Clergy will but forbid them See I beseech you worthy Country-men what sort of men and Doctrine you have to do with § 52. And why doth the man talk only against different practice Doth he not know that Government commandeth duty as well as forbiddeth the contrary Is not Omission against Government as well as Commission If the King command Taxes Military service c. may we disobey and call it Passive obedience What if the Bishops only forbid us to confess Christ to come to Church to Pray to give Alms to do any good May we forbear sobeit we do not the contrary Doubtless if Gods Word and Authority may not be pleaded for any duty which God commandeth and the Prelates forbid neither may it be pleaded for the Omission of any Villany commanded by Prelates no not Inquisition Torments or Massacres which God forbids But this man hath the Gramatical skill to call Omissive obedience by the name of Passive § 53. It 's like he will next say that I make odious suppositions That the supreme Church-power may command any Villanies and forbid Christian duties Ans. 1. I despair of getting any of these designers to tell me which is the Supreme Universal Church-power so as to be well understood I never heard of any pretenders but Pope and General Councils and as Bishop Guning holds the Colledg of all the Bishops in the world And certainly Pope and Councils have set up Heresies and decreed even the exterminating of all that will not dis-believe all their senses and deny Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine They have decreed deposing Kings absolving Subjects from their Allegiance adoring Images c. And what is it that yet they may not do If they say with Peter If all men deny thee I will not how shall I know that they say true Doth not the Church of England tell us that Councils have erred c § 54. And be not these very honest Sons of the Church of England that affirm it irreconcilable to Government to alledg Divine Authority of any different practices without exception and at the same time to Subscribe to Art 21.19.6.18 of the sufficiency of Scripture That the Churches of Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome have erred in matters of Faith That the Church may not Ordain any thing contrary to Gods Written Word That General Councils may err and have erred and that things Ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the holy Scripture And those are accursed that presume to say that every man may be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth And why not if he must do all that the Governours require or nothing divers to them § 55. My Reason forbids me to trace such a Writer as this any further To tell men of every vain Harangue and confident discourse that 's full of gross error or false report is work unworthy of time and labour but I will a little more open the Coar of his deceit CHAP. V. Wherein Mr. Dodwell's deceits and the danger of them do consist § 1. AS to his Method of disputing that you may detect his fallacies he hath got this absurd ptetence p. 90. That there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to have skill in Causes Ans. Would you have thought that ever a man should publickly use such a Cothurnus among the Learned What a man is obliged to mean is one thing and what he doth mean is another And is there any one that knoweth what humane Language is that knoweth not that almost all words have various significations Doth he not know by how good reason the Schools oblige Disputants first to explain their Terms And what need there is of Definition to explain them He instanceth in the words Bishops and the Church of England And might have added the Catholick Church And doth he not know that it is the species of Bishops that we differ about and will the general name here explain each parties sense When we are for one sort of Bishops and against another And is it not such fraud as souls should not be abused by to refuse wilfully to define the Episcopacy that he meaneth and then plead that all should understand him And why is it not as much ignorance in him not to understand me as in me not to understand him when I use distinct explication which he obstinately refuseth And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet's case shame what he saith of the Church of England who was hardly brought to explain it and at last denieth the very being of the Church in Mr. Dodwell's sense which of you was to blame to meddle with the Word till you had skill in Causes to understand it without a Definition And doth not Dr. Stillingfleet take it as the Introduction of Popery to hold a Constitutive Regent Church-Government National or Catholick and so he and Mr. Dodwell mean not the same thing by the Church Catholick nor Bishop Guning Mr. Thorndike or the Church of Rome who are all for an Universal humane Supreme power And who is he that hath read Dr. Challoners Credo Eccles. Cathol Chillingworth Bishop Mortons Grand Imposture Bishop Bilson Dr. White Dr. Whitaker Dr. Sutliffe Bishop Andrews Bishop Carlton c. Chamier Sadeel Melancthon Bucer c. who knoweth not that the Papists and Prorestants by the name of the Catholick Church do mean several things and that we deny the very being of any such Church as they call the Catholick And is this the bold and happy Disputant that will save the Schools and World the labour of explaining Terms and foreagreeing of the sense and put men on disputing where the Subjâ—ct is denied and fill a Book with tedious confident Harangues and then hide all the fraud by saying that there is but one sense of all Terms which Causes oblige mâ—n to mean and that every one ought to know who pretend to have skill in Causes When the Cause disputed is only managed by words as they signifie the minds of the Speakers about the real matters § 2. And as to the material fundamental difference between Mr. Dodwell's party and us it lyeth in these following things I. We totally differ about the nature of Gods Government of man II. And about the use of the Holy Scripture and Gods Laws III. About the nature and extent of all humane Government IV. About the form of moral good and evil V. About the essential form of the Catholick Church VI. About Gods ordinary means of saving Grace VII About the use of Preaching VIII About the duty of worshipping God in Sacred Assemblies or the Communion of Saints IX About the difference of Apostles and the office of the Bishops X. About the office of a Presbyter or Parish-Pastor XI About the Necessaries to Ministry Churches Christianity and ordinary title to Salvation XII And
the worst oft carried the possession and Councils themselves were for divers whih was the Episcopal communion 3. Is communion and subjection all one with him or divers If divers I have communion with many Bishops that I am not subject to If the same how many must each man be subject to and in what order and cases 4. Communion is 1. mental or local and the first 1. In essentials 2. Integrals 3. Accidents of Christianity I have communion with all Christians in Essentials with the best in most integrals with none in all nor in all accidents 4. I am more secure in the mental communion of many Bishops than of some one and of All in Essentials and certain things than of some one in suspected things especially in universal communion with Christ and his whole Church 2. He that hath no communion with any true Bishops of Gods institution in his judgment will and profession hath no communion with Christs Church But if they are 1. of a false species 2. incapable 3. unordained 4. obtruders not consented to by the Clergy and the Flock it 's safest to disown them 5. And â—f they turn wolves thorns and thistles or hereticks 2. It 's dangerous to refuse communion with the true Episcopi Gregis but not with such as depose them 3. And its doubtful as to the Episcopi Episcoporum 1. It 's but deceit to distinguish only ordinary and extraordinary in speaking of the necessity of means The Gospel written or preached is an ordinary means which to want is hazardous indeed so is meditation prayer and sacraments where they may well be had and Pastors to administer them But there are many lesser means that may be wanting or ignorantly refused where salvation is safe The Church of England thinks preaching to be such which forbiddeth men to go for Preaching and from a bare Reader in his own Parish And the Indians converted by Frumentius and Edesius might have certain salvation before they had any Pastor And so may they that cannot know among contenders which is the true Pastor either as to the species or individual But 2. Comunion in every lawful thing is no ordinary requisite means of salvation Mark Reader that he said that suffer themselves to be excluded from Communion by such Governours for refusing submission to unsinful things And Dr. Saywell Bishop Gunnings Chaplain and this man make such refusal and schism damnable Now mark here how they make all indifferent imposed things consequently necessary to salvation and make all such indifferences to be Articles of faith or necessary to salvation to be believed E.g. if Organs the Cross in Baptism Surplices Church-images Exorcisms and five hundred such be indifferent and commanded by the Bishop he that is excommunicated for not conforming to them or withdraweth for it is a damnable Schismatick Ergo it is necessary to salvation to conform to every one of them in that case Ergo it 's necessary to salvation to hold them to be lawful or else to use them while I verily take them to be sins To what a mass now have these men brought the Aâ—ticles or necessaries to salvation Doth any living man know all lawful things to be such 1. Then in Abassia where there is but one Abuna Bishop local Communion with him is impossible to most 2. And how is the Patriarch of Alexandria who ordaineth him of that Place that is another Kingdom 2. Then in one Place-Communion with Papists in another with Greeks Moscovites Abisines Armenians c. is necessary in unsinful things 3. Who will judg but the Excommunicator what is unsinful as to his act 4. What a case were men in at Rome under Formosus Stephen Sergius Eugenius 4. Iohn 12. and 22. c. and at Alexandria under Peter Meletius Paulinus Flavianus and so oft in other Schisms and Nullities 5. The Novatians and Ioannites had the ordinary means of salvation in Constantinople under separate Pastors But it 's true that the ordinary means are confined to the visible Church and its external Communion where it may be had Of which more anon 1. Some think that if God had only commanded men to love him call upon him hate sin seek life eternal without an express promise one might be sure it should not be done in vain 2 But God hath expresly promised salvation to all that truly love trust and obey him and seek first Gods Kingdom and are pure in heart holy and love all men though they were excommunicate for not crossing subscribing or thinking Diocesans unlawful Chap. 3. The Promises of God and his Covenant on his part are all one Those that God promiseth to save shall certainly be savâ—d who those are the Gospel fully tâ—lls us yea and told men before the particular Churches were fixed under their proper Pastors called Elders and Bishops in the Scripture 3 Transaction is an ambiguous word 1. It was transacted by making the promise by Christ on Earth 2. It is transacted by giving the consenting penitent Believer a Right before God to Christ and salvation when he first truly so consenteth 3. It is transacted by a solemn Mâ—nisterial Investiture sealing and delivering that Right for the fuller comfort of the consenter and in soro Ecclesiae to give the Right of external Communion as a Tessara when the person is baptizâ—d 4. It is transacted by renewed confirmation and for further grace daily in the Eucharist I love not to offend you but I must be true to truth and souls and therefore tell men that these Generals and Confusions are but Cheats 3. Would you have men believe that external solemnities are necessary to the Right of Heart Covenanters before God as to salvetion Or that all external solemnities are of the same necessity The Church of England takes Confirmation to de an external solemnity for assuring men of Gods favour by the sign of Imposition of a Diocesans hands and yet bind you to profess that it is not necessary to salvation but the baptized Infants are certainly and undoubtedly saved without it Litanies Processions and many external solemnities are not essential to external Communion with the visible Church Chap. 8 O tremendous Is it no other Is not the universal visible Church consisting of all professed Christians Headed only by Christ the only universal Church visible in the world Is there no Communion with this as such Had the baptized Eunuch by Philip the Evangelist no Communion with the visible Church nor promise of salvation nor the Iberians Indians and many others that were baptized before they knew or had a Bishop Do not baptizing Presbyters and Lay-men say Turtullian and the Papists assure men of salvation though they should not hear of a Bishop Why was not Diocesan Episcopacy in the Creed if the belief and obedience be necessary to salvation a 1. 1. Apostles and Evangelists took men into the visible Communion of the universal Church before they had particular Church-Bishops 2. Fixed Church-Communion was exercised universally under
about the final Judgment If all these be little tollerable differences why may not we be tollerated If not judg Reader who they be that are intollerable when you hear them plead against tolleration § 3. I. For the first we judg that there is a God who is the Governour of the World by an universal Law which is above all humane Laws or will and that he is the fountain of all power and there is none but what he giveth and limiteth and that no man is above him nor hath true authority against his Laws But Mr. Dodwell saith That it is irreconcileable to Government in this life or to due subordination of subjects to superiours to practice differently and defend it by pretending Divine authority and appealing to writings Scriptures is our word by excellency so called And so God shall be God and be obeyed if the Clergy please § 4. II. As to the second we suppose that the Holy Scriptures are Gods Laws indited and recorded by the Holy Ghost to be the first obliging Rule of Faith and holy living which all men are to be obedient to before and against all contrary Laws of men But Mr. Dodwell as aforesaid alloweth no such prime obligation as will warrant an appeal to the Word of God from the visible Church-Governours that contradict it § 5. III. And for the third we suppose that all humane Powers are derived from God and have no authority but what he giveth them and are more under him and his Laws than the Justices are under the King and his Laws and can oblige no man against the Laws of God But how far Mr. Dodwell thinks otherwise you have heard He saith not indeed that we must break Gods Laws but we must not pretend them or appeal to them against our Governours In charity I hope he meaneth no worse but that we must take our Rulers word or exposition and judg nothing to be in the Scripture contrary to their commands And whether he give them the same dominion also over the Law of Nature let him tell you Paul disclaimed dominion over mens saith and the written Law of God § 6. IV. And for the fourth We take moral good to be a conformity to Gods Law and moral evil or sin to be a breach of it But Mr. Dodwell is for measuring them by the Clergies or Governours will though Gods Law be against theirs § 7. V. And for the fifth we take the Catholick Church to have no Supreme Government but God and our Glorified Redeemer God and man and that there is no such thing as a Catholick-Church of Gods making under any other Supreme Rulers But that as God is the invisible King of this visible world and Kings are subordinate Supremes in their Kingdom but neither