Ministry on such terms V. They never accused the use of Holy dayes as dayes of Thanksgiving to God for giving such Holy Apostles to the Church and whose memory we honourable commemorate VI. They never accused our Kneeling at the Lords Supper as unlawful but only the casting Godly persons from Communion for not using it when they take it to be sin About the Kneeling the old Nonconformists were not of one mind some thought that every objectum motivum of Adoration was forbidden that was a Creature But others said that every Creature in the World may be such an object Our Meat is objectum motivum when we pray for a Blessing on it If I see the Relicts or Picture of a Friend that I wronged while he was alive I may well be moved by it to beg pardon of God. All his works must move me to adore and praise him But we may not make any Image objectum terminativum or ad quod to which we direct our Divine Worship as a Medium of our sending it to God. The only great difficulty about this is from the argument of scandalous hardening the Papists that live among us Though indeed our Doctrine avoideth that scandal VII They never accused the Ceremony of laying the hand on the Book and kissing it in taking an Oath VIII They never spake against the Ring in Marriage IX They meddled not with the Surplice Tippet Hood Rochet Cope but only the casting men out of the Ministry that dare not use them thinking them unlawful Though we justifie them not X. They accused not all significant use of the Cross but only that in Baptism it seemed to have all or most of the nature of a Humane Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace as it is expounded in the Liturgy and Canon XI They spake not against Episcopacy as it is a presidency among and over Presbyters differing in Degree and not in Office called ORDER and that in a Church of the lowest Species XII They opposed not arch-Arch-Bishops as over many such Churches and Bishops nor Diocesans as arch-Arch-Bishops ruling but by Gods Word XIII They said nothing against Metropolitans Patriarchs Lay-Chancellors Commissaries Officials Surrogates Archdeacons c. as Officers of the King appointed to do nothing besides the Sacred Ministry if they be Clergy-men but what belongs to Magistracy XIV They said nothing against any promise of Obedience to them only in the capacities and in the exercise of the power forementioned XV. Much less did they ever oppose or question Swearing to the King according to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy And I with divers others also being for some ends entered as his Chaplains in Ordinary took also that Oath of Fidelity which the Kings Houshold Servants take XVI We never were for any dishonouring of Kings by publick Excommunications much les by Subjects or Forreigners whom Kings never choose to be their Pastors but only in case of necessity for such a denyal of Sacramental Communion to them as Bishop Andrews in Fortura Torâ— and Bishop Bilson plead for which is but to forbear our selves a sinful act XVII We never pleaded for any Elders or Chancellors power of the Keys who are but Lay-men XVIII We never held that Magistrates are bound to add their force by the Sword to the censures of the Church as such and to punish men more because the Church hath by Excommunication cast them out or because they are not reconciled XIX We never thought that things indifferent do become unlawful to us because the Magistrate commandeth them XX. We never held that the Scripture is a particular Rule commanding every accident and circumstance about Gods Worship but only a general Rule requiring all to be done in Love and Peace and to edification and decently c. in those circumstances which must be some way determined and God hath left to variable Humane determination Such as are Time Place Utensils Translations Sections Metres Tunes Methods and Words in Preaching and Prayer Habit Gesture and many such XXI We never held it unlawful to do one of these actions though it were by mistake unlawfully commanded e. g. If the Rulers prescribe a Time Place Metre Tune c. unfit if it be not so bad as to overthrow the ends and use of the Worship the fault of the Commander will not disoblige us from the duty of obeying And whereas some argue that no man hath authority to sin ergo we are not bound to obey that which is no act of authority I answer Rulers have authority to command that which is good though not in a faulty manner and when we cannot do the good without the faulty manner it is their fault and not ours e. g. If an inconvenient Time Place Text Tune c. be chosen the Union and Concord which is held by agreeing in those Modes is necessary He that will not joyn in them cannot joyn in the Worship So that we obey the Ruler or Guide as a determiner of the means of Concord which is necessary and not sub ratione erroris as misdetermining though in that which is misdetermined If a Master bid his Servant go at an unseasonable time about his work it 's his duty to go at that time We never pray without some fault in the manner and yet must rather do it so than not at all The mistaken Ruler bids us not sin It 's his sin to choose a mis-circumstance and it is not his own action that he bids us do but ours And it s to us a lawful circumstance because necessary to Concord and commanded though mistakingly XXII We never held it unlawful to joyn with a Church or Minister that hath some faults both Personal and in their acts of Worship as if all that joyned were guilty of all the faults there committed No not though we knew before hand that some false Doctrine would be uttered or fault committed Else we must separate from all the world and all from us XXIII We never thought it a duty to separate from every Church that culpably neglecteth Discipline and hath open wicked men therein If we be not guilty of it and cannot lawfully live in the Communion of a more obedient reformed Church XXIV We never judged needless affected singularity a duty but judge it best in lawful things for Concord sake to Conform to the custom of the Churches where we live or come XXV Though we think not that men may command us to destroy our Neighbours Souls by scandal yet when disobedience to a Rulers Law is like to do more hurt than the scandal taken at it comes to we are for avoiding the greater hurt XXVI We never separated from any tolerable Parish Ministers or Churches as if they were no true Ministers or Churches nor perswaded any so to do nor to take the Communion of such Churches for unlawful to us either occasionally or constantly when we can have no better without more hurt than benefit to our selves and others XXVII We hold
the Ordainers investing action This is it which we mean in the Controversie which may not be done twice 2. Or it may signifie the meer words of the Ordainers and Ordained which make up the said Moral action We deny not but the same words repeated may make up one Moral Ordination If the Bishop by tautology repeat them twice or thrice Or if they should to satisfie men of divers Languages that are present be first spoken in English and after in French or when some that doubted require it should go over them again all this is but one Ordination L. How prove you that our Bishops intend any more when they say it is only to satisfie the Law that you may be capable in England M. 1. That it is not a meer relation to some particular cure that they mean is undenyable 1. Because they call that by the name of Institution and Induction and not of Ordination 2. Because they never ordain any over and over upon removals 3. Because the words of Ordination in the Book tell it us 2. That they do it not as a Repetition of the same valid Ordination is past doubt 1. Because the same repeated by the same men will not serve 2. It is to be done again ten or twenty years after the first 3. He is to be fined in an hundred pound that administreth the Sacrament without it 4. He is taken for no true Minister without it which cannot be true of a bare repetition of words No reasonable men would lay so much on that 3. It is undeniable that they take men for unordained and no Ministers till they ordain them 1. Because they all disown reordaining they know that the Canons called the Apostles and the whole antient and later Church condemn it as like Anabaptistry and no one Bishop in England will not renounce it Therefore its certain that they take the first Ordination for null 2. And they have so declared their judgment in many words and writings and in the Act of Uniformity it is plainly intimated in the penalty L. And what harm is there in being twice Ordained M. 1. Ad hominem I need not dispute it All the Bishops disclaim it as unlawfull so that we have their confession 2. It is the same fault as Anabaptistry If they be blameless why make you such a noise against the Anabaptists To be twice made a Christian and twice made a Minister is of the like kind 3. It is something causelesly to cast our selves under the Censure of all the Church that hath been against it and to be condemned by them 4. It is a plain prophanation of God's holy name and of a great and holy Ordinance by Lying and taking Godâ—s name in vain For they are said to be now admitted to the Office and this day to receive it and God is told that they are now called to it And all their Examinations and Answers imply that they were no Ministers before and the Bishop saith Receive the Holy Ghost for the Office and work of a Priest now committed to thee by the Imposition of our hands which all imply it not done before And in so sacred a contract with God to lie to him and prophanely abuse his name and the holy Ghosts and the Duty of Prayer and Praise is tremendous Be not deceived God is not mocked 5. It is a confederacy with Corrupters and Usurpers that arrogate and appropriate valid Ordination to themselves and a confirming all their injury to posterity that all that shall hereafter imitate them may be encouraged by alledging our Re ordination 6. It is a hainous injury to all the other Reformed Churches as if we degraded their Ministers and separated from them all as no Churches For one part of them have no Diocesans and the rest have Bishops that at the Reformation were Ordained by Presbyters 7. It is contrary to one of the Articles of our Religion 23. These we ought to judge them lawfully called and sent which be chosen and called to this work by men who have publick authority given to them in the Congregation to call and send Ministers c. But in other Countries Presbyters have publick authority given them And Art. 36. The book of Consecration doth contain all things necessary to such consecration and Ordaining But it hath nothing for Re-ordaining those before Ordained 8. It is a plain condemnation of the Church of England which hath professed Communion with the Reformed abroad as with true Ministers and Churches of Christ. And we are now told that to communicate with Schismaticks induceth the guilt of Schism 9. It introduceth Anabaptistry or utter confusion into the Nation leaving men in doubt whether for fourteen years the people had any true Baptism while it's a controversie whether Lay-mens Baptizing be valid and Mr. Dodwell maketh all men to be out of any Covenant-title to Salvation that have not the Sacraments from a Minister that hath successive Episcopal Ordination And all Christians must question whether they have not so long here lived out of the Church of Christ without Ministery and Communion Do you think that none of these nine Reasons prove Re-ordination sinful L. But because the Bishops deny it let me hear your proof that the former Ordination here by Presbyters is not a nullity M. I. Ad hominem the Church of England hath as I said judged the like valid in the Reformed Churches by holding Communion with them I cited a great number of Bishops and Doctors in my Christian Concord L. But they say that necessity differeth their case from ours here And even Doctour Sherlock tells you that if God make necessity necessity will make Ministers But ours Schismatically pull'd down the Bishops and now disown the very Order M. There is a satisfactory concession in these words but the accusations are made up of falsehood and deceit 1. Archbishop Vsher and others that thought the Ejectors of Episcopacy were guilty of Schism yet maintained that their Ordination was valid He told me how he pleaded it to the King. 2. Do they think that Salmasius Blundel and all others that have written more against our Prelacy than the English were deprived of it against their wills by necessity 3. What necessity can they pretend to the Hollanders Helvetians Geneva Embden Bremen the Palatinate and Scotland heretofore might they not have had Prelates when they would 4. Was not the necessity far more notorious to those that I now plead for They lived in a Land where Episcopacy was cast out and kept out by a potent Army I think there were but four or five Bishops alive when it was restored 5. It is false that they cast out the Bishops Those Ministers that joyned with the Parliament to cast them out were Ordained by Bishops and therefore are none of the men that we are speaking of These that were Ordained by Presbyters were then young men at School or in the Universities And what are other mens actions to them L. But
such as he may not with a good Conscience subscribe unto let him be Excommunicated ipso facto and not restored but only by the Arch-Bishop after his Repentance and publick Revocation of such his wicked Errors L. I hope you that agree with the Church in Doctrine have nothing against Publishing such an Excommunication M. I Subscribe to the Doctrinal Articles as true because I judge of them by what I take to be the Author's meaning But 1. The words in the obvious sence are divers of them liable to Exceptions 2. And some of them about Traditions Ceremonies c. are of small moment and dubious 3. And every word that is true is not an Article of the Creed nor necessary to Church Communion so that all Men must be cast out of the Church that dissent from it And this Excommunication extends to Lay-Men who are not bound to know as much as Ministers L. What is therein the Articles that any good Man can scruple M. Article 3. Learned Men doubt of Christ's going down into Hell. Art. 4. That Christ's Body in Heaven hath Flesh and Bones is contrary to two General Councils that of Nice and that before it at Const. which it confuteth And in this they agree Art. 8. That Athanasius's Creed ought to be omnino recipiendum credendum wholly received and believed when the Damning part is scrupled by many Conformists Art. 9. Bishop Ieremy Taylor was against that of Original Sin. Art. 10 Many called Arminians are against that No Power to do good Works Art. 11. Many Conformists are against the word We are accounted Righteous before God only for the merit of Christ because a subordinate Righteousness is mentioned many Score or Hundred times in Scripture Art. 12. Many think that good Works spring not necessarily from Faith but freely Art. 13. Many think that merit of Congruity may be held and that Men by natural or antecedent Works may be made meet to receive Grace which Dr. Hammond in his Annotations seemeth much to insist on under the Name of Probity Art. 14. The said Dr. Hammond and many other write for good Works over and above God's Commandments as only counselled by God and voluntarily done which this Article calleth Arrogancy and Impiety And many follow Dr. Hammond and yet subscribe this Art. 15. Is denied by them that think Infants sinless when Baptized Art. 16. Many deny falling from Grace given Art. 17. Dr. Hammond and his Followers seem to deny the absolute Election here described Art. 18. Many good Men think some are saved that live up to the Light of Nature and yet this Article curseth them that say so Art. 19. The Description of the Visible Church greatly disagreeth from that now given by many great Church-men not at all mentioning the Bishops or their Government in it And some deny that the Church of Rome hath Erred De Fide. Art. 20. The Churches Power to decree Ceremonies as not limited here is doubted of by good Christians And they see not how that is not made necessary to Salvation contrary to this Article which is made necessary to avoid Excommunication as for wicked Errour Art. 21. Too many deny what is said here against gathering Councils witout the Will of Princes and that Councils may 〈◊〉 in things pertaining to God c. Art. 23. Seems defective about calling Ministers to them that are for uninterrupted Canonical Succession c. Art. 25. Contrary to this Article some great Church-men think that Confirmation at least is a Gospel Sacrament and that it hath a visible sign ordained by God. I will proceed no further herein By this it is evident that many Subscribers are great Nonconformists and if they speak their Minds are Excommunicated ipso facto L. You make our Articles of Religion a doubtful thing what certainty then is there of the Protestant Religion M. The Protestant Religion is the Holy Scriptures older than our Form called the 39 Articles which are a laudable sound account how we understand the Scriptures but not of such perfection that all Men must be Excommunicate that say any word in them is faulty Chap. XXV Point XXII Of Publishing the Sixth Canons Excommunications L. WHat is the Sixth Canons Excommuication M. 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 unto them Let him be Excommunicate ipso facto and not restored till he repent and publickly revoke such his wicked Errors L. I confess it sounds harshly to lay so great stress on every Ceremony of the Church as to Excommunicate every one that Calleth any one of them unlawful What could be said more of the Ten Commandements or the Creed If it be a wicked Errour to mistake about a Ceremony or to account a Cope or a Pair of Organs unlawful the Lord have Mercy on us what a Case are we all in by wicked Errours What shall my poor Country Neighbours and Tenants do that few of them understand one half the Creed M. Yet 1. The Articles and our Ordination-Vow oblige us to believe and teach that nothing is necessary to Salvation but what is contained in the Scripture or certainly proved by it And that General Councils and all Men are fallible And sure they are very near to Infallibility who are so Infallible about every Rite and Ceremony that they dare bind all the Land to justifie or notblame them on pain of ipso facto Excommunication 2. Yet Grotius and Bishop Taylor that justifie some Lying are Men that deserve Praise with them and in truth And Oh! how many Thousands live quietly in their Communion who err in greater Matters than a Ceremony 3. And judge by what I have said of the Symbolical Crossing in Baptism Godfathers c. whether it be a wicked Errour deserving Excommunication and Ruine to charge any one of their Rites with Sin. 4. Was it not enough to cast us out of Ministry and Maintenance for blaming a Ceremony but they must cast us out of the Church what is Pharisaical if this be not Chap. XXV Point XXIII Of Publishing the Seventh Canons Excommunications M. THe Seventh Canon is 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 and so continue till he repent and publickly revoke such his wicked Errors L. Mark here that And connexeth all these Offices it is not OR disjunctively So that you fall not under this Canon if you condemn every Church Office save one if you condemn not all M. That 's a meer violent unjust exposition The Government is the thing named as consisting of many
