Church it is 2. Mark here all you that go the Political Church way that your Doctor accuseth you more than the Nonconformists even of certain opening the door to Popery What if I had said so by you Is it such
would have all walk by he will not do it but instead of that with unusual gentleness tells me he will not differ about it if I do but grant that it is a Rule that binds us all to do all that lawfully we can for peace which I cheerfully grant And if it be not lawful for peace and concord to forbear silencing us imprisoning us accusing us as odious for not wilful sinning and urging Magistrates to execute the Laws against us and making us seem Schismaticks for not forbearing to Preach the Gospel to which we were vowed and consecrated by Ordination I know not lawful from unlawful I cannot yet get him to tell us what he would have the many score thousands do on the Lords Days that have no room in the Parish-Churches with many such which our case is concerned in § 14. I thought his Book had been an Answer to mine and other mens Prefaces but I find that I was mistaken Indeed he nameth five Books written against his Accusation what he saith to Dr. Owen and Mr. Alsop I leave to themselves to consider of The Countrey Gentlemans Case in sense was this Whether all they that think Parish Communion under the present impositions to be sin are bound till they can change their judgment to forbear all Church-worship and live like Atheists and so be damned And who can find any Answer to this Mr. Barret's Queries out of his Books he saith next nothing to but a dark retracting his Irenicon And far be it from me to blame him for growing wiser But why took he no notice of his own words cited in the Epistle out of his late Book against Idolatry threatning us all with no less than damnation if me prefer not the purest Church And as to my Defence his Book is nothing like an Answer unless his naming me and citing out of that and other Books a few broken scraps which he thought he could make some advantage of may be called an Answer § 15. I confess he hath made some attempt to tell me what the National Church of England is but so Independently as I doubt his party will disown it with great offence In short he holds that there is no such thing as a Church of England in the usual Political sense having any Constitutive Ecclesiastical Supreme Power Monarchical or Aristocratical or Democratical but it 's only the many Churches in England associated by the common consent in Parliament c. Remember that he and I are so far agreed As I was writing this I saw a Book against him of a friend too much for me and somewhat freely handling the Dr. which in this point would help them by saying that the Convocation having the Legislative Church-Power may be the Constitutive Regent part But he confesseth to me that he spake not what is but what he counts should be or wisheth for the Dr. himself had before told us that the Convocations of Canterbury and York are two and not united to make one National supreme power so that this proveth no one political Church of England at all but only 2 Provincial Churches in England § 16. The Dr. hath so judiciously and honestly pleaded our Cause in his defence of A. Bishop Laud and his Book against Idolatry that I have made his words the first Chap. of this Book which if he candidly stand to I see not but our principles are the same § 17. His book is made up of 3 parts I. Untrue Accusations II. Untrue Historical Citations abundance III. Fallacious Reasonings Would you have an undeniable Confutation ad hominem in few words I. As to his Principles he saith himself as aforesaid Of Idolat p. 7. We are sure that wilful ignorance or choosing a worse Church before a better is a damnable sin II. As to his History of the old Nonconformists read A. Bishop Bancrofts dangerous Positions and Heylins History of Presbytery charging them odiously with the clean contrary and the Canons made against them on that supposition III. As to his History and Doctrine against the Election of Bp s which I pleaded as I have fully proved his abuse of History in it I repeat Mr. Thorndikes words Forbear of Penalty It is to no purpose to talk of Reformation of the Churchtoregular Government without restoring the liberty of choosing Bishops and priviledg of enjoying them to the Synods Clergy and people in the making of those of whom they consist and by whom they are to be governed that I need make no other reason of the neglect of Episcopacy than the neglect of it O pray hard to God to provide greater store of skilful holy and peaceable Labourers for his Harvest that by the sound belief of a better world have overcome the deluding love of the honours prosperity and pleasures of the flesh and wholly live to God and Heaven POSTSCRIPT DR Edward Stillingfleet Irenic P. 114. saith The Episcopal men will hardly find any evidence in Scripture or in the practice of the Apostles for Churches consisting of many fixed Congregations for worship under the charge of one Pastor nor in the Primitive Church for the Ordination of a Bishop without the preceding Election of the Clergy and at least consent and approbation of the people and neither in Scripture nor Antiquity the least foot-step of the delegation of Church-power so that upon the matter all of them at last make use of those things in Church-Government which have no other foundation but the principles of humane prudence guided by Scripture and it were well if that were observed still P. 370. Surely then their Diocesses we re not very large if all the several Parishes could communicate on the same day with what was sent from the Cathedral Church P. 361. I doubt not but to make it appear that Philippi was not the Metropolis of Macedonia and therefore the Bishops there mentioned could not be the Bishops of the several Cities under the jurisdiction of Philippi but must be understood of the Bishops resident in that City P. 157. There must be a form of Ecclesiastical Government over a Nation as a Church as well as of Civil Government over it as a Society governed by the same Laws For every Society must have its Government belonging to it as such a Society And the same reason that makes Government necessary in any particular Congregation will make it necessary for all the particular Congregations joyning together in one visible Society as a particular National Church For the Unity and Peace of that Church ought much more to be lookt after than of any one Congregation P. 131. The Churches power as to Divine Law being only directive and declarative but as confirmed by a Civil Sanction is juridical and obligatory P. 113. Where any Church is guilty of corruptions both in Doctrine and in practice which it avoweth and professeth and requireth the owning them as necessary conditions of Communion with her there a Noncommunion with that Church is necessary and a
far from being Schism that being cast our 〈◊〉 that Church on those terms only returns them to the Communion of the Catholick Church On which grounds it will appear that yours 〈◊〉 the Schismatical Church and not ours For although before this imposing humor came into particular Churches Schism was defined by the Fathers and others to be a voluntary departure out of the Church yet that cannot in reason be understood of any particular but the true Catholick Church For not only persons but Churches may depart from the Catholick Church And in such Cases not those who depart from the Communion of such Churches but those Churches which departed from the Catholick are guilty of Schism These things I thought necessary to be further explained not only to shew how false that imputation is of our Churches departing from the true Catholick Church but with what great reason we charge your Church with departing from the communion of it and therefore not those whom you thrust out of Communion but your Church so thrusting them out is apparently guilty of the present Schism Page 366. The truth is such pretences as these are are fit only for a Church that hateth to be reformed for if something not good in it self should happen in any one Age to overspread the visible Communion of all particular Churches this only makes a Reformation more necessary so far is it from making it more disputable For thereby those corruptions grow more dangerous and every particular Church is bound the more to regard its own security in a time of general infection And if any other Churches neglect themselves what reason is it that the rest should For any or all other particular Churches neglecting their duty is no more an Argument that no particular Church should reform it self than that if all other men in a Town neglect preserving themselves from the Plague then I am bound to neglect it too Page 540. Every Church is bound to regard her own purity and peace and in case of Corruptions to proceed to a Reformation of them Page 541. Saint Augustine saith not only in that place but in very many others that Saint Peter did sustain the Person of the Church when Christ said to him I will give thee the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven That he did universam significare Ecclesiam signifie the whole Church and that those things which are spoken of Peter non habent illustrem intellectum nisi eum referuntur ad Ecclesiam cujus ille agnoscitur in figurâ gestasse personam have no clear sense but â—hen they are referred to the Church whose person he did 〈◊〉 Pag. 542 He means the formal right of them was conveyed to the Church and that Saint Peter was only a publick person to receive them in the name of the Church It primarily and formally resides in the whole body of the Church Pag. 544. His Lordship saith your opinion is yet more unreasonable because no body collective whensoever it assembled it self did ever give more powerto the representing body of it than a binding power upon it self and all particulars nor ever