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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27068	Whether parish congregations be true Christian churches and the capable consenting incumbents, be truly their pastors, or bishops over their flocks ... : written by Richard Baxter as an explication of some passages in his former writings, especially his Treatise of episcopacy, misunderstood and misapplied by some, and answering the strongest objections of some of them, especially a book called, Mr. Baxters judgment and reasons against communicating with the parish assemblies, as by law required, and another called, A theological dialogue, or, Catholick communion once more defended, upon mens necessitating importunity / by Richard Baxter.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1684 (1684)	Wing B1452; ESTC R16512	73,103	142

against all malignity that would charge these errors on the innocent for a cloak of hatred and cruelty and oppression that I know not one meer Nonconformist that holdeth any of these errors and I verily believe that the Independents that I am acquainted with are true servants of Christ and many called Anabaptists sober godly Christians and that some called Separatists retain Christian charity and meerly for fear of sinning flye too far from others And as for all the rest it is not mens calling them all Dissenters nor their suffering together that can make the innocent responsible for the faulty who perhaps do more against their mistakes than ever such Accusers did to cure them And I must tell the Abaddons that the opposition that hath been raised against them among those that I was acquainted with before 1641 and 1642 was caused chiefly by the badness of those that made it their trade to preach against strict and serious obedience to God as Puritanism and Hypocrisie and made it the Ladder of their aspiring Ambition to make such odious and to hunt with jealous severity those that used for mutual help in the ways of Salvation to pray together especially if they fasted or consulted how to obey Gods Law Justacting over the part of the Bps that Martin separated from described by Sulpitius Severus rendering all suspected of Priscillianism that were more than others in reading the Scripture Fasting and Praying and clapping on the back with encouragement the Drunkards and prophane ignorant rabble who in every Town were the haters of the godly Conformists and Nonconformists and making these the instruments of their malice and praising them and the multitude of ignorant reading Priests as more worthy Subjects than men fearing God Ri. Hooker in his Preface describeth these and he that readeth his Europae Speculum may know that it was no better Conformists that his most beloved Pup●l Sir Edwin Sandys was against while he was one of the zealous Parliamentarians It 's true that many were very hot against Bishop Laud and the Arminians and against Dr. Heylin and Dr. Pockington for proving Sunday no Sabbath and calling the Table an Altar and the Ministers Priests and the Sacrament a Sacrifice Blame not men that had read of their principles and practice how Rome is a Leech that must live on blood and cannot stand without it if they were afraid of coming thither again or drawing too near it Upon my knowledg the debauchery and malignity of many that hunted them and would not let them stay at home in peace and the terror of two hundred thousand murdered in Ireland was it that drove most that ever I knew into the Parliaments Army And fear doth often drive men to seek for self-defence to that which seemeth next at hand Had those whom they feared been such as their functions obliged them to be men of Holiness Love and Peace they would have been less prejudiced against the rest they bore easily with Dr. Chappel Mr. May●en and some other godly charitable men that were reputed Arminians I here adjoin it to my confessions 1. That I thought worse of that called Arminianism than I should have done and have proved in my Catholick Theology not yet writ against by any that I know of that the difference is not in any great and intolerable error on either side 2. That the practice of them that prophaned the Lords day and the malignity of their abettors made me too much offended at the books that called the Lords day no Sabbath and the Ministers Priests and the Table an Altar and the Sacrament a Sacrifice For I now know that these allegorical Names were usual with the best of the ancient Churches without contradiction And that the Lords Day is indeed never called the Sabbath in the New Testament and that the word Sabbath in the Bible signifieth a day of ceremonial Rest which was a Jewish Ceremony and that all such are by Paul said to be put down and that the Lords Day is a day of holy Assemblies and rejoicing in spiritual Evangelical Worship Ignorance and prejudice in these controversies prevailed not from argument but from the experience of the quality of too many that opposed them They thought it a most improbable thing that God should illuminate vicious worldly haters of Godliness and desert those that most desired to please him And of late times what abundance have been driven from the publick Churches by those that rail at them when they come there and would get the Birds into their Net by throwing stones and bawling at them and would get the fish to take the bait by beating the Waters The Bishop of Worcesters silencing me and preaching as he did and the imprisonment of many of the people after affected my old hearers with so much distast of that sort of men that all the Writings and perswasions I could use would not reconcile them nor scarce keep them from falling out