to save their Money and the better to serve their Faction that we may if possible distinguish and know all such dangerous Enemies we will strictly require all Church-wardens and Constables at all our Monthly Meetings to give us a full account of all such as do not every Sunday resort to their own Parish-Churches and are not at the beginning of Divine Service and do not behave themselves Orderly and Soberly there observing all such decent Ceremonies as the Laws enjoyn And that they likewise Present unto us the Names of all such as have not received the Holy Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in their own Parish-Churches Thrice in the Year 3. Being fully satisfied as well by the clear Evidence of the late Horrid PLOT as by our own long and sad Experience That the Nonconformist Preachers are the Authors and Fomeâ—â—ers of this Pestilent Faction and the implacable Enemies of the Established Government and to whom the late Execrable Treasons which have had such dismal effects in this Kingdom are principally to be imputed and who by their present obstinate refusing to Take and Subscribe an Oath and Declaration That they do not hold it Lawful to take up ARMS against the KING and that they will not endeavour any Alteration of Government either in Church or State do necessarily enforce us to conclude that they are still ready to engage themselves if not acutally engaged in some Rebellious Conspiracy against the KING and to invade and Subvert his GOVERNMENT wherefore we resolve in every Parish of this County to leave strict Warrants in the hands of all Constables for the Seizing of such Persons And as an encouragement to all Officers and others that shall be instrumental in the apprehending of any of them so as they may be brought to Justice we will give and allow Forty shillings as a Reward for every Nonconformist Preacher that shall be so secured And we Resolve to Prosecute them and all other such Dangerous Enemies of the Government and common Absenters from Church and Frequenters of CONVENTICLES according to the Directions of a Law made in the Five and Thirtieth Year of the Reign of Queen ELIZABETH Entituled An Act for the keeping Her Majesties Subjects in due OBEDIENCE Lastly That we may never forget the infinite Mercies of Almighty God in the late Wonderful Deliverance of our Gracious KING and his Dearest BROTHER and all His Loyal Subjects who were designed for a Massacre from the Horrid Conspiracy of the Phanatiques and their Accomplices and that we may perpetuate as well our own Thankfulness as their Infamy that the Generations to come may know their Treachery and avoid and never trust men of such Principles more and also that we our selves may perform our publick Duty to Almighty God before we enter upon the Publick Service of our Countrey We Order Resolve and Agree with the Advice and Concurrence of the Right Reverend Father in God our much Honoured and Worthy Lord BISHOP to give and bestow for the Beautifying of the Chappel in the Castle of EXON and for the erecting of decent Seats there Ten Pounds And we will likewise give and continue Six Pounds to be paid yearly to any one of the Church of Exon whom the said Lord BISHOP shall appoint to read the DIVINE SERVICE with the Prayers lately appointed for the day of Thanksgiving on the Ninth of September last and to Preach a Sermon exhorting to OBEDIENCE in the said Chappel on the first day of every general Quarter-Sessions of the Peace held in the said Castle to begin precisely at Eight of the Clock in the Morning And may the Mercies of Heaven which are infinite always protect our Religious and Gracious KING his Dearest BROTHER and every Branch of that ROYAL FAMILY and may all the Treasonable Conspiracies of those Rebellious Schismaticks be always thus happily prevented Hugo Vaughan Cler. Pacis Com. praed That the continued Care of His Majesties Iustices of the Peace for the County of DEVON for the Safety of His Majesties Sacred Person the Preservation of the Publick Peace and advancement of true Religion may be fuller known and have a better Effect I do hereby Order and Require all the CLERGY of my Diocess within the County of Devon deliberately to publish this Order the next Sunday after it shall be tendred to them THO. EXON Now Archbishop of York THE CONTENTS CHap. 1. The Introductory Conference Ch. 2. The things presupposed as agreed on Ch. 3. What our Nonconformity is not in 50 Instances Ch. 4. A brief Enumeration of the things imposed on us which are the Matter of our Nonconformity Ch. 5. I. Of Reordination Ch. 6. II. Of the Oath and Covenant of Canonical Obedience to Bishops and Ordinaries Ch. 7. III. Ordained Ministers forbidden to Preach or Expound any Scripture or Matter or Doctrine Can. 49. Ch. 8. IV. and V. Of Subscribing that there is nothing in three Books contrary to the Word of God and Declaring Assent and Consent to all in the Liturgy c. Ch. 9. VI. Of Assenting that it is CERTAIN by the Word of God that Infants baptized dying before actual Sin are undoubtedly saved qua tales not exceepting the seed of Atheists Iews or any Ch. 10. VII Of the English sort of Godfathers at Baptism and their Vows Ch. 11. VIII Of refusing to Baptize such as have not such Godfathers Ch. 12. IX Of the Dedicating symbol of Crossing at Baptism Ch. 13. X. Of denying Baptism where Crossing is refused Ch. 14. XI Of Rejecting from Communion all that dare not receive Kneeling Ch. 15. XII Of consenting to the false Rule as true for finding Easter Day always Whether small lyes be Sin Ch. 16. XIII Of Pronouncing all Saved that are Buried except the Excommunicate Vnbaptized and Self-Murderers Ch. 17. XIV Of Consenting to read so much of the Apocrypha Ch. 18. XV. Of Assenting to Mis-translations of God's Word and subscribing that they are not contrary to it Ch. 19. XVI Of Consenting to reject all from Christian Communion who desire not the English manner of Episcopal Confirmation C. 20. XVII Of Consenting to all the Ornaments of Church and Ministers which were in use in the Second year of King Edw. 6. Ch. 21. XVIII Of giving account to the Ordinary of all that we keep from the Sacrament that he may proceed against them according to the Canons which leads us to consider those Canons Ch. 22. XIX Of Publishing Lay-Chancellors Excommunications and Absolutions according to the Canons Ch. 23. XX. Of Publishing Excommunications according to the fourth Canon Ch. 24. XXI Of Publishing Excommunications according to the fifth Canon Ch. 25. XXII Of Publishing Excommunications by the sixth Canon Ch. 26. XXIII Of Publishing Excommunications by the seventh Canon Ch. 27. XXIV Of Publishing Excommunications by the eighth Canon Ch. 28. XXV Of Excommunicating all that call Dissenters a Church according to the 9th 10th and 11th Canons Ch. 29. XXVI Of executing Canon 27 rejecting Nonconformists from Communion Ch. 30.
Preacher or Catechize who doth not subscribe these words Ex animo That the Book of Common-Prayer and of Ordaining of Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God and that it may lawfully be used and that he himself will use the Form in the said Books prescribed in publick Prayer and administration of the Sacraments and no other V. No man is to be Ordained a Minister nor have any place or Benefice or Cure that doth not openly and publickly before the Congregation declare his unfeigned Assent and Consent to the use of all things in the said Book contained and prescribed in these words and no other I A. B. Do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book entitled The Book of Common-Prayer and Ordaining And every Lecturer also the first Lecture and every Month must publickly and openly declare his Assent to and Approbation of the said Book and to the use of all the Prayers Rites and Ceremonies Forms and Orders therein contained and prescribed VI. By this all must Assent and Consent to this Article of Faith or Doctrine It is certain by the Word of God that Children which are Baptized dying before they commit actual Sin are undoubtedly saved Not excepting any though the Children of Atheists Infidels or Sadducees VII We must Assent and Consent that at publick Baptism persons called Godfathers and Godmothers who take not the Child for their own do in the name of the Child Covenant with God without the Parents who are forbidden to be Godfathers or Godmothers or to speak one word nor must be urged to be present nor may the Godfathers c. speak one word but what is written in the book And they are there not only to promise for the future but to profess in the Name of the Child at present I renounce them all the Devil World and Flesh and All this I stedfastly believe and to be baptized This is my desire and for obedience I will. And these Godfathers also engage as their parts and Duty to see that this Infant be taught so soon as he shall be able to learn what a solemn Vow Promise and Profession he there made by them And that they call on him to hear Sermons and chiefly that they provide that he may learn the Crede the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in the vulgar Tongue and all other things that a Christian ought to know and believe to his Soul's health and that the Child may be vertuously brought up to lead a godly and Christian life All this these three persons must promise as before God and the Church but the Parent is not only excused from any such promise but forbid it by the Canon VIII We must Assent and Consent to refuse to baptize the Child of any godly Christian who bringeth not his Child to be baptized with such undertaking Godfathers either because he can get none that will seriously promise him to do what they must Vow to do and so dare not draw them into sacrilegious perfidiousness or because he thinks it his own part to enter his Child into God's Covenant and thus to promise for its Education IX We must Assent and Consent to sign the Infant with the transient Image of the Cross In token that hereafter he shall not be ashamed to confess the Faith of Christ crucified and manfully to fight under his Banner against Sin the World the Devil and to continue Christs faithful Souldier and Servant to his lives end Which the Canon farther expounds thus To dedicate them by that Badge to his Service whose benefits bestowed on them in Baptism the name of the Cross doth represent an honourable Badge whereby the Infant is dedicated to the Service of him who died on the Cross. X. VVe must Assent and Consent to Baptize none publickly without this Sign but to deny Christendom to all that dare not receive it and their Children XI VVe must Assent and Consent to reject all that dare not receive it Kneeling from the Sacramental Communion of the Church XII VVe must Assent and Consent to a false Rule to find out Easter-day for ever in these words Easter-day on which the rest depends is always the first Sunday after the first full Moon which happens next after the one and twentieth day of March. The common Almanacks tell you it is often false XIII VVe must Assent and Consent to use words at the Burial of all except the Vnbaptized Excommunicate and self-murtherers which plainly pronounce them saved viz. For asmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God to take to himself the Soul of our dear Brother here departed And we give thee thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful world and that we may rest in him as our hope is this our Brother doth XIV VVe must Assent and Consent to read publick Lessons out of Iudith Bell and the Dragon Tobit and other Apocryphal books from Sept. 28. till Nov. 24. every day except some proper Lessons interposed XV. VVe must Assent and Consent to all the mistranslations of the Psalms c. and not only use them which we refuse not but subscribe that none of them are contrary to the word of God. XVI We must Assent and Consent to admit none to the holy Communion till such time as he be Confirmed or be ready and desirous to be Confirmed that is by Bishops in the English method XVII We must Assent and Consent that such ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof at all times of their ministration shall be retained in use as were in this Church of England by that authority of Parliament in the Second year of Edward VI. XVIII We must Assent and Consent to give an account within fourteen days of every one that we keep from the Sacrament to the Ordinary And that the Ordinary proceed against the offending person according to the Canons XIX We must publish all such Excommunications and Absolutions as are according to the Canons decreed by Lay Chancellors XX. This binds us to consent and publish the Excommunication of all that affirm that the Liturgy containeth any thing in it that is repugnant to the Scriptures And the Oath of canonical Obedience binds us to such publication if it be commanded us XXI And we are both these ways bound to publish all Excommunicate ipso facto if commanded who affirm any of the Rites and Ceremonies such as may not be approved and used lawfully XXII And all that say any of the Thirty Nine Articles in any part may not be subscribed though it be but about Traditions or Ceremonies XXIII And we must if required publish all ipso facto Excommunicate who say the Church Government by arch-Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons and the rest that bear Office is against God's word XXIV We must if commanded publish all Excommunicate who 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. Though it assert that the Bishops and Priests are distinct Orders which even in K. Aelfrick's days the Church of England denyed XXV We must publish them Excommunicate who affirm that the Nonconformists may truly take the name of another Church c. and that any assemblies of Subjects not allowed by Law are true and Lawful Churches XXVI No Minister must wittingly administer the Sacrament to any but such as Kneel nor to any of the foresaid depravers of the Liturgy Ceremonies Orders of the Church c. Can. 27. XXVII None of other Parishes are often to be admitted to Communion XXVIII All Ministers that repent of Conforming must be suspended excommunicate and deposed at last Can. 38. XXIX We must give the Sacrament to none that go for it from unpreaching Ministers but must send them home Can. 57. Nor must Baptize their Children XXX Ministers must not be suffered that wear not the Surplice Can. 58. XXXI No Minister must refuse or delay to Christen any Child that 's brought to the Church to him on Sundays or Holydays to be Christened without exception of Atheists or Infidels Children Can. 68. XXXII No Minister may keep any Fast in publick or at private Houses or be present at any on what necessity soever without the Bishops License for it under Hand and Seal or the Laws appointment XXXIII We must if commanded publish all Excommunicate that affirm that the Sacred Synod is not the true Church of England by representation or that deprave it as a faction c. XXXIV No man was to be ordained or suffered in the Ministry for twenty years that did not subscribe thus I do declare that I do hold that there lies no obligation on me or on any other person from the Oath commonly called the Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any change or alteration of Government in Church or State. XXXV All Nonconformists must swear that they will never endeavour any alteration of the Church Government or else be banished five miles from Corporations and all places where ever they preached since the Act of Oblivion XXXVI All Ministers must subscribe and Nonconformists swear that they abhor the Trayterous position of taking Arms by the Kings Authority against those that are Commissioned by him XXXVII We must assent and consent to the damnatory sentence in the Creed called Athanasius's XXXVIII Every Minister consenteth to say the Morning and Evening Service every day in the year not being lett by sickness or other urgent cause XXXIX Ministers must concur to force the unwilling Parishioners to the Sacrament or else to Excommunicate and ruine them XL. If we dare not Conform for fear of sin we must forsake our Ministry to which we are Ordained and Vowed and give over Preaching the Gospel what ever need there be and must also remove our dwelling from all places aforesaid These are the parts of Ministers Conformity Lay Mens Conformity is as followeth I. They must trust their Souls with the Pastoral oversight of those and only those as their fixed Pastors whom Patrons will choose for them and Bishops institute Though the Conformists accuse many Patrons of such hainous sins as speaketh them unfit for so strange a trust besides those that are Papists and Bishops say they have not power to keep out the unfit II. They are not only hereby deprived of the exercise of Self-Government for the saving of their own Souls but of due Family Government for the safety of Wife and Children and Servants and must not bid them choose better Pastors III. They are forced to forbear Communion with all Nonconformists and to separate from all others besides Conformists though they account this Schismatical separation IV. When God commandeth them If thy Brother trespass against thee tell him his fault between thee and him if he hear not tell the Church c. And with Drunkards Railers Fornicators c. not to eat They are forced to have Communion with Parishes where no such Discipline is exercised nor can they perform any such duty and to lose all the benefit of this Christian Order and Discipline none being so much cast out as Conscionable Dissenters V. Conscionable care to obey Gods Law is greatly discouraged and made a dangerous thing while it must be mens utter ruine to deny Conformity even in a Ceremony to men when it 's done for fear of sinning against God. VI. They are to be deprived of Baptism and Christendom for their Children if they dare not use the foresaid way of God-Fathers as described VII They are also to be unchristened if thinking our Crossing is used as an unlawful Humane Sacrament they dare not receive it as a dedicating Badge of Christianity VIII If they think Kneeling at receiving the Sacrament an unlawful hardening the Papists they are denyed Communion IX If any dissent but from Confirmation Organs Kneeling at the Rails taking a Reader or unfit man for their Pastor they must not be received to Communion by a Conformist in another Parish X. All the Land is engaged Ministers Vestries Corporations and Militia by Oaths or Covenant never to endeavour any alteration of Government in the Church XI They are all engaged to abhor the position as trayterous of taking Armes by the Kings Authority against any Commissioned by him in pursuit of such Commission XII All Corporation Government and Trust is confined to them that declare that there is no obligation on them or any other from the solemn Covenant or Vow not excepting so much as to oppose Schism Popery or Prophaneness to defend the King or repent of sin though these be Vowed I have now told you what Conformity is in Ministers and People CHAP. V. I. Of Re-Ordination L. YOV have named a great number But I doubt whether all these are imposed and in many of them I see no harm M. I told you that if any one of them imposed be sinful Nonconformity is a duty which all the Ministers in England were bound to L. What sin can you find in Re-Ordination M. I must first state the Controversie before I argue it 1. The word Ordination may signifie either the first Dedication and Ordination to the Ministerial Office as such by which a man is separated from the Laity to Gods Ministry Or else a Mission on some particular Ministerial work as Paul and Barnabas were sent abroad Acts 11. Or a Minister may be sent to America c. Or else a fixed appointment to some one particular Church or Flock which is done here by Presentation Institution and Induction It is neither of the two last that we speak against They may be often done But it s only the first 2. The word Ordination may signifie 1. That Moral action by which a man is made a Minister of Christ which is his solemn Contract with Christ exprest by his Consent and by