did it give this power otherwise than with this reservation in nature that it would call again and reform and if need were abrogate any law or ordinance upon just cause made evident that the representing body had failed in trust or truth And this power no body collective Ecclesiastical or Civil can put out of it self or give away to a Parliament or Council or call it what you will that represents it His Lordship saith that the power which a Council hath to order settle and define differences arising concerning faith it hath not by an immediate institution from Christ but it was prudently taken up by the Church from the Apostles example CHAP. II. Some Animadversions on his Preface § 1. THE impartial searchers after truth have hitherto thought that a strict method at least agreeable to natural Logick is more effectual than confusion or wordy popular haranges And that the controversie should be very cleerly stated before it can be profitably argued And therefore that first all ambiguity of terms be by due explication removed that men may not mean several things and not understand each other and to Define and distinguish where it is needful and then Affirm or deny and then effectualy prove But why this worthy person doth far otherwise with us both before and now it is more his part than mine to give the reason I dare not say he cannot Nor I dare not say he can but will not but all that I can say is that he doth not and I know not why § 2. The Preface of his Book called Unreasonableness c. Is so much answered already by Mr. Lob that I will not lose time by doing much to the same again And there is a posthumous book of Dr. Worsleys called The third part of naked Truth which hath strenuously handled the same chief matter for Scripture Sufficiency against unnecessary Impositions It being supposed though not there expressed 1. That he speaketh not against the guiding determination of undetermined accidents which must be determined one way or other As Time Place Utensils Translationwords Metres tunes c. 2. And that a man that intollerably breakes Gods Laws by Blasphemy Treason Murder Fornication c. is not to be tollerated because he erroniously thinks he keepeth them § 3. His sad saying that there is no improbability that the Jesuites should be the first setters up of the way in England which he calls the Doctrine of Spiritual Prayer Mr. Lob hath opened as it deserveth in part but to say all that it deserveth would seem so harsh that I have reason to think that it would but more offend than profit him § 4. For I find that he is grown too impatient with our Nameing what he patiently and confidently doth The cause of his impatience I leave to himself But that it is much within him I must conjecture when in his defence of Bishop Laud I read him saying to the Papists To speak mildly it is a gross untruth And yet wen I speak not so plainly to him and I think never more sharply he accounts it a continued Passion Rage Railing Intollerable indiscretion c. Do I give him harder words than these Yet I profess I smart not by them I take them for very tollerable words in comparison of his miscarriges in the cause in hand Several sorts of men I have found think other men speak in passion 1. Those that hear and read with passion They think that which angers them came from anger 2. Those that are too high to be dealt with on even terms and think the plain speech which agreeth to others is a contempt of such as them 3. Those that commit miscarriages so gross and defend causes so bad as have no names but what are disgraceful and then take all that is said to anatomatize their cause and errours to be said against themselves
I think not invalidate and yet this goeth for no justification of us so is it with others § 10. Some think that it is a Conventicle as described by their Cannon that must make us Separatists which is of men that call themselves of another Church But that 's not it Mr. Gouge Mr. Poole Mr. Humphrey and my self and abundance more that never gathered any Church nor called our selves of any other then their own are nevertheless separatists in these mens account § 11. They that remembred what was called Separation in England of old supposed it had these two degrees which made men called Brownists First falsly taking the Parish Ministers and Churches for no true Ministers and Churches of Christ and therefore not to be Communicated with Secondly or in the lower rank falsly taking the faults of the Parish Ministers and Churches to be so great that its a sin to have ordinary Communion with them But they that have still disclaimed both these are Separatists still in our Accusers sence § 12. Some thought that ordinary Communicating in the Parish Churches and pleading for it would prove us no separatists with them But this will not serve as my own and many other mens Experience proveth § 13. I am called after to say more of this The sum of my separation is this First that I take not the Parish Churches to be the only Churches that I must Communicate with and will not confine my Communion to them alone as if they were a sect or All But will also have Communion with Dutch French or Nonconformists 2. I take not the Order Discipline and mode of worship in the Parish Churches nor the Preaching of very many Parsons Vicars and Curates to be the best and most desirable 3. I take those to be no true Political Churches which have no Pastors that have all the Qualifications and Call and Authority which is Essential to the Office and therefore can communicate with them but as with a flock without a Pastor or an Oratory Community or Catechized Company 4. I live peaceably under such Bishops as have many hundred Parishes and no Episcopos Gregis true Bishops and Pastoral Churches under them as they think But I own not their Constitution 5. I joyn with all the Churches in England as Associated for mutual help and Concord in all that the Scripture prescribeth and in all the Protestant Religion and all that all Christian Churches are agreed in and all that is truly needful to the ends of Christianity But not absolutely in all which their Canons Liturgy c. conttaine Especially their sinful Impositions and their Presumtious Canonical Excommunications of dissenters ipso facto 6. I am one of the Christian Kingdom of England as under the King according to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and am for obeying the Laws and Rules in all things lawfully belonging to their Power to command But not for obeying them in sin against God nor for believing all to be Lawful because they command it nor for their taking down Family Government or self Government and discerning private Judgment of the subjects This is my measure of separation § 14. And I think in cases that concern our own and many mens Salvation we should have leave freely to speak for our selves and not be used as we are that must neither be endured to be silent or to speak Let this Dr. open our case to you himself saith he Pref. p. 36. Speaking of my first Plea for Peace As though it had been designed on purpose to represent the Clergy of our Church as a Company of Notorious Lying and Perjured Villains for Conforming to the Laws of the Land and orders established among us For there are no less than thiâ—ty tremendous aggravations of the sin of Conformity set down in it and all this done without the 〈…〉 provocation given on oue side And elswhere he saith he shall less regard my aggravations Ans 1. If I do that which you think as bad I would gladly be told of it though false accusations I desire not And impenitence is too soon learnt without a Teacher or Academical degrees and I had rather be saved from it 2. But Reader I once more appeal to the Judgment of all reason and humanity as well as Christianity to decide the case of this Accusation 1. We did in 1660. and 1661. All that we were able by labour petition and yielding as far as we durst for fear of sin and Hell to have been united and lived in Church Concord with the Episcopal party 2. When our labour and hopes were frustrate and two thousand of us cast out of the Ministery and afterwards laws made against us as Conventiclers first for our Fining Imprisonment and then Banishment and after besides Imprisonment to pay twenty pound the first Sermon and forty pound the next and so on when after this the Law that banished us from all Cities Corporations c. and places where we lately Preached did most deeply accuse us as the cause I never wrote so much as the reasons of our dissent When by the execution of these Laws we were by Informers and others used as is well known I was still silent My not conforming shewed my dissent but I durst not so much as once tell them why lest it should more exasperate them 3. At last I was often told that the Bishop that first forbad my Preaching and many others after him oft said to Great men Mr. Baxter keeps up a Schism and yet holds all our conformity lawful save renouncing a rebellious Covenant And I yet continued silent 4. At last they wrote against us that we durst not say that any part of Conformity was sin but only inconvenient 5. Then many pulpits and books proclaim that we against our Consciences kept up a Schism for a baffled cause which we had nothing to say for 6. All this while Lords and Commons used to ask us what is it that you would have and what keepeth you from Conformity In private talk but would never allow us to speak for our selves and give the world or Parliament our reasons 7. Many years together Pulpits and Printed Books of the Clergy cryed out to the Magistrates to execute the Laws against us and as one said set fire to the Fagot and blamed them for not doing it 8. When the King gave us his Licence they were greatly offended as aforesaid 9. At last one great Bishop told me that he would desire the King to constraine us to give our reasons and not keep up a Schism and not tell for what And another greater told me that the King took us to be not sincere that would not give our reasons And all this while I durst not give them as knowing how they would be received 10. When the Bishops kept me from Preaching and gave me leisure I wrote 1. An Apology for our Preaching 2 A Treatise of Episcopacy and divers other such and yet durst not Print them