one of them or many conjunct in an Aristocracy Supreme over all the earth so Christ is the partly visible and partly invisible supreme Ruler of the visible Church of Christians and each Pastor is under him over his proper flock bound to keep concord and peace but none under him Supreme over all whether Monarch as the Pope or Aristocracy as Councils Cardinals or ' others But Mr. Dodwell is for a visible Society with a visible humane Supreme But who the Supreme is I despair of getting him to acquaint us § 8. VI. And for the sixth we suppose that God sent forth Preachers to convert the world and turn them from darkness to light and the power of Satan to God and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word preached and that whoever believeth shall be saved and the word of God is powerful to this end and sufficient to make us wise to salvation But Mr. Dodwell thinks that it is not Preaching but the delivering men the Sacraments that giveth them the first true saving grace and title to Salvation And that none in the world have this Sacrament or Covenant-title to life but those that receive it from a hand that had an Ordination by Bishops in his sense of uninterrupted succession from the Apostles by the like Ordination § 8. VII Accordingly we hold that Preaching is for the converting of souls and the means of saving faith and holiness But what he thinks it is good for I know not well nor whether he would send the Indians the Sacraments instead of Preachers § 10. VIII We take it to be our duty though men forbid us to confess Christ and assemble for Gods worship to read and hear the Scripture and to praise God But he thinks we must not practice differently from the ruling Clergies will if they forbid us nor alledg Divine authority for it § 11. IX We suppose that the office of a Prophetical Ministry bringing new Doctrines or Laws from God and the office of the Teachers and Rulers by these Laws are greatly different and must necessarily be distinguished Moses was a Prophetical Mediator in Legislation and he confirmâ—d his Mediation by uncontrouled Miracles The Prophets afterward came but on particular applicatory messages But the Priests and Levites as such were no Prophets nor had power to make any new additions or alterations of the Law but only to teach it the people and as guides apply it to their several cases so Christ and his Apostles commissioned to deliver and record all his Doctrines and Commands to the following ages did by the Holy Ghost Prophetically deliver to the world that body of Doctrine and Law which must rule them to the end and judg them and thus sealed and confirmed all by a multitude of uncontrouled Miracles but all following Bishops and Pastors are not to do the like nor add or alter nor are such Legislators being not Prophets nor workers of Miracles but only to teach and apply the Laws already recorded in Scripture and guide their Congregations in variable circumstances time place translations c. according to the general rules of Gods Law This is the truth But how much Mr. Dodwell equals the Bishops and Apostles and sets their words above the Scripture as to obligation you have seen before § 12. X. And as he giveth Bishops power to silence Presbyters and forbid the Preaching of the Gospel and Gods worship so how little knowledg or godliness or common sobriety or honesty he requireth to a saving Sacramenting Priest who must not be separated from you heard before contrary to Cyprian and many a Councils Canons But we know that Paul had no power to destruction but only to edification And they have no more § 13. XI We suppose that we must love honour and communicate with all such as true Ministers or Churches who have true faith and repentance and sincere obedience to Christs Laws and are able godly willing Pastors chosen or consented to by the flocks approved and ordained by senior Pastors especially in Synods where City-Pastors preside and especially if also authorized by the Christian Magistrate But he thinks if they have not also successivâ— Ordination from the Apostles by Bishops
Church-ruin to be devised than to suppose a more extensive Concord to be possible and necessary than indeed is and so to set up an impossible End and Means and to deny Concord and Peace to all that cannot have it on those terms If all should be denied to be the Kings Subjects who dare not profess Assent Consent and approbation of every law and part or word of the laws or that agree not of the meaning of every law or that differ in any matters of Religion what a Schism Confusion and Ruine would it unavoidably make in the Kingdom and how few Subjects would it leave the King Even as if none but men of the same stature visage or wit should be Subjects 4 The necessary Union and Concord of Christians is a matter of so great importance that it cannot be supposed that Christ is the sole Universal Lawgiver and yet hath not ordained or determined what shall be the terms of necessary Christian Unity and Concord And indeed he hath determined it Viz. I. He hath ordained Baptism himself to be our Christning or our visible Investiture in the Church Universal that is our Relation to Christ as the Head of his Universal Kingdom or Body And every rightfully baptized person till by violating that Covenant he forfeit his benefits is to be taken by us as a Member of Christ a Child of God and an Heir of Heaven and we are bound to love him as a brother and use him accordingly in all due Offices of Love And because the Church into which Baptism entereth us consists of Christian Pastors and People Apostles and Prophets having been as Foundations infallibly delivering us now recorded in Scripture the Word of Life and ordinary Pastors being appointed to teach and guide the people in holy Doctrine Worship and Conversation therefore it is implied that the baptized person at Age understandeth this and consenteth thereunto that is to receive as infallible the recorded sacred Doctrine of the infallible persons Apostles and Prophets and the ordinary Ministry of such ordinary Pastors and Teachers as he shall discern to be set over him by the Word and Spirit of Christ. Whether this consent to the Pastoral-Office be necessary to the Being of a Christian or only to the Well-being is a controversie with which I need not stop or lengthâ—n in this account But Baptism as such doth not enter us into any particular Church II. 1. Christ by himself and his â—pirit in the Apostles hath ordained that Christians shall be associated into particular Churches consisting of the aforesaid Ordinary Pastors and their Flocks for Personal Communion in holy Dâ—ctrine Worship and Conversation in all which these Pastors are their Guides according to the Laws or Word of Christ already delivered by the inâ—allible Ministry of the Apostles and Prophets against or beyond which Christ hath given them no power Their Office is of his own making and describing and their power to determine undetermined useful circumstances in Gods Worship and Church-discipline is but a power to obey Christs general commands to do all thingâ— in Love Peace Order Decency and to Edification which they may not violate 2. Every Christian that hath opportunity should be a Member of some such particular Church Statedly if it may be if not yet transiently But some may want such opportunity as single persons converted or cast among Infidels Travellers Embassadors Factors and other Merchants among Infidels or where Christianity is so corrupted by the Pâ—stors as that they will not allow men Communion without sinful Oaths Covenants Professions Words or Practices 3. No one at Age can be a Member of the Universal or of any particular Church and so the Subjâ—ct of that Pastor against his will or without his own consent however Antecedent Obligations may bind men to consent 4. Every such Church should have its proper Bishop and in Ignatius's time its Unity was describâ—d by One Altar and One Bishop with his fellow Presbyters and Deacons 5. Such Bâ—shops or Pastors were to be ordained by Senior Bishops or Pâ—stors and received by the Eâ—ection or Consent of the whole Church and for many hundred years no Churches received their Bishops on any other terms The Ordainers and the People or Church receiving him having each a necessary consent as a double Key for the security of the Church to which afterwards the Christian Magiâ—â—rates consent was added according to Gods word so far as protecting and countenancing of the Bishop did require The senior Bishops must consent to his Ordination the people must consent to him as formally related to themselves as their Pastor and the Magistrate as to one to be protected by him 6 As without mutual consent the relation of Pastor and flock is not founded so Gods Providence must direct every man to know what particular Church he should be of and whom by consent to take for the guide of his soul. In England men may freely chuse what Church and Pastor they will stand related to every man having liberty to dwell in what Parish or Diocess he please without asking leave of the Bishop to remove 7. The individuating or distinguâ—shing of particular Churches by peculiar Circuits or proper spaces of ground is no further of Gods institution than it is the performance of the general commands of doing all in order to edification c. And as in prosperous times under godly peaceable Princes it is greatly convenient and desirable so in several cases of Division Church-corruption by Heresie or Tyranny Persecution c. it is inconvenient and it becomes a necessary duty to gather Churches in the same space of ground where only some other Pastor had a Church before The cases in which this is lawful and the cases in which Separation is unlawful having written largely in another paper I shall offer it to you when you desire it 8. It is not of absolute necessity that all the members of a particular Church do always or usually meet in one place though it be very convenient and desirable where it may be done for Persecution may prohibit it or want of a large capacious place or the great dâ—stance of some of the Inhabitants or the age or weakness of others and therefore in the ancient Churches though at first they usually were all assembled in one place yet after when they encreased the Canons required all the people to assemble with the Bishop but at certain chief Festivals in the year having Chappels or Oratories in the Villages where they mâ—t on other days And with us many Parishes of great extent have many Chappels of ease 9. But that the end of the Association be not only for distanâ— communion by Delegates or Letters or meer relation to one common Ruler as all the Empire had to the Emperour but for PERSONAL COMMVNION of Pastor and Flock so that they may at least per vices meet together or live within the reach of each others personal notice and converse and Communion in
from Popery are 1. That it cherisheth Ignorance and I am sure that is the soil of all wickedness God Christ the Spirit and Scripture are Light and Satan is the Prince of Darkness 2. That it liveth like the Leech on blood hating and destroying the most holy persons who differ from them To these my Soul is unreconcilable I hate cruelty to Papists or Infidels much more to godly faithful persons that do hurt to none And I think I have convinced Mr. Dodwell himself that I am not inclined for the avoiding of Popery to run into any contrary Extreme nor to imitate them thaâ— ignorantly call Truth or harmless things Antichristian or Popish The name of Popery doth not affright me from any truth of God What I have written in many Books especially in the last part of my Catholick Theology and what censures I have suffered for it which never moved me to comply with the Censurers I think prove it I again and again profess That if the Papists or such as I now deal with would but prove that God ever made or allowed such a Church as they plead for in the world that is an Vniversal Church constituted or unified by any one Head or Supreme Governing pâ—râ— Monarchical or Aristocratical under Christ the Dispute whether it be Pope or Council or Cardinals or Colledge of Bishops in all the world shall not hinder me from a chearful and joyful declaring my self a Papist without partiality fear or shame in the sense that the word Papist hath still signified with such as I converse with These things I have taken the boldness to ask some of the greatest that on the fore mentioned terms appropriate the name of the Church of England to their Sect or Party and I could get no answer from them viz. Whether they took the Councils of Constance and Basil for Papists And whether they now take the Bishops and Church of France for Papists And whether they took Gerson Cusanus Cassander Erasmus for Papists or not 2. If yea What is the difference between the said Papists Church-Form and Government and that which these call the Church Catholick and Dispute for 3. If not Then is not the Controversie de nomine Whether the French Bishops and Church and the said Councils being of the same Form and Religion with the Church of England as called by these men ought to be called Papists or not And for that I shall strive with none Let every man call them as he seeth cause or if he will as they will call themselves Let them be Papists in France and Protestants in England I contend not for names But I wonder not at these Church-men if they unchurch the French Protestants and condemn their Ministry and Sacraments as none How else could their Persecution be justified And O that they would tell us what Churches they be that they live in communion with Whether the French Spanish Italian Greeks Nestorians Jacobites Copties Abassines be in their Communion or not If yea Whether the Reformed Churches be not as worthy of their communion If not whether the Church of England be all the Catholick Church in their account O that we could long more for God's righteous final Iudgment to which we appeal though Mr. Dodwell be against it and for the world of perfect Light and Love and Union Dated Septemb. 2. 1681. appointed a Publick Fast for the burning of London I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press I cast my eye on these Pag. 9. l. 19. for natures r. names p. 10. l. antep dele and. p. 11. l. antep r. is in p. 17. l. 1. for or r. over p. 5. l. 29. after excommunicating r. Christ's servants for not forsaking their faithful Pastors p. 10. l. ult for of r. by p. 16. l. 32. for our r. one p. 90. l. 12 r. temerity p. 139. l. 17. for by r. to pag. 151. l. 4. for by r. my c. THE CONTENTS A Late Letter of Mr. Dodwell's with the Answer written since the rest was printed Chap. 1. Of Mr. Dodwell's displeasure against me as if I accused him to be a Papist and wronged the Councils of Bishops p. 1. Chap. 2. His schismatical Church-destroying Scheme the sum of his great schismatical book confuted p. 7 Chap. 3. The consequents of Mr. Dodwell's foresaid Doctrine p. 21 Chap. 4. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell p. 27 What my assertion is of the cause of Church power p. 29. The contrary p. 32. The truth proved p 33 c. His objections answered p. 36. c. Bishops are of God p. 46. c. His sad qualification of Ministers p. 48. Preferring God is no wrong to Government p. 54. What succession we have p. 54. Of Aidan and Finans Episcopacy p. 57. His assertion of supreme Church-power from whom there is no appeal to Scripture to God or the life to come and whose intention is the measure of the power of all ordained by them examined p. 57 c. Whether the Church on earth be one visible society under one visible humane Government p. 59. Whether Divine Authority may not be pretended for practising contrary to some superiors p. 60 Chap. 5. Wherein Mr Dodwell's deceits and their danger lie p. 63. Whether there be but one sense of all terms which causes obliging men to mean all that have skill in causes are to understand p. 63. Twelve great doctrinal Articles in which we differ from Mr. Dodwell p. 65. Some questions put to him p. 68 His second Letter to me from Ireland p. 70. My Answer to it p. 75. proving the impossibtlity of just Discipline in the Diocesan way which I dissent from The short Answer to Mr. Dodwell's long Letter which Dr Sherlocke and Mr. Morrice extol which is fully answered in my Treatise of Episcopacy p. 90. A Letter sent to Mr. Dodwell Mar. 12 1681. A Letter to Mr. Dodwell Nov. 15. 1680. Anothâ—r to him of July 9. 1677. opening many of our chief differences p. 100. Another after a personal conference sent to him but returned because he was gone into the Country debating with him eleven of our great differences in which Mr. Dodwell may be known p. 118. An Account of my dissent from Dr. Sherlocke his Doctrine Accusations and Argumentation specially about the essence of the Universal a National and Single Church and the nature of Schism c. CHap. 1. The Historical Proem Chap. 2. My â—etter and Counsâ—l to Mr. Sherlocke many years ago advising him to expound or retract his words which seem to deny the three Articles of our Baptismal covenant our belief in God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost p. 162 His Answer p. 173 Chap. 3. Of the ill manner of these mens Confutations p. 174 Chap. 4. The main part of our difference viz. what is the essential form of the Catholick National and single Churches p. 182 Chap. 5. What is the