place in the Ministry without Presbyters Ordination and who then durst not be twice Ordained And for Churchmen that must be strictly Religious to suffer on such terms I cannot speak against But we secular men think these too little things to suffer for M. If your consciences can call such prophanation of Gods Name such condemnation of Protestant Churches such strengthening the hands of a little thing they shall be no measure for our consciences For we believe that we must die and that there is a God and a righteous final Judgment CHAP. VI. II. Of the Covenant and Oath of Canonical Obedience to our Ordinary or Bishop L. WHat harm is there in your promising or swearing obedience to your Ordinary in things Lawful and Honest. What a man should do he should not refuse to swear or promise M. I will first tell you the words imposed and then I will state the Controversie and then I will tell you our Reasons The Words at Ordination are these 1. On Deacons and Priests Will you reverently obey your Ordinary and other chief Ministers to whom is committed the Charge and Government over you following with a glad Mind and Will their godly Admonitions and submitting your selves to their godly Iudgments Answ. I will so do the Lord being my help The Form of the Oath which they use to impose is this Ego A. B. Iuro quod praestabo Veram Canonicum Obedientiam Episcopo Londinensi ejusque successoribus in omnibus licitis honestis And little know we of What Religion their Successors will be or who will have the choosing of them I 'le not swear to I know not who The Bishops themselves also must take this Oath of due Obedience to the Arch-bishop In the Name of God Amen I N. chosen Bishop of the Church and See of N. do profess and promise all due reverence and obedience to the Arch-Bishop and to the Metropolitan Church of N. and to their Successors So help me God through Iesus Christ. L. What is your Controversie against any of this M. 1. We do not question the duty of obeying the King and all his Officers governing as Magistrates by the power of the Swords which the King may commit to them If Bishops or Lay Chancellors be made Magistrates we will obey them as such And therefore when they summon us we appear and answer because the King authorizeth them And many Non-conformists have defended the taking the Promise as supposing that the Word Ordinary signifieth only the Judge of a Court set up by the King as Supream Governor by the Sword in matters and over persons Ecclesiastical as well as Civil according to the true sence of the Oath of Supremacy 2. We do not refuse to promise and swear due Obedience to such as are our Lawful Pastors ruling the Church by the power of the Keys according to the Word of God Though we think that requiring such Oaths is an irregularity in them against the ancient Canons and a farr higher presumption than the Independents Covenant 3. We do not deny a patient and quiet submission to unlawful persons and acts of Government not owning their sin our selves and doing no evil at their command But these are the things which we are not satisfied in I. Obedience hath essential Relation to the Laws and Mandates of those that we obey And the Canons of England are the Laws by which they openly profess to Rule the Church And therefore they call it the Oath of Canonical Obedience that is of obeying the Church Government according to the Canons And when we know the Canons before-hand we know what Government and Obedience is meant And we swear fraudulently if we take not the Oath in the sence of the Imposers And they commonly tell us that this is the meaning of Due Obedience and if Godly Admonitions or in licitis honestis be put in that doth but suppose that Obedience according to the Canons is Godly and licitum honestum and not that we are left to choose which Canons we will obey All Bishops I doubt not will stand to this Exposition of the sence Now there are abundance of things in the Canons which we think to be greater sins than we think meet to call them II. We know that the Rule of the Bishops is by Chancellors Courts and other such where Lay-men exercise the Church Keys by Decretive Excommunications and Absolutions which wise men think to be sacrilegious Usurpation and a Prophanation of a dreadful part of Christs Government And Lawyers and Civilians tell us that the word Ordinary signifieth the appointed Ordinary Judge of the Court and so that we swear or Covenant to obey Lay-Civilians using the Keys And other chief Ministers can mean no less than all the Archdeacons Officials Commissaries Surrogates c. whom we covenant to obey not in civil things or the circa Sacra belonging to Magistrates which we refuse not but in the exercise of the Church Keyes III. They that think they have fully proved that Diocesans Ruling many hundred Churches without any Bishops under them are an Office in Specie contrary to Gods Word and the practice of the Primitive Church and that it corrupteth or excludeth true Church Discipline do think it a sin to conform by an Oath of Allegiance or Obedience to them though they live peaceably under them IV. They that think that by Scripture and Reason and Universal Church Customs and Canons they are no Bishops or Pastors that come in by Magistrates without the Election or consent of the Flocks and Clergy think that to swear Obedience to them is to be guilty of their Usurpation These four be the things refused in this Oath and Covenant of Obedience L. And what have you against obeying according to the Canon M. I. You may gather it from the foregoing enumeration of the Canonical Impositions Many things of a heinouser nature than Liturgies Ceremonies or things Indifferent 1. We dare not obey an Order for Excommunication according to the 4th Canon against any man that affirmeth that the Book of Cammon-Prayer containeth any thing in it that is repugnant to the Scriptures Judge that by the proof that I shall anon give 2. The same I say of the Excommunication in Can. 5 6 7 8. and many others which are after to be particularly mentioned 3. And there are many things in the Canons which we dare not practice and therefore dare not swear Canonical Obedience L. That Oath doth not oblige you to approve of all that is in the Canons no more than a Iustices Oath to execute the Laws doth bind him to approve of or execute every Law. M. We would not be guilty of an over rigorous Exposition But had it been in the days of Queen Mary when the Six Articles and other Lawes for Murdering Innocents were on foot and were actually expounded by Execution I would not have been one of the Justices that should have sworn to execute them Though a Justice
any School-master but an Usher or Monitor or any Physitian or any Mayor or Justice under him 6. That they have set up a false humane Discipline before described instead of Christ's which they have taken down And all this we dare not justifie by a confederacy by Oath IV. And we think that the fourth thing which we stick at needs no other reason suppose the species of Diocesans were of God's appointment and only the numerical Bishops usurpers we can submit and live peaceably but we cannot swear obedience to them They plead more than we for the power of ancient Councils and Canons I have elsewhere fully proved as Paul of Venice hath done and Mr. Clarkson and Dr. Burnet and many others that many great Councils nullified the Episcopacy of all that came in without the election or consent of the Clergy and Flocks And we our selves cannot conceive how any man can be the Pastor of those that consent not though we can easily conceive that Dissenters may oft be obliged to consent when they do not so may a Son or Daughter be obliged to obey their Parents in consenting to Marry such as Parents choose for them when yet it is no marriage till that consent How few in a Diocese ever know of the Bishops Election till it's past and how few consent I need not tell We can submit to these but not swear Allegiance to them V. And in all the foresaid cases we have another disswasive 1. It is so much of the King's Prerogative that all Subjects must swear Allegiance and Fidelity to him that in almost all Nations it hath been thought dangerous to make the Subjects also swear obedience to every Justice or inferior Officer lest it should make them too like Kings 2. Lest the Subjects should be entangled between their Oath to the King and their Oaths to all these Officers in case of the Officers contradiction to the King 's 3. Lest so many Oaths should make that Government a snare to the conscientious which should be for their ease and safety 4. Lest so much swearing make Oaths contemptible and bring in perjury and endanger the King who should by our Oaths be secured 2. And I have elsewhere named many Councils and Canons which prohibit Bishops this practice of making the Clergy swear fidelity to them and have condemned it as of dangerous consequence And they that are for Councils should not engage us causelesly against them 3. The present Impositions greatly stop us till we better know what it is that we must do We have cause to make a stand when we are all sworn never to endeavour any alteration of the Government of the State which we readily obey and yet seem to be called to do that which we are told by some is an alteration of it That is the making of our present species of Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons yea Chancellors Officials Commissaries c. as unchangeable a part of the Government as Monarchy it self is and so disabling the King to make any alteration in them For set all this together and consider 1. All the Clergy is bound or sworn to obey both Bishops and every Ordinary 2. The Canon ipso facto Excommunicates every man that affirmeth that the Church Government under his Majesty by Archbishops Bishops Deans Archdeacons and THE REST THAT BEAR OFFICE in the same is repugnant to the word of God so that all the Lords and Gentlemen in England that have affirmed that the Government by the Keys as used by Diocesans over hundreds of Churches or by Archdeacons Lay Chancellors c. is repugnant to God's word being already ipso facto Excommunicate how far they are capable of being Parliament-men I know not but I suppose if in Parliament they shall affirm any such repugnancy they are Excommunicate and without the Act of King and Parliament no alteration can be made 3. And now to fix them all the Kingdom is sworn never to endeavour any alteration in the Church Government viz. In the Corporation Act the Militia Act the Vestry Act the Oxford swearing Act after the Act of Vniformity And is not every Chancellor or Archdeacon or Bishop now made as immutable necessary a part of the Kingdom as the King L. You speak ignorantly for want of acquaintance with the Law Do you think King and Parliament oblige themselves It is only particular subjects out of Parliament that they oblige M. I. But when the Parliament is dissolved are they not all particular subjects save the King. And are they not all then hereby bound And do you think that it was the meaning of the Act that they who swear never to endeavour alteration may yet endeavour it if they be chosen Parliament men I will manifestly disprove it All these Oaths do joyn the Government of Church and State together Yea and put the Church-Government first as if it had the preeminence But it was never the meaning of the Oath that the Parliament may endeavour to alter Monarchy which is the State-Government Ergo it meant not that they may endeavour to alter Prelacy or Church-Government II. But suppose it be as you say They that know the present thing called the Church of England know that their Writers openly maintain that the Obligation of the Canons depends not on the Parliament save only as to the forceable execution of them but on the authority of the Church as a Society empowred by Christ And therefore that King or Parliaments at least may be Excommunicated by them as well as others All are Excommunicate men that do but call their Government sinful CHAP. VII II. Of the restraint of Ordained Ministers from Preaching and expounding any Scripture or Matter or Doctrine Can. 49. L. WHat is it that you have against Conformity in this M. I. That men are at once made Christ's Ministers and forbid to exercise that which they are Ordained to II. That we are laid under the hainous guilt of breaking our Vow when they have engaged us to make it and of betraying mens Souls by omitting a vowed duty 3. That we are forbidden that which is the duty of every Lay Christian that is able as if they would suppress Religion and Charity it self L. But you do not swear or subscribe to this Canon M. 1. But we are bound by them to obey this Canon for it is the Law of the whole Church of England 2. I have shewed you that swearing obedience to them must mean obeying their Laws which are far more of weight than particular mandates L. But as long as you may have Licenses how doth this put you on any sin of omission or commission M. Both their words and their deeds tell us that they Ordain more than they Licence to Preach or Expound any Doctrine And is it no sinful omission think you for all the rest to forbear all this 2. And many were Ordained heretofore who by the new Act of Uniformity are denyed Licenses without new Professions and Covenants
take on them to be necessary interpreters of its great difficulties If such men forbear that expounding which they forbid others till they will do it better the loss will be the less Scripture speaketh plainlier than this 2. But who giveth this exposition To expound the Law by a common obligatory Exposition is proper to the Law-makers He that maketh the words maketh not a Law if he make not the sense Judges make not the sense but decide particular Cases by it as they understand it The Canons are made by the Convocation which he that denyeth to be the Representative Church of England is Excommunicate The Pulpit Preachers nor the particular Bishops are not the Convocation and therefore have not power to expound their Canons by any Common obligatory exposition much less contrary to the express words Which way most of the Clergy went under Bishop Parker Grindal and Abbot is well known And yet now they are so far from being taken for the Expositors of the Churches sense that they are openly scorned as popular fautorer of Puritans and those of their mind called Grindalizers II. But it is the second that is the Trojan horse whose name is Legion I mean that hath many more evils in the belly of it viz. that we must profess that the three Books Articles Liturgy and Ordination are so utterly faultless that there is nothing in them Contrary to the word of God and that we Assent and Consent to all contained and prescribed in and by them L. What have you against this what is there in it that is contrary to God's word M. God's word is perfect and forbids the least faulty errour or defect If we had never seen the Book we know that men made it and that every one that made it had ignorance error and sin and can a perfect faultless volumn be made by such faulty men Operari sequitur esse They renounce all pretensions to Infallibility in the Articles of Religion L. You interpret the words rigorously By nothing contrary they meâ—n nothing so contrary as that one may not use the Books M. If by nothing they mean not nothing and if by contrary they mean not contrary we will better know what they mean before we subscribe else you may make it lawful to subscribe to any thing in the world and say that the Imposers mean better than they speak L. And Assent and Consent is expresly confined to the use M. 1. I shall prove that that is not true 2. That if it were true it no whit amends the matter nor maketh it lawful to us I. It is not true For. 1. The words of the declaration are as expresly universal as man can speak And the foregoing words to the use do speak but deâ—fine and the words of the Declaration de mediis And all Lawyers agree that when the title of a Law expresseth the End that limiteth not the sense of the words of the Law because the Means may be larger than the End. As the Oxford Act of Confinement is in the title to keep Nonconformists from Corporations And yet Lawyers resolve that it extendeth also to Conformists if one of them should but once preach in a Conventicle The Parliament and Prelates thought that the way to secure the Vse was to oblige them to Assent and Consent to all in the Book contained and prescribed 1. Therefore they ty all to declare in that same form of words and to add no other least they should make any exposition that limits them 2. And the word Assent signifieth an Act of the understanding which must have Truth for its object 3. And it is after exprest by the word Approbation whereas a man may use that which he doth not approve of 2. Oaths Covenants and Professions must be taken in the most usual proper sense unless another be exprest to be the Imposers meaning which is not here done and the words are most universal and without exception 3. And to put all out of doubt the Parliament expounded themselves 1. At the making of the Act this was debated and reasons given against the limited expressions which prevailed 2. Since then a new Act against Conventicles being made it was moved in the Lords House that seeing Non-conformists were thus far forbidden private worship they should be so far invited to Conformity as that a Proviso might be added to this Act that the Declaration in the Act of Uniformity should be understood to oblige men but to the Vse of the things required and the Commons rejecting that Proviso it came to a debate or conference between the two Houses where the Commons gave their reasons against that sense and proviso In which the Lords acquiesc't Though I was not present the Parliament-men that were reported this and I never met with man that contradicted it or questioned the truth of it II. But if it were otherwise it were to us never the better For 1. It were an ignorant reproach of the Church of England to say that they have put any thing in their Liturgy which is of no use This will Include every syllable They themselves tell you in their Prefaces what use the very Calender and every other part are of The use of the Articles of Faith and Doctrines is our understanding assent and belief of them in order to Love and Practice The use of the orders in the Rubrick is to oblige us to obedient practice and so of all the rest And to Assent approve and Consent to every thing contained and prescribed practically even to the use of them is more than a bare speculative assent L. Wherein lyeth the sin of such a Declaration M. 1. In general it is incredible as I said before in consideration of the matter and the Authors together The Book of Articles Liturgie and Ordination are a big Volumn and contain great variety of matter and that high and mysterious The Authors were every one of them men of imperfection that had ignorance error and sin And operation exceedeth not power Who dare say that any Sermon or Prayer that ever he maketh hath nothing in it but what he may assent and consent to Much less so great a Book 2. The Articles which must be subscribed as faultless say Art. 15. Christ alone is without sin But all we the rest though baptized and born again in Christ yet offend in many things and if we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us And Art. 21. General Councils For as much they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining to God And are our Convocation more infallible than General Councils The Church must be exemplary in humility and is it humility to say we Bishops and Priests having written three Books he shall not preach Christ's Gospel that will not declare that there is not a word in them that is