than the Pope of Rome had done before as I think in five hundred you see how that Spirit then did work and whether our Arch-Bishop Bancroft thought better of the Presbyterian Churches or the Pope and the Effects In the Second book he taketh up what rash words he could from any indiscreet men to make them odious In the third he sheweth what the English Nonconformists did for their Church-way and Discipline Chap. 1. p. 42. He saith that the 〈◊〉 Ten or Eleven years of the Queens Reign they so clamoured c. that they divided themselves from their ordinary Congregations and meeting in houses woods and fields kept there unlawful and disorderly Conventicles and Mr. Cartwright defendeth them saying that the name of Conventicles was too light and contemptuous for them Then they framed their two admonitions In one of which p. 60 61. They tell the Parliament that their Discipline was Gods order and they must in Conscience speak for it and use it And Anno 1572. They erected a Presbytery at Wandsworth The Elders are named The persons named that set up meetings are Mr. Field Wilcox Standen Jackson Bentham Sancler Crane Edmonds and after Clark Travers Barber Gardiner Cheston Crook Egerton Anno 1582. There was a meeting of threescore Ministers out of Essex Cambridg-shire and Norfolk at Cock-field Mr. Knewstubs Town And another that year at a Commencement at Cambridge Chap. 3. That they drew up a book of their Discipline where choice of Ministers Elders Deacons c. are named and regulated and for Classical Provincial Comitial Synods and Government Chap. 4. He tells you how they prosecuted it Anno 1583. Out of Cholmley Field Fen Wilcox Axton Gellebrand Wright Gifford Chap. 5. How they proceeded 1587. And 1590. Northampton-shire was divided into three Classes First the Northampton Classis had Mr. Snape Penrie Sibthorp Edwards Littleton Bradshaw Lark Fleshward Spicer c. The Daventrie Classis had Mr. Barebon Rogers King Smart Sharp Prowdloe Elliston c. The Kettering Classis had Mr. Stone Williamson Falksbrâ—â—k Patinson Massey c. And Johnson saith it was received in Warwick-shire Suffolk Norfolk Essex and most parts of England so Smith Hâ—â—gar Holme witness Mr Snape said About Braintree the Classis had Mr. Culâ—â—â—wel Mr. Rogers Mr. Gifford one of our Doctor 's wittnesses c. That at Colchester had Doctor Chapman Doctor Chrick Mr. Dowe Mr. â—â—rrar Mr. Newman Mr. Tey c. Page 85. Mr. Snape said It was agreed on in the Classical and general assemblies that the dumb Ministers were no Ministers and that all the Ministers should Preach for the aforesaid Government Chap. 6. Anno 1588. A Synod at Coventry agreed against private Baptism reading Homilies the Cross in Baptism and that the faithful ought not to communicate with unlearned they mean uncapable Ministers though they may be present at their Service if they come of purpose to hear a Sermon For Laymen may read publick Service That the calling of Bishops c. is unlawful That it is not lawful to be ordained by them or denounce their Suspentions or Excommunications That it s not lawful to rest in the Bishops deprivation of any from the Ministry except on consultation with neighbour Ministers and their flock it seems so good to them but that he continue in the same till he be compelled to the contrary by Civil force c. And the Discipline subscribed by Cartwright Fen Wright Oxenbridge Gellybrand Clevely Nutter Fetherstone Holm Lord c. To repeat all is too tedious But its worth the noteing that whereas the Prelatists usually say that when they were put to draw up a Liturgy themselves they could not agree of any Bishop Bancroft saith Page 96. They offered the Parliament a book of their own containing the form of Common prayers c. and hoped to have had it established Page 164. Chap. 12. He tells you of their order for Parents to offer their own Children to Baptism and be Godfathers c. He proceedeth to shew that they resolved to practice their Discipline against the Magistrates will and did accordingly And Chap. 15. p. 120. That they joyned themselves into an Association or brother-hood and appropriated to their meetings the name of the Church thereby shewing themselves to be most notorious Schismaticks citeing their words our Churches And p. 121. That the Parish where they preach assembled is not the Church properly in their sence but as many thereof only as are joyned to them with that inviolable bond viz. The desire of the godly Discipline and those furthermore who leaving their own Parish Churches come to them e. g. The Church of God forsooth in Black fryars consists besides that Parish of a number of men and Merchants wives dispersed here and there throughout the whole City Mr. Snape's testimony is cited § 6. By these words of Bancroft and the case compared it is certain that on these suppositions many of the Canons were made against them as against Conventicles and calling themselves another Church and a brother-hood and about God fathers and many more supposing them to be of this mind § 7. On supposition that these things were true the Nonconformists have to this day been accused by those that write against them and the testimony of this book alledged as proof And Doctor Heylin hath in folio accordingly described them in his History of Presbytery as many others have done § 8. And now cometh Doctor Stillingfleet and tells you that he is certain that all the old Nonconformists were quite of another mind and other men and to prove it citeth four or five mens words against Brownists When yet he citeth more of my own against Separation and if my words prove me not to be against it how will theirs prove them to be against it § 9. Either Bancrofts Heylins and such others words of them are true or false If true how untrue are Doctor Stillingfleet's If false O what a sort of men were these Prelates that so stigmatized and accused and so used so many hundred such men on so false a charge And what a Church was it that made the Canons against them on that supposition And how shall we know which of them to believe Doth not Doctor Stillingfleet heavily reproach his own Church for such usuage of them § 10. The case is commonly known First that a long time they had almost all of them Parish Churches as other men had and they sought to set up Discipline in those Churches And it had been folly then to gather others in other places 2. When Bancroft and others had got many cast out and silenced a great part of them kept in by connivence of some peaceable Bishops and by the mediation of some Lords and Gentlemen such as the Earl of Leicester Bedford Warwicke the Lord Burghley Sir Francis Walsingham Sir Amias Pawlet Sir Nicholas Bacon Mr. Beal and Sir Francis Knowles had been to them before Yea the greater part of them by such favour got into
Gospel be dealt with by sober men whose admonitions if they receive they shall give God thanks But if they go on in the Crime they shall be sharply punished as the Gospel prescribeth 5. De Concion Cap. 3. Preachers shall name no guilty person before the multitude unless such as have contemned Ecclesiastical Admonitions such may be named 6. De â—xc Excommunication for none but horrible Crimes c. Cap. 4. and after oft admonition But you Excomunicate all Godly men that do but say your Conformity is not lawful ipso facto by your Canon 7. Cap. 6. We permit not the power of Excomunication to be in any one person Though the consent of the whâ—le Church be specially desirable yet because it is hard to gather and take it let Excommunication thus proceed that the Arch-Bishop Bishop or other lawful Ecclesiastical Judge call one Justice of peace and the Minister of the place where the guilty person dwelleth or his deputy and two or three other Learned and well man â—ered Presbyters in whose presence when the matter hath been most diligently handled aud gravely weighed the sentence of Excommunication shall pass Cap. 7. And be written Cap. 16 There is written a large pious form like a Sermon to be used at the Reconciling of the penitent and his form of confession and petition to be received and then the Pastor of that Church is to ask all the flock whether they will forgive the offender and pray for him and whether they will have him received into their Congregation as a brother And then the Pastor is to exhort the penitent and then absolve him A great and solemn work most unlike your Discipline And then to give God thanks and pray for him and the Church Should we now but move for thus much in order to concord with the Cconformists we have reason to think no importunity could prevail for it were the consequents of our division as dismal as they are now by most proclaimed Yet verily we are most unexcuseable wretches if we have learned no more to this day than they did in so few years or under full power and opportunity will resist that good which they that wanted such opportunity wished for and go back as fast as they went forward Sect. 14. To p. 8. I never said that the troubles at Frankford were so much about free or formal Prayer as that the Presbyterians refused all forms Sect. 15. p. 19. He confesseth that Whittingham Sampson Gilby and others accepted of preferment and employment in the Church the Bishop shewing them kindness for their forward zealous Preaching and this being without their subscribing to conform is it any wonder then that they gathered not Assemblies elsewhere Had the Bishops so tryed us we should never have put them to talk so of our separation but might have done our best to build more Churches Doth none of all this difference