Catholick Church as described by Arch-Bishop Bramhall Bishop Gunning Dr. Saywell Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell Mr. Sherlocke and the French Papists p. 193. Some notes on Dr. Saywell's Communion p. 198. More on Dr. Sherlocke's p. 203 Chap. 6. What is the Vnion and necessary Communion of the Catholick Church according to this accusing Defender p. 207. His unsatisfactory solutions manifested and Dr. Isaac Barrow's excellent Treatise of Church-Vnity published by Dr. Tillotson defended against his vain exceptions Chap. 7. Of the rest of his book p. 228. A late Letter from Mr. Dodwell calling for more Answer with the Answer to it written since the rest was Printed though it be here placed Reverend Sir I Am now in the Country and as yet in so unsetled a condition as obliges me to be a Stranger to new Works However by the short view I have when I come into Shops I find you put me off for a Reply to Mr. Clarksons little Pamphlet concerning Diocesan Jurisdiction I have got it and perused it and the design of my writing at present is to acquaint you with the reason why I think my self unconcerned in it if that be all I must expect from you in Answer to my yet unanswered Letters You must excuse me if I cannot think that Book an Answer which as it was written before them by your own confession so neither doth it foresee the accounts given in those Letters nor provide against them Whether it do so let the Reader judge But to return to the account intended why I cannot think my self concerned in this new Pamphlet of Mr. Clarkson's be pleased to understand that the excellent Dean of St. Pauls being engaged against you on the same Argument of my Letters was pleased to put himself to the trouble of perusing my Papers as they came from the Press purposely that he might avoid repeating what had been said by me This being so you may easily understand how far I am concerned in what is said to him when it was indeed wholly distinct from mine Not that I should have been unwilling to serve that great Person but that I know he is in much better hands already Mr. Clarkson in this Pamphlet as he has only mentioned Dr. Stillingfleets name so he hath confined himself to his Arguments and hath taken notice of nothing in my Letters not considered by the Doctor If he will be pleased to engage further I confess I like his temper better than any I have seen of your late Brethren except Dr. Owen Such an Adversary I should desire as would confine himself to the Cause without digressing to personal Slanders There is one mistake in him which you may be pleased to acquaint him with and that is his translating 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thousands more than once and sometimes where his Argument is grounded on it that it may appear to be his mistake rather than the Printers The mistake is small and separable from the main Cause but withal is very evident But according to his candour in acknowledging it so I shall see what candour I may expect from him in the main Cause if he think fit to engage with me in it As to your Answers to my Objections against your Ministry in our Oral Debates had they been unproved Assertions I should then have thought them sufficiently answered with Denials But you know the Assertions are proved in the body of my Book and till I see my Principles unravelled and Answers more distinctly applied to the junctures where the proof may seem to fail I am not likely to see any reason to change my minde Till you attempt this I am content the Reader judg whether what you have done or shall hereafter do in the like way deserve the name of a Confutation If I must never expect any further satisfaction from you for the Slanders you have raised against me all the return I intend is my hearty Prayer to God to qualifie you for your forgiveness not only of that sin but of the many others of your late writings by your re-union to the Church from which you are fallen on which account alone I have proved that you can expect forgiveness I am obliged not only on my own account but to the Publick to which you have shewn your self an Enemy on this occasion to reflect on you but I desire to leave no monuments against you to Posterity God may yet have mercy on you and let you see the mischief you are doing before it be too late That he will do so is the most unfeigned request of him who notwithstanding your many and great provocations will still endeavour to approve himself Shrewsbury Sept. 19 1681. Yours as far as is consistent with his Duty to the Publick Henry Dodwell When you have occasion to write to me send your Lettrs to be left with Mr. Took Sir I Received not yours of Septemb. 19 1681. till Octob. 21. through the miscarriage of one that should have delivered it What you have to say to Mr. Clarkson write to himself and not to me As to your call for more Answer to your Books you shall have more I had wrote one long ago and cast it by Men are weary of our Controversies and had rather all of us gave over But if I should shew the errour and impertinency of every such word in your great Book it might be a years work when I look not to live so long and it might make so great a Volume in Folio that few I think would buy or read And what great good will it do the world to tell them how grossly you abuse the Chuch and how confidently and voluminously you err As to your charge of Slandering you and wronging the Church and being unqualified for forgiveness I have the same Accusations from Quakers Anabaptists Antinomians and Papists almost in the same words Within these two hours an ancient Doctor sent me as hard words As being a self condemned person to be forsaken as opposing the Commands of God and the Faith of Iesus for not yielding to his asserting of the Seventh-day-Sabbath and condemning the Lords-days observation I have these thirty six years lived under such Accusations It is no new thing for Seducers to use affrighting words instead of proof and to say Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses you cannot be saved It 's the cry of most Sects You cannot be saved but in our way Sir No man living hath more cause to be loath to err and to be willing to know the Truth I am as sure as I can be if I know any thing of my own minde that I am not only willing to know the Truth but to know it at a far dearer rate than it was ever like to cost me in this world I am sure that I have not been slothful in seeking it I am sure that I would joyfully recant any Errour that you or any man can convince me of with hearty thanks for so great a
life and light and love and that the destroying of these by hiding the Scriptures unintelligible worships Imagery dead hypocrisie silencing and persecuting and killing Gods servants making dividing engines to tear and Canons to batter the peace of the Church and this by an ignorant ungodly worldly Ministry seeking not the things of God but of men all this is the Devils work and to do the Devils work against Christ is not a sign of Christs servants he bids us judg of our selves and others by the fruits His servants we are whom we obey If a Peter once give Christ such worldly fleshly counsel he shall hear worse than I said of Church-Tyrants get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence unto me for thou savourest not the things that be of God but those that be of men Mat. 16.22 hating the good silencing thousands of faithful Ministers excommunicating and sinning against God in obedience to Prelates and for using the needful means of their own salvation and serving God but as Peter and Paul did this is the Devils work if he have any in the world And Mr. Dodwell must trust more to swords than words to keep it up for there is a spirit in true Christians that will never suffer them to believe that it is pleasing to God what name soever is pretended for it § 7. I will reverence the Iews visible Church to whom were committed the Oracles of God but will not say that they sinned not in persecuting Christ and his Apostles nor say that they are not now under their own curse and cut off from the Church who once cast out Christians from their Synagogues I will give due honour to Primogeniture and yet not equal Cain and Abel Ismael and Isaac Esau and Iacob c. but expect that as he that was born after the flesh did persecute him that was born after the spirit even so it will be now And the world was the world still when it was taken into the Church The Heathen Romans were less Persecutors than the Iews and so are the Turks than the Papists § 8. I shall in due place take notice of Mr. D's confining the Essence of the Ministry to transacting between God and man in covenanting requiring essentially no more skill than any man is capable of who is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the world p. 73 74. And that Immoralities of such mens Lives excuse us not from Schism for turning from such to better Teachers p. 72. contrary to the Epistle of the Carthage Council in the case of Martial and Basilides and even of Popes and Councils that forbid hearing Mass from a Fornicator And his denying the â—cripture to be intended or designed to be a Charter to appeal to for all future generations and for the extent of Offices and preventing litigious dispute about government and subjection p. 80 81. But that recourse ought now to be had to the intention of the Ordainers for these And what he saith p. 81. against appealing to Writings as he calls them against the sense of all the visible authority of this life as unreconcilable to the practice of any visible government on earth p. 81. And that subjects cannot preserve their subordination to their superiors if they practice differently and defend their practices and pretend Divine Authority for them where he speaketh indefinitely and excepteth no practices And if we may not appeal from man to God and Scripture we may appeal from Scripture to man And if mans Law be above Gods it is not from him for the inferior maketh not his superior And the root of all this iâ— p 82 That God hath made his Church and not only particular Churches that are parts of his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it Did I know what Mr. D. taketh this one visible Government to be whether General Council or Pope or all the Bishops of the world by a major vote or all the people of the Christian world or what I should know what to say to him But for this I must not hope § 9. But I shall after speak to his securing subterfuge p. 90. That there is but one sense of all terms which causes oblige men to mean and that every one ought to know who pretends to skill in causes Which I am so defective in that I know not at all what his cause is till he tell me Nor know I among many senses of most of his chief terms which it is that he meaneth I know not what he meaneth by a Papist and whether he take those for Papists that are as the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for the supremacy of a Council the Pope being President or Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of us in the West I know not who he meaneth by the Supreme Church-power in the visible Universal Church I know not by what he essentiateth the very Episcopacy which he so much pleads for no nor their Ordination I know not what he taketh to be the Supreme Church-power over the Church of England And how can I know by the bare general name when Dr. Stillingfleet denieth any such thing CHAP. II. His Schiswatical Church destroying Scheme Confuted § 1. BEcause he dealeth so falsly with my Doctrine by pretence of putting it into his words and order I will deal better with him and deal with his Scheme word by word as he hath laid it down As for his exceptions thâ—t I refel not his charge of the sin against the Holy Ghost c. I am not yet so idle having formerly written a Treatise of that sin His wilful refusal to answer Voetius de desperata Causa Papalus when he knoweth that this Plea is the Papists chief strength and Iansenius is so fully answered is but a dishonourable tergiversation And it 's like he knoweth how Melancthon in his Epistles copiously shameth Mr. Dodwell's cause as trusted to by the Papists when yet the Protestants here plead Melancthon's judgment for their Reformation And though Mr. D. told me that it is not for the Christian Interest to hold that the Roman successive Ordination hath been interrupted I think they that believe their own most flattering Historians must believe that the intercision there hath been more notorious than in those Reformed Churches which Mr. Dodwell nulleth or than those German and Danish Bishops whom Bugenhagius a Presbyter ordained But I will briefly examine the words of his destructive deceiving Frame 1. That all are obliged to submit to all unsinful conditions of the Episcopal Communion where they live if imposed by the Ecclesiasiastical Governours thereof And 2. That the nature of this obligation is such as will make them who rather than they will submit to such conditions either separate themselves or suffer themselves to be excluded from communion by such Governours for such a refusal of submission guilty of the sin of SCHISM Here are two parts a 1. That all are obliged to