faulty or repugnant to God's word and will not assent and consent to all therein 3. The Papists hereby scandalized do scorn us and say The question is not now of an Infallibility or a Judge that all must assent to It is but who this Infaliible Iudge is whether it be the Pope and a General Council or the English Convocation which is liker to be of greater authority and infallibility we require no greater assent and consent of you to the Canons of the Universal Church than the State and Church of England require to their Books 4. This seemeth to us to let the Articles Liturgie and Ordination Book above the Bible 1. God himself hath not made the assent and consent to every thing contained and prescribed in the Bible necessary to Salvation or to the Ministry 1. There are divers Books in our Bibles whose Divine authority many have questioned who yet were not for that degraded The Apochryphal books are yet controverted by men tolerated on both sides There are hundreds of various Readings where no one is necessitated to determine for this or that Translations are all faulty being the work of faulty men And no wise men will declare that this or that or any Translation hath nothing in it contrary to the Original Word of God. And are our Bishops Books more faultless 5. It is a sin to Confederate with and Encourage such audacious Lording it over the Faith and Souls of men and such ill Examples L. Your instances shew that you expound them too strictly Can you imagine them so insolent and impious as to impose their own Books more strictly than the Bible and require more Assent and Consent M. Call it what you will I must suppose that matter of Fact which is undeniably evident to our senses It 's an ill argument This is unreasonable and ungodly or inhumane Ergo It was not done What is so false absurd or impious that man may not do L. Some say They are Articles of Peace only and not of Faith. M. Some Brains will be cheated with a meer noise of words as Birds with a whistle We deny not but Peace is one of the ends of the Impositions but the question is what are the Means Or whether they will take it for Conformity to promise I will live peaceably or I Assent that I should live in Peace Are you not bound in order to peace to Assent and Consent to all things in the Books Say I Assent that some things are true and good and some things false and bad which yet for Peace I will use and try how it will be taken L. Well What is there in these Books contrary to Gods Word or which you may not Assent and Consent to M. The number is greater than we would have them I will come to the chief of them which I before named to you L. I forgat to tell you that it is not all contained that is Assented to but all that is both contained and prescribed M. 1. A meer quibble to cheat Conscience Ask the Bishop Morley and Bishop Gunning yet living whether this was the sence and I will take their answer 2. Then Assent and Contained had been put in in vain and to deceive if Consent and Prescribed signifie as much without them 3. The word approbation in this Act and nothing contrary to Gods Word in the Canon confute this quibble 4. I told you were it so it 's never the better All in the Book is prescribed to some use They are outside men that think Vse reacheth but the Body Are Articles of Faith Assertions of no use CHAP. IX Point VI. Of the Article of Baptized Infants Salvation M. THE sixth Point of our Non-conformity is a new Article of Faith in these words in a Rubrick which we must Profess Assent and Consent to It is certain by the Word of God that Children which are baptized and dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved L. And what have you against Assenting to this M. 1. That it is a New Article of Faith. 2. That it is arrogant and divisive making a grand Controversie one Article of Faith. 3. It is certainly false in most if not every one that declareth such assent 4. It is a dangerous adding to the Word of God. L. Why call you a Rubrick an Article of Faith M. It is most expresly made such What is an Article of Faith but that which must be Assented to as certain by the Word of God Will you deny the Name where there is this Definition L. But how do you prove it to be new M. Because it was never made for us before you have the affirmative If you say it was ever before prove it It 's not in the Bible it 's not in our 39 Articles nor Creed L. Are not the old words of the former Book to the same sense M. Not at all If they were why did the New Convocation alter them The old words plainly signifie no more than this that Infants baptized have all ex parte ministri and may be saved without Confirmation Exorcism Chrysme Spittle Salt Milk and Honey and such other additions supposing him ex parte sui under the promise of Salvation that is to be the seed of the Faithful Though I verily believe that after the making of the Common-prayer Book our Canon-Makers in Bancrofts dayes began to warp towards a worser sence But our Defenders of the Liturgy expound it as I say and the tenor of the words may tell the Reader that they meant no more L. Tell me first where it is that your Controversie lyeth M. I. Negatively 1. It is not whether the Infant Seed of one believing Parent should be Baptized This is agreed on 2. It is not whether those may be dedicated to God as our Children and baptized who are Adopted or any way made our own Children as Abrahams bought and born to him in his house as his propriety were Though we cannot say we are certain of this yet we will not contradict them that say they are 3. It is not whether Hypocrites Children have not so far a right to Baptisme Coram Ecclesia as that the Minister ought to baptize them if it be justly demanded 4. It is not whether there be a certainty of the Salvation of all the baptized Infants of true faithful Christians that die before actual sin Though all good Christians are not certain of this yet with the Synod of Dort we hold that Christians have no just cause to doubt of it 5. It is not whether they may not be good men that think all baptized ones absolutely in a state of Salvation None of these are the Controversie II. But it is 1. Whether all Infants without exception that be baptized are saved if they then die 2. Whether this be certain by the Word of God. 3. Whether all that be not undoubtedly certain of it should be no Ministers L. But it is not said All Infants but Infants indefinitely
said at the Grave than in the Pulpit L. But some say none of those words signifie the persons Salvation but his removal hence M. Read them If those do not none do L. But some say that by Excommunicate is meant Excommunicable or such as ought to be Excommunicate and then what more can you desire M. Their saying is a presumptuous contradiction to that which they consent to what reason have they for it Is Excommunicate and Excommunicable all one Or may they put what sense they list on Laws If they do but tell the Bishops this much they will make them know that they are not made Judges of who is Excommunicable When I have craved but the alteration of that word they answered me with contempt that so every Priest or Curate should have the power of damning whom he please But sure Siâ—encing our judgment of a man is not damning him But what place is there for any doubt when the Book nameth the three sorts excepted exceptio firmat regulam in non exceptis Yea the express exposition in the Canon â—8 is If he shall refuse to Christen the one or bury the other that is Any brought except the party deceased were Denounced Excommunicate Majori Excommunicatione for some grievous and notorious Crime and no man able to testifie of his repentance he shall be Suspended by the Bishop of the Diocese from his ministry by the space of three months And alas how many thousand Infidels Hobbists Sadducees Hereticks Adulterers Thieves Perjured Scorners at godliness c. are among us unexcommunicated If all in England be saved except the Unbaptized Excommunicate and Self-murtherers which de singulis one by one must be said of all the rest either Scripture and Pulpits are much mistaken or else we that live among men are in a dream and our senses are all deceived CHAP. XVII Point XIV Of Consenting to Read the Apocrypha L. WHat harm is there in reading the Apocrypha M. I told you that we scruple not reading most of it in the place of Homilies or other Books especially the books called Wisedom and Ecclesiasticus But 1. Many Bishops and Doctours of the Church of England have accused the books of Tobit of down right lies and the books of Iudith Bell and Dragon c. as being meer fictions 2. And when we read these it is to be done in the same order as we read the Scripture by the name of Lessons which is the Title given to the Chapters read out of the Old and New Testament 3. And if we could yet read all these that will not serve unless we declare our Assent Consent and Approbation of the Appointment of them in the book which we cannot do L. But they are for the most part to be read but on week days or holy days M. The Conforming Clergy Consent and Covenant to the Imposition that requireth them to read the Common-Prayer every day in the week unless they be hindred by sickness or some urgent cause And so it is still the publick Service God's Service is all to be done with holy Reverence and if the Book of Tobit and some others be guilty of so many gross falsehoods as Protestants have and do still accuse them of I fear both to use them as Lessons in the place of God's Word lest it be prophanation and also to subscribe or declare my Approbation of the Calender and that use lest I be guilty of the sin of all the Ministers in England that so use it And it 's dangerous to seem to tell the people that so many books are God's Word that are not such For they understand not the Greek word Apocrypha and every Reader at least that is not Licensed to Preach is forbidden by the Canon to expound even that one word to them CHAP. XVIII Point XV. Of Assenting to Mistranslations and Subscribing that they are not contrary to the Word of God. L. ARE not the Epistles and Gospels used according to the last Translation M. Yes in the new Books they are but the Psalms are not L. What great mistranslations are there M. Sometimes a whole Verse or more is left out and sometimes the Translation is quite contrary to the Text. As Psal. 105. 28. They rebelled against his word instead of They rebelled not against his word And in the Book which this justifieth are many in the Epistles and Gospels I have cited them at large elsewhere L. How cometh there to be so many faults in the old Translation M. The work was an excellent good work But the Authors it seems for want of skill in the Hebrew followed the Septuagint Greek translation which hath these and many such defects L. Sure it is lawful to use and follow the Septuagint for the Apostles did so in the New Testament M. 1. The Apostles some times use it and sometimes follow the Hebrew against it and sometimes neither 2. But to Use it is one thing and to Justifie it is another thing It was in common use in the time of Christ and his Apostles and they used that in speaking to the people which use made intelligible and acceptable And we scruple not using it But all the works of Man are imperfect as Man is And why must we subscribe that there is nothing in it contrary to the word of God When as every mistake in it is contrary to it L. It seems then you would not subscribe to the Bible that there is nothing in it contrary to the Word of God M. I will subscribe to the truth of all that is in the true Copies of the Original if there by any such And I will subscribe that the various Lections in those Copies that we have are not the failing of the Holy Ghost or Apostles nor are such as leave us in just doubt of any necessary Truth And I will subscribe to the Translation so far as it agreeth with the Original But I will not subscribe that any Translation is perfect or faultless or to this or that Hebrew or Greek Copie as if in every word or Lection it certainly agreed with the Autographs And why should men make snares for the Church by imposing Professions that any mere man's works are perfect when all mortal men are confessedly imperfect Is it not enough peaceable to use them and to profess that all the word of God is infallible Truth L. But I cannot think that an Approbation of all the Translations is intended in your Assent and Consent M. Are they no part of that which is contained in the Book and prescribed by it Or could not the Parliament speak sense Chap. XIX Point XVI Of Consenting to reject all from Communion who desire not our Episcopal Confirmation L. ME thinks you that have written a Book for Confirmation should not scruple consenting to this M. I told you that I am so far from scrupling the true use of Confirmation that I think it is the want of it that is the greatest corruption of
serious manner for transition into the State of Adult Communicants it would be the greatest means of a true Reformation and of Union with the parties that now differ about Church order that can be used Divers of the highest Episcopal Divines write as earnestly for this as any of us Especially Mr. Elderfield and Dr. Hammond and yet were it to prevent our continued division and our ruin there is no hope of obtaining it L. Why what hinders if all sides desire it M. It is desired as Holiness is desired seriously by the serious reservedly and by halves by the half Christian and only the Name Image and Ceremony by the gross Hypocrite who hateth it at the Heart because it is above him and against his carnal mind and interest And indeed it is here made impossible to be done any otherwise ordinarily than as a Ceremony For 1. The Diocesses are so vast that the Bishop cannot do this and other his Offices for the hundredth part of his undertaken Flock Suppose this Diocess have but five or six hundred thousand Souls for when an hundred thousand died the last Plague I hope it was not above the â—ixth part Do you think that the Bishop is able did he work as hard as any Nonconformist to confirm six hundred thousand Persons or the twentieth part of them or the hundredth in that serious manner as belongs to the binding of a Soul to Christ in so solemn a Covenant It becometh me not to inquire whether Bishops be men that are for so much seriousness in Christianity themselves and so much labour to attain it Some are far better than others You know them as well as I. But I must say 1. That as far as I can learn there is not one of an hundred confirmed at all 2. All the thousands that are unconfirmed live in the Parishes as reputed Christians and may come to the Sacrament when they will. 3. I never knew one Minister of all that Covenanted it to keep one man from the Sacrament for not being Confirmed or not being desirous of it nor one Neighbour that ever was examined on this Point whether he were Confirmed or were ready and desired it 4. Some few elder Votaries to the Bishops perhaps may be serious in it but what a mere running Ceremony it is usually made I need not tell you I have formerly said that I was at 15 years of Age Confirmed my self by Bishop Morton one of the Learned'st and best Bishops that ever I knew and we ran thither from School without the Minister's knowledge or one word from our Master to tell us what Confirmation is and in a Church yard in the Path-Way as the Bishop past by we kneeled down and laying his Hands on every Boys Head he said a few words I knew not what nor did any one of my School-fellows as far as I could perceive know what he said nor know what Confirmation is any more than to have the Bishop's Blessing nor were we ask'd by him or any whether we stood to our Baptismal Covenant save only by saying by rote the Catechism to our Master nor did I see any one make any more than a Ceremony of it When the Bishops were down I saw it made a serious Work by divers Ministers who instructed Young Men till they found them seriously resolved for Christ and then taking the best of Confirmation and Penitence caused them publickly before the Congregation to profess their Faith and Repentance and to renew the Covenant they made in Baptism to Christ. And were it made the work of Godly Ministers to do it or to prepare Men personally