their case and ours Sect. 16. p. 20. He confesseth when they were silenced they began to have separate Meetings and yet were all the old Non-Conformists against such Sect. 17. As to Beza's Letter have not I said more against Separation than he doth Doth the Dr. think the Reader so blind as not to see that Beza's words are just of the same importance with the account I gave and contrary to his viz. He trembleth at the thoughts of their exercising their function against the will of the Queen and Bishops for such reasons as may be easily understood though we say never a word of them It s easie indeed to see what he trembles at and why he named them not which he would sure in charity have done had it been because it is sinful disobedience to preach when forbidden It was easie to see what hurt it would have done in the ruine of Preachers and hearers and shaking all the begun Reformation It s not so with us Gualter and Zanchy say not so much against Separation as I do nor John Fox nor Bullinger whom he citeth we say the same Sect. 18. The same I say of Parker and Gifford and I again tell him that he may name many more Hildersham Paget Ame c. I am of their judgment in their opposition to the Brownists but it is a notorious untruth pag. 33. that the force of all the Non-Conformists reasonings against Separation lay in two Suppositions 1. That nothing could justifie Separation from our Church but such corruptions which overthrew the being and constitution of it c. And 1. It must be remembred that Separation being a word of very many sences they held indeed that none ought to separate from a Church accusing it to be none but for that which proved it to be none 2. But did they deny that which all the Christian World confesseth viz. 1. What if our English Divines gathered by Bishop Hall against Burton be in the right that the Church of Rome is a true Church as a Thief is a true man though I think otherwise must not such Bishops or Conformists therefore separate from them 2. What if a Church impose some Lye false Oath or Subscription or some actual Sin in Worship as a condition sine qua non of her Communion is it not lawful to separate into better Assemblies 3. What if they put down all preaching save reading some dry Homilies and all Discipline is it not lawful elsewhere to serve God better But of this more after where he repeateth it The Brownists case was quite other before described Sect. 19. to p. 36 37. We also hold that whosoever separateth from the Church of England 1. As having not that Preaching and Sacraments which are of necessity to Salvation 2. Or as not professing true saving Faith doth by consequence separate from all Churches in the world because they have all the same Word Sacraments and Christian Faith And to this Mr. Jacobs Argument is good p. 38. though he was the man that answered Downam's Sermon for Bishops and esteemed one of the first Independents And Mr. Balls words to the same purpose and the second Supposition p. 39. we grant and think verily that the late Conformists have said more against the truth of the Church of England than we yea that we are the defenders of it against the Brownists and them Ball Bradshaw Gifford Hildersham c. cited by him defend it as we do and better than such as Dr. Heylin Thorndike Mr. Dodwel and such others Did he think any of this concerned me Sect. 20. Yes for p. 74. he saith We would blind the Reader by finding out the disparity of some Circumstances but not one of us can deny that it was their judgment that the holding separate Congregations for worship where there was an agreement in Doctrine and the substantials of Religion was unlawful and schismatical Answ It s pity so seeing a Dr. should tempt men to be so blind 1. As to think all the differences which I have named inconsiderable 2. And to go on to
in all Cities Corporations or Places aforesaid though their example might have drawn many as mine did where I was 11. Ministers and Corporations and Vestries were not then bound to swear or subscribe that it is unlawful on any pretence whatsoever to resist any commissioned by the King when the Keeper of his Seal may sign Commissions to seize on the Kings Forts Garrisons Navies and Treasuries to deliver up the Kingdoms to Foreigners to destroy Parliaments Cities and Laws I am sure Hooker Bilson or Arch-Bishop Abbot subscribed not this nor were such Conformists Are all these no difference of case Sect. 8. There is 2. a great difference in the drift and tendency of the Impositions They were at first to quiet a Popish Nation while the true Doctrine took possession and rooting and to avoid the cavils of those Papists that charged the Reformers with forsaking all the Church But what they have been used for these last forty or fifty years I leave the Reader to judge 1. By the Complaints of all the Parliaments since then save one 2. By the History of Arch-Bishop Laud's Tryal 3. By Dr. Heylin's History of his Life 4. By the writings of Divines such as Mr. Thorndike Dr. Parker Dr. Pierce Arch-Bishop Bromhall and many more such and by the Papists historical collection out of such See Dr. Heylin's description of the Reconciling Plot Anno 1639. Arch Bishop Bromhal saith Vindicat. p. 19. c. Whereas Mr. Baxter doth accuse Grotius as a Papist I think he doth him wrong nay I am confident he doth him wrong And I have read all that he alledgeth to prove it but without any conviction or alteration in my judgment I will endeavour to give some further light what was the Religion of Grotius He was in affection a friend and in desire a true Son of the Church of England And on his Deathbed recommended that Church as it was legally established to his Wife and such other of his Family as were then about him obliging them by his Authority to adhere firmly to it The said Bishop though no Papist saith pag. 81. I know no members of the Greek Church who give them the Papists either more or less than I do Compare this with the Council at Florence and the Patriarch Jeremiah's Writings and the present sence of the Greek Church and we may know his mind But my ground is not the authority of the Greek Church but the authority of the Primitive Fathers and General Councils which are the representative Body of the Universal Church P. 82. To wave their last four hundred years determinations is implicitly to renounce all the necessary causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal power and dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the modern Papacy name and thing Pag. 84 85. That Christians may joyn together in the same publick devotions and service of Christ 1. If the Bishop of Rome were reduced from the Universality of Soveraign Jurisdiction jure divino to his principium unitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sence of the Councils of Constance and Basil and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we 2. If the Creed were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first General Councils with only necessary explications and those made by the Authority of a General Council 3. And some things whence offences have been given or taken be put out of the Divine Offices Whether Christians ought not to live in holy Communion and come to the same publick worship of God free from all schismatical separations Pag. 93. 1. That St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after at Rome is a truth 2. That St. Peter had a Primacy of Order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice of the Primitive Church 3. Some Fathers and Schoolmen who were no sworn Vassals to the Roman Bishop do affirm that this Primacy of Order is fixed to the Chair of St. Peter P. 97. Though the Bishop of Rome had such a Primacy of Order by Divine Right or Humane it would not prejudice us at all nor is worth the contending about But 1. It is not by Divine Right in foro exteriore 2. Nor elsewhere interiore but executive according to the Canons Whereas I said that Protestants that consent not to the Popes Patriarchal Power over us in the West will fall under the reproach of Schism he saith p. 104. c. Must a man quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is but scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be scandal given If they be forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks it is by their own wilful humors or erroneous Conscience other force there is none 2. Whether is the worse and more dangerous condition to fall under the reproach of Schism or to fall into Schism it self Whosoever shall oppose the just power of a lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick at least P. 107. It 's unsound arguing to deny a man his just right for fear lest he may abuse it as a Patriarchal Power was the Bishop of Rome's just right They who made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch were the Primitive Fathers not excluding the Apostles and Christian Emperors and Oecumenical Councils what Laws they made in this case we are bound to obey for Conscience sake till lawfully repealed by vertue of the Law of Christ Much more he hath to this purpose and p. 112. for uniting the Church Catholick on humane terms and p. 117. against the peoples liberty of reading and interpreting Scripture and after at large that concord must be on humane terms p. 122. Grotius judgment was and mine is moderate but had not this man been so owned by many now I had not cited so much of his And for Grotius I have over and over cited his own words and shall not now repeat them And was this the drift of Conformity of old 3. Sect. 9. Another difference is in the effects for with us things not universally or absolutely determined by God are to be used or refused as they do more good or hurt 1. Then open Preaching and gathering Assemblies by Nonconformists would have greatly offended the Prince but our King at Breda and in his three first Declarations and by his Licenses and connivence shewed such wisdom and clemency as intimated less displeasure at our liberty 2. It would have deprived most of the Nonconformists of their hopes of publick liberty in the Parish Churches which most of them enjoyed but we had neither possession nor expectation of such a thing 3. It would have hindred and hazarded the progress of the Reformation but our preaching hath done more to stop the progress of the Syncretism or of Popery Others know this whatever you frivolously