ready to be Confirmed by learning the Catechism and recognizing the Covenant c. 25. Doth he not make the chief Bishops and Reformers of the Church of England to be the promoters of the Doctrine which he accounteth so damnable when Dr. Stillingfleet in his Irenicon recites the words of Cranmer and others of them at a Consultation down-right against not only the necessity of his uninterrupted succâ—ssion but also even of Episcopal Ordination it self And I have elsewhere cited about Fourteen of them for the validity of Ordination without Bishops And Dr. Stillingfleet Bishop Edw. Reignnolds and many more held that no Form of Government was of Divine determination Did all these plead for damning Schism against all title to salvation 26. And what could more directly contradict the main tenor of the Gospel which tells us of the saving power of the Word Preached how it converteth souls and promiseth salvation to all that truly believe and repent Insomuch that Paul thanks God that he baptizâ—d few of the Corinthians because God sent him not to baptize but to Preach the Gospel 27. But his Doctrine feigneth that God will damn them that truly believe repent love God forsake sin for want of the Sacrament or else that the Word converteth none but only Sacraments convert men 28. And then it will follow that none but unbelievers impenitent wicked men should be first admitted to the Sacrament for if that only converteth then it is only the unconverted that must first be received to it 29 When all 's done he doth but contradict his end for it 's hard to find a National Episcopacy on earth which imposeth no unlawful thing on Ministers or people And with all such he speaketh not for our Communion 30. Either Ordination and Collation of Church-power must be given by Superiors or by Equals if by Equals why may not Presbyters make Presbyters If by Superiors then who shall give the Pope his Power Or if you think any other be the highest who makes them such Who giveth the Archbishop of Canterbury his Power 31. In short as far as I can understand these men deny all Covenant-right to salvation to all men living and all true Sacraments and Church-Communion or at least all knowledg of any such thing seeing as it is certain that in most Churches such Ordination as they describe hath not had an uninterrupted succession so no man is sure that any one Church or man hath had such And they that silence us for not subscribing declaring and swearing obedience to our Diocesans and other Ordinaries are bold men if they dare swear themselves that they are true Bishops and have any Authority to rule and command us by an uninterrupted succession of a Canonical Episcopal Ordination down from the Apostles But I have already in my Book of Concord Part 3. Chap. 9. opened so many palpable and pernicious absurdities and ill consequents of Mr. Dodwell's Doctrine which he dare not undertake to answer but sâ—ly passeth by that I must expect the Reader will there peruse them who will judg uprightly between him and me and therefore will hear what both have said And those that will judg falsly upon partial trust to save themselves the labour of tryal are out of the reach of ordinary means to be saved from deceivers CHAP. IV. My words of Gods Collation of Ministerial Authority Vindicated from the forgeries and fallacies of Mr. Dodwell § 1. CHRIST hath taught me to judg of Prophets or Teachers by their fruits more than by their cloathing Mat. 7. And the fruits which are of God are those which express the Divine Nature and Image viz. holy Light and Truth holy Love and holy Life and Practice and the promoting of these in the world And Christ hath taught me that the Devil is 1. Against holy Light and Truth the Prince of Darkness and a Lyar and the Father of Lyes 2. Against holy Love accusing slandring and rendring as odious the servants and ways of Christ. 3. Against holy righteous and sober living and an opposer of it and a persecutor and murderer of the Saints And those that are likest Satan in these three parts of his Image and whose works are more certainly the works of these three Diabolical Principles I am taught by Christ to judg of by their fruits So much as there is in Mr. Dodwell's labours of holy Truth holy Love and helps to holy living so much sure is of God But so much as there is in his or any of his Parties cause of deceit and falshood and defence of ignorance so much as there is of Malignity Calumny or making odious the servants of Christ so much as there is of cruelty and destruction and silencing faithful Ministers and promoting ungodliness by upholding its defences I am obliged to resist as being from him against whom in my baptismal Covenant I was engaged § 2. He giveth his Reader the sum of my doctrine in this point p. 29 c. a chain of forgeries or putid falshoods Either he knew that he wrote falsly or he did not if yea then it seems he thinks that God or his Church needed his lyes if not how unfit is he to write against what he understandeth not But what made him devise a frame of his own words of above six pages to express my words by if he meant not to deceive those that would believe his writing without reading mine § 3. And whether it be from the Lord of love or the enemy of love that he goeth so far to the unchurching and damning of so many of the Reformed Churches besides the Churches of the Southern and Eastern parts of the world if not of all Churches on earth let the sons of Love consider § 4. And whether his endeavours to persuade all the Nonconformists to give over preaching Christs Gospel and all publick Worship of God till they can conscionably conform and his reasonings for that frame that hath long excluded true discipline and sheltered ignorance and ungodliness be of God and all his copious discourses to that end are to save souls or to starve and murder them I leave to mens impartial trial § 5. I so often and fully repeated my judgment of the Calling of the Ministry as leaveth his Forgeries inexcusable The sum is this 1. There is no power but of God 2. Gods universal Laws are the prime Laws and the only universal Laws of the Church or world 3. In his Laws God hath established or instituted the work and the species of that Ecclesiastical Ministry which he will have to teach and guide his Church to the end of the world And therein signified his owning of them as sent by him and promised them his help and blessing 4. In that Law he hath told us what men they are that he will thus own and bless and described the Essentials and the Integrals of their Receptive disposition or qualifications 5. He hath in that Law told us who shall be the tryers and
for many Papists doubt of the Divine right of Prelacy that doubt not of the Divine unalterable right of the Priestly or Presbyter-power and work And will this cure men of Schism to tell them that God hath not so much as made and specified the Parish-Pastors Office and it is but a humane invention which you forsake § 27. And I would crave of this confident man to consider whether he reach not high and horrid Sacriledg if he make the Invester to be first the Owner and then the Donor Did we devote our selves to Patrons in our Ministry or to Diocesans or immediately to God If we covenanted only to be Gods Ministers for the Churches good then let them take heed that claim propriety in us as Priests And if Tythes and Glebes were devoted to God and not to Princes or Patrons I doubt he that maketh Patrons the Proprietaries and proper Donors will prove Sacrilegious and be convinced at last that he should only have taken Princes and Pastors for such Trustees as determine of the Receiver but give not the things § 28. If it be otherwise Princes Patrons and Prelates are greater and richer than I ever thought them 1. Then all the Bishopricks in England are the King 's till he give them 2. Then all the Tythes Glebes and Temples in England are the Patrons till they give them or else the Bishops or Chancellors who investeth men in them by institution and induction And the Patron and Bishop may have a hard suit to determine which is the Proprietor 3. And then a Bishop that Ordaineth a thousand Priests was the Owner of all their Relations before and so as they that are for the pre-existence of souls dispute whether they pre-existed individually or only in animâ universali so these that are for the pre existence of Priesthoods in the Diocesans must dispute whether they were in the Prelate a thousand individual Priesthoods before or but one common Priesthood that fell into individuals by Ordination If they say that they were but virtually in the Prelate that kills their Cause for then they did not pre-exist for existere est esse extra causas And this only saith that the Prelate had an effective vertue that could make them But the species was made before and so was the obliging and Donative Law therefore the Prelate had not power to do what God had done before § 29. I take it for granted because I know him that all this is nothing to Mr. Dodwell but to me it is moreover something 1. That the highest esteemers of Diocesans Ordination make it but a Sacrament 2 And that the Investing Minister is not the Owner and Donor of the Relation and Gift in any of their Seven Sacraments 1. In Baptism God only giveth the Right and Relation which the Minister by Investiture solemnizeth but giveth it not as his own Else every Lay-man and woman by their judgment should have multitudes of Christendoms of their own to bestow 2. In Confirmation the Priest never pretendeth to be the giver of the Spirit but by his act to fit the person to receive it The Holy Ghost is said to fall on them that heard the word before Baptism Act. 10.44 45 and they were after baptized He fell on them Act. 11.15 And Peter and Iohn prayed for the Samaritans that they might receive the Holy Ghost Act. 8.15 and they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost v. 17. but not that they gave the Holy Ghost though by the laying on of their hands and their prayers he was given as he was on them without Act. 2. 3. And in Matrimony it 's confessed that the Priest is not the Owner and Donor of the Husbands power but a Ministerial Invester 4. And in the Eucharist even they that think the bread is made God take not the Priest as the efficient cause but a disposing instrument nor that he giveth God to the Receiver as the Owner or Donor but delivereth him as a Minister 5. The same is true of Penance Extreme Unction and therefore must be so also in Ordination If the King send a thousand Commissions to Captains Judges Justices c. the Messenger is not the Owner or Donor of them all nor may make any alteration of them yea if he intrust the Chancellor to name all the Justices he doth thereby but determine of the person that shall receive the Commission but altereth nothing of the Office nor is the Donor of it All this is plain to us but not to Mr. Dodwell § 30. Saith he p. 39. Are not many actual practices grounded on circumstances Are not many of those circumstances obnoxious to great mutability Are not ordinary Governours the competent Iudges of their actual change Ans. 1. And did not Christ promise his Spirit to his Apostles for the performance of their Commissions And were not those Commissions to gather and settle his Churches and teach them all that he commanded them And did not Christ by that Spirit make Pastors and Teachers as is before proved And did not the Apostles faithfully perform their trust 2. And doth he not see that by this he also subverteth his foundation of Prelatical power also as having no better institution than the Priesthood And then who are those Governours of the Church that he talks of that must judg And how prove they their jugding-power 3. And it were a kindness if he would tell us what change it is that thâ— Diocesans may make in the Priestly Office and work and tell us the bounds of their power if it have any And whether they may put down the Preaching part the Praying part the Sacraments or which of them And whether this be the power that hath put out the Sacramental Cup and made all the changes that are made in the Church To tell us of these ordinary Governours changing-power is a hard word to us that took Christs Laws delivered by his Spirit to be perfect and unchangeable However some circumstances are changed which were noted to be but occasional § 31. To return his Consequence p. 40. Since it is certain that the power of Oâ—daining others was not given to nor for some hundred years exercised by that species of Diocesans who were neither the Bishops of single Churches associated for personal present Communion nor were the Overseers of such Bishops but the Bishops of Diocesses that have many score or hundred unbishoped stated worshipping Assemblies it will follow by his arguing that these never had their Office from the Apostles and much less a continued succession of it § 32. He next pleadeth the Nullity of the Presbyterians Ordination 1. Because if they had Ordaining power it is only in Assemblies where Bishops are Presidents and Edict them 2. And because they carry it not by Plurality of Voices But I am a weary with answering such trifling things and the later part is a known mistake I never heard of one contradicting Voice against the Ordination of any
that was Ordained in our Synods § 33. And he hath half disabled me to answer him from p. 50. forwards where he feigneth me to maintain that Authority must necessarily result from true qualifications For it is taken for uncivil to give his words their proper name But if the Reader will pardon the Repetition I may remind him how probable it is that Mr. Dodwell trusted that his Reader would believe his words without perusing what I wrote where he might have seen 1. That I say that the Authority resulteth not from the qualifications but from Christs Law Grant or Charter 2. That personal qualifications of gifts or grace are but part of the necessary Dispasitio Recipientis but that moreover there is needful 1. Opportunity 2. And need of his Office 3. And to a Bishop the flocks consent if not election And ordinis gratia where moral necessiâ—y dispenseth not with order the Ordainers approbation and consent 5. And to regular possession where it may be had a due Investiture so that there is a Relative part as well as a Qualitative of the Receptive disposition necessary And all the following leaves in which he disputeth against me as maintaining a power resulting from meer qualities are so unbeseeming a Divine and a Câ—ristian that I will not soul my paper with their due confutation But they are suitable to that man who thinks himself wise good and fit enough to Unchurch and condemn so much as he doth of the Christian world on pretence of pleading for obedience to the Diocesans § 34. And where he adds p. 50. Or that it so depends on them qualifications as that where the persons ordained may want any of them there the whol Ordination must be null because of the incapacity of the matter This also he denieth Ans. 1. I still distinguish between the Qualifications necessary ad esse and those only ad bene esse or integral If he would perswade the Reader that I null Ordination for want of the latter his weakness or designed ill intent is such as warneth his Readers to take heed of believing him If he mean it only of the former as I speak I have before confuted him that dare say that no qualification is necessary ad esse Then a Pope Ioan or woman-Priest or Prelate or a professed enemy of God or Christ may be a Priest And he may be a Pastor of a Church to feed them by the Word who never heard or know what was the Word or Church Cannot the best believer go to Heaven if all your Priests will but deny him the Sacrament and yet may a man be validly a Bishop and the Key keeper of Heaven that believeth not that there is a God a Christ or Heaven and so professeth This maketh me remember the old Roman Canons how no Bishop must be deposed for lying with his own Sister unless a great multitude of Witnesses testifie it and the Councils that decreed no Layman shall witness against a Clergy-man c. But Election consent the Ordainers approbation ordinarily are part of my Qualifications And if these be unnecessary what doth the man plead for And is a false approbation of a man that wanteth Essentials more necessary than having them How contrary is this to the Doctrine of the Council of Carthage in the Epistle in Cyprian of Martial and Basilides and to many honest Councils § 35. P. 90. At the end of this insinuated false accusation he asketh Where do we find that God ever gave Bishops Presbyters and Deacons though he gave Apostles Pastors and Teachers those extraordinary Offices indeed seem to have been made neither of man nor by man but by God immediately c. Ans. 1. Hath he said a word to prove that Pastors and Teachers are not ordinary Officers contrary to the common judgment of the Church in all ages 2. Whether he mean Bishops in the Dative Case or the Accusative I know not If the later let him speak out and say God gave not Bishops But how proveth he that Presbyters and Bishops are not Pastors or Teachers 3. The Text tells you Ephes. 