dare not desert it lest we shortly appear before our Judge in the guilt of sacriledge perfidiousness against Christ and the people's Souls But we are forbiden to exercise it unless we will do that which we profess as Men that are passing to our final Doom we would readily do were it not for fear of God's displeasure and our Damnation Deprivation of all Ministerial maintenance with heavy Mulcts on such as have not money to pay and long Imprisonments in the Common Goals with Malefactors and banishment to those that shall survive them and that into remote parts of the World were the penalties appointed for us by your Laws Voluminous reproaches are published against us in which our Superiours and the World are told that we hold that things indifferent are made unlawful by the Commands of lawful Governours and that we are guilty of Doctrines inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Societies and that we are moved by Pride and Covetousness as if we were proud of Men's Scorn and covetous of sordid Want and Beggery and ambitious of a Gaol and that we are Unpeaceable Disloyal Odious and Intolerable Persons Lest we should seem over-querulous and our Petitions themselves should prove offensive we have been silent under Twelve years sufferings by which divers Learned and holy Divines have been hastened home to Glory hoping that Experience would have effectually spoken for us when we may not Speak for our selves And did we believe that our own pressures were the greatest consequent Evil and that the People's knowledge and piety and the allowed Ministers Number sufficiency and Diligence were such as made our Labours needless and that the History of our Silence and Sufferings would be the future Honour of this Age and the future Comfort of your Souls and theirs that instigate you against us before our Common Judge we would joyfully be silent and accept of a Dismission But being certain of the contrary we do this once adventure humbly to tender to Your Majesty and Your Parliament these following Requests 1. Because God saith That he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not Eternal Life We humbly crave leave once to Print and Publish the true State and Reasons of our Nonconformity to the World to save Mens Souls from the guilt of unjust Hatred and Calumny And if we err we may be helped to Repentance by a Confutation and the Notoriety of our shame 2. That in the mean time this Honourable House will appoint a Committee to consider of the best means for the Healing our Calamitous Divisions before whom we may have leave at last to speak for our selves 3. That these annexed Professions of our Religion and Loyalty may be received as from Men that better know their own Minds than their Accusers do and who if they durst deliberately Lie should be no Nonconformists 4. That if yet we must suffer as Malefactors we may be punished but as Drunkards and Fornicators are with some Penalty which will consist with our Preaching Christ's Gospel and that shall not reach to the hurt or danger of many Thousand Innocent People's Souls till the Re-building of the Burnt-Churches the lessening of great Parishes where one of very many cannot hear and worship God and till the quality and number of the Conformable Ministers and the knowledge piety and sobriety of the people have truly made our Labours needless and then we shall gladly obey your Silencing Commands And whereas there are commonly reckoned to be in the Parishes without the Walls above Two hundred thousand persons more than can come within the Parish Churches they may not be compelled in a Christian Land to live as Atheists and worse than Infidels and Heathens who in their manner publickly worship God The Profession of our Religion I A. B. Do willingly profess my continued resolved consent to the Covenant of Christianity which I made in my Baptism with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost forsaking the Devil the World and the sinful Lusts of the Flesh And I profess my Belief of the Ancient Christian Creeds called The Apostles The Nicene and The Constantinopolitane and the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity fullier opened in that ascribed to Athanasius And my Consent to The Lord's Prayer as the Summary of Holy Desires and to The Decalogue with Christ's Institutions as the Summary Rule of Christian Practice And to all the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God And to the Doctrine of the Church of England professed in the 39 Articles of Religion as in sence agreeable to the Word of God And I renounce all Heresies or Errours contrary to any of these And I do hold that the Book of Common Prayer and of Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing so disagreeable to the Word of God as maketh it unlawful to live in the Peaceable Communion of the Church that useth it The Profession of our Loyalty and Obedience I do willingly and without Equivocation and Deceit take the Oaths of Allegiance and the King's Supremacy and hold my self obliged to perform them I detest all Doctrines and Practices of Rebellion and Sedition I hold it unlawful for any of His Majesty's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King His Person Authority Dignity or Rights or against any Authorized by his Laws or Commissions And that there is no Obligation on me or any other of his Subjects from the Oath Commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any change of the present Government of these His Majesty's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any Reformation of the Church by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means The Overplus as a remedy against Suspicion We believe and willingly embrace all that is written in the Holy Scriptures for the power of Kings and the Obedience of their Subjects and the sinfulness of Rebellion and Resistance And concerning the same we consent to as much as is found in any General Council or in the Confession of any Christian Church on Earth not respecting Obedience to the Pope which ever yet came to our knowledg or as is owned by the Consent of the Greater part of Divines Politicians Lawyers or Historians in the Christain World as far as our Reading hath acquainted us therewith II. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of some Citizens of London on the behalf of this City and the Adjoyning Parishes Sheweth THat the Calamitous Fire 1666 with our Houses and Goods Burnt down near 90 Churches few of which are yet Re-edifyed And divers Parishes whose Churches yet stand are so great that it is but a small part of the Inhabitants that can there hear whereby great Numbers are left in ignorance and as a prey to Papists and other Seducers and which is worse to Atheism Infidelity and Irreligiousness And if many of their ancient ejected silenced Pastors who for refusing certain Subscriptions Declarations Promises Oaths and Practices are called Nonconformists had not through
set all in joint again by Violence and secure the Peace of Church and State And neither Pope Prelate nor Council should take this Work upon them which is his And therefore Magistrates should be Wise and Holy and fit for so great a Charge as they undertake It must be still noted that all this was when Diocesanes were put down and few saw any probability of restoring them and many religions Persons dreaded such a Restoration § 50. When Cromwell's Faction were making him Protector they drew up a Thing which they called The Government of England c. Therein they determined that all should have Liberty or free Exercise of their Religion who professed Faith in God by Iesus Christ After this he called a Parliament which Examined this Instrument of Government and when they came to those words the Orthodox Party affirmed That if they spake de re and not de nomine Faith in God by Iesus Christ could contain no less than the Fundamentals of Religion whereupon it was purposed that all should have a due measure of Liberty who professed the Fundamentals Hereupon the Committee appointed to that Business were required to nominate certain Divines to draw up in terminis the Fundamentals of Religion to be as a Test in this Toleration The Committee being about Fourteen named every one his Man The Lord Broghill after Earl of Orery and Lord President of Munster and one of his Majesty's Privy Council named the Primate of Ireland Archbishop Usher When he because of his Age and Unwillingness to wrangle with such Men as were to join with him had refused the Service the Lord Broghill nominated me in his Stead Whereupon I was sent for up to London But before I came the rest had begun their Work and drawn up some few of the Propositions which they called Fundamentals The Men that I found there were Mr. Marshal Mr. Reyner Dr. Cheynell Dr. Goodwin Dr. Owen Mr. Nye Mr. Sydraâ—â— Sympson Mr. Vines Mr. Manton and Mr. Iacomb § 51. I knew how ticklish a Business the Enumeration of Fundamentals was and of what very ill Consequence it would be if it were ill done and how unsatisfactorily that Question What are your Fundamentals is usually answered to the Papists My own Judgment was this that we must distinguish between the Sense or matter and the Words and that it 's only the Sense that is primarily and properly our Fundamentals and the Words no further than as they are needful to express that Sence to others or represent it to our own Conception that the Word Fundamentals being Metaphorical and Ambiguous the Word Essentials is much fitter it being nothing but what is Essential or Constitutive of true Religion which is understood by us usually when we speak of Fundamentals that quoad rem there is no more Essential or Fundamental in Religion but what is contained in our Baptismal Covenant I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and give up my self in Covenant to him renouncing the Flesh the World and the Devil He that doth this truly shall be saved or else sincere Covenanting could not entitle us to the Blessings of the Covenant And therefore it is that the Ancient Church held that all that are Baptized duly are in a Justified State of Life because all that sincerely give up themselves in Covenant to God as our God and Father our Redeemer and Saviour our Sanctifier and Comforter have right to the Blessings of the Covenant And quoad verba I suppose that no particular Words in the World are Essentials of our Religion Otherwise no Man could be saved without the Language which those Words belong to He that understandeth not Credo in Deum may be saved if he believe in God Also I suppose that no particular Formula of Words in any or all Languages is Essential to our Religion for he that expresseth his Faith in another form of words of the same importance professeth a Saving Faith And as to the Use of a Form of Words to express our Belief of the Essential it is various and therefore the Form accordingly is variable If it be to teach another what is the Essence of Religion a dull hearer must have many Words when a quick intelligent