I contradict my self by saying the same things Personal Faults I distinguished from Ministerial and tolerable Ministerial from intolerable then and now and is this Contradiction Do not all do so too till now Yea in the place cited by him I 1. said that as to personal Faults as Swearing Drunkenness c. they should get a better man if lawfully they can 2. And I named just as here the intolerable insufficiencies direct pag. 747. viz. 1. An utter insufficiency in knowledge and utterance for the necessary parts of the ministerial Work 2. If he set himself to oppose the ends of the Ministry c. by Heresie Malignity And I name the faults that necessitate not Separation Sect. 20. Next he citeth my words against some mens Factious separating humor And doth it follow that because many are unfit to judge aright that the people must take all obtruded Pastors and not judge to whom to trust the conduct of their Souls How unfit are the ignorant to judge who is a meet Physician Lawyer Arbitrator yea or wife or husband for them And yet judge they must as well as they can Do you not expect notwithstanding their unfitness that they judge your Books and arguing to be truer than mine And is it by your bare authority that they must so judge Sect. 21. But he much blameth me for laying the Case far off when it is the London Separation which he questioneth where the Ministers are no such men Answ Could any man have so far searcht his heart as to know that he spake only against Separation in this one City When there is no such Limitation in his Book And when the same Laws the same Silencings Fines Imprisonments accusations of the Preachers are all over the Land But I am glad for the peace of the Nonconformists elsewhere if it concern not them 2. As to London he knoweth that I give the Preachers due honour and that I justifie not any unnecessary Separation of the people from them nor of the Conformists from the Nonconformists I gave him an account of my own Practice and the Reasons of it Let other men give account of theirs I know very many of my mind 3. And he knoweth that I oft told him that many things make good mens actions culpable in some degree that make them not criminalls odious or to be ruined And that I gave him many of their Extenuations 4. Among the rest verily to use his own Phrase it looks somewhat odly by the Church Law or Canon ipso facto to excommunicate many score thousands in the Land meerly for professing to take some things imposed to be sin and then to revile and prosecute them as Schismaticks for not communicating with you 5. And I told you that Laws and the higher ground are not always the Terminus a quo of Schism Some of them were never of your Flocks and therefore never separated from you but as you do from them and somewhat less 6. And the Kings License first and proclaimed Clemency often gave them some possession as the Law giveth you 7. And Plague Fire and thousands that cannot hear you made it necessary But some Parish Churches are not full Answ I see none of those I come in divers where many cannot hear the Preacher and would you have more And again I tell you 1. They keep meetings in lesser Parishes to receive those that come out of greater 2. If those come to you they must keep out others 3. When it is commonly known that in their own great Parishes there is not room it 's hard for Families to look about the City for room in uncertain places 4. And all persons that culpably dislike you are not therefore to be forsaken Sect. 22. But the same man that citeth my Reprehensions of Separation asketh me why I do not disown it as if he presently forgot what he had written I disown Schism and therefore the greatest in the sinful Church-tearers that smite the Shepherds and then cry out of the Flocks for being scattered And I disown the least but not by Cruelty but in Charity Sect. 23. p. 127. He repeats the Incapacities named by me viz. in Knowledge and Utterance by Heresie c. and saith Of all these the people are judges and so many separate Thus no setled Church can subsist c. Answ 1. It 's a hard case that in such a Volumn as this he will not tell us his own Judgment further than the accusing of ours intimateth it which if we tell him of he can say It was not his sense Will he openly say that the people have not a private Judgment of discretion in order to their own practice whether the Preacher be an Heretick Papist Infidel Idolater or not but must take him for their Pastor be he what he will I know he will not say it What then would he be at Why doth he accuse us for that which he dare not contradict Doth he any where tell us in what cases and how far they must judge No he shuns all such Questions as tend to bring the cause into the light put twenty and he will answer few or none of them If he did perhaps we should be agreed whether he will or not But Reader bear these tiring Repetitions as I must do 1. He knoweth that it is the Ordainers and not the people whom I make judges who shall be a Minister 2. That it is the King and Patrons that I make the only Judges who shall be tolerated and maintained by them and have the Tythes and Temples 3. And that though the Universal Church was many hundred years for the peoples Election I plead ad esse relationis for no more as necessary but consent who shall be the Pastor to whom they will trust the conduct of their Souls And this is but Judicium discretionis privatum non publicum regentis only guiding each mans own obedience to God 4. He knoweth if he will know that I. say and say again that the advantages of the Laws and Rulers Favour and the Tythes and Temples and Parish Order and national Association are so great advantages to the Service of God that no man should be deprived of them and go another way but upon necessity and very great and urgent cause But I intend God willing further to prove to him that when 9000 Ministers are all required to sin or cease their Ministry a necessity is put upon them to exercise it against such Prohibitions as farr as they can without doing more hurt than good And that the sinful complyance of 7000 will not excuse the other 2000 for this duty And this is the case which a friend of truth should have debated Sect. 24. p. 126. But saith he How shall a man escape being thought Heretical by the people Answ 1. See his own answer here Chap. 1. 2. How shall one get all the world to be wise and good If I knew I cannot procure it But put the case within
is it his own â—…act or is he therefore not obliged by it Had it not been requisite that you should have justified all that we stick at as unlawful before you charge us with crossing this Rule Sect. 56. p. 204 c. My words in many Books against Schism are cited and praised Reader he tells men the measure of their Charity and Church Communion viz. That men that do as much as I do that forbore so long Sacramental Administration that gathered no Church that held constant Communion with divers Parish Churches that have wrote so much and earnestly against Schism shall yet be ejected silenced pay 40 â— a Sermon and lie in Jails unless I will do more While Bishop Lauds design for widening the Church doors to the Papists is magnified by Heylin and others as a good work Sect. 13. First he finds but two justifiable Causes of Separation but p. 213 214. he hath found three and no more 1. Idolatrous Worship 2. False Doctrine imposed instead of true 3. Making and imposing things indifferent as necessary to Salvation Ans 1. Readers do you remember how even now he exposed to odium the peoples judging whether the Pastors be Hereticks And now they may separate for false Doctrine 2. I intreat him to think again of these Cases following 1. What if the Worship be not Idolatrous but Blasphemous or utterly Ridiculous tending to contempt of God 2. What if it be in an unknown Tongue 3. What if the Church have no true Minister I am glad you are not for separating for want of Episcopacy or Episcopal Ordination 4. What if the Church want half the Church-Worship as to have Preaching and Prayer without Sacraments or Sacraments without Preaching or Prayer or Preaching without Prayer c. 5. What if the Church be but schismatical Have you written all this Book to draw men to you from the Independant Churches and do you now tell us that the people may not separate from them on the account of Schism 6. What if a Church require me to tell or subscribe to one known Lie or to say that I believe what I do not or to justifie thousands that I think obliged by a Vow if they break it What if they impose any one sin on me without which they will not receive me to Communion 7. What if I remove for my Edification from a drunkess ignorant Priest to the Church of a wise and holy Pastor 8. Are we looser than Pope Nicholas that forbad men to hear Mass from a Fornicating Pricst 9. I would you had spoken to Edification and told men what false Doctrine it is that will allow Separation and whether it 's false Doctrine preached or only imposed on the person to be owned If the former is it all false Doctrine or but some and what Verily if all you are tenfold more a Seperatist than I For I look to hear sometimes some words of false Doctrine in most Pulpits even of Conformists If it must be heresie it self I will not separate for once hearing it if the Church profess it not If it be imposed Error that you mean take heed lest you justifie Separation from your Church by the new Article of Infants