4.14 15 16. that these offices were given for the continued stated use of the Church For the perfecting of the Saints the work of the Ministry for the edifying the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledg of the Son of God to a perfect man c. Was this temporary 4. It seems he disclaimeth Bishops being made in making Apostles 5. Christ by his Spirit in the Apostles ordered the Churches § 36. P. 65. he saith They never find any of those Officers to whom succession is at present pretended made immediately by God but by the intervention of men c. Ans. Still deceiving confusion 1. Intervention is a word of fraud and may signifie only that act which determineth of and qualifieth the receiver and it may signifie the Donation or making of the office It is this that we speak of 2. The Intervention of infallibly inspired men commissioned to deliver and record Christs own will hath an efficiency instrumental in making the office in that the Spirit in them doth it and they do make instrumentally the Charter or Law which giveth the power and Christ doth what they did by his Commission and Spirit If you can prove that our Diocesans have this Commission spirit and power if they write new Sacred Scriptures or make new Sacraments and Church-forms and offices we will obey them But prove it well 3. Did any man but Christ send forth the Seventy Yet most Prelatists hold that those were the predecessors of the Presbyters 4. By this it seems he again denieth that Christ himself instituted the Order of Bishops by making Apostles And if so he will sorely shake his standing for then they must prove all their power from the Apostles or following persons institutions and not make them successors of the Apostles own Office for they made not their own Office And Dr. Stillingfleet thinks there were no Bishops or few made in the Apostles times as Dr. Hammond thinks of subject-Presbyters And if Christs Spirit in the Apostles made not these Offices who made the Scripture which is Gods Law I despair of seeing it proved that any since them were authorized to make them And if men only made the Episcopal and Presbyters Office men may unmake them § 37. A case put to me within this hour remindeth me how much these men prefer Ordination not only in it self but in this circumstance of Prelatical uninterrupted succession before Baptism which is our Christning There are some godly young men that have Communicated in the Lords Supper that were the children of Quakers and Anabaptists some were never baptized and some know not whether they were or not and being born near Two hundred Miles hence cannot learn or come to any certainty The question is Whether these that have Communicated should yet be baptized which is to make Christians of
Christians Or whether the higher Sacrament do not eminently contain the lower as making a man a Bishop containeth making him a Presbyter and that containeth eminently his Deaconship as some say If they must be baptized yet it implieth the Nullity of their Sacramental Communion before And if so Mr. Dodwell must confess that Priestly exhibition or investiture is null to an uncapable Subject But I think most will say that he should not be baptized it being done interpretatively And if so is his Prelatical mode of Ordination more necessary than actual Baptism Besides that as is said they make Lay-mens or womens baptizing sufficient ad esse And yet the Church of England professeth that only the Two Sacramens Baptism and the Lords Supper are generally necessary to salvation § 38. Pag. 67 68. He would persuade us that the Imposition of hands in Ordination signifieth what he asserteth But he giveth us not one word of proof of it Was it the Holy Ghost which was in the imposing Apostle or Prelate that was given by him and out of him into the Ordained No he was never in Scripture said to be the Ownor Donor or efficient conveyer of the Holy Ghost But Gods will made the Imposition of the Apostles hand a conditional act to qualifie the recipient to receive the Holy Ghost immediately from God as the Texts before cited and many more prove What if it be once said that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when many other Texts expound it It 's well known that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth many other causes mediums conditions as well as efficient conveying causes Is it like to signifie more here than in the Doctrine of Justification when it is so oft said that we are justified by faith And yet faith there is no efficient instrument conveying or giving us pardon and relative Justification but only a necessary qualification of the Recipient called by Dr. Twisse Causa dispositiva which is part of the Materialis upon which Gods Covenant immediately pardoneth and justifieth the believer so both there and here it is by or through the Act of man as a moral qualification of the Recipient made a condition by God § 39. After all this the man cometh himself pag. 72. to distinguish of Qualifications necessary to the being of the office and to the well-being yea and hath the face to say that I should have distinguished them as if I had not ever done it Is it not an unprofitable toil to dispute with such men that will pretend that a case by me constantly stated was not stated and then will long dispute himself for the unqualified without distinction and after all distinguish in the fag end This beseemeth not any man that will pretend to plead for truth But yet he will not be over-liberal to us he saith p. 13. All the skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the benefits to be peâ—formed on Gods part and the duties to be promised on mans and the nature and obligation of Covenants in general and the particular solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenanting And of this how can any one be uncapable that is but capable of understanding the common dealings of the world Ans. 1. And yet must we have Universities and must the Holy Ghost be given by the Bishops for this And is there any need to open the Bible to know it and must so much riches and honour maintain this much and all be damned Schismaticks that turn to better 2. Set this qualified Ministry and his great zeal to perswade the Nonconformists to cease Preaching and his Unchurching the Reformed Churches altogether and it 's easie to see what this humble diligent man is labouring for 3. Do not many millions understand the common dealings of the world that understand not the Gospel The natural man receiveth not the things that be of God for they are spiritually discerned 4 Is not this a plain design to set up a carnal Kingdom of ignorant vicious Clergy-men such as St. Paul saith Rom. 8 neither are nor can be subject to Gods Law instead of a holy Catholick Church and Communion of Saints and to make Mahometans think that they are Saints in comparison of us and that Christians are an unholy sort of men 5. Either he includeth all that is necessary to the things named by him or not If not then his Priest must know the benefits of Gods Covenant without knowing what God is or that Christ is the Purchaser Covenanter c. If yea which I doubt not he will say then O what an excellent body of Theology is included in these few general words Then he must know all those Attributes of God and his Relations to man by which he is said to be our God He must know all the necessary articles of faith about the Person of Christ as God and man in two Natures and one Person his Incarnation Birth Life Sufferings Death Burial his Doctrine his Merits his Resurrection Ascension Glory Intercession Kingly and Prophetical office and last Judgment and Glorious Kingdom He must know what Covenant God formerly made and man broke and what sin original and actual and what curse and condemnation followed on mankind And Oh how many great and mysterious things are contained in Gods Covenant-benefits On Union with Christ Reconciliation Justification Adoption Sanctification The Doctrine of the Holy Ghost as the Third person in the Trinity and as the Inspirer of Prophets and Apostles and Inditer and confirmer of the Scriptures and the Witness of Christ and the Sanctifier and Comforter of the Elect besides Resurrection Glorification c. And what a deal is contained in mans necessary qualification Faith Repentance and promised duty And the true nature and use of the Sacraments themselves And is all this such a small or easie matter as he seems to intimate 6. But hath he yet proved that a true Minister of Christ hath no necessary work but thus to administer Sacraments I will yet believe 2 Tim. 4.1 2. that he must preach the Word in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort partly to convert the unconverted partly to confirm and guide believers and that the people should ask the Law at his mouth as being the messenger of the Lord of Hosts And that the very essence of his office is to be a Minister under the Teaching Priestly and Ruling office of Christ. 7. And if he had proved that a sorry Priest hath all that is essential to his office that proveth not that I must take him for my Pastor no not though the Diocesan command me Souls are more worth than to be wilfully made the Priests and Prelates merchandize If a man have all essential to a Physician and no more I will not trust my life to his skill which is less than my soul though the Bishop bid me If a woman have all that 's essential to a woman he is a fool that will take her for his wife because the Bishop bids him
work that God hath â—ade Officers to do already And then we need not say â—that Orders are Iure Divino if the Bishop may make more at his pleasure but quo jure and what shall set his bounds and end This seemeth more in kind than the Italians at Trent would have given to the Pope over Bishops Anâ— if they do not themselves also that same Essential part of their Office which they give to others they degrade themselves For the ceasing or alienation of an Essential part changeth the specieâ— But I suppose you will say 〈◊〉 is Preâ—byters to whom they may delegate this work And 〈◊〉 either it is a worâ— which God hath made part of the Presbyters Office or not If it be then that Presbyter doth his ow◠〈◊〉 appointed him by God and not another 〈…〉 not 〈◊〉 he maketh a new Officer who is â—either 〈…〉 But the 〈…〉 the Office 〈◊〉 that it may not be 〈◊〉 thoâ—gh Bishop may Ordain men to an Office of 〈…〉 the King or Church may make new Officers 〈…〉 Clock keepers Ostiaries c. 〈…〉 and obligation to personal duty to be done 〈◊〉 personâ—l abiâ—â—ty as is the Office of a Physician a Judg a School 〈…〉 a Pilot c where he that Authorâ—zeth and obligâ—th another statedly to do his work doth thereby make that other a Physician Judg School-Master Pilot c. This is but Ordinâ—tioâ— And if a Bishop be but one that may appoint others to do the Episcopal work then 1. Why is not every King a Bishop for he may appoint men to do a Bishops work And why is he not also a Physician Musician Pilot c. because he may do the like by them 2. And then the Bishop appointed by the King is no more a Bishop indeed than one appointed by a Bishop is But this delegation that I speak against is a smaller sin than such men choose To depute others to exercise Discipline whom God appointed not de specie thereto is but Sacriledg and Usurpation by alienating it from the true office and setting up a false one But yet the thing might some how be done if any were to do it But the almost total deposition and destruction of the Discipline it self and letting none do it by pretending the sole authority of doing it is another kind of sin Now to your answer from the similitude of Civil Monarchs I reply It is no wonder if we never agree about Church-offices if we no better agree of the general nature of them and their work Of which if you will please to read a sheet or two which I wrote the last year to Ludov. Molinaeus of the difference of Magistracy and Church-power and also read the Lord Bacons Considerations you will excuse me for here passing by what is there said I. The standing of the Magistrates Office is by the Law of Nature which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of inferior Orders as there is cause But the standing of the Clergy is by Supernatural Institution Our Book of Ordination saith there are three Orders c. Therefore man may not alter them or make more of that same kind II. Kingly power requireth not ad dispositionem materiae such Personal ability as the Pastoral-office doth A child may be a King and it may serve turn if he be but the head of power and give others commission to do all the rest of the Governing work But it is not so with a Judg a Physician an Orator or a Bishop who is not subjectum capax of the essence of the office without personal aptitude III. God hath described the Bishops office in Scripture as consisting of three parts viz. Teaching Priestly or about Worship and Sacraments and ruling as under Christs Prophetical Priestly and Kingly Office And he hath no where made one more proper to a Bishop than another nor said this is Essential and that is but Integral Therefore the Bishop may as well allow a Layman to administer the Sacraments c. as one not appointed to it by God to Rule by the Keys IV. The Bishops Pastoral Rule is only by Gods word upon the Conscience as Bishop Bilson of Obed. sheweth at large and all Protestants agree and not by any mulcts or corporal force If he use the sword or constraint it is not as a Bishop but as a Magistrate But the Kings is by the sword And will it follow that because the King may appoint another to apprehend men and carry them to prison c. that therefore a Bishop appointed by God to Preach Worship and Rule and therein to draw the Impenitent to Repentance by patient exhortations and reproofs c. may commit this to another never appointed to it of God V. Either it is the Bishops work as was said that is delegated by him or some other If properly his own than either he maketh more Bishops and that 's all we plead for or else a Presbyter or Layman may do a Bishops proper work And then what need of a Bishop to pass by the contradiction VI. But my chief answer to you is the King as Supreme Magistrate doth appoint and rule by others that are truly Magistrates They have every one a Judicial power in their several places under him even every Justice of Peace But you suppose the Bishop to set up no Bishops nor no Church-Governours under him at all A King can rule a Kingdom by Supremo Judgment when he hath hundreds of Judges under him who do it by his authority And if this had been all our dispute whether a Patriarch or Archbishop can rule a thousand Churches by a thousand Inferior Bishops or Church-rulers you had said something But doth it follow that your Church Monarch can over-see them all himself without any sub-oversees or rule them by Gods word on the Conscience without any sub-rulers You appropriate the Decretory Power to your Monarch and communicate only the executive Hold to that The whole Government is but Legislatio Iudicium Legislation now we meddle not with yet our Bishops allow it to the Presbyters in Convocation for they take Canons to be Church-Laws It is a lower power that is denied to them that they grant the higher to Bare execution is no Government A Hangman is no Governour A Governour may also be Executioner but a meer Executioner is no Governour The People are Executioners of Excommunications while they withdraw from the Excommunicate and with such do not eat c. as 1 Cor. 5. And the Parish-Priest is an Executioner while he as a Cryer proclaimeth or readeth the Chancellors Excommunication in the Church and when he denieth the Sacrament to those that he is bid deny it to I grant you that this is Communicated But it is the Judicial power it self which I have been proving the Bishop uncapable of Exploration is part of the Judicial work I know you include not that in execution which follows it If you did it would be a sad office for a Bishop to