with me for my perswasions And now they have a Worthy Pious preaching Bishop a Man of Love and Peace and a good Minister they all crowd the Church and are like to fall in love with such Bishops And I must testifie that with the generality of the Nonconforming Laity I never found but it was good preaching and good living that won their Love And they will honour and follow such men whether Bishops Conformists or Nonconformists XV. Since the writing of this I understand that some timerous persons have been afraid to communicate in publick or joyn with the Liturgy by hearing that some that have done it have been so troubled in Conscience that they have fallen into despair and a doleful state of trouble To this I answer 1. You shall never prove that I have perswaded any Minister to give Christs body and blood as a Drench to the unwilling or to make the Sacrament of Love the Instrument of Malice or Cruelty or a snare to strangle Souls It must be that Offence must come but wo to them by whom it cometh The old Church made men beg for Church-Communion if any withdraw from it and excommunicate themselves they did not send them to Goal for their Conversion to force them to say that they repent and to force them to Communion 2. But I must say that these Ministers or people that have so ill taught these troubled Souls by Doctrine or Example as to tempt them to take their Duty or a lawful thing for so deadly a sin are far from being guiltless of their Trouble Distraction or Destruction If any should make them believe that it were such a dangerous thing to pray by a Book to sing Davids Psalms to Communicatie with Presbyterians not to be rebaptized not to keep the Saturday Sabbath c. And then when he hath affrighted one to make away himself in melancholy despair should use this instance as an argument to affright away others also from their duty I should think that he were too blame This were

Pastors with the publick Ministers and lived in Love and Communion with them The People were not by the new Law cast out with the Ministers Most of the people in the 2000 Parishes of the ejected and almost all in the other 7000 who before communicated or were ca●able of it continuing the Parish Communion And so are Churches if they were so before XVIII The generality of the former Protestant Bishops and Clergy took the Parish Rectors to be true Pastors of the Parish Churche● as Bishop Usher proved them The Church of England is confessed to be of this mind before the Wars It is not certain that Arch-Bishop Laud thought otherwise If he did Hey●n names but five that joyned with him in his main cause of whom Mountague if not more were for the contrary cause in this point XIX They then took a Curate to be a Pastor and to have all that is essential to the Presbyters Office And to be a Presbyter and no Pastor is a Contradi●tion in the sense of Protestants and Papists except what is said for Lay-E●ders In France they call all their Parish-Pastors Curates the word sig●ifieth the Curam animarum XX. No Law since 166● hath changed any essentials of the Parish-Pastors O●●nce and so none hath nulled it from what it was in 1640. They that affirm the contrary must prove it The Law before subjected Parish-Pastors to Diocesans It imposed the Oath of Canonical Obedience and a promise of the same in Ordination It was the same to the Ecclesiastical Courts as now If any pretend to such singular skill in Law as to say that there was no Law for the Book of Ordination which made the ordained to Covenant to obey their Ordinaries nor any Law for the Canons I hope he will have more reason than to lay the controversie about Separation on his odd conceit when all the People in England have in the days of the four last Soveraigns been forced to submit to these as Legal and no such pretender could at any time deliver them Books have been written and Pleas used against submitting to the Courts that declared not that they held their Authority from the King but the Judges still over-ruled it against them And they that profest to hold it from the King did many if not most mean but the Liberty of publick exercising it as the Ministry is held under him or the adjunct Cogent Power or the Circa sacra XXI The Law enableth the Parish-Minister to receive into the Church by Baptism tho under canonical Prescripts which Dissenters much dislike and to Catechize Youth and certifie their fi●ness for Confirmation before they Communicate It bindeth them to reject all from Communion who are not confirmed or at least are not ready and desirous of it it tells us who is to be taken for ready Those that have learnt the Catechism and solemnly own their Baptismal Covenant The Pastor hereby hath Power to try all the unconfirmed whether they are thus ready or not The Canon requireth him to deny Communion to all that live in any scandalous Sin The Law and Canon bid him to instruct the Congregation to lead them in publick Worship and in the Name of Christ to Reprove Admonish Comfort Administer the Lord Supper Visit the Sick with Instruction and Prayers All which with the aforesaid Power of judging who shall be Communicants is full as much as is Essential to a Parish-Pastor Solemnly to pronounce them Excommunicate beside refusing Communion is not Essential If it were they have Power to do it after the Bishops Sentence If it were Essential to do it as ungoverned or finally or without appeal then Apostolick yea and Magistrates Government would null the Pastors Office XXII The altering some words in Ordination and putting out the name Pastors from most places in the Litturgy where they were applied to Parish-Ministers is no change at all of the Office much less of its