certain Salvation And when both Arminians and Anti-Arminians subscribe the 39 Articles tell us whether those Articles are true in both their senses or whether the sence be not the thing subscribed or whether one half of them should separate You are too unmerciful to your self but what kind of Churches should there be upon your terms I find no more in his second part which I am much concerned in CHAP. VII The Reply to his Third Part The beginning Sect. 1. IN his third Part I first find my self accused p. 242 c. And that is not only by insisting on a false accusation of my words but adding a confutation of himself as if he discerned not that he did it In Treat of Concord I say If it holdeth that God instituted only Congregational or Parochial Churches as for present Communion then none of the rest instituted by man may deprive them of their priviledges granted by Christ I put it but with an If it be so because I told them my own doubt of it After I say To devise new species of Churches without Gods Authority and impose them on the World yea in his name and call all Dissenters Schismaticks is worse Usurpation than to make and impose new Ceremonies and Liturgies And can any Christian deny either of these But he saith This supposeth Congregational Churches to be so much the institution of Christ that any constitution above these is unlawful and unsupportable which is more than the Independant Brethren do assert And is any word of all this true 1. The Independants much insist on this I refer him now but to Amesii Medul de Eccl. Minist 2. Do the words suppose that which is plainly excepted in them If it were granted 1. That the Congregational only are so instituted 2. And that others are not set over them by God 3. And yet are obtruded in his name without his authority 4. And all Dissenters called Schismaticks then I say they are unlawful 5. To coufute himself plainly he confesseth that I say The question is not whether the Archbishops should be over the particular Churches as Successors to the Apostolical and General Overseers of the first Age in the ordinary continued parts of their Office Nor whether Patriarks Diocesans Lay-Chancellors as Officers of the King exercising Magistracy be lawful And yet he saith that I suppose the contrary He next pretends to give my Reasons And the chief is because it overthroweth the species of Gods making when I only say That which overthroweth it is unlawful which is not the Archbishops that are over the lower Bishops but those that put them all down and governed the Carkasses of the mortified particular Churches as the lowest Bishops of many score or hundred such as themselves And he saith I am for the full exercise of Discipline within the particular Church while he confest I spake not against Archbishops And yet he saith This is a fair representation of my opinion Sect. 2. Coming to prove our Episcopacy the same with the Primitive he pretendeth to confute me That which I asserted was 1. That by the first Institution and Constitution every Church no bigger for number of Souls than one of our great Parishes had a Bishop of their own one or more I disputed not 2. Yea that for the first two hundred years if not more no one Bishop had a Church so big as some of our Parishes at least except Alexandria and Rome and even of them it is not certain that they had more Souls 3. That after by degrees the case was altered But yet after there were many Meetings like Chappels a while there was but one Altar 4. After that those Chappels had Altars but so as that at certain times of the year the people of the Cities
am glad I understand you § 12. Saith he Quest By what way this National consent is to be declared By the Constitutions of this Church the Arch-Bishops Bishops and Presbyters summoned by the King 's Writ are to advise and declare their judgments in matters of Religion which received and enacted by Parliament there is as great a National consent as to any Law And all the Bishops Ministers and People make up this National Church Answ Now we are come to the bottom And 1. Our question is of the Constitution of the Church and the Doctor tells us the Administration makes it To consult and advise and make Laws are acts of Administration and follow the Constitution Men must have Power before they use it and must be a Church before they act 〈◊〉 Church 2. Yea to Advise and Consult are not so much as acts proper to administring Government but belong to those that are no Governours also 3. If they be no Laws till the Parliament make them such then either the Parliament are your Church Head or you have none that 's Ecclesiastical But having your plain Confession that you have no such Regent part and so are no Church Political save Civil but a meer Association I ask § 13. 1. Why do you pretend that we are none of the Church of England or that we vent our spleen against it or deny it who deny not Associated Churches in England under one Civil Government 2. How unhappily are the Church-Defenders and Conformists disagreed Read Mr. Dodwell and many such others that take the Church to be a Governed body Politick and see what they will judg of you 3. Are not you and I liker to be of one Church of England who agree what it is than you and those Bishops and Doctors that speak of two different things and agree not so much as what it is 4. Have you not brought your Defence of the Church of England to a fair issue by denying that there is any such Church in the questioned political sense 5. What made you before talk of being under one Government If you meant only Civil Is your Governed Church as such only Civil or a Kingdom only 6. Do you not now absolve all men from the duty of obeying the Church of England aâ— such and from all guilt of disobeying them How can men Govern that are no Governours and how can we obey them It 's only the Civil power then that we herein disobey If you say that all the Bishops are Governours and altogether govern the whole I answer Yes per partes but not as a whole or Church If twenty Families in a Village agree as Masters and Servants to go one way as Consenters this maketh no one Government of the Village If the Physicians of London consent to one Pharmacopeia that maketh them not a body Politick If twenty Sea Captains consent to go one Voyage by one rule each one is a Governour of his own Ship but this maketh no Government of the whole All the Justices and Mayors of England rule the Kingdom per partes by the same Law But all together make not one Aristocracy to Govern the Kingdom as One whole Unless your Bishops c. are United in One persona Politica or Aristocracy they may rule their several Churches but they make not one common Government for the National Church as such An agreement of the Emperour Spaniard and other Confederates make not one Kingdom or body Politick 7. How can they be Schismaticks for disobeying them that are not their Governours 8. How come Dissenters bound by Parliament consent If it never was in their minds to trust them as Consenters for them yea and declare their own dissent as most of the Nation did lately against Prelacy and Liturgy yea and their chosen representatives Have such representatives more power to express our consent than we our selves 9. You unhappily erre with Hooker in your popular Politicks if you think that the Laws bind us only because we consent to them by our Representatives or that as such they make them Whereas it is as by Consenting in the Constitution they are made part of the Rullers or Legislators and not meerly as if we made the Laws by them 10. And as to Convocation consent how binds it all those that never consented to them How is the City of London so bound to Conform when they had not one chosen Clerk but only the Dignitaries in the Convocation that made us our Conformity the two chosen by them being refused by the Bishops 11. Will not you pass for an asserter of the Principles of Independency that not only say The Keys are given to the whole body and the Convocation represent the People c. but also that England is one Church but by consent without consenting to any one Constitutive Regent Church head The Independants are for a National Church meerly by confederacy and consent without National Government of it 12. You go further from the Episcopal Politicks than the Presbyterians do For they make an Aristocratical Regent Part but you make none 13. I doubt some Statesmen will be angry with you that say there is no power of Church Government in England but from the King as Head as Crumptâ—â— before Cousins Tables and others ordinarily 14. Do you make England in essentials any more one Church than England and any Foreigners agreeing are one Did the Synod of Dâ—rt make us one with them Do large Councils make many Nations one Church Did the Heptarchy make England one Kingdom when seven Kings Governed the whole by parts but none the whole as such 15. I beseech you think what you have done against the Parochial Diocesane and Provincial Churches in England Have none of these have not each of these a Regent Constitutive part Are none of them true Churches in sensu politico You dare not say No. If they are You have said that visible Churches as Parts unavoidably require a visible Head to the whole by which I bring in the Pope because you think Christ will not serve the turn And do you not say that all these Churches are parts of the Church of England And if you deny it to have one Regent part do you not then either destroy the rest or use the name Church equivocally to these several sorts so heterogeneal 16. I pray you tell us from whom our Arch-bishops receive their power If you say from the Bishops and so Inferiours or Equals may give power why may not Presbyters make Presbyters or Bishops and generare speciem If it must come from Superiours the Church of England hath none such 17. If the Peoples consent can make a National Church why may it not make an Independant or Presbyterian Church 18. If the Nations consent as such make the Church of England it is not made by Legislative power of King and Parliament 19. Do the Clergy represent the King or is he none of the Church 20. How prove you that the