by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it began the grand sin and calamity which hath undone us and therefore are not to be our Pattern Orbis major est urbe 6. Were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities the Empires that have few or no Cities must have few or no Bishops and an Emperor might aliud agâ—ndo depose all the Bishops by dis franchizing the Cities 7. But every Corporation oppidum like our Market-Towns was then truly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And if you will but procure every such City with us to have a Bishop and the Office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin and not to it and to silence Blasphemers and not faithful Preachers of the Gospel all our controversies of Prelacy are then at an end 8. And you must remember that great Cities had long but few Christians in comparison of the Heathens till Constantine's time and mostly long after And when Patrick with his own hand Ordained Three Hundred and Fifty Bishops in your Ireland they were but Ecclesiarum fundatores and with them he founded but septingentas Ecclesias and Ordained Five Thousand Clerks if Ioceline be true Vit. Patriâ— cap. 185. and not rather the far more credible report of Antonin in Chrâ—n tit 11. cap. 18. § 2. and Vincent specul histor lib. 20. cap. 23. who say that Ecclesias funâ—avit 365. â—rdinavit Episcopos eodem numero 365. et eo amplius in quibus spiritus Dei crat Presbyteros autem usque ad 3â—00 ordinavit Aâ— Vsher â—â—ceth them de primord Eccl. Br. p 9â—7 which is Ninius number there So that here is no more Churchâ—s thâ—n â—ishops and about Nine Presbyters to a Bishop You tell me of above One thousand Clergy-men at Rome in Corâ—elius's 〈◊〉 Ans. 1. This was above Two hundred and Fifty years after Christs Birth 2. I never took all the impotent persons poor and Widows in the Church to be Clergy-men and Clergy-women Cornelius his account is that there are Six and Forty Presbyters Seven Deacons Seven Sub-Deacons Two and Forty Acolytes Two and Fifty Exorcists and Readers with Porters Widows and impotent persons above One thousand and Fifty souls considering 1. How their Meetings were then obscure and small in Houses as the tolerated Churches in London And in so vast a City in how many distant places Besides the sub-urbicarian Assemblies 4 And how many Presbyters used still to be with the Bishop in the same Assembly 5. And that here are in all but Seven Deacons 6. And that many then were Presbyters that used not to Preach but for privater over-sight and as the Bishops Assessors 7. And that the poorer sort most commonly received the Gospel 8. And that none of these but the Six and Forty Presbyters had any power in the Discipline 9. And that by all this reckoning the whole Church maintained not besides the Officers near a thousand poor we may probably conjecture that the whole Church of that Bishop was not bigger than some one London-Parish Stepney Giles Cripplegate Martins c. where are about Fifty thousand souls 10. And when none were Christians but persecuted Volunteers they were the holiest and best of men and I have tryed that Six hundred such make less work for Discipline than Ten of the Rabble that are driven into our Churches and choose them rather than the Goal But when all 's done Two Cities under the power of great temptation are not to be our Rule against Gods Word and the state of all other Churches in the world and undeniable experience It 's true that you say that to erect another Altar was counted Schism that is Altare contra altare because when the Phrase came up no Church had more than one Altar Your Instances intimated of Antioch and Carthage I believe not and can give you had I liberty a Volume of proof from Antiquity that for Two hundred and Fifty years if not much longer Ignatius's Rule was true that every Church had one Altar and one Bishop at least except the two aforesaid Vlphilas was but an Arrian Bishop of a few Goths newly turned Arrians and the first that translated the Scriptures into the Gothick Tongue so that no Churches among them had the Scripture till after his translating and these few were presently persecuted to rhe death by Athanarichus ut socrat lib. 4 cap. 32. You may call these few a Kingdom if you please How few of the Indians were converted when Frumentius not Aedesius as you say was made their Bishop it 's easie to gather by the History Scythia and Persia used to have each a Bishop and he lived in the Roman Empire as near them as he durst as not being tolerated usually in their Land And as few it 's like Mosâ—s had among the Arabians there being no mention in the History of any thing to perswade us that he had many Churches under him that I remember And the work of these Bâ—shops was to ordain Presbyters who had the power of the Keys exceptae Ordinatione did all that Bishops did as Hierome saith So that then a Diocess had not one sole Church-Governour and therefore where you gather that yet Discipline was not dissolved I answer 1. In all this you leave out a matter of chief consideration viz. That all the Presbyters then were assistants in Discipline and had a true Church-Government over the people which now they have not 2. It 's strange that we that have eyes and ears must be sent to the Indians and ancient History to know whether one Bishop can hear and try and admonish so many thousands at once as we see by experience are those Objects of Discipline which the Scripture describeth and when we see that it is not done And after all this we have talk't but of a â—hantasm for it is not one Bishop but one Lay man a Chancellor that useth this Decretory power of the Keys over all these fouls so far as they are used as to the ordinary Court-tryals and exerciâ—e and the Bishop rarely medleth with it Again Nonconformists doubt not to prove that the Diocesan frame whiâ—h they dare not swear to 1. Doth depose the species of Churches of Gods Institution 2 And the Discipline it self almost totally 3. And the species of Presbyters 4. And the old species of Bishops And instead of each of these setteth up a new species of man's invention wholly different and inconsistent And that they are not willing to Swear Subscribe or deliberately and solemnly enter into a Church-Covenant That in their Places and Callings they will never endeavour any alteration of this no not by a request or word you may less wonder than if some were then loath to Swear or Covenant never to endeavour to take down the Priests of Dan and Bethel or reform the high places It 's dangerous making a solemn Ministerial Covenant Never to obey God in any one great matter and never to repent of so doing Again our Reasons
Word and Sacraments which worketh by the senses of hearing seeing and tasting upon the Conscience that is on the Understanding and Will and by these reformeth practice The word is thus deâ—ivered either Generally by common Doctrine which is historical assertive precepts prohibitions promises or threatnings or by personal application of these 1. By meer words as in personal instruction precept threatning c. and by declaration that this person proved and judged guilty of impenitency in such and such sin is uncapable of Church-communion therefore by auâ—hority from Christ I command him to forbear and you to avoid him And such a one being proved innocent or penitent hath by Gods Law right to Communion with his Church therefore I absolve him invite him receive him and command you in Christs name to hold loving Communion with him 2. Or it is the application of words and Sacramental signs togetâ—er by solemn tradition and investiture or the denying of such Sacraments Briefly Magistrates by mulcts prisons exile 〈◊〉 c. work on the body Pastors have no such power bâ—t by General Doctrine and personal application by words and Sacraments given or denied work on the mind or conscience 〈◊〉 which some call a Perswasive power distinguishing as Camero 〈◊〉 between private perswasion of an equal c. and Doctâ—ral Pastoral Official Perswasion whose force is by the Divine authority of the perswader used in Teaching Disciplinary judging and Sacraments If you will call this last coercive or by any other name you have your liberty I will do my part that you may understand me if I may not understand you 2. Now ad rem can we disagree how far this constraineth the unwilling Not without some great neglect or culpable defect I may suppose then that we are agreed of all these particulars 1. That Gods Laws have told us who must or must not have Sacramental Communion which we must obey whatever be the effects 2. That Excommunication is not only nor alway chiefly to bring the person Excommunicated to obedience no more than hanging but to keep the purity and reputation of the Church and the safety of the members and to warn others 3. That the way by which it is to affect the offender is 1. By shaming him 2. By striking his Conscience with the sense of Gods displeasure declared thus by his Ministers 4. So far as the Sacrament is a means of conveying grace to deny it is not to reform but to destroy But when the person hath made himself uncapable of the benefit of the Sacrament and apt to receive it abusively to his hurt then it may possibly humble him to be denied it 5. If the denial of the Sacrament work not on a mans Conscience morally as threatnings do it no way compelleth him to his duty nor saveth him from sin 6. De facto many hundred thousands of ignorant wicked members of Episcopal Churches are so far from being constrained to goodness by being without the Sacrament that they are content to be without it and loth to be forced to it 7. The more sin and wickedness any man hath the less true conscience and the less conscience the less doth he regard a due Excommunication 8. The Bishops themselves are conscious of the insufficiency of their Excommunications alone to compel any to obedience while they confess that without the Secular power of the sword to back it they would be but laught at and despised by the most Nor durst they ever try to govern by their Church Keys alone among us without the enforcement of the sword And at the same time while they Excommunicate them from the Sacrament they have a Law to lay them in Gaol and utterly ruin them if they will not receive it How loth are the Bishops to lose this compelling Law 9. I think few of my acquaintance in England do believe that any great number are brought to holy reformation no nor to Episcopal obedience by the fear of being kept from the Sacrament but that which they fear is the Corporal penalty that followeth lay by that and you may try 10. If you will trust to that spiritual power alone valeat quantum valere potest without corporal force few that I know of will resist you but many thousands will despise you as the Bishops well foresee bring as many to obedience by it as you can But if you mean that you must needs have the Magistrate to second you as your Lictor or Executioner and to imprison fine banish burn c. it would be too gross hypocrisie to call the effects of this coercive power the effects of Excommunication and to call it coercive power to deny a man the Sacrament because he feareth the sword 11. De facto there are supposed to be in the Parish that you dwell in above 60000 souls suppose 10000 of these yearly receive the Sacrament though some say it is not 5000. Are the other 40000 compelled to obedience by not communicating 12. All those forbear your Sacrament without any sense of coercion or loss 1. Who believe as you do that Sacramental Communion is a sin where it cannot lawfully be had that is say you where the Bishops forbid it say they where Gods Laws forbid it by reason of adherent sin 2. And that take the Bishops who forbid it them to be Usurpers that have no true calling as all the Papists do of our Bishops and many others 3. Who take it to be more eligible yea a necessary duty to hold Communion with purer societies 4. Besides all those Sectaries that make light of Sacraments in general What Papists Quakers Anabaptist Separatists c. are compelled to any good by the Bishops denying them the Sacrament 13. Nothing but Ignorance or Impudence can deny that the difficulty of knowing whose Excommunication it is that is to be dreaded as owned by God hath encouraged professed Christians so confusedly to Excommunicate one another as that this Excommunication hath been so far from constraining most to repentance that it hath made Christianity a horrid scandal to Infidels and Heathens by setting the Christian World in the odious confusion of Excommunicating one another To give some instances how far Excommunication is not coercive 1. Who but the Devil was the gainer of Pope Victor's Excommunicating the Asians about Easter-day Did it compel them to obedience 2. When the Orthodox Excommunicated the Arrians did it force them to obey When they got almost all the Bishops for them and Excommunicated and destroyed their Excommunicators 3. When the Cecilians or Orthodox and the Donatists for so many ages Excommunicated one another meerly upon the difference which party had the true Ordained Bishops did Excommunications force them to obedience 4. To pass forty other Sects when Rome Excommunicated yea and prosecuted the Novatians did it compel them to obey And did not Atticus Sisinnius and Proclus win more by allowing them their own Communion and living with them in love and peace Chrysostome since threatned
which maketh nothing for the mutability of the Universal Laws 8. No Pastors since the Apostles are by office or power appointed to make any Universal Laws for the Church nor any of the same kind and reason with Gods own Laws whose reason or cause was existent in the Apostles times but only to explain the word of God and apply it to particular persons and cases as Ministers under Christ in his Teaching Priestly and Governing office nor have the Apostles any other kind of Successors 9. Christ made not Peter or any one of his Apostles Governour of the rest But when they strove who should be the chief rebuked that expectation and determined That among them Preeminence should consist in excelling in humility and service 10. When the Corinthians were sick of the like disease Paul rebuked them for saying I am of Cephas and determineth that Apostles are but particular members of the body of which Christ only is the Head and not the Lords but Ministers and helpers of their faith 11 No Pastors as such have forcing power either to touch mens bodies or estates or inflict by the sword corporal penalties or mulcts But only by the word by which the power of the Keys is exercised to instruct men and urge Gods precepts promises and threats upon their Consciences 12. The Apostles were Bishops eminenter in that they called gathered and while they stayed with them governed Churches But not formaliter as taking any one particular Church for their proper charge But setled such fixed Bishops over them And though they distributed their labours about the world prudently and as the Spirit of Christ guided them yet we find not any probability that ever they divided the world into twelve or thirteen Provinces or ever setled twelve or thirteen chief Metropolitical seats in the world which their proper Successors as such should govern in preeminence Nor doth any History intimate such a thing nor yet that any Apostle took any City for his proper Diocess where another Apostle might not come and exercise equal Power 13. It seemeth that Christs sending out his seventy Disciples by two and two and the Apostles staying together much at Ierusalem and Paul and Barnabas's going forth together and after Paul Silas and Barnabas and Mark Peter and Paul supposed to be together at Rome c. that the Spirit of God did purposely prevent the intentions of any afterward of being the Metropolitical Successors of single Apostles or Disciples of Christs immediate sending in this or that City as their proper seat 14. As