essence It takes no Power from them which they had But it was done by the interest of some men who thought that Presbyters who swore the three Kingdoms against Bishops had taken too much upon them and in opposition they endeavoured to keep them under and so would diminish their pretences for Parity But this changeth not the Species of the Office And it s known who these men were And tho some of them are of Opinion that Diocesan Bishops only may regularly confer Ordination and exercise Jurisdiction over the Clergy and that meer Presbyter Ordination with us is null 1. These same men had a chief hand in debating and wording the Kings Declarations October 1661. Concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs and therein the King after debates with Lords and Bishops distinguisheth the meer Pastoral preswasive Power from the Episcopal which is Cogent and alloweth the Rural Deans with the Presbyters of his Deanry to exercise the said Pastoral perswasive Power and the other Pastors also to joyn with the Bishops And the Law still calls them Rectors The Liturgy yet calls them Past●rs the word Pastors being a Metaphor they take to be general Bish●ps and Priests being with them two Orders of Pastors Therefore because it doth not distinguish them they usually leave it out and put sometime Bishops and Curates and sometime Bishops Priests and Deacons The common description of a Bishop by them is that he hath the sole Power of presiding and determining in Ordination and Jurisdiction s●ne quo non oft alledging Jeroms Quid facit Episcopus quod non facit Presbyter excepta Ordinatione And yet the Law still binds them not to ordain without Presbyters Imposition of hands with them And Arch-Deacons and Presbyters Surrogates c. Excommunicate And in the Ember-week they are every day to pray by the Liturgy So guide and govern the minds of thy Servants the Bishops and Pastors of thy Fl●ck that they may lay hands suddenly on no man Where Bishops and Pastors cannot be taken for Synonyma whilst they speak of all that lay on hands And they distinguish not Pastors and Curates where they change the words but Bishops and Curates But nothing more proveth what I say than that the Law yet bindeth all Priests to all that is essential to an Episcopus Gregis a Pastor of a particular Church see the Exhort in Ord. of Priests We exhort you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you have in remembrance into how high a dignity and to how weighty an office and charge ye are called that is to say to be Messengers Watchmen and Stewards of the L●rd to teach and to premonish to feed and provide for the Lords Family to seek for Christs Sheep that are dispersed abroad and for his Children who are in the midst of this naughty world that they may be saved by Christ for ever have always therefore printed in your remembrance how great a treasure is committed to your charge for they are the sheep of Christ which he bought c. The Church and Congregation whom you

destroy it but their sin may consist with the true office that is hindred If we cannot pray without penalty we are yet bound to pray And if any such penalties should prevail with any Ministers to cast off so much of Discipline as is indeed their duty their office is so far destroyed as to its exercise But it is not every ill Council Canon Bishop or Priest of old when they began to be corrupted that changed and nullified the Pastoral Power and Office as from Christ I have repeated things over and over here because I would not be misunderstood nor leave a snare behind me to mislead men The sum again is 1. The Pastoral Office in specie is instituted by Christ and his Spirit therefore the essence of it is unchangeably fixed by him and no Bishops or Churches may change it by pretending they may give Presbyters as their servants what degree or kind of power they please or make the office another thing II. The said office in mutable accidents or circumstances may be altered by Princes Laws or the several Churches Agreements and thus far it is humane Of the Divine sort was the Apostolick and other extraordinary Prophetick offices And the ordinary Presbytery commonly called Priesthood and Elders setled over particular Churches were Episc●pi Gregis Bishops over the flock And of the humane sort is the Presidency of one in every single Church over the rest of the Presbyters who was the Episcopus Presbyterorum a Bishop over the Presbyters of one single Church as well as over the people This was the old Episcopacy of the first three Centuries this is it which I say our Diocesans have put down and we that would have them restored and would have such a Bishop and Assistant Elders in every Church are by the heighth of impudency said to be against Bishops because we would have them restored to each Church tho not as essential to it as hath been thought of old yet as a way of peace to comply with Ant●quity and avoid singularity and they that put down many score or hundred Bishops and instead of them would have but one call themselves Episcopal III. Whether Arch-bps Diocesans as successors of the Apostles in the ministerial care of many Churches by the word and not the sword be of Divine or Human Institution I am in doubt IV. The cogent Power by the Sword is only the Magistrates and if Diocesans appropriate this only they are Magistrates and thereby take none of our office from us V. The ●ssence of the Parish ministerial oversight being of God de specie and the accidents that are mutable from man the existence of the office in individual persons is not without consent of the Pastors so that no man can be a Pastor against or without his will nor yet without a capacity in