for it and not make it a Game for Boys much good might be done by it L. Well What have you against it besides Abuse which no body desireth you to subscribe to M. Were I a publick Minister I should be glad of that Rubrick to enable me to keep away the grosly Ignorant which I know no other Clause that enableth me to do But I durst not use it to turn from Communion all Godly Persons whom it excludeth nor can I consent so to do L. What can make Godly Persons scruple it as sinful M. Many things 1. The words make it seem to some to be yet made a Sacrament which are Vpon whom after the example of thy holy Apostles we have now laid our hands to certifie them by this sign of thy favour and gracious goodness toward them Here is an outward visible sign of an inward and spiritual Grace given to them said to be done in imitation of Christ's Apostles as a means whereby they receive the same and a â— ledge to assure them thereof as the Collects with it shew which is the Catechisms Definition of a Sacrament 2. They that are against our Diocesan sort of Prelacy dare not seem to own it by coming to them for Confirmation appropriated to them 3. Those that think that a great and holy Duty is made a mere Mockery to delude Souls and corrupt the Church while every one in England that will but take this Ceremony is pronounced to God in Prayer to be Regenerate by the Holy Ghost and all their Sins forgiven them these dare not joyn themselves with the Prophaners in their delusory way Be these Scruples just or unjust while the same Persons are willing to own their own Baptismal Covenant understandingly and seriously before the Church and their own Pastors and to know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and esteem them in Love for their Works sake and to be at Peace among themselves I dare not for scrupling this Diocesan Ceremony cast them from the Communion of the Church of Christ. And therefore I dare not Approve of the Order that requireth it nor Assent and Consent to it nor Subscribe that it is not contrary to the Word of God. Chap. XX. Point XVII Of Consenting to all the Ornaments of Church and Ministers that were in use in the Second year of King Edw. 6. L. VVHat have you against this M. The words are That such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof at all times of their Ministration shall be retained in use as were in this Church of England by the Authority of Parliament in the Second year of King Edw. 6. Against this we have these Exceptions 1. We know not what was then in use and therefore cannot consent to we know not what 2. We are told that the Albe and many other Ornaments were then in use that are since put down and we must not consent to restore them without more reason than we hear And the Canon enumerating the Ornaments now we suppose the addition of all those will Contradict it 3. We meet with few Conformists that know what was then in use And we see that all those that Subscribe or Consent to this yet use them not And we will not run for Company into a solemn Covenant-Consent to the use of those things that we see
Offices as a Body of many Members or a Chain of many Links as we say Bonum est ex Causis integris And he that wounds any one Member wounds the Man and he that breaketh one Link breaketh the Chain And he that accuseth any one part of the Government accuseth the Government thereby And there is no doubt in the World but they so intended that made this Canon L. And what have you against your Obedience to this M. You may easily know what by what is already said 1. I have fully proved as aforesaid in my Treatise of Episcopacy that if Episcopacy were never so certainly of Divine Institution this Form of Diocesan Prelacy deposeth quantum in se the old Church Form the old Episcopacy the old Presbytery and almost all true Discipline and in stead of each sets up that which is repugnant to the Word of God. And must we all confederate to maintain this Church Corruption and all agree to renounce Reformation or any Conviction tending to Repentance 2. I have told you what it is for Lay-men and Courts to arrogate the Decretive Power of the Church Keys and for single Priests and Officials to rule all the Clergy and People as under them And for our Prelate to undertake to be the sole Bishop over many Hundred Clergy And then to Govern per alios in a secular manner even by Lay-men that do that in his Name which he knows not of and this in order to Gaols and Ruine If all this be agreeable to God's Word what is contrary to it 3. I have told you what it is to make every Church Officer so necessary as that it should be Excommunication to say Any one of them is sinful when as Learned good Men as most the World hath have written to prove almost all of them sinful corrupt Inventions of Arrogance and that it 's far worse for Men to presume to make new Forms and Offices of Church Government than new Ceremonies 4. The Parliament of England condemned the Oath called the caetera Oath in the Canon of 1640. And the late long Parliament of 1662. never restored it nor any since And was it not formed according to this Canon What 's c. but And the rest that bear Office therein reliquos ad ejusdem gubernaculum constitutos For my part tho' I have oft read over Cousins Tables and the Canons I do not yet know and remember all the Church Governing Courts and Offices How many there be besides the Bishop the Chancellors Court the Arches the Prerogative Court the Arch-deacons Commissaries Officials Surrogates I know not And are every one of these become as necessary to be taken for lawful as the twelve Apostles or the Articles of our Creed For my part I am far from thinking that those Bishops and Doctors should be Excommunicated or Damned who by Faction are drawn to deny the Ministry and Churches that have not Prelatical Ordination and Government and shall all be condemned that think as ill of Civilians Excommunicatings 5. I have told you what it is for every Lord Knight and Gentleman that doth but say that any of these Church Governing Offices are against the Word of God to be ipso facto an Excommunicate man. And for the people to be put to question whether they may chuse them for Parliament men and whether they may sit in Parliament while Excommunicate L. This Canon with the three or four adjoining make me begin to think hardlier of the Canoneers than I thought I should ever have done as to their honesty M. I would not have you think too hardly of them but only to think truly of Nonconformity Chap. XXVII Point XXIV Of Publishing the 8th Canons Excommunications L. VVHat is the Eighth Canon and its Excommunication M. Whoever shall hereafter affirm or teach 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 Excommunicated ipso facto and not to be restored until he repent and publickly revoke such his wicked Errors L. What have you against the Execution of this M. A great deal In sum it is unrighteous oppressing and dividing to cast out all Persons from the Church of Christ who think that nothing is faulty in the Book of Ordination or in their Principles or Practice there expressed And we dare not curse those that Christ doth bless should we do this for a Benefice in what should we differ from the sin of Balaam who loved the wages of unrighteousness whose iniquity and madness his Ass rebuked saith St. Peter 2 Pet. 2. 15. Yea shall we not be far worse than he that for an House full of Silver and Gold could not go beyond the Word of the Lord and did not curse but bless Gods people And it is not proud malignant Tongues reviling Gods Servants and calling their Opinions wicked Errors that will make Christ disown his Members or will warrant Balaam or us to curse them O how unlike is this to the Spirit and Ministry of Christ for Prelates and Priests to curse and cast out the Children of God for saying that they go against his Law. L. But what is amiss in the Book of Ordination M. I am anon to tell you that But if there were nothing amiss in it yet the belief of its innocency is not necessary to Salvation L. But if every man have leave to accuse the Orders of the Church what Order can be maintained M. 1. Leave modestly to express dissent in a doubtful case may stand with Order 2. If men do it disorderly there be other Penalties besides ipso facto Excommunication Every breach of the peace is not Rebellion nor punisht with Death But I 'll tell you briefly what may occasion good men to say that their Ordinations are sinful 1. In that they thereby obtrude Pastors on the Churches upon the bare choice of a Patron without or against the peoples wills 2. In that they professedly ordain such as their Canon forbids to Preach or Expound any Doctrine 3. In that they determine that Bishops Priests and Deacons are three distinct Orders which yet is an undetermined Controversie among even the Learnedst Papists And must we damn and cut off men for that which the very Papists leave at liberty 4. In that they ordain men to an Office which Scripture maketh no mention of Dr. Hammond saith that it cannot be proved that there were any Presbyters subject to Bishops in Scripture times nor any but Bishops None that had not power of Ordination and the Keys nor any Bishops of a multitude of Churches and Presbyters both which are here ordained 5. In that they Swear Obedience to Arch-bishops and their Sees and make Priests Covenant Obedience to their Ordinaries as aforesaid If a godly man do as Bucer did to King Edward the Sixth as you may see in his Scripta Anglic. and desire some of these faults to be amended doth he deserve
Atheistical L. You lay heavy Charges on the Parliament and Bishops that have silenced you you are best take heed what you say M. No honest heed will secure a man in this Age of malignity and perjury But you mistake me I meddle not with the Parliament Laws or Bishops much less with the King I leave all men to their righteous Judge who is at the door To his Judgment they stand or fall I only tell you what I think it would be in us that are Vowed to the sacred Ministry if we desert our Office and Work for Man's Prohibition L. But all these People that you talk of may find room in other Parish Churches Many Churches in London are half empty or have room enough M. Do you not know that the London Churches were burnt down 1666 and to this day it 's but few of them that are built again but Ministers preach in small inconvenient Tabernacles And those that are built the Seats are commonly all taken up long ago and lock'd up I heard the last Week an Eminent Esquire say that he offer'd Five Pound for a Seat and could have none and he was not able to stand so long with the Lads in the Alley People will not let Strangers into their Seats when they are Crowded with the Owners I come into no Church that hath a competent sober Preacher that is not full Alleys and Seats And I pray you if ten Thousand out of Stepney or Martins or Giles would go about the City to seek for Church-room 1. How shall they know before hand in what Churches to find it 2. When they miss it in three or four the time will be over before they find it in a fifth 3. Few but strong men are able to stand so long in the Alleys without Seats 4. And this supposeth them to be honest thirsty Souls that have least need whereas the worser sort that have no such appetite are the Multitude who will stay at home if they have not convenience near them 5. And the most willing People will hardly travel far to hear a man rail at them and slander them as some do L. But what great supply of this defect do your Meetings make Are not most of them in the Parishes where there is room And are not most of your hearers such as you think have least need M. 1. As many Meetings are held in the Greater Parishes as will be endured and more would be could they be suffered at any possible rate 2. Those that dwell in the greater Parishes can go further into the less when they know before-hand that they have there room and hired Seats The Meetings that have been kept up in the City Parishes were as much for others as for the Parishioners and were there continued because there was till of late the least disturbance and gentlest prosecution 3. Those that have least need yet have so great need as is more regardable than any bodily want Souls and Heaven are precious and all Men have Sins and Weaknesses and Temptations and all helps possible are little enough to secure our Salvation 4. When godly Persons are at our Assemblies they take not up that room in the Parish-Churches which others would have and so exclude not others L. But after all your Meetings there are still as many thousands as you talk of that go to no Church M. We are unwilling to be found any Cause of that The more need there is the greater is our guilt if we neglect what we can do for the supply L. But what 's this to the common Case of Country Parishes M. For my part I would have no silenced Minister preach where there is not evident need But the Country alas is not without need 1. Some Parishes are so great that part of the Inhabitants have more miles to come to Church than the Aged Women Weak and Children can Travel 2. Too many have such Teachers as the people dare not take for their Pastors any more than an Ignorant Quack for their Physician or one for their Schoolmaster that cannot read 3. Some had able Learned Pastors turned out and they cannot prove that their relation to them as such is dissolved 4. Some by the ruining Prosecutions of the Clergy and Bishops Counsils are cast into an over-great aversness to them and will not take such for their Pastors as they think have the Teeth and Claws of Wolves And will not travel far to seek Figs and Grapes on Thorns and Thistles And if these err and be to be blamed they are not therefore to be forsaken any more than our Children if they cannot eat Cheese are to be famished and denied all other food But I must refer you to a full Treatise which I have written to justifie our Preaching called An Apology for it At least I pray you Study these Texts of Scripture Mat. 5. 13 14 15 16. and 28. 19 20. Fph. 4. 10 to 17. 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. 1 Cor. 4. 1 2. Mat. 24. 45 46 47 48. Act. 4. 19 and 5. 28. 1 Cor. 9. 14 16. Act. 4. 29. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2 3. 1 Tim. 6. 13 14. 2 Tim. 1. 8 11 12 13. Tit. 2. 15. 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. 2 Tim. 2. 2 24 25. Eph. 6. 19 20. Mat. 10. 7 8. 16 17 c. and 9. 38. Luk. 9. 62. and 10. 2. L. But why may you not keep away five miles from Corporations and places where you have Preached M. Did you not say even now That small Countrey Parishes have no need of us One Man may serve for two Hundred or a Thousand better than for many Thousands 2. The Reasons of our Preaching is Men's real need and the Churches good Therefore we are most obliged caeteris paribus where there is most need and most probability of doing good 3. Christ bids us When they persecute you in one City fly to another And the Apostles first planted their Churches in Cities If you know the Reasons of these you know our Reasons To conclude whose Service is it think you to perswade 2000 such Ministers to give over their Preaching and Ministry whose interest requireth it Did Christ or his Apostles ever do or perswade such a thing But the way to bring us all to Popery is to disable its chief Adversaries and to obliterate all Religion first that Ignorance and Unconscionableness may be receptive of a new Form. You must take your Church-Bells and break and melt them if you will cast them anew to bring them to a new sound and use Chap. XLIV Of Lay Conformity Point I. Whether all Men must trust their Souls only on the Pastoral Care of such as our Patrons choose and Bishops institute L. I Thought you would have objected only against Forms and Gestures and you talk of Matters that affright one at the very stating of the Case But how are all Lay-men thus obliged M. I have before cited the express words of the Canon They must be presented and prosecuted
Government L. The Presbyterians call their Discipline the Kingdom of Christ and feign their Government to be Christs M. I speak for nothing proper to Presbyterians For no Lay-Elders nor Synods that by Vote govern all the Churches of the Land but only for that substance of Parish Discipline which all acknowledge not resisting Appeals from abusive Ministers to Bishops or Magistrates Bucer was no Adversary to moderate Episcopacy Yet if you will read him de Regno Dei de Confirmat c. to King Edward 6. for Parish Discipline I shall need to say no more to you this subject Chap. XLVIII Point V. The discountenancing the fear of sin and the practice of serious godliness M. V. I will add next this aggravation which comprehendeth many parts of Conformity No true Christian doubteth but seriousness and diligence in serving God and making our Calling and Election sure and Obedience to Gods Law and fear of sinning are of absolute necessity to Salvation And how greatly the Laity is discouraged and frightned from all this by the course of Conformity is notorious L. Who doth discourage them Do not all our Ministers Preach for Obedience and Godliness Doth not our Liturgy pray that the rest of our lives hereafter may be pure and holy that we may attain Eternal Life M. Yes and more than so you read the Scripture which is all for holiness The deeper is the guilt of Hypocrisie and Malignity in them that seek to root it out Out of their own mouths will they be judged and beaten with many stripes Judge by these instances 1. How Children are Baptized with God-fathers and how Confirmed after and Admitted to Communion and forced to it I shewed before 2. So many humane Institutions are imposed on Men as necessary to Communion that he must be a Man of more Learning and Understanding than I have or with all the study of my Life could obtain who can discern them all to be Lawful And he that calls any of them sinful is Excommunicate ipso jure 3. It is certain that a great part of the Laity understand not the Creed and those few that set themselves to seek for saving knowledge attain so little in their secular course of Life as that we must be glad if they understand all the Catechism the Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments and take such for extraordinarily wife And yet if one of these think a Form a Ceremony a Lay Chancellors Discipline c. to be repugnant to the Word of God and say it he is Excommunicate 4. By this it is absolutely necessary that the generality of men even all England that know not more than I do must blindly believe as the Canon and Priest bids them barely on their Word or else they must falsly pretend to believe them or be all liable to Excommunication And so an implicite Faith in the Canon-Makers and Bishops is become the necessary Religion of the Land. And then if the Bishops turn we must all turn with them 5. By this means wilful ignorance is