Grotius thinks that the Churches were instituted after the likeness of the Synagogues of which one City had many so Dr. Hammond endeavours to evince not only that Peter and Paul were Bishops of two distinct Churches of Rome one of the Iews and the other of the Gentile Christians but also that it was so in other Cities Dissertat 15. The Patriarchs were not 12 or 13 but three first and five afterward and none of them pretended to any power as especial Successors of any one Apostle but Antioch and Rome of Peter and that was not their first claim or title but an honorary reason why men afterward advanced them Alexandria claimed Succession but from St. Mark and Ierusalem from Iames no Apostle if Dr. Hammond and others be not much mistaken and Constantinople from none 16. The 28 Canon of Calcedon tels us enough of the foundation title and reason of Patriarchal power and all Church-History that the Metropolitical Powers were granted by Emperours either immediately or empowering Councils thereto 17. These Emperours having no power out of the Empire neither by themselves nor by Councils gave not any power that extended further than the Empire or that could by that title continue to any City which fell under the Government of another Prince 18 Aâ— theâ—e never was a Council truly Universal so the name Vniversal or Oecâ—menical was not of old given them in respect to the whole Christian world but to the whole Empire as the power that called them and the names of the Bishops subscribed c. fully prove 19. Before Christian Princes did empower them Councils were but for Counsel concord and correspondency and particular Pastors were bound by their Decrees only 1. For the evidence of truth which they made known 2. And by the General Law of God to maintain unity and peace and help each other But afterward by vertuâ— of the Princes Law or Will they exercised a direct Government over the particular Bishops and those were oft banished that did not submit to them 20. While Councils met but for Counsel and Concord and also when afterwards they were but Provincial or National under Kings where none of the Patriarchal Spirit and Interest did corrupt them they made excellent Orders and were a great blessing to the Churches Of the first sort e. g. were divers African and of the latter divers Spanish and French when neither Emperor nor Popâ— did over-rule them but the Gothish and French Kings moderately govern them But though I deny not any good which the Councils called General did especially the firâ—â— Nicene yet I must profess that the History of the Patriarchal Seats and the History of the General Councils and the Church-Wars then and after them managed by Four of the Patriarchs especially and their Bishops the confusion caused in most of the Churches the Anathematizâ—ng of one another the blood that hath been shed in the open streets of Monks and common people yea the fighting and fury of Bishops at the Councils to the death of some of them their â—iring out the endeavours of such Emperors and their Officers that would have kept Peace and Concord among them do all put me out of hope that the Peace and Concord of the Christian world should ever be setled by Popes Patriarchs or such kind of Councils which all have so long filled the Christian world with most calamitous divisions contentions and blood-shed and made the snares which continue its divisions and distractions to this day II. I conceive that the means of Church-concord appointed by God is as follows But I premise 1. It must be pre-supposed That no perfect Concord will be had on earth yea that there will unavoidably be very many differences which must be born So great is the diversity of mens natural Capacity and Temper their Education Company Teachers Helps Interests Callings Temptations c. that it is not probable that any Two men in all the world are in every particular of the same mind And every man that groweth in knowledg will more and more differ from himself and not be of the same mind as he was when he knew less 2. Yet must our increase in knowledg and Concord be our continual endeavour and it is the use of teaching to bring these differences caused by ignorance to as small a number as we can 3. There is scarce a more effectual means of Division and Confusion and
of Salvation such could not be brought to Faith Holiness and Salvation for want of teaching it is yet my sin to preach to them and my duty to let them rather be damned if I have not the Bishops consent to teach them and that because it is the Bishop and not I that shall answer for their damnation VIII That it is disputable with you whether those to whom Church power is given viz. Diocesans may not change not only the local temporary circumstances but the very Church-forms and suspend Laws of Christ. IX That Baptism entreth the Baptized into some particular Church and consequently under this fore-described Church-Government X. That in the case of Preaching the Gospel Ministers may in many cases do it though Emperours and Kings forbid them as in the days of Constantius Valens yea and better men but not if the Bishop forbid them or consent not XI That circa Sacra if the King command the Churches for Uniformity one Translation of the Bible one Version or Meter of the Psalms one Liturgy one Time or Place of Worship c. and the Bishop another we ought to obey the Bishop against the command of the King XII That the required Subscriptions Declarations Rubricks and Canons are primarily the Laws of the Church which the King and Parliament do confirm by their Sanction and therefore the Church is the Expounder of them These are some of your Assertions which I cannot yet receive I. My Reasons against the first are these 1. Because this maketh Gods of men and so is Idolatry giving them Gods proper Power and Prerogative 2. Yea it taketh down God or his Laws and setteth them above him For there cannot be two Absolute Governors that have not one Will. If I must not appeal from them to God then I must appeal from God to them that is I must break his Law if they bid me or else they are not Absolute 3. This maketh all Gods Laws at the will of maâ— as alterable or dispensible Man may forbid all that God commandeth and I must obey 4. Then all Villanies may be made Virtues or Duties at the will of man If they command us to curse God or Blaspheme or be perjured or commit Fornication Murder or Idolatry it would become a Duty 5. Then the Power and Lives of Kings would be at the Clergies mercy For if their power be Absolute they may make Treason and Rebellion a Duty 6. And all Family-Societies and Civil Converse migbt be overthrown while an Absolute Clergy may disoblige men from all duty to one another 7. Then the Council at Lateran which you have excellently proved in your Considerations to be the Author of its Canons doth or did oblige Princes to exterminate their Reformed Subjects and disoblige Subjects from their Allegiance to Princes that obey not the Pope herein and are excommunicate So of Greg. 7 th's Council Rom. 8. Then did the Church or Kingdom of England well to disobey or forsake the Roman Power that was over them 9. Were not our Martyrs rather Rebels that died for disobeying an Absolute Power 10. How should two contradicting Absolute Powers viz. General Councils be both obeyed E. g Nicen. 1. and Arimini Sirm. and Tyr. or Ephes. 2 and Calced 11. How will this stand with the Judgment and practice of the Apostles that said Whether it be meet that we obey God or man judg ye 12. How will it stand with Conformity to the Church of England that in the Articles saith that General Councils may err and have erred in matter of Faith c. 13. Is it not against the sense of all mankind even the common Light of Nature where utter Atheism hath not prevailed Say not that I wrong you by laying all this odium on your self I lay it but on your words And I doubt not but though disputing Interest draw such words from you on consideration you will re-call them by some limitations II. My Reasons against your second must pre-suppose that we understand one another as to the sense of the word Diocesan Church which being your â—erm had I been with you I must have desired you first to explain The word Diocess of old you know signified a part of the Empire larger than a Province and that had many Metropolitans in it I suppose that is not your sense Sometimes now it is taken for that space of ground which we call a Diocess sometimes for all the people in that space And with us a Diocesan Church is a Church of the lowest Order containing in it a multitude of fixed Parochial Congregations which have every one their stated Presbyter who is no Bishop and Vnum altare and are no Churches but parts of a Church and which is individuated by one Bishop and the measuring-space of ground whose inhabitants are its Members Till you tell me the contrary I must take this for your sense For you profess to me that you speak of such Diocesan Churches as ours and they have some above a thousand others many hundred Parishes and you say our Parishes are not Churches but Parts of a Church and so Families are 2. Either you mean that a Diocesan Church is the first in order of Execution and Existence or else in order of Intention and so last in Existence and Execution I know not your meaning and therefore must speak to both I. That a Diocesan Church is first in Intention is denied by me and disproved though it belong to you to prove it 1. Intentions no where declared of God in mature or supernatural Revelations are not to be asserted of him as Truths But a prime intention of a Diocesan Church is no where declared of God Ergo not to be asserted of him as truth 2. It is the end or ultimum rei complementum which is first in intention where there is ordo intentionis But a Diocesan Church is not the end or ultimum rei complementum Ergo not first intended The Major is not deniable The Minor hath the consent as far I as know of all the world For they are all either for the Hierarchy or against it They that are for it say that a Metropolitan is above a Diocesan and a Provincial above a Metropolitan and a Patriarchal above a Provincial and a National which hath Patriarchs as the Empire had above that and â—ay the new Catholicks an humane universal above a National Church as the complement or perfection and therefore must be first intended But those that are against the Hierarchy think that all these are Church-corruptions or humane policies set up by Usurpation and therefore not of prime Divine Intention 3. If you should go this way I would first debate the question with you how far there is such a thing as ordo intentionis to be ascribed to God For though St. Thomas as you use to call him assert such intentions it is with many limitations and others deny it and all confess that it needeth much Explication to be
more than a Ceremony that knoweth it if the King command me to Preach at one hour or one place and the Bishop at another or to use for Uniformity such a Translation Metre Liturgy Utensils Garments c and the Bishops others I will obey the King before the Bishop But if either or both command me to sin I will obey neither so and if they would take me off from that which Christ hath made a real part of my own Office as commanding that I shall preach and pray in no words but such as they prescribe c. I think neither hath power to do this But Bishop Bilson of Christian Obedience and Bishop Andrews in his Tortura Toetis and Buckeridg of Rochester and Grotius de imprrio sum Potest circa Sacra have said so much of the Power of Kings about Religion as that I think I need not add any more And by the same Arguments that you will absolve me from obeying if the King forbid me to Preach by the same you absolve if the Bishop forbid me If I may disobey Constantius and Valens I may disobey Eusebius Nicomed Theognis Maris If I may disobey Theodosius junior Anastasius Zeno Iustinian I may disobey Petrus Moggus Dioscorus Severus c. But you will much cross your â—nds if you tell the Londoners that they may preach and worship God though the King forbid them but not at all if the Bishop forbid them For he that exalteth himself or is sinfully exalted by others shall be brought low If the reverence of the King were not greater in England than of the Bishops the consciences of many thousands would stick but little at disobedience There are so many cases first to be resolved As 1. Whether such Diocesans deposing all Parochial Churches and Bishops and reducing them to Chappels or parts only of a Church be not against Christs Law 2. Whether they destroy not the ancient order of particular Churches Bishops and Discipline 3. Who made their office and by what power 4. Who chose and called them to it 5. Whether their Commands be not null as contrary to Gods 6 How far Communion with them that silence hundreds of faithful Ministers and set up in their stead c. is lawful Many such questions the people are not so easily satisfied in as you are XI And the three last all set together look with an ill design The Preface to Dr. Rich. Cousins Tables tells the King That the Church-Government here is the Kings or derived from him and dependant on him and Grotius de Imperio sum potest proveth at large the Power of Kings circa sacra as doth Spalatensis and many more and that Canons are but good counsel till the King make them Laws And we know no Law-makers but the King and Parliament But if the Church be the Expounders of the Liturgy Rubrick and Canons Articles and Acts of Uniformity and out of Convocation-time the Bishops be the Church and the Archbishops be the Rulers of the Bishops that swear obedience to them this hath a dangerous aspect For then it is in the power of the Bishops if not of the Archbishops only to put a sense upon our 39 Articles Rubricks c. consistent with Popery or Heresie and so to change the Religion of the Kingdom without King or Parliament or against them at their pleasure And thus Officers of mans making who become a Church of mans devising may have advantage by this and the former Articles to destroy Godliness Christianity and Humanity Indeed by the Preface to the Liturgy the Bishop is made the Expounder of any thing doubtful in the Book and by the Index the Act of Uniformity is made part of the Book But this affrighteth me the more from declaring 1. Because I must consent to all the Penalties and Impositions of the Act it self 2. And the Bishop Exposition is limited so that it must be contrary to nothing in the Book Thus I have given you the reasons of my destructive Conference If I had been with you and we had been to enter upon any dispute that tendeth to satisfaction I would have endeavoured to avoid the common frustraters of Disputes 1. By ambiguous words 2. And subjects that are no subjects Therefore if you desire any such dispute I. I intreat you to write me down your sense of some terms which we shall frequently use and I will do the like of any at your desire As what you mean 1. By the word Bishop 2. By a Church 3. By a particular Church 4. By a Diocess and Diocesan Church 5. By a National Church 6. By the Vniversal Church 7. By Church Government and Iurisdiction 8. By Schism I shall dispute no terms unexplained lest one take them in one sense and the other in another and so we dispute but about a sound of words II. I desire that the denied Subject of the Question may not be taken for granted instead of being proved On these terms supposing the common Laws of Disputation especially avoiding words that have no determinate sense I shall not refuse whenever you invite me and I am able to debate with you any of these points that I am concerned in especially whether my Preaching Christs Gospel as I do be my sin or my duty And if our great distance in Principles put either of us upon râ—â—sons that seem dishonouring to the person opposed we shall I hope 〈…〉 that it is the opinion only that is directly intended But 〈…〉 opinion is the persons opinion if it be bad is a dishâ—nâ—â—r whiâ—â— the owner only is guilty of and the opponent caâ—not 〈…〉 must not forbear to open the evil of the cause for avoiding the dishonour of the owner but must the rather open it in hope that the owner will disown it when he understandeth truly what it is For I suppose it is evidence of Truth that we desire In Conclusion remember I pray you 1. That it is not the ancient Episcopacy which was in Cyprians days yea which agreeth with Epiphanius's Intimations and Petavius excellent Notes thereon in Haeres 69. which I deny And I conjecture that at this day in England there are more Episcopal than Presbyterian silenced Non-conformists 2. That what sort of Prelacy or higher Rulers I dare not subscribe to yet I can live quietly and submissively under though not obey them by sinning against God or breaking my Vows of Baptism or Ordination and perfidiously leaving souls to Satan Nothing more threateneth the subversion of the Church-Government than swearing men to approve of all thâ—t's in it Many can submit and live in peace that dare not subscribe or swear Approbation It was the caetâ—ra Oath 1640 that constrained me to thâ—se searches which 〈◊〉 me a Nonconformist It is an easie maâ—â—er for Overdoers to add but a claâ—se or two more to their Oaths and Subscriptions which shall maâ—e almost all the conscionable Ministers of the Kingdom Nonconformists 3. Whenever notorious necessity ceaseth by the sufficient number and qâ—ality of Conforming Preachers I will cease Preaching in England But death is liker first to silence me Though I take my Conforming to be a Complex of heinous sins should I be guilty of it yet till I am called I perswade none to Nonformity for fear of casting them occasionally out of the Ministry preferring their work before the change of their judgment till such endeavours are clearly made by duty But all your endeavour as far as ever I perceived is not so much to draw us to Conformity as to persuade us to give over Preaching Christs Gospel so contrary are our designs 1 Thes· 2.15 16. Methinks is a fearful Text. And so are the words of the Liturgy before the Sacrament If any of you be a hinderer of Gods Word repent or take not this Sacrament lest Satan enter into you as he did into Judas and fill you c. FINIS This was written long ago The Earl of Orery ☜