qualifi●ati●n so that if you prove any person to be uncapabl● or else to have truly disclaimed and renounced the essentials of his office I am not about to perswade you that such a man is a true Pastor VI. But then we must know that indeed it is such an incapacity or renunciation and not a tollerable defect nor subscriptions and Oaths which by unseen consequences may seem to renounce it when the man took them in a sense which renounced it not For tho such a man may greatly sin by taking Oaths or subscriptions in a forced sense which plainly taken would infer worse yet his sin is not a renunciation of the office if he declare that he meant it in a better sence and took it on such mistake for we must not for bare words against mens meaning quibble or dispute our selves into unwarrantable separations out of Christian Communion especially when it is specially necessary VII And if any lay-men or men unauthorized will usurp the Keys or any Councils will make hurtful Canons and hinder men in the work appointed by God we must be faithful and patient and God in due time will judg and decide all causes justly VIII The office-power is essentially related to the work so far as Parochial Incumbents are allowed the work as of Christ they are acknowledged to be Pastors and Bishops of the flocks tho the name were denied them and so far as the Bishops office may be delegated to Lay-men or to Clergy-men of another Order so far it is Humane and not proper to them by Gods Institution They therefore that say All Diocesans Jurisdiction may be so delegated to them that are no Bishops but that the Pastoral Rectorship by Word Sacraments and Keys cannot be delegated to any men that are not of the same office do thereby say as much as that the Diocesan government is of men and may be changed by men but the Pastoral Incumbency is of Christ and cannot be changed The Lord that instituted it protect it and save it from Satans most dangerous assault which is by getting his own servants into it by error and malignity and strife and cruelty to do his work as the Ministers of Righteousness and as by Christs Authority and in his name London Aug. 13. 1684. POSTSCRIPT Aug. 25. 1684. HE that gave me notice of this Book which I answer did withall send me a Manuscript to be privately answered containing the very same things but somewhat enlarged His displeasure against my former mention of his private Writings to me and the Contents made me confident that he would not have any thing Published which I should answer to his last By which I found my self in a notable strait For if he at once privately sent me his reasons and also in another Book Printed them if I should answer his private papers which reason forbad me doing in my condition for his use alone I should judg my self forestalled from answering the Printed Book because the matter being the very same and 't is likely by the same man I should be supposed to have broken the Laws of Civility to have answered his private papers But having no Amanuensis or Scribe to take any Copy of his papers or my own I thought it the best way to return his unanswered they being Written for my use which Reading will as fully serve as answering them but supposing the Printed papers must be answered I inserted also an answer to the strength of all his additionals in the Manuscript And at last he giveth me some notice of his thoughts of publishing the Manuscript or a vindication of it Which falls well for the Readers use that I have answered that Manuscript before it is Published without taking notice of it and s● avoiding wordy altercations The Author professeth himself my great acquaintance Who he is I know not but he seemeth to be a very rational sober man God forbid that I should ever contribute unless duty do it accidentally to the grievance of such men I doubt not but he speaketh as he thinketh And I doubt I have given him occasions by some uncautelous words in my writings I

Nation into his Church as a Hen gathereth her Chickens under her Wings And Rom. 11. Only their own unbelief broke them off from being a National Church including Infants And it is part of the Saints triumph that the Kingdoms of the World are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ If you will read Mr. Beverlys Book called The whole duty of Nations it will give you full proof of this Where hath the Gospel extensively much prospered where Princes and Rulers were not Christians The Turks give liberty of Religion And yet the sometime famous Greek Churches Corinth Philippi Coloss Ephesus Laodicea Philadelphia and more than all the West are Apostatized or withered to a few ignorant vicious scandalous Christians Obj. IV. 8. If such a confederation in lawful Circumstantials as well as Integrals will make a Church I know not why we may not have a Catholick Visible Church organized if this be a due acception of a Church Ans This is as much as to say If the name Church may be used equivocally as all words must of several sorts then all those sorts may be the same I deny it If you dislike the use of the name you have your liberty as a Grammarian to forbear it But sure the Name and the Thing are not all one nor the Controversies about them 2. But we have a Catholick Visible Church Organized as I have oft proved against the Papists viz. under one Christ the Head and his Ministers as his subordinate Officers Obj. V. Page 3. If you touch a mans finger you touch the man we have communion with an integrum perpartes and with a Genus by the Species and with both by individuals Nay as every part of the Scripture one verse or sentence of it makes up sence so every part of the Liturgy as in form and manner therein contrived