made necessary For it is a dangerous thing as I have found it to study for knowledge in Gods Word lest it should lead us to differ from something in the Canons Liturgy or Bishops and then we are liable to ruin And so they that will be Church Members must take heed of studying Gods Word or searching after Truth 5. If for thinking and saying any of the Impositions are amiss they be once Excommunicated or but noted as Dissenters they are rendered odious to the Church-Courts and Priests and by them to the credulous Obsequious Herd and it 's likely that in the Pulpit they will be proclaimed Hypocrites Schismaticks unquiet Spirits Phanaticks and in as much danger of Damnation as Murderers or Adulterers who are as safe as they 6. By this means fear of sinning and the danger of dissenting being so usually conjunct the avoiding of sin is made Puritanism and a suspicious sign if not a common scorn 7. By this means ignorant Youth is quite discouraged from serious piety and fear of sin lest they fall under common scorn and it 's well if they follow not the multitude and be scorners of Obedience to God themselves And the very plea of Conscience which is but obeying God is made a disgrace or mockery and a tender Conscience made equivalent with a self-conceited Schismatick 8. It is no danger to meet by hundreds at a Play-house or by great numbers at Taverns Ale-houses Coffee-houses Horse-races c. But if a few Neighbours meet to Pray or Excite each other in the Love of God and Heaven you know what the danger is 9. If any Minister will but leave Preaching the Gospel of Christ and turn Physician he may be quiet tho' hebe of the same judgment that he was before the forbearing of his Ministry may preserve his peace There are now in this City ejected Ministers who have forsaken their Function and are Doctors of Physick and they live in great wealth and acceptance There are Physicians and Ministers of the same judgment and perhaps dwell together in the same House it was the case of Dr. Micklethwait and me The Physician is honoured and the Minister call'd and used as a Rogue though they were of the same mind There are some Nonconforming Ministers that tho' they are Doctors of Physick yet dare not cease their Ministry but practice both These are welcomed to the Sick but the Healthful banish them or hunt them away notwithstanding their acceptance as Physicians the hatred of their Preaching being more prevalent L. Sure they Preach some dangerous Doctrine M. Not a word of such is charged on them tho' malicious Persons come to hear them and inform against them Their writings tell the World their Doctrine Dr. Clifford was one of them who hath written of the Covenants Dr. Gilpin is one of them who hath written of Temptations driven from Newcastle Some ejected Ministers Educate their Sons to Physick and tho' they be of their Fathers mind the Sons are highly esteemed and honoured and the Aged Fathers laid in Jayl This last Week old Dr. Grew that is about 80 or 79 years of Age and almost Blind and hath lived there 36 years and more known by some writings a Man of a calm quiet sober peaceable Temper was sent to the common Jayl at Coventry for dwelling there and sometimes exhorting his old Hearers to fear God and he hath here a Son and a Son-in-Law Doctors of Physick deservedly honoured who if they did but Preach the Gospel might speed as ill as he 10. If an ejected Minister would but teach the Children of the Laity tho' it were but to read and tho' there be no other School-master near the people must rather have their Children untaught and must not be suffered to have so needful a help 11. If a Minister would give over Preaching yet if his old Hearers desire his Neighbour-hood that they may have the benefit of his Conference they must
just occasion to seek it 3. They say that there is no Church without a Bishop and that the Diocesan-Church is the least true political Church And if so he separateth not from any Church that separateth not from the Diocesan 4. These foresaid persons do nothing to forfeit the Communion of neighbour Churches therefore it is a sin and wrong to deny it them If it were proved an errour to avoid that as a sin which they avoid all mankind hath errours and to be over-fearful of Fire or Water or Plague or Poyson is a tolerable safe weakness and not like the sins that swarm in multitudes of tolerated Parishioners L. That which is not so immoral as Fornication Drunkenness Cursing and Swearing may be more hurtful to the Church and so deserve greater severity from Governours M. The Church-Keys are to be used with due relation to Heaven and those are to be taken in or cast out that Christ will take in or cast out from Heaven And if you think he will damn an obedient godly Christian for fearing to partake of the sin of wicked Priests or for fearing to be poysoned with love-killing Doctrine or for fearing the vain Worship of mens traditions rather than a prophane derider of Conscience and a filthy Fornicator Drunkard or Blasphemer I shall not think it worth my labour to dispute with you But men that take the Churches welfare to lie in the wealth and domination of such as they more than in the Holy Obedience Conscience and Piety of the People will object the same that you now do CHAP. LIII POINT X. Of Swearing never to endeavour any alteration of Government in the Church M. HOW far this extendeth objectively I before proved X. by 1. The words of the Oaths 2. The consent of the Bishops 3. And the words of the seven Canons and the Et Caetera Canon in 1640. so that there is no doubt of it 2. How far it extendeth as to the persons obliged I before told you and you may read 1. In the Corporation Act which imposeth it on all Corporations 2. In the Vestry Act which imposeth it on all Church-Vestries 3. In the Act of Vniformity which imposeth the subscription on all the Clergy 4. In the Oxford Act of Banishment which imposeth the Oath on Non-conformists and more 5. In the Militia Act which imposeth it on all the Military Commanders and Souldiers in the Land so that you may well say that is a National Covenant or Oath 3. What is amiss in the Church-Government that needeth an amending alteration I have so often told you that I will not repeat it Judge then what this Oath importeth L. It could never be the meaning of the Parliament that no man shall endeavour to amend the faults of any Officers Courts or Actions for they often amend their own Acts of Parliament and they reserve a Power in King and Parliament to make alterations even in Church Governments But that belongs not to the People nor should they endeavour it M. 1. I hope you will not confound Stated Offices and Mens Exercise of them in Practice I grant that they do not bind us by Oath never to endeavour that Bishops and all the Officers of their Courts may be honest men and slander and injure no man against Law c. But it is the Offices as here stated that are made thus far unalterable named in the Canon Arch-Bishops Bishops Deans Arch-Deacons and the rest that bear Office therein 2. I grant that the Law is made to bind none but Subjects and that an altering power is reserved to King and Parliament But it doth not follow that all the Subjects be not bound by it Though They may change Laws yet We may not And as you say They suppose that it belongeth not to the People to endeavour it Which We grant as to any Rebellious Seditious or otherwise unlawful Endeavour But whether God bind not all men in their own Place and Calling by Prayer Conference Elections of Officers Petition c. to endeavour to amend all Crying Dangerous Common Sins is a farther Question L. They cannot mean to exclude Petitioning for that is the Subjects Right and is by them allowed with Restraints M. 1. It is meant in opposition to the Scots Covenant which tyed men to oppose Popery Prelacy and Schisme only in their several Places and Callings 2. It is expres'd in the most universal terms without the least Exception by men that knew how to speak 3. Reasons were given in Parliament against any Limitation and those Reasons carryed it 4. They were Men that were wholly for the Church of England whose Canon had before Excommunicated themselves and all men that accused any Office in the Church Government as sinful And they knew that should any of them when the Parliament is risen yea or there so say he is an Excommunicate Man. 5. It is most certain that they intended to bind all Subjects on whom these Oaths are imposed even from petitioning or any other Endeavour of Alteration though they allow petitioning in other Cases for they intended to fix and secure the Church-Government against all Alterations 6. Therefore as I said before they joined it with yea and set it before State-Government in all their Oaths and Covenants And do you think in Conscience they left men at liberty to petition against Monarchy or against the Life or Power or Honour of the King Far be it from us to think so ill of them I must profess to you that I do not think half so ill of well-order'd Monasteries of Men or Women as I do of our large Diocesses or our Lay-Excommunicators according to the Canons And yet even in the Times of Popery the Nation was not Sworn never to endeavour any alteration of Monasteries If you would have all Corporations Soldiers Vestries Ministers sworn never to endeavour to cure the Sick to relieve the Poor to seek more Wealth to reform all Play-houses Ale-houses and Taverns to Catechize their Families c. I would not join with you National Oaths and Covenants are Matters of great moment We have deeply suffered by rashness in such already And should any of them prove false and wicked and the Nation be stigmatized with Perjury you might more sadly write Lord have Mercy on us on the Land than on the Doors where the most dreadful Plague prevaileth CHAP. LIV. POINT XI Of Swearing an Abhorrence of taking Arms against any Commissionated by the KING M. THis also I have said enough of in the Case of the XI Ministers and told you that we are far from scrupling it in Disloyalty but in Loyalty only 1. Lest the Keepers of the Seals may by Commissions depose the King or deliver up the Kingdom to whom they please 2. Because the Authority of a Commission as above and against the King 's own Law is not a matter that Lawyers and Judges themselves are agreed of and therefore unfit for the unskilful Vulgar to determine by their
also many general and collateral and circumstantial considerations that make men fear the guilt of Conformity the more L. What are those I believe you will find as many of that sort of reasons on the other side to move you to Conform if you consider them M. I will tell you what I mean and then I will hear all that you have to say for it I. We are all agreed that no sin must be done for any commodity or on any pretence of good II. We are agreed that to pretend Gods Service or Name for our sin is a heinous aggravation To say I must do evil to please God to Preach and to win souls is Prophaneness and Hypocrisy III. We are agreed that it is worse in a Minister of Christ than in others because he is bound to be an example to the flock who are apt to imitate him IV. It is granted that God is jealous about his worship and that the profaning of Holy things and sinning openly in the Sacred Assemblies is caecris paribus worse than meer miscarriages in our Conversation V. Lying is by most acknowledged a great sin as overthrowing humane credit and converse But especially in a Preacher because it will tempt men never to believe him And to say that we assent and consent and that ex animo when we do not is heinous lying VI. It is granted that man hath not a despotical power of his own understanding to believe what he will And that if any of his errours be vicious vice and errour must have better cure than meer commands And if men could know and believe what they will they should will to believe nothing but what hath credible evidence without a carnal biass VII It is agreed that all men have errour and therefore that erring men or no men must be tolerated in our Communion and he that thinks otherwise condemneth himself and teacheth all men to condemn him VIII It is granted that it is a very low degree of knowledge that the universality of vulgar Christians do attain who hardly learn the common Catechism much less can it be expected that they should all be able to understand all indifferent things to be indifferent and to be judges of the minutissima IX If any errours be tolerable it 's like to be the errours about things indifferent and small X. St. Paul hath expresly determined the Controversy about loving and receiving such Rom. 14. 15. XI To encourage by compliance a generation and design of men that overthrow Christ's and his Apostles rule of Communion and by invented impositions of their own would make Church-Concord impossible and would propagate this way of certain Schism and stablish it in the World is to confederate for tearing the Church of Christ and making Schism common and uncureable XII It is granted that he that after his greatest study is perswaded that unnecessary Oaths Subscriptions Covenants Ceremonies are sinful is condemned if he go against his Conscience tho' he should mistake XIII Those therefore that make such snares for Souls and then tell us If you go against your Consciences you are damned for that and if you do not you are damned as Schismaticks for disobeying us are far unlike the Ministers of Christ or Men that help to save our Souls XIV We Non-Conformists offer cur solemn Oaths that we have by Prayer and earnest search and study laboured to know the truth herein And as our worldly interest would perswade us to conform so we would readily do it did we not believe that it is sin against God Yea we take it as to us to be no small but heinous sin by the aggravations which I am mentioning XV. Seeing then the way of our Condemners is either to cast all Christians out of the Church that have not a greater degree of Knowledge herein than I have and all men of my Rank or else to bring all men implicitly to believe all to be lawful that is commanded them we cannot consent to either of these two Measures for the Church XVI It is agreed that Perjury is so heinous a Sin as that few are greater It so taketh God's Name in vain as to engage his Justice in a special Revenge It depriveth Kings of due Security for their Lives and Crowns by the Oath of Fidelity It destroyeth all Trust and consequently all Commerce among Men as well as all Hope of publick Justice It exposeth the Estates and Lives of all men to the will of Perjur'd men so that he that dare be perjur'd may be supposed liable to any other Wickedness how great soever Therefore if we Ministers should be perjured we should make our selves utterly unmeet for our Office. XVII It is agreed that to sin deliberately by a Covenant under our Hands is one of the most heinous sorts of sinning and if it be done knowingly sheweth the person to be a wilful Servant of sin To sin by the sudden surprize of a Passion is too bad but to study it resolve it and covenant it is most dangerous To engage a Mans self by Covenant to be once a Month drunk or steal or commit Fornication is far worse than the bare Act. XVIII It is granted that Repentance is the condition of Forgiveness and for a man to swear or covenant that he will never repent or endeavour to amend or alter any thing that is amiss is to renounce Forgiveness XIX It is granted that publick common national Sins are far worse than private and personal in few and if heinous they are Prognosticks of the sorest Judgments and to promote them is to be the Enemy of the Land. XX. It is granted that if that prove Perjury which some Dissenters fear is such and the Kingdom should be stigmatized by it there could scarce be any greater Shame and Danger befall the Land to make it odious to GOD and Men and Recorded as such to all Generations As I said The Oaths and Covenants to endeavour no Alteration in Church Government is imposed on all Corporations all Souldiers in the Militia all Vesteries all Non-conformist Ministers that will take it and all Ministers as to covenant in the Act of Uniformity And he that without accusing others only studieth to be innocent of so mortal a feared Guilt sure is therein excusable if the fear of God and the love of our Souls and of the Church and State be not an unexcusable Crime Apply this no farther than I apply it XXI There is so much written for a foreign Iurisdiction over England in Church Affairs by Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bromhall Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Dr. Saywell Bishop Gunning 's Chaplain and many others whose Words I am ready to produce as may assure us that it is in the same Mens thoughts to introduce it as the only way to Concord and that they therefore desire the Ejection and Ruine of such as we because we are against it And how far and how soon God will let these men prevail we know not But we