c. 3. That many of them deny all proper Sacramental causality of Grace 4. Specially Physical And Protestants make them not meer signs but investing signs 5. And ponere obicem is to want necessary moral qualification and action as aforesaid And now the Dr. had done well to tell me wherein I was very much mistaken § 15. He next saith The Cross is in no sence held to be an instrument appointed for conveying Grace Answ 1. Not by God for it is none of God's Ordinances 2. But that by men it is I have manifested if a moral objective moving and teaching means may be called an Instrument If not the word Instrument is noting to our case 1. To work on the soul of the adult by representation signification excitation as the word doth is to be an operative moral cause or means And this the Church ascribeth to it Pref. to Liturg. c. 2. The death of Christ and the benefits of it and reception into the Church and State of Christianity and the sense of our Engagement to fight under Christ's banner c. are Grace some of which is given by excitation and some the Relation by investiture § 16. And now whether I have only invented these objections to amuse and perplex mens consciences and this Dr. hath made all so plain that all may venture on it and he and all Ministers may deny them Christendom that dare not venture and cast out all from the Ministry that be not as bold as he I leave to consideration He next turneth to Mr. A. about bowing and so goeth to their Excommunication CHAP. XI Whether the Excommunicating Church or the Excommunicated for not Communicating when Excommunicated be guilty of Schism § 1. THeir Canons excommunicate ipso facto all that say Conformity is unlawful and many such like 1. He saith The excommunication is not against such as modestly scruple the lawfulness of things imposed but those who obstinately affirm it Answ Reader trust neither him nor me but read the words Can. 3 4 5 6. Whosoever shall affirm that the Church of England by Law established under his Majesty is not a true and an Apostolical Church let him be excommunicated ipso facto Whosoever shall affirm that the form of God's worship in the Church of England established by the Law and contained in the Book of Common-prayer is a corrupt superstitious or unlawful worship of God or containeth ANY THING in it that is repugnant to the Scriptures let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till c. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the 39 Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till c. Whosoever shall affirm that the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England by Law established are wicked antichristian or superstitious OR such as being commanded by lawful authority men who are zealously and Godly affected may not with any good conscience approve them use them OR as occasion requireth subscribe to them let him be excommunicated ipso facto and not restored till he repent and publickly revoke such his wicked errours Can. 7. Whosoever shall hereafter affirm that the Government of the Church of England under his Majesty by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons and THE REST THAT BEAR OFFICE IN the same is antichristian OR repugnant to the word of God let him be excommunicate ipso facto c. Can. 8. Whosoever shall affirm that the form and manner of making and consecrating Bishops Priests or Deacons containeth ANY THING in it that is repugnant to the word of God let them be excommunicate ipso facto c. Can. 11. Whosoever shall affirm that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born subjects than such as by the Law of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the Name of true and lawful Churches let him be excommunicate ipso facto c. And now if the Reader will no more believe the Doctor it is not long of me If all this be no more than to excommunicate them that obstinately affirm the Ceremonies Antichristian impious or superstitious understanding them is not possible § 2. But I confess they excommunicate not men for secret thoughts We thank them for nothing It is but for telling their judgment And Dissenters may have many occasions to tell it The Kings Commission once allowed some of us to tell it The Demands Accusations calumniating Books and Sermons c. may call many to it § 3. He saith All Excommunication supposeth precedent Admonition Answ 1. They should do so The worse is yours because it doth not so It only alloweth admonition to repent for his restoration which made M. Anton. Spalatensis say so much against it 2. If it did oblige you to admonish us as you have done by your Books you know that this changeth not our judgments So that to be excommunicate before the admonition and after comes all to one But indeed when the Law ipso facto excommunicateth the Law it self is the admonition § 4. He addeth General excommunications though they be latae sententiae do not affect the particular persons till the evidence be notorious not only of the bare fact but the contumacy Answ Affecting is a word that signifieth what you please Ipso facto is for and upon the fact proved without any sentence of a judge While the fact only is thus made the full cause the contumacy need not be proved It 's true 1. That the fact must be proved 2. And then the Law is a sentence and Relatively affecteth the person as sentenced 3. But no persons else are obliged to avoid him till the fact be lawfully published But the man is excommunicate And 4. Whether the man that knoweth the Law and his own Fact be not bound himself to avoid the Churches Communion is a great Controversie And the plain truth is If it be a just Excommunication he is bound to forbear Communion in obedience to it As much as a silenced Minister is to forbear Preaching But if it be a sentence unjust and injustice be not so gross as to nullifie it still he must forbear But if it be so unjust as to be invalid he may Communicate till he be executively rejected As one so unjustly silenced may preach if he can for the case is much like The Reader would be displeased if I should cite him many Casuists in so plain a case 2. But no man doubteth but the General sentence of the Canon speaketh the sence of the Church and doth all that Law-makers can do before judgment And the Law is norma officii judicii obliging Subject and Judge § 5. It 's true that Linwood saith that a Declaratory sentence that is A Declaration that such a man is already sentenced by the Law is necessary to oblige any to the
execution of it on others or the person in foro externo But still the Church hath done her part in Legislation to oblige as aforesaid § 6. He saith Persons excommunicate are to be denounced so every six months that others may have notice of them Answ 1. But are they not excommunicate then before they are so oft denounced yea or at all as far as aforesaid § 7. He saith I have fully answered my own Objection by saying I am not bound to execute the sentence on my self Answ 1. He would not say that he approveth the answer For if he do he confuteth himself that would have us execute the silencing sentence on our selves and the sentence against publick worship in any way but theirs 2. My reason is because I take the unjust sentence as invalid else I were bound in foro interiore 3. But sure the Church at least relaxeth that mans obligation to present Communion by shewing her will if she did not oblige him to withdraw Read over the words of the Canon and see whether they make them not as unintelligible and flexible to what sense they please as they do the words of the Act of Uniformity and Liturgy § 8. As to his two cases in which the excommunicate may be schismaticks for not communicating 1. We question not the first Just excommunication excludeth none but the guilty Here then indeed is the state of our Controversie Had he proved that in all the cases before cited it is just to excommunicate us he had done somewhat when now for want of it he betrayeth his cause 2. His 2d is If they form new Churches Answ 1. Is forming new Churches and not communicating with the old ones all one Our present question is of the later So that this great Accuser seemeth plainly to absolve all from being bound to Communicate with them who are unjustly excommunicate and gather not new Churches 2. But may not the unjustly excommunicate that cannot on just terms be restored worship God in some publick Church Doth such a wicked sentence bind men to live like Atheists till death or deprive them of their right to all God's Ordinances even many Papist Doctors and Councils say the contrary And how else do you justifie the Church of England against the Papists charge of Schism § 9. p. 372. He still seemeth to think that His own and others reasonings may change all the truly honest Christians in the Land to hold all the things imposed lawful Answ These thoughts of the Bishops in 1660. and 1661. have brought us all to the pass that we are at And if after 20 years so great experience of the inefficacy of all their Disputes yea and Prisons and after the notice of the nature and different cases of men they still trust to bring us to Concord on these terms disputing with such men is in vain The Lord deliver us from them CHAP. XII Of the English sort of Sponsors and the exclusion of Parents duty § 1. PAge 380. He saith I several times mention this as one of the grounds of the unlawfulness of the peoples joyning in Communion with us yea as the greatest objection Answ Four places of my writings are cited and all will testifie to him that will read them the untruth of the Doctors words This is an unhappy course of accusations I can find no word of The unlawfulness of the peoples joyning in Communion with you on this ground On the contrary I have taught men how to make this very action in them lawful viz. By getting if possible credible Sponsors of the old sort and agreeing with them to be the Parents Representer and promise as in his name or at least but as his second undertaking the Education of the Child if he die or apostatize which was the old sort and himself to be present and signifie his consent by gesture though he may not speak But I have shewed 1. That this must be done besides the Churches order that hath no such thing 2. That subscribing to the Churches order herein is unlawful 3. That the Church which refuseth the Child lawfully offered ought not to blame that person that cannot or will not make such shifts but getteth another Pastor to Baptize him whom they sinfully refuse But this is not to prove it unlawful to have Communion with you But it 's lawful to use better also when they can being thus repulsed by you § 2. He saith The Parents are to provide such as are fit to under take that office Answ 1. No one is fit for it as used by the Liturgy but an Adopter that taketh the Child for his own For he undertaketh the Parents work And it 's lis sub judice whether any others undertaking besides a Parent or Owner can prove the Child to be in the Covenant as offered and have right to the seal and benefits Atheists and Insidels Children are unholy 1 Cor. 7. 