is Liturgy and worship thereafter is according to the Liturgy tho it be but part of the w●rship Page 20. As for the falseness in Integrals it gives the denomination to the whole for an Integral part is an essential part of the whole Much more there is to the same purpose making him guilty of all that useth a part Ans 1. You have the freedom of using words at your pleasure but not imposing them on mankind when necessity hath taught the World to distinguish essential and integral parts you have no authority to confound their Language by the quibble of calling Integrals essential causes of the whole A totum per aggregationem as a heap of Sand or a field of Grass is not constituted of a proper essentiating form and so homogeneous matter aggregate is all the being it hath And if you make contiguity an essential cause or how else you will you have liberty of speech But we will not be cheated by it to believe that it causeth any more than Totality or Integrality and the absence of it is a privation of no more And all mens Graces Obedience and Worship are defective in point of Integrality and degree and I hope you will not say that they need no favour or pardon or amendment 2. All human actions have their faults must we therefore do nothing or converse with no men England is one Kingdom If there be one or many faults in its Laws or officers may we therefore obey none that are faultless The Laws are the Rule of National Justice may a Judg Justice Officer or subject use none of them because some are faulty Doth that make him guilty of all Bonum est ex causis integris The fault of a part may indeed denominate the whole faulty so far But the whole Law or Liturgy may be called faulty for a part and yet he that useth either not be guilty of any of the bad part for using the good The Law and Liturgy are one thing and the use is another Its faults are no further his than he owneth them your Bread or Meat may be called bad if part only be bad and yet if you eat none but the good part it will not hurt you 2. But if it must be otherwise no man may hear you or joyn with your Churches And do you think as aforesaid that Mr. Faldo and all his Church at Barnet lived not in a sinful communion very many years that omitted at least an integral part of publick worship the singing of Gods praise Christ with his Disciples sung a Hymn after the Sacrament The Jews Church made it the chief part of their Worship James prescribeth it us in all our Holy Mirth such as the Lords Day is appointed for 1 Cor. 14.26 Every one had a Psalm and with them no one had a Psalm tho his Judgment was for it the question was Whether he should forsake them for refusing it I thought not because it was better that they had something that was good than nothing But your argument would not only unchurch them but make all sinners that communicated with them for omissions of great duties are faults and greater faults than tolerable failings in performance He that prayeth not at all doth worse than he that prayeth by a Book and he that preacheth or teacheth not at all doth worse than he that readeth a Sermon so that their total stated omission and opposition to singing by your false rule denominated them no worshippers of God if the whole must be denominated from a part How many private Meetings in London never sing a Psalm for fear of being discovered Yea how many seldom read a Chapter but only preach and pray and sometime administer the Sacrament Must we needs say therefore that they omit all Worship VI. On such occasions I argued That if we must not communicate with any Parish Church because of the faults of the Liturgy it will follow that we must not communicate with any Church on Earth that hath as great faults and that by this we must renounce Communion with all Christs Body on Earth All the Armenians Nestorians Eutychians Copties Abassines Georgians Greeks Russians Papists yea Lutherans have a more faulty Liturgie or manner of worship than the English Yea the Churches called Calvinists have their Liturgies and faults And I instanced in Switzerland because as God hath of late most preserved their peace so they are taken to be the honestest sort of Protestants that in poverty serve God with soundest doctrine and least scandal of Life but yet have no proper discipline but the Magistrates Is it a sin to have confederacy or Communion with their Churches To this he plainly saith Page 11. It is That is all that confederate with them as Churches are guilty of their error called Erastian For subjection t● such discipline is the condition of their Communion Ans Subjection is an equivocal word If it were by profession or subscription of consent it were indeed to be guilty of that error tho not by a fau●t of the Part denominating the whole to make their worship unlawful or their Churches none but

if by subjection you mean but joyning in their Churches as Christian and Protestant for doctrine and worship notwithstanding the defect which they cannot help yea which they disclaim bare accusation will not prove this a sin but by this we see how much of Christs Church you are for separating from 2. For my part I have oft published That it is not the least part of my charge against Popery that they unchurch almost all the Christian World save themselves But yet they are about a 4th or 3d part of professed Christians themselves and divers of them do not unchurch the Greeks But to unchurch or forbid Communion with all that are as faulty as the Helvetians and all other Protestant Churches that have Liturgies or partial faults is that which I dare not be guilty of I think that to say That a thousand parts to one of Christs Church are none of his Churches