you I intended none but such as were guilty and with being so I charged none particularly But that not only the old Puritans and Separatists of Queen Elizabeths times c. but also very many of ours now are guilty of them is too notorious to suppose you ignorant of it I could heartily wish that the number of better principled and more peaceable dissenters were greater than I fear it is Nor do I see that what is there said can make it unuseful even to the persons truly concerned that value truth more than any however beloved party seeing it may either let them see the ill consequence of their Principles and their influence on that Atheiâ—m and Prophaneness which I am confident themselves do most cordially detest which I conceive to be more likely to prevail with them than other arguments as being more suited to their pious dispâ—sitions or supposing that my fears were indeed groundless of the introduction of prophaneness by the contempt of Government or of contempt of Government by their disobedience to it yet might it at least warn them from confining on such dangerous consequâ—nces or from coming to them unawares by an abuse of Principles generally true but obnoxious to particular inconveniences when unwarily managed I mean it may put them in mind of the greater momentousness of good Government and peace than many of their differences and consequently of the great engagements incumbent on them for their preservation and that they would therefore so take care to oppose the particular abusive Constitutions of Government as not to bring their Government into contempt nor to suggâ—st unanswerable Apologies to factious persons for the future when they are unwilling to be obedient These are abuses which I believe your self would wish redressed in the Causers of our Church-divisions But if it could not be useful to them yet could it not be prejudicial to them nothing being urged either invidiously or imperiously and therefore no harm being done if I should prove utterly mistaken That you should marvel how Reviving Discipline could by me be expected from the constitution of our present Ecclesiastical Government does seem no less marvellous to me especially as to the exception you make against it for if it were impossible to maintain Discipline under a Government so far Monarchical as to appropriate the Decretory power of the Government of many to a single person though the execution be intrusted to many then it would follow that the secular Discipline under a secular Monarch of any extent were impossible also to be observed seeing it is as impossible for any such Prince to have a particular cognizance of every particular Cause much more of every particular person in his Dominions as for a Bishop in his Diocess As there it appears by experience I shall instance in a Scripture-example because I know that will be liable to least exception that David in an extent more vast and a people more numerous thâ—n that of the largest Diocesses 120. Miles in length and 60 Miles in breâ—dth and rather better in David's days where were accounted 1300000 men sit for War besides Artificers and such others not coming under that account was yet able to give a goâ—d account of his Government without particular inspection into all Causes or Communication of his powâ—r to numerous co-ordinate Presbyteries so I do not see why it may not as well hold for a possibility of Discipline under an Ecclesiastical Monarch of a much narrower extent for the reason produced by you seems to proceed from the nature of Government in general and therefore must proceed with the same force in seculars as Ecclesiasticals there being no ingredient peculiarly relaâ—ing to Religion much less to Christianity which might alter the case or argue a disparity for certainly Princes as well as Bishops are responsible for the miscarriage of their particular â—ubjects for they may be prevented by moral diligence and yet you will not thence conclude that every particular must come under his immediate personal care and cognizance nor is it proved that the Bishop is otherwise obliged to such a care upon peâ—uliar respects Besides that it is plainly against experience even in Ecclesistasticals for as it has fallen out in some places where there were many Cities the Bishops were proporâ—ionally multiplied as in Affrica and Ireland so that it was not upon account of the impossibility of managing the charge of much greater multitudes than the Inhabitants of those small Cities appears in that even in the very same places the greatness of no City was thought sufficient for multiplying the Bishops though it was for the Inferior Clergy I need not tell you how great Rome was and how full of Christians even in Decius's time under Cornelius which required the united endeavours of above a Thousand Clergies as appears from the said Cornelius's Epistle to Fabius of Antioch in Euseb. yet was one Bishop thought sufficient for all nay the erecting another in the same See was thought to be formal Schism as appears from the controversies of those Ages betwixt Cornelius and Novatian and St. Cyprian and Felicissimus The same also might have been shewn in several other Cities exceeding numerous and abounding with Christians as Antioch and Alexandria and Carthage c. which even in those early Ages when Discipline was at the greatest Rigour were yet Governed by single Bishops Nay whole Nations were sometimes Governed only by one as the Gotâ—s by Vlpilas and the Indians by Aedesius and the Arabians by Moses which is an Argument insisted on by some Presbyterians for shewing the probability of Ordinations by bare Presbyâ—â—rs Yâ—t are there no complaints of dissolution of Discipline in such places upon account of the greatness of their charge which to me seem sufficient convictions that the multitude of persons governed is not the reason of our present neglects in that particular When I said that Ignatius's Epistles were questioned by the Presbyterians I never said nor intended it concerning all for I knew of Vedelius's Apology for them much less did I lay it particularly to your charge so that if you had here forborn assuming to your self what was spoken of others many of whose Opinions I am confident you will not undertake to justifie there had been no occasion of this exception That other Presbyterians and those by far the greatest number have denied them cannot be questioned As for the Reasons for Nonconformity alledged by you and your Brethren of the Savoy Conference in 1660. if I might without offence presume to interpose my own thoughts they are as followeth 1. For the approving not only submitting to such things as you disliked and that by an Oath I am sure there are many Conformists themselves that understand no more to have been intended by the Church but only an Exterior submission not an Internal Approbation of the Particulars And particularly I have been inâ—ormed by a Letter from a very worthy credible person who pretends to have had
it from the Bishop himself that Bishop Sanderson who was a Member of your Conference interposed those words in the Act of Parliament where it is required that Ministers declare their unfeigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the Book of Common-Prayer c. designedly that this Objection might be prevented The new Article of Faith inserted in the Rubrick I do not know nor can I now get the Books that past betwixt you at the Conference to find what you mean That Lay-Chancellors were put down and that the Bishops did more consult their Presbyteries I could for my own part hâ—artily wish But â— cannot think abuses momentous enough to warrant a Schism and I know your self are for bearing with some things that are not so wâ—ll liked of rather than that the Church of God should be divided for them In brief I do not understand any of the Six Particulars mentioned as the Reasons that keep you off though indeed you disapprove them both because you do not undertake to determine what they might be to others but only what they are to persons of your mind though I confess this may be understood as a modest declining to judg of others and because you conceive piety the most likely means to unite us which could not be if we imposed any thing on you against your Consciences So that the only one may be presumed to have been thought sufficient by you to this purpose seems to have been another which because you intimate somewhat obscurely I do not know whether you would be willing that it should be taken notice of But however I suppose that it self does I suppose only deprive us of your Clerical not your Laical Communion God give us all to discern the things that belong to peace As for other Questions we may patiently await our Lords leisure who when he comes shall tell us all things and in the mean time preserve Charity and be wise unto sobriety I hope Sir you will excuse my freedom and let me know whether I may in any thing be serviceable to you and above all things reserve a portion in your Prayers for Trin. Col. near Dublin Decemb. 14. 1672. Your unfeigned Well-wisher HENRY DODWELL For the Worthy and much Honoured Mr. Henry Dodwell at Trinity Colledg near Dublin in Ireland Worthy Sir I Heartily thank you for your patience with my free expressions and for your grave and kind reply As to the main cause of the Nonconformists should I enter upon that which I cannot prosecute I should greatly injure it my self and you I must again crave your patience with my freedom The sins which they fear whether justly is the question are so heinous that they dare not mention them lest their condemners and afflicters cannot bear it and so many that to open them justly will require a great Volume and therefore not by me to be done in a Letter Only to what you have said let me mind you in transitu 1. That you mistake me if you think that I excepted against your Preface as medling with me any otherwise than as I am one of those Nonconformists with whom I am acquainted who are mostly of my mind And I suppose you would take it for no honour to be thought to be better acquainted with the most of them in England than I am 2. That your intimations about the old Nonconformists are not to our business seeing the name of Nonconformists maketh not nor proveth all or many so named to be of the same mind Nor is your mention of our Treaty or Papers of 1660 more pertinent it being the old Cause only that we had to do with the new Laws of Conformity being not then existent which have made it quite another thing Only I assure you if my superiours would not take it for a crime and injâ—ry to do what Iustin 〈…〉 for their mistaken Cause 〈…〉 it I would endeavour to shew another 〈…〉 and Nonconformity than is commonly taken 〈…〉 also to give you who so well understand Antiquity 〈…〉 evidence of our Conformity to the ancient 〈…〉 300 and mostly for 600 years after Christ. 〈◊〉 â—hat I may not say nothing to you 〈…〉 only employ 〈◊〉 lines about your sugâ—â—â—tions concerning the possibility of truâ— Discâ—pline by Dâ—â—â—esans as they are with us And still you mâ—st pardon my 〈◊〉 of speech I must say that it is the câ—â—amity of Churches when their Prelates and Pastors are men that never were acquainted with the flocks but spend one half 〈◊〉 their days in Schools and Colleâ—ges and the other in Noblenâ—â—â—â— or Gentlemens houses and then talk confidently of the pâ—or people whom they know not and the Discipline which they â—â—ver tryed Even you whom I honour as a person of extraordinary worth constrain me by this your Letter to think that I diâ—pute as about war with one that never stormed a Garison nor fought a battel or as about Navigation with one that was never one month at â—ea I. Our first question is What the Pastoral Office is and especially Discipline II Our next is Whether it may be delegated to or done by one that is not of Gods Institution for the doing of it III. And then we shall soon see whether it be possible for our Diocesans to do it or any considerable part of it I. If the Erastians be in the right that none of our Discipline is necessary besides that by the Sword and our Preaching then we may put up the Controversie on both sides But if that be the work of Bishops now which was so in Scripture-times the matter will hold no long dispute To shorten thâ—t work I desire you to peruse its like you have done Dr. Hammonds Paraphrase on all the Texts that mention Bishops and Presbyters with his Treatise of the Keys where he will tell you that it was the Bishops Office to be the ordinary Preacher to Pray to celebrate the Eucharist to visit the Sick to keep and distribute the alms and offerings of the Church as Curators for the Poor with much more work And that every single Congregation had such a Bishop that ever met to celebrate Gods publick Worship and that there was not a meeâ—ing of a Christian Church without such for the said Worship in Scripture-times for he saith that there is no proof that there were any other Presbyters in Scripture-times And for Discipline it is past doubt 1. That as to the matter of 〈◊〉 iâ— must consist of a personal watch over each member of â—he 〈◊〉 that every one in it that liveth in gross sin or Infidel or Heathenish or Herâ—tical error and ignorance be orderly admonished first mâ—re privately afterward more openly and lastâ—y most 〈◊〉 and that he be by convincing reasons and â—xhortations perswaded to repentance That the penitent muâ—t be 〈◊〉 and confirmed the obstinately impenitent rejected as uâ—meet for the Communion of the Church And for the manner it is agreed that it must be done with