14. 2. If any were sit few Parents can get such as will understandingly and deliberately and credibly promise them to do all that Godfathers must by the Liturgy undertake I never knew one in my life that seemed to the Parent to mean any such thing much less to do it I have in my younger time been Godfather to three or four But we before agreed with the Parents to intend no more than to be Witnesses and the Father to be the Entitler and the undertaker I did in 1640. Baptize two by the Liturgy without Crossing and never more in 6. or 7. years after because of the imposed corruptions Mr. Kettilby the Bookseller unless his Father had another Child of the same name baptized the same year was one But his Father gave him his name and promised all his own duty and his Uncle and Aunt standing as Sponsors we before agreed that they should signifie but Witnesses and friendly helpers in case of need 2. But what if the Parents are bid provide such that is no discharge of their own part nor are they bound to cast their duty on others § 3. He saith as to the Child 's Right to Baptism that the Godfathers stand in a threefold capacity 1. Representing the Parent in offering 2. Representing the Child in promising 3. In their own as undertakers of his education c. Answ 1. I will not till he confute them repeat my proofs that in the Church of England's sence the Godfathers are not the Parents representatives at all nor speak in their name 2. If they were then when the Parents both are Atheists Infidels Hobbists scorners at Godliness Hereticks the Godfathers can represent them but as they are and their own faith entitleth not the Child because they stand in the persons of Atheists Infidels c. your Church doth not like this doctrine 3. And as to their representing the Child quo jure is the doubt It cannot be done without some representing power given them And who gave it them 4. And as to the third Person in this multiform
and my Conscience might have been bolder and less fearful of sin And though I love not to displease them I must say this great truth that I had never been like to have lived in so convincing sensible experience of the great difference of the main body of the Conformists from the most of the Nonconformists as to the seriousness of their Christian Faith and hope and practice their victory over the flesh and world c. I mean both in the Clergy and Laity of mine acquaintance O how great a difference have I found from my youth to this day Though I doubt not but very many of the Passive Conformable Ministers to say nothing of the Imposers have been and are worthy pious men and such as would not perswade their hearers that the Jesuits first brought in spiritual prayer And I had the great blessing of my Education near some such in three or four neighbour Parishes § 4. It grieved me to hear of Mr. Glanvile's death for he was a man of more than ordinary ingeny and he was about a Collection of Histories of Apparitions which is a work of great use against our Sadducees and to stablish doubters and the best mans faith hath need of all the helps from sense that we can get And I feared lest that work had perished with him But I gladly hear that by the care of Dr. H. More that worthy faithful man of peace who never studied preferment it is both preserved and augmented And as for his Origenisme as I like it not so I confess in matters of that nature I can better bear with the venturousness of dissenters than hereticators can do But when I saw this Rag called a Letter left behind him my grief for him was doubled And I saw what cause we have all to fear the snares of a flattering world and what cause to pray for Divine preservation and for an unbyassed mind and a humble sense of our own frailty that we may neither over-value prosperity nor our own understandings I did not think that he that had wrote the Vanity of Dogmatizing could so soon have come to perswade men in power that dissenting from our Churches dogmatizing and imposed words formes and ceremonies was worthy of so severe a prosecution of us as he describeth and that all their danger is from the forbearing such prosecution of us and that though for their own ends he could abate us some little matters the only way to settled peace is vigorously to execute the Laws against us He that can think the silencing and imprisoning of about 2000 such Ministers is the way to bring this Land to Concord hath sure very hard thoughts of them in comparison of Conformists And that you may see how little his judgment against such should weigh with others who is so lately changed from himself I will give you here one of several Letters which I had from him and leave you to judge whether he have proved that he was much wiser at last than when he wrote this or whether his character of me agree with his motion to silence and ruine all such I am so far from owning his monstrous praises that I fear I offended him with sharply rebuking him for them But lest his wit and virulence here do harm I give it you to shew the unconstancy of his judgment or if he would have excepted me from his severities I must profess that I believe the most of the Nonconformable Ministers of my acquaintance are better men than my self and therefore his excessive praise of me is the condemnation and shame of his persecuting counsel § 5. As to his praise of the Bishops Writings against Popery I had rather magnifie than obscure their deserts But I am not able to believe that the old ones who write to prove the Pope Antichrist c. and the new ones who would bring us to obey him as Patriarch of the West and principium unitatis Catholicae were of one mind because both are called Protestants and that such as Bishop Bramhall and the rest of the defenders of Grotius were of the same judgment with Bishop Usher Bishop Morton Bishop Downame c. nor that Grotius who describeth a Papist to be one that flattereth Popes as if all were right which they said and did did disclaim Popery in the same sense as the old Church of England did Two men may cry down Popery while one of them is a Papist or near one in the others sense As to the folly of calling that Popery which is not I have said more against it in my Cath. Theologie than he hath done And as to his excuse of an ignorant vicious sort of Ministers because no better will take small Livings It is not true The silenced Nonconformists would have been glad of them or to have preached there for nothing The tolerating of ignorant scandalous men were more excusable if better were not shut out that would have taken such places But it 's notorious that for the interest of their faction and prosperity they had rather have the ignorant and vicious than the ablest and most laborious Nonconformist Bishop Morley told me when he forbad me to preach that It was better for a place to have none than to have me when I askt him Whether I might not be suffered in some place which no one else will take Most of the old Nonconformists were suffered by connivance in small obscure places which was the chief reason why they set not up other meetings which Dr. Stillingfleet thought they avoided as unlawful because forbidden § 6. And as to his excuse by blaming ill Patrons I would know then by what true obligation all men in England are bound to commit the Pastoral conduct of their Souls to such men only as our English Patrons chuse § 7. And when he so blameth the tepidity and irreligiousness of the Members of their own Church I would know 1. Whether all men that are more seriously religious must be forsaken by us and ruined by them if they be not of their mind and form 2. And whether the numbers of the irreligious that are for their way and the numbers of the religious that are against it should not rather breed some suspicion in them than engage them to ruine so many such men § 8. And when page 3. he confesseth that the sword is their Churches strength and Government and how contemptible words paper Arguments and excommunications are without force doth he not shame their whole cause and shew that it is not the same Government which the Church used for many hundred years which they desire and that their whole power of the Keys which they talk so much for seems to themselves a dead and uneffectual thing while we Nonconformists desire no coercive power but to guide Consenters § 9. As to his project to save religion under a Papist King if the Dean and Chapter may but chuse the Bishop I leave it to other mâ—â—â— consideration But