is next to deposing him from his Kingdom Much like as it would be to say no part of London is the Kings but Amen Corner nor any part of England but Barnet or Brentford 3. And is it not one of our just accusations of the Papists That they say all the Protestant Churches are no true Churches and the Ministers no true Pastors and that Communion with them is unlawful and shall we now justifie them and say as they tho not on the same Reason but for a far smaller difference Is this our running from Popery 4. Yea is it not the great thing that we accuse the superconformists for That they make us to be no true Ministers or Churches and are we indeed of the same mind One side saith We are no true Ministers for want of Bps. Ordination c. Another side saith You are no true Ministers for having Communion with the Bishops and Churches c. VII I mentioned the Judgment and Practise of the old Nonconformists and Presbyterians not as a rule but as a comparative example To this he saith p. 11. You and they might as well own the Church of England in the form and constitution as it is established as the Parish churches to be particular Gospel churches c. P. 12. To say you join with a quatenus and own not the very constitution and standing of the church with which you join in the sense the church asserts it is the greatest equivocation in practice that is The old Nonconformists nor you are to be no presidents to us in this case So far as the old Nonconformists and the old reforming conformists went forward with Reformation to bring the church out of the wilderness we honour them but when they turn back again and entice the people so to do we are afraid to tempt God in that manner P. 14. Those ●ld Nonconformists that did so are no presidents to 〈◊〉 If they halted and were lame must we be so such communicants are not acceptable to any Church and I know what Church would never admit them were it not to punish and expose them and their profession as ridiculous and inconsistent with its self And as for FRENCH and DUTCH what are they to us c. P. 16 He calls Mr. Fenns joining in the Liturgy with exception of some part The sul●en practice of a half-paced doting Nonc●nformist Ans First to the Cause and secondly to the Persons 1. To call any practice Equivocation or by any ill name is no proof that it is so nor is here a word of true proof given us I ask the Considerate Is it in the power of a Law-maker to make all Worship and Duty to God unlawful by commanding to do it for an unlawful end or upon false principles What if a Law said All people shall worship God not because the Scripture commandeth it but because the State commands it Would this make it unlawful to worship God I would disown the Principle and go on What if the Law should say The Pastoral Office is not of Divine Right but humane must the office therefore be renounced And why can such a Law any more bind me to judg of Church-constitutions by the Lawmakers words rather than by Gods Word Suppose that the Anabaptists say That rebaptizing is the true way of Church-gathering Is it a sin to communicate with them if they will receive me when I profess the contrary I am against the Covenant which you defend as making an Independent Church Is it therefore a sin to communicate with them because it is not as constituted by that Covenant What do Parties more differ in of late than Forms Orders Modes and Circumstances of Church Government and if they be of many contrary minds were it twenty there can be but one of them in the right And is it unlawful to join with all the rest Must we needs be sure which of these is in the right Almost all the Churches that I hear of in the world have their agreed professions published the Protestants are gathered in the Corpus confessionum the English Church Principles and Orders are expressed in the Book of Canons the Liturgy Ordination the 39 Articles the Homilies the Apology c. Must every one stay from their Churches till he hath read and understood all these Books and be sure that there is no fault or error in them What if it be poor men or women that cannot buy all these books and what if they cannot read whom shall they get to read them all and how shall they have time to study them or capacity to understand them when we can hardly get them to learn a Catechism and anderstand it You will say That is their crime that make all these Confessions and Books They will answer but that 's none of our fault We made them not and yet must we not communicate with any Church that maketh such The old Separatists called Brownists published their confession and therein owned many Parish Churches in England and Communion with them I recited their words in my Reasons c. But you are gone beyond them The New England churches printed their confession and all there agreed not to it The English Independents published their Principles and Confessions And the Presbyterians and they agreed in the Westminster Synods confession catechism and Directory Is every poor Man and Woman bound to stay from all their churches when for 14 years they had no other till they understand all these and know that they are faultless Or if there be any fault in any one of all these books is every one guilty of them that cometh to the churches The Anabaptists published their confession The Dutch have theirs Many churches agreed with them in the Synod of Dort The French have theirs the Saxons the Helvetians Geneva the Bohemians the Protestants in general had the Augustane and many more have theirs Reader See with whom these Writers will hold communion who make it unlawful to join with any church that have any fault in their constitutions or agreed Doctrines or Orders