man should not play with Matters of this moment nor take God's dreadful Name in vain nor sport with the Consuming Fire And I hope you grant that Words in Caths and Impositions are to be taken in the properest usual sence unless the Authors otherwise expound them And you know that they have been so far from expounding them otherwise as that these twenty years they have refused it and in Scotland sentenc'd the Earl of Argyle to die for expounding them as some would have us do And what do Oaths or Covenants signify if the Takers may put what sence they will on them and if the most express Universals yea the express Exclusions of all Exceptions may be taken in a particular sence with Exceptions such Swearers and Subscribers give their Rules no security Is it not enough to tell you we will willingly stand to Bishop Sanderson's own Rules in his Excellent Prelections de Iuramento for expounding Oaths and Promises Such as these Expositions of stretchers make Oaths to be none viz. It 's unlawful that is against the King's Law but not against God's to take Arms against the King viz. As King but say the Papists when the Pope excommunicates and deposeth him he is no King on any pretence whatsoever that is any unjust pretence by his Authority against his Person viz. It is to be done by Gods Authority and not by his or against any Commissioned by him viz. Lawfully Commissioned of which we are discerning Iudges The same I may say of all the rest As Assenting and Consenting to all things except many things Swearing Canonical Obedience in Licitis Honestis when we judge ten or twenty Canons if not the very frame to be Illicita Inhonesta c. L. But as you have said that those Great Men Grotius and Bishop Jeremy Taylor were for profitable Lying so you know that Worthy Latitudinarian Dr. who was wont to say That if false Knaves would turn him out of his Ministry and Living by ensnaring Impositions he would take the Words in the best sence he could subdue them to whatever the Authors meant and it was as Lawful for him to defend himself against Knaves with his Tongue as with his Hands and Sword. M. He is newly gone to his Judge Nobis non licet I told you that in my Catechism on the Ninth Commandment I have given unanswerable Reasons against Lying for any Benefit whatever Some say that all our Articles of Religion are but Articles of Peace and we subscribe not to believe them true but not to preach against them At this rate men need not stick at any Oath and may shake off the Oath of Allegiance or any other when they have taken it And if we are thought worthy to be hated and ruined as Rogues for refusing self-saving prudential deliberate Lying and Perjury when Oaths and Veracity are so much of the security of the Estates Names and Lives of Kings and Subjects and so necessary to all humane Converse we patiently commit our Cause to Him that shortly and righteously will determine all CHAP. LVIII Whether Communion with so Faulty a Church be Lawful L. I Shewed what you said against Conformity to a Friend and when he had read it he said What a Self-contradictor is this Man to lay all this Charge on the Church of England and yet himself to hold Communion with it and perswade others so to do Can we touch Pitch and not be defiled And indeed if all this be as bad as you fear I cannot see how any Separatists are to be blamed or how any may Communicate with so bad a Church M. Sic stulti vitia vitant drunken men reel from side to side to keep one right tract or to cut by a thred seemeth impossible to them I. You must distinguish between the Diocesan Churchs as constituted by their Courts of Government and Canons and the Parish Churches II. Between those Parish-Churches which have godly or tolerable Pastors and those that have not III. Between Ministry and Lay-Communion IV. Between stated and occasional Communion V. Between preferring their Churches before better and not avoiding them as null or as unlawful to be Communicated with Understand these five distinctions well and I shall satisfy you L. Apply them and let us hear your judgment M. I. The Diocesan Churches as they depose all inferiour Bishops and Churches and Rule by their Lay-Civilians Church-Censures I disown and hold no Communion with in those errours but only in their Christianity But I peaceably submit to them and would live quietly under them if I might II. Those Parishes that have notoriously uncapable Priests either through utter insufficiency heresy or hurtfulness doing more harm than good I own not to be Organized Churches nor have Commmunion with their Ministers as Ministers not owning them for such III. I hold it utterly unlawful to be Ministers with them on the terms now required of us and therefore I have no such Ministerial Communion with them IV. I preferr them not before better V. I hold not fixed Communion as a fixed Member of their Churches with all that I hold occasional Communion with L. What Communion is it then that you hold with them M. I. With the Diocesans and their Officers I hold mental Communion as a Christian and a Protestant in all the essentials of Christianity and that Reformation which they own II. With the Parish-Churches that have true Ministers I hold mental Communion as true particular Churches of Christ tho' faulty and local Communion on just occasions III. With the Parish-Assemblies that have intolerable Ministers I hold mental Communion with the People as Christians and will not refuse on just occasion to join with them in any good exercise as Lay-men IV. With those Churches that have Ministers and Liturgy as ours that need reformation I profess to join with them as Christians and Protestants that own all the Scriptures and that promise to preach nothing as necessary to Salvation but what is contained in it or may be proved by it And when I Communicate with that Church it is as a Society so professing But if their Sermons Liturgy or Lives have any faults being not Idolatry Heresy Blasphemy or such as rendreth their whole Worship and assembling unacceptable to God I disown Communion in any of those faults tho' I be present V. When I can have better caeteris paribus without greater hurt than good I preferr it and only use occasional local Communion with the Liturgy-Churches as I would do with strangers were I in foreign lands VI. Where I can have no better without more hurt than good I Communicate constantly and only with the Parish-Church where I live as to Local-Communion L. But how can you do either of these without guilt when they are as bad as you have described M. 1. I have not charged the Parish-Churches with that which I have charged the Diocesans their Courts with many honest Ministers never troubled nor excommunicated a
sin of Pastors omitted the peoples ordinary attendance at Church and desiring the Sacrament is an obscure profession and may serve to the being of a Church tho' not to the well-being L. But some of your Non-conformists will as much blame you for requiring too little to Communion in that you demand not an account of Mens Conversation M. 1. He that truly consenteth to the Covenant of Baptism is Converted or Sanctified and he oweth the Church no account of that consent but his own Profession not nulled by word or deed And if you forsake this rule you will never know what terms to take up with 2. And as to the time or circumstances whether God Sanctified him in Infancy and he grew up in grace or when or how God wrought upon him he oweth no account to others L. 3. In your third Article again the chief exception will be against this trying men by the Minister for Communion M. I have proved to you the necessity of it ad bene esse And may I not hope that the Bishops will be for it When 1. They order that the Minister catechize and send to the Bishop such as are to be confirmed 2. That he give the Sacrament to none but those that are Confirmed or are ready and willing to be Confirmed And how can they know this without trial 3. When they know that the Bishops are not able to do it for all or the hundredth part themselves Why then should they be against it L. If all the Bishops in England be for it the Parish-Priests will some be unfit for it and few will be at so much labour and self-denial as it will cost them M. If the Bishops put or take in bad untrusty men I cannot help that Let them be encouraged to do well that will. L. But why must they make their profession before others M. Not but that the Pastors word may satisfy the Church but it is much fitter that he that is to have Communion with all should be known to some besides the Minister to be a professed Christian. I should have desired that it might be done as Baptism in the Congregation as best but that of these men we must ask as little as may be L. But many ignorant people have not words to express their own belief or thoughts M. It is not ornamental unnecessary knowledge that must be demanded of them They that want other words may by Yea and Nay make known their mind when the Minister expresseth the matter in his question And the Church requireth that they can answer as catechized L. Some other will say that you are too lax in admitting all confirmed formerly by Bishops or by other Pastors M. If we crave that each Minister may try his Flocks we cannot in modesty refuse those tried and received by the Bishop or other Pastors All Churches should live in such Communion with each other as to receive each others Members on just occasion without trying them all again And if Bishops or any do it superficially that 's their own fault L. Why do you impose the Registring of Communicants M. I impose it not but only commend it as a help to memory He that hath no more Communicants than he can remember needs it not But Bishop Ier. Taylor in his Pref. to Treatise of Repentance saith That a Man cannot take a Pastoral charge or give an account of them that he knoweth not L. 4. Your fourth Article sets Ministers on such work as few can well do and few will ever faithfully do And yet for every young raw Priest to have such power will never be granted by the Bishops or the Laity M. You may as well speak out and say that Christ hath appointed such a Ministerial office as the World will never endure Why then do they call themselves Christians This is the proper work of a Pastor as it is of a Physician to look particularly to the sick and not only to read a Physick Lecture to them If Bishops will put in ignorant lads or unfit men I say again we cannot help it nor must we for that deny the Ministerial office any more than we must put down Preaching and Praying because some are unfit The weight of this work should rather make all careful to get only fit men into the Ministry L. But shall every Priest have power to put men from the Sacrament M. If every Priest must administer it he must judge to whom It is not a common food for all but the Childrens Bread. If every Priest must judge whom to baptize so he must whom to give this Sacrament to 2. The Canons allow this as to the scandalous so we do but present them to the Bishop or Chancellour and it 's less offensive to suspend them without such prosecution If he wrong any they have their remedy L. But why do you mention no more solemn Excommunication but this Declarative one and Suspension M. Because I would ask no more than needs of men that will not grant so much And I know no just Excommunication but a Ministerial declaring according to God's word that a man hath made himself uncapable of Church-Communion and of the benefits of Gods Covenant and binding him over to answer his Impenitence at the barr of God and requiring the Church accordingly to avoid him L. 5. The main charge will be against your fifth Article that cuts off so many Oaths Subscriptions and Professions M. It 's pity that these will not serve the turn whenas they are more than Christ or his Apostles or the Church for 300 years imposed And yet must we have more even as necessary to Ministry Will not the experience of 1300 years yet teach us to forbear tearing the Church by unnecessary snares Yet I deny not but the Ordainers may try the ability of Ministers in more than the words that they must subscribe to And if any will draw up such Articles as none shall Preach against I oppose them not The greater Concord the better But we must not cause perpetual discord by unskilful and impossible terms of Concord L. But for ought I see you will let in Papists if they will but take the Oath of Supremacy and renounce all in general that is contrary to the Scripture and their Profession M. And all Churches will let in Heart-Papists that renounce Popery Who knows the heart But 1. The Oath of Supremacy is a most express abjuring of the Essence of Popery especially as extended against the Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Power of the Pope 2. And is not God's Word a sufficient Rule of Religion Deny this and you will turn Papists to keep out Papists 3. If it be if Popery be against Scripture it 's here renounced If not why should we be against it L. But should they not distinctly renounce Transubstantiation Pâ—rgatory Image-Worship Merit and the rest of their Errours M. There is no end of enumerating Errours They are numerous like Maggots in a Carcase
pretence of concord or decency in God's service we can but wish and speak for better L. But they say if nothing unlawful be imposed it is disobedience to refuse it And if disobedience be endured no Government can stand M. 1. Judge by what is said whether no Sin be imposed 2. Obedience to God being more necessary than to man all just Rulers should encourage a due fear of sin and do nothing that tempts men from obeying God. 3. God himself doth not silence eject or condemn men for all disobedience else none could be saved All sin is disobedience to God. There is disobedience in small things as well as in great and of ignorance and infirmity as well as of malicious wilfulness And what smaller matter can there be than Humane Forms and Ceremonies and where is ignorance more excuseable than in things so minute and so uncertain and hard that they must all be wiser than you and I that know them to be lawful and what Unity will be in that Church and Kingdom that will endure none but such as are wiser than you and I L. 8. Your 8th Article preventeth all the objections against Ministers power and liberty while all are under Law responsible But what if the Rulers be Bishops or men that distaste your desired discipline M. We are not choosing Rulers by the sword but only Pastors to guide us by God's word and if we shall have bad ones we must patiently suffer we cannot remedy such infelicities L. But both Papists and many others say That the Iudgment of Ministers Doctrine and Ministry belongeth not to the Magistrate but to the Church M. Iudgment is as various as Execution e. g. If one be a Heretick or turbulent in Schism 1. The Magistrate is judge whether and how he shall be Corporally Punished 2. The neighbour Churches are Judges whether they will owne his Communion as approved 3. His own Flock are discerning Iudges whether he be fit to be trusted and owned as their Pastor or to be forsaken by them We must not imitate Papists in exempting Ministers from the Magistrates Government L. 9. I confess your Reasons against Constraining Infidels to Profess Christianity are undeniable and agree with the sence of the Antient Church and Fathers But the Papists and many Protestants hold that when once men are Baptized they may be forced to Communion and all other Christian Duty M. What if they openly apostatize and turn Infidels Iews or Mahometans will they yet force them to Communicate in the Lord's Supper L. No but they will put them to Death as they Burn Hereticks M. That 's their way but not Christ's way Why should they put Apostates or Hereticks to death any more than Infidels that never believed L. Because they break their Covenant and because they sin against the Laws which they consented to M. And doth not sinning against God's Law In neither Consenting to nor Obeying it deserve as bad If God by many years Preaching call one man to Christianity and he derides it to the last and another took it up but by Education and the Law of the Land and never heard and understood the Reasons of it and turneth from it being taken prisoner by the Turks which of these is the greater sinner God binds them to Believe and Consent that do not and they sin against God's Law which is more than to break their own Covenant as such But both these deserve death and worse from God But if it were Christ's way to have men put one of them to death I see not but why they should do so by the other Torment or Death is no fitter way to make an Apostate believe than other Infidels It 's known that all the ancient Churches abhorred this forcing and punishing way I have wondered at the Impudence of Baronius Binnius and other Papists and justifie Martin for separating from the Communion of the Bishops that were for punishing the Priscillianists by the sword and Canonize him as a Saint and condemn these Bishops for it and yet are for for more cruelties themselves to far better men than the Priscillianists But where Fleshly interest is a mans Religion no wonder if it have neither consistency with Reason nor Modesty L. But if none but Volunteers be Christians or Communicants most will despise the Church and it will be empty M. All that are fit to be there will come in And those few will give the Pastors more comfort and lesser trouble than the multitude of the uncapable If your purse be not quite full of Gold will you fill it up with dung or stones The uncapable will do better for themselves and the Church among the Audientes or Catechumens It is their forcing in the uncapable that hath corrupted the Church and deprived the Flock of their due privileges choosing their Pastors c. because it 's made up of men unworthy of them And doubtless if you but countenance and preferr the Communicants before the rest it will draw in more than are capable without force L. If the Excommunicate be no further punished nor forced to repent the Church censures will be despised How little will men care for an Excommunication M. This is commonly said and much of it is true But 1. Can you force men to Repent or rather Lye You make him Repent that he brought himself into your hands and into suffering But that is not to Repent of Sin. Will you tell a man before hand If thou wilt but say thou repentest rather than lye in Gaol till death we will pronounce thee absolved and forgiven in Christ's Name Who can think ill enough of such an Absolution 2. Do not they scorn Christ that say he hath advanced his Church to the Dignity of Government by putting into their hands a Reed for a Scepter and a Leaden Sword that will do nothing without the Magistrate's Sword of Steel Hath he set up an useless mock-power in the Church 3. Did the Primitive-Churches for 300 years use any Sword but Spiritual Or did they find it so uneffectual and vain 4. Yea for some hundred years after there were Christian Magistrates did not the Church abhorr such a thing as forcing the Excommunicate to repent by imprisonment or the Sword 5. No man is meet to be a just Member that careth not for a just Excommunication And still this sheweth what a wickedness it is to force in the unmeet that despise God's Ordinance and the Church that they are in And then God's Ordinance must be debauched for their unfitness 6. The Sword doth the Keys much more hindrance than help when it is thus annexed to them for then it cannot be discerned whether Excommunication do any Good or none or whether it be only the Sword that doth the cure And do not they that profess Excommunication to be vain without the Sword teach men to call them as Church Governours Vain and to despise them And is it not all one as to say if any good be done
Oxford-Oath in the Act of Confinement and the Subscription in the Act of Vniformity M. I have told you fully before Not because we differ in Doctrine but in expounding the words of that Oath and Subscription 2. Were neither Arch-bishop Abbot nor his Clergy nor the Parliaments of those times of the Church of England as well as Sâ—bthorp and Mainwaring Were not the Laws made by those Parliaments made by the Members if not Representatives of the Church of England You know that our late great Defenders of the Church describe the Church of England to be those that Worship God according to the Law And were the Parliaments that made those Laws none of the Church themselves Chillingworth would not Subscribe without a limitting Profession Was he therefore none of the Church Was Bishop Bilson none of the Church Was R. Hooker none of the Church The first dedicated his Book to Queen Elizabeth and the latter is Dedicated to our King Charles the second and Praised by his Father And yet the Author of the Holy Common-wealth hath larglier than any man confuted Hooker's Popular Principles When William Barclay a Lawyer defended the King of France his Temporal Power against the Popes Usurpation of a Power to depose and restrain him he is fain to profess that the contrary opinion was so common that he was taken to speak some strange and singular thing And yet none doubts but he was of the same Church of Rome I again challenge you to name that point in which we differ in this Doctrine from the true Church of England L. You hold that Kings may be resisted by Arms. M. Not so much as the aforesaid Bishop and Doctors of the Church of England did or the Parliaments that made Church-Laws Again See our second Plea for Peace how far we disclaim it I profess that I am acquainted with no meer Non-Conformist Ministers that hold it at all lawful for Subjects to resist the King or any Supream Power by a War except in case that he notoriously declareth that he will if he can destroy the Common-wealth or deliver it up to a foreigner or destroyer that hath no right L. Sure the cry would never be for Extirpating the Dissenters for this Plot and their disloyalty if they were not guilty M. Nay if that be your argument Strangers to them say they are disloyal and guilty ergo they are so I leave you to God's answer for I will not undertake to answer you But will you use Sobriety a little further 1. It is now twenty seven years since they were ejected and cast out of maintenance and countenance and left to beg or crave their bread Long have they been laid in Gaols and fined deeply the Law laying on them twenty and forty pound a Sermon Their Goods Beds Books taken from them and they left destitute How many in all these years have ever been accused and proved guilty of one disloyal or seditious Sermon or Word I know of none Certainly it was not for want of will in the Accusers Those that by Oaths have brought them under Convictions and Warrants for distress of five ten and much more forfeitures even divers hundred pounds at once before they were ever summoned to speak for themselves would sure have sworn some disloyal Words against them had they been able And can many hundred Ministers have a fuller proof of their innocency than that they had no such prosecution twenty seven years from such a sort of Adversaries in so great Sufferings 2. And now this Plot is detected It is divers Months since and many Countries and Corporations have accused the Dissenters of it and cry them down to Extirpation And to this day I cannot hear of any one English Minister or at most not of two that is either an Episcopal or Presbyterian Non-Conformist so much as accused or named as guilty The French and Dutch Churches in London are Dissenting Presbyterians Yet no man accuseth any of them for being in Plots and yet must they also be destroyed But Sir if any one or more of the Episcopal or Presbyterian Non-Conformists Ministers or People had been found guilty would you condemn thousands or any of the guiltless for their sakes On what account Is it for their Relation to them They are mostly strangers to one another Come and let us try your rule of Justice I. Is there any Relation nearer than that of Father and Son And can any Minister be supposed to have more interest in or influence on his Hearers than a Father hath on his Son And you know that the chief man accused is the Kings eldest Son I hope you will not for this charge the King as if he principled him for Treason against himself Nor as if he were to suffer for his Sons faults II. The Judges have oft declared that many Iesuits and Papists were Plotters and Traitors and they died for it I hope you will not make all Papists guilty of their crime nor extirpate them for it And yet the Papists are Conventicling Dissenters too III. The Lords and great Men accused of this Plot and Treason how justly God knoweth were of the Church of England and shall all the Church of England be destroyed for their sakes Dr. Whitby and others now blamed by the Oxford-Convocation and Bishop Bilson Mr. Hocker c. were of the Church of England and shall all the English Clergy be accused of their words IV. Many of the accused were Hobbists and Infidels and some common ill-living Protestants Shall all the Hobbists and Infidels and ill-living Protestants be extirpated for their faults V. Many Gentlemen of some late Parliaments are accused not yet tried and proved guilty Shall all the Parliament-men therefore be extirpated as guilty VI. Some Lawyers and Students at Law are accused Shall all Lawyers and Students therefore be extirpated VII Divers of the Nobility are accused Must all Noble-men be therefore reproached VIII Some that have been of the Kings Privy Council were accused Is his Council therefore to be disgraced or destroyed IX Formerly many Judges have been guilty Are Judges therefore to be dishonoured X. By this justice you may next conclude They were Englishmen that were accused therefore let all English-men be rooted out Or they were Protestants and Christians therefore away with all Protestants and Christians Whereas I think it an unjust conclusion that because they were Irish-men and Papists that murdered two hundred thousand in Ireland therefore root out all Irish-men and Papists unless you will inferr They are men that commit all sin therefore root out mankind If it had been men that hate serious Godliness and are the seed of the Serpent and of Cain that are at deadly enmity to the true fear of God and thirst for the blood of the innocent that are accused of this Plot and if People had petitioned to have all this sort of men rooted out for it it would have fallen on more than you and I are willing to name or
theirs Will you therefore silence all your Teachers and shut up all your Church-doors and give over worshipping God Do you think that your Priests and your Worship are without Fault yea or the Constitution of your Churches We are not able well to know what a Parish-Church is by its Materials that is who are of the Churches and who not 1. If it be all the Baptized Parishioners the Papists and Separatists are your Members If it be all such as are of no other Church then the Atheists Infidels Seducers and others that are of no Church indeed are of it 3. If it be only those that dwell and communicate there how small a part of your great Parishes are of the Church Yet are not these many Thousands declared to be out but are permitted without Censure and may come if they will Not only the Members but the Minister himself knoweth not who are of his Church for the far greater part till he see them come to the Altar and then most if they come must be utter strangers to him whom he never saw before How great a Number of Hobbists Infidels Papists and wicked Livers are amongst us your own Pens proclaim And may not these come to the Altar when they please This is spoken only to convince you that if all this may be born the supposed sin of fearing sin in a thing call'd indifferent deserveth not Excommunication or Destruction Q. 17. Is not the Fear of God the beginning of Wisdom And doth not this contain a Fear of sinning And is not this commendable and to be cherished Is not God above man and first to be obeyed and most feared Hath man any Power but what God hath given him and hath God given any against himself or his own Laws or for destruction of his Fear If Conscience towards God be once driven away is any man to be trusted Will not the unconscionable do any thing for worldly Interest Q 18. Is it not an unmanly sort of impudence in them that many years perswade the world that those same men make Schisms by forbearing only such things as they confess to be no sin who have twenty years ago Protested that nothing but sinning is refused by them and did then give in a Catalogue of several sins which they undertook to prove such And should those same men that have read or may do The King 's Gracious Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs 1660. and the London Ministers printed Thanks-giving for it and the many late Books in which we have told men what it is which we dare not conform to I say should these still take on them that they cannot know it and call out still What is it that you stick at And what is it that would satisfy you Yea those that cannot bear that we should tell them Q. 19. Do you think that the King who then past that Declaration in which the Non-Conformists who sought it with thankfulness acquiesc't as in terms of happy Concord and the House of Commons who gave him thanks or the Bishops and Clergy who after rejected it and procured the new Act of Uniformity and such other did take the way to have United Protestants and to have prevented our present sad divisions Q. 20. Hath not Dr. Burnet in his History of the Regale fully proved that the choice of Bishops and Pastors for many hundred years was in the People and the Clergy And do you think in your Consciences that if a good Gentleman build and endow a Church all men must ever after trust the Pastoral conduct of their Souls with such Priests only as his Posterity or any man that will buy the Advowson shall present Will not Drunkards Fornicators malignant haters of Holy Life choose men as fit for their turn as will be admitted And do you think in your Consciences that all the Patrons now in England are either fit or by Christ allowed to be choosers of all those Pastors that all men in England must take up with Do you not know that Preaching converteth not like a Charm nor is the Devil cast out of Souls as by the words of an Exorcist It requireth great skill and care to convince sinners and instruct resolve confirm and comfort Souls There is as great difference of Teachers as of Physicians And Souls are unspeakably more precious than Bodies And it 's said of too many rash and unskillful Physicians that the difference between them and Souldiers is that they kill their Friends who pay them for it when Souldiers kill but their enemies What Power Princes and Patrons have of things Dedicated to God as Temples and Tithes Lands we presume not to dispute But these are not to inseparable from the Pastoral-office that the People must trust their Souls only on their Pastoral care to whom the Patron will give the Tithes and Temples Had men so setled maintenance on Physicians for every Parish we would not therefore trust our lives on the unskillful or negligent because either Prince or Patron choose him And if you would not say to such You shall have the Physician which the Patron chooseth or none Why should you say so of the Pastor Q. 21. Are we not of the same Religion with the Magistrates and Bishops In what one Article of Faith do we differ except the new one of the undoubted Salvation of all dying Baptized Infants not excepting those of Atheists or Infidels and this as certain by God's Word almost all parts of the Christian World Greeks Papists Protestants Nestorians Iacobites Arminians c. do charge one another with Heresy or false Doctrine while Conformists charge no such thing on the Non-conformists but only dissenting from the modes of worship and discipline which they impose And would you have all the Christian World forbid one another to Worship God till they all agree If not where yet their differences are so great why must they be forbidden it who differ not in points of Faith from the Churches Articles at all Q. 22. It is forbidden that more than four meet to VVorship God in other manner than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England If by other manner be meant with any other positive manner of Worship I see none that do it otherwise For Reading of Scripture Praying Preaching Singing Psalms are all done in the Parish-Churches But if oâ—her manner extend to every omission of any appointed part of the Liturgy all Parish-Churches where I come do it in other manner And shall all the Lords Gentlemen and People be therefore punished as Conventiclers The Non-conformists where I come use most of the Liturgy that is The Psalms two Chapters the Lords Prayer the Creed the Commandments the Singing Psalms some of them more Must all go out of the Church if the Curate omit part If by otherwise be meant with any other accidents or circumstances the Church of England agreeth not in all such and can be no rule therein to the Non-conformists Cathedral
and Parish-Churches differ Some Parishes have orgâ—ns Altars Rails c. and some none Some Worship in Tabernacles and some in unconsecrated Places as some Chappels the Spittle the Prison Sturbridge-Fair c. And almost all the Christian Sects on Earth before-named differ in far greater matters than our difference from the Liturgy is And even in the time when the Christian Emperours and Prelates were of greatest Power and Zeal for Concord they never appointed one Liturgy for all the Churches in the Empire Nor did any Bishops in Councilor out so magnify themselves as to write down for all other Bishops and Priests the words which they must speak to God in all their Prayers as if none that are fit for the Sacred Office knew what to say to God but they or they only had the Spirit of prayer Q. 23. Are there not some sorts of Government antecedent in order of nature to publick Government and such as no Prince or Prelate can abrogate viz. 1. Self-Government 2. The Husbands-Government of the VVife 3. And the Parents-Government of his Children in order to personal and family wellfare If Princes or Patrons on what pretence soever would take on them to choose for all men what Food they shall eat what Physick they shall take and when what Trade they shall choose what VVives or Husbands they shall have as to individuals and what Food Raiment Physick or Calling they shall give their Children c. No Prince can deprive men of Self-governing maternal or paternal Power And is this power more concerned in any thing than in the saving of our Souls Hath God laid our Salvation on Princes and Patrons choice or on our own If we miscarry by their choice will they be damned for us and not we Is it not our own Salvation that lieth on our actions And if another say you are unfit to judge what Food to eat what Physick to take what Wife to choose and so what Pastor to choose for the conduct of your Souls will any man not distracted therefore make a Prince or Patron the absolute chooser and trustee for his Soul Or doth it follow that I need not or may not choose a skillfuller Pastor than many thousand Parishes in England have because the Patron is by Law enabled to choose the Parish-Priest Let him choose who shall have his Tithes and Temple but he shall not make me trust an unfit man with the pastoral care of my Soul. Q. 24. If a Wife or Son say My Husband or my Father commandeth me to take this man and not that for my Pastor And you say The Prince or Patron chooseth you another and will imprison you if you submit not to his choice which do you think the Law of Nature and the fifth Commandment will justify Hath God made the King of France Spain Portugal c. the chooser of a Pastor for all their Subjects And consequently the chooser whether they shall be saved or damned according to God's ordinary course of VVorking by the aptitude of means If this power extend not to Infidels Heathens Papists Hereticks c. how shall the Subjects know to whom it extendeth Must all Subjects be made Judges whether Princes and Patrons are Orthodox and fit to choose Is not this more arrogancy than to judge who is fit to be my Pastor or Physician Is it not sufficient that the Prince and Patrons so provide for Teachers and Physicians that none may want nor neglect instruction in the essentials of Religion but as many as need and are able may use better than the unskilful at their own charges Q. 25. VVhereas some pretend that we ought to be silenced for preaching without the Bishops Licence is that the true cause when such are silenced and excommunicated that have Licences Mr. Tho. Gouge was excommunicated for preaching even in Wales where he laboured in such eminent works of charity notwithstanding his University Licence not-forfeited For though he conformed not he never refused Conformity and so fell not under the Canon which maketh void the Licences of Refusers And I that have the Bishop of London's Sheldon's Licence am hindered with the first The same I say of Episcopal Ordination which was no protection to him or me or many others Q. 26. As to the common cry that we are justly silenced for our being for the Parliament in the late VVars 1. Is that the meaning of the Act of Obâ—ivion Are they friends to King or Kingdom that will not suffer our sores to heal but when all are returned to the Love of Peace still fill mens ears with the noise and fears of VVar 2. Did the King so judge of General Monk and his Army who restored him who yet were hotly fighting in Scotland against the King while we were preaching against the Usurpers 3. Do not our long requests yet silence these incendiaries while we offer and crave but that those may have leave to Preach Christ's Gospel and VVorship God who never had to do with any VVar against the King and that they silence only all the rest which we suppose are a number not very considerable Q. 27. As to any other charge is it not that which we crave our selves that if any Non-conformists be proved guilty of drunkenness fornication lying perjury oppression or other immorality or Rebellion or Sedition they may be punished as the crime deserveth Q. 27. Do you believe that the great Parish Ministers need no help Can any man think so who believeth the worth of a Soul and understandeth but one half a Pastors work and why it was that the Primitive Church had so many Presbyters and Deacons with a Bishop to Churches of smaller number by far than our great Parishes And do not all Ministers of sense and forbriety confess their need of many to help them and say that it is the want of Maintenance that hindereth it and if that be it why may not we be endured to help them for nothing while we Preach the same Gospel and submit to beg our Bread Doth helping them freely deserve our destruction Q. 28. Whom did Christ or any of his Apostles ever Silence who Preached only sound Doctrine for any difference about Circumstantials of mans invention Or where did they ever command or authorize any others so to do When some would have Christ restrain some from useing his name who followed him not he rebuked the motion saying he that is not against us is for us When some preached not sincerely but enviously and contentiously to add affliction to his bonds St. Paul was glad yet that Christ was Preached and professed that he did and would rejoice therein Phil. 1. 18. Q. 29. Do you think that any would Silence Imprison or Prosecute Religious Christians for things which they themselves call Indifferent and others think to be great sin if they loved their neighbours as themselves and did by others as they would have others do by them Q. 30. Is not the Office of the