Person by few Words can understand the same thing I believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost expresseth all the Essentials intelligibly to him that hath learned truly to understand the meaning of these Words But to an ignorant Man a large plain Catechism is short enough to express the same things But as to the Use of Publick Professions of Faith to satisfie the Church for the Admittance of Members or to satisfie other Churches to hold Communion with any particular Church a Form of Words which is neither obscure by too much Conciseness not Tedious or Tautological by a needless Multiplication of Words I take to be the fittest To which ends and because the Ancient Churches had once a happy Union on those Terms I think that this is all that should be required of any Church or Member ordinarily to be professed In General I do believe all that is contained in the Sacred Canonical Scriptures and particularly I believe all explicitly contained in the Ancient Creed and I desire all that is contained in the Lord's Prayer and I resolve upon Obedience to the Ten Commandments and whatever selfe I can learn of the Will of God And for all other Points it is enough to preserve both Truth and Peace that Men promise not to preach against them or contradict them though they Subscribe them not § 52. Therefore I would have had the Brethren to have offered the Parliament the Creed Lord's Prayer and Decalogue alone as our Essentials or Fundamentals which at least contain all that is necessary to Salvation and hath been by all the Ancient Churches taken for the Sum of their Religion And whereas they still said A Socinian or a Papist will Subscribe all this I answered them So much the better and so much the fitter it is to be the Matter of our Concord But if you are afraid of Communion with Papists and Socinians it must not be avoided by making a new Rule or Test of Faith which they will not Subscribe to or by forcing others to Subscribe to more than they can do but by calling them to account whenever in Preaching or Writing they contradict or abuse the Truth to which they have Subscribed This is the Work of Government And we must not think to make Laws serve instead of Iudgement and Execution nor must we make new Laws as oft as Hereticks will mis-interpret and subscribe the old for when you have put in all the Words you can devise some Hereticks will put their own Sence on them and Subscribe them And we must not blame God for not making a Law that no Man can misinterpret or break and think to make such a one ourselves because God could not or would not These Presumptions and
see the Examples of Tyranny and rash Excommunication let him read Iohn's Epistle to Diotrephes and the pious Admonitions of Irenaeus to Victor The Examples of Schisms we have in others not a few To which Optatus Melev prudently ascribeth three Causes Wrath Ambition and Covetousness But how many score Canons Interdicts and Bloody Wars do prove all this XXVIII And had not these Vices conquered Common Reason with Christianity in such men it were a Wonder that so unprofitable and causeless a thing as forcing all Christians to Unite on the profest Approbation and Practice of all the needless Things which such impose and denying them Communion and Peace on the Terms that Christ prescribed for all his Servants to own and love each other on should be thought a sufficient Justification of all that Dividing Cruelty of which it hath been guilty And that Church-Grandees should make such Schisms as are yet in East and West and then hate and persecute the Sufferers as Schismaticks Saith Grotius on Luke 6. 22. Scitum est Veterum Iudaeorum cujus Maimonidememinit siquis Innocentem à Communione arcuerit ipsum excidere jure Communionis And Dr. Stillingfleet on Archbishop Laud and before him Chillingworth conclude That if a Church deny Communion to her Members on those Terms that give them Right to Communion with the Church Universal that Church is guilty of the Schism Were it not more Christian-like easie and sweet to joyn all in the practice of the Laws of Christ by which we shall be judged with the needful use of edifying Order and Circumstances that all Sizes and Ages of Christians might live in Unity and Love than to cast out all that cannot Unite on Terms so far beyond meer Christianity as most Churches on Earth require When the Volume of Councils and Canons were unknown and plain Familiar Discipline was used in the open Church-Meetings Christians were less divided saith Grotius in Luc. 6. 22. Apud Christianos Veteres praesidente quidem Episcopo Senioribus sed Conscia Consentiente Fratrum multitudine morum judicia exercebantur If Christians be partial hear an impartial Heathen Ammianus Marcellinus who scandalized with the murder of Men kill'd in the Church for the Election of Pope Damasus concludeth how well it would have gone with Christianity if those great Roman Prelates had lived like the poor humble inferiour Bishops See his words But if Paul's full Decision on Romans 14. will not bring us to necessary forbearance no Plainness not Authority will serve Numb IX An Act for Concord by Reforming Parish Churches and Regulating Toleration of DISSENTERS I. THE Qualification requisite to Baptism in the Adult for themselves and in one Parent at least or Pro-Parents for Infants is Their understanding Consent to the Baptismal Covenant in which they are solemnly devoted to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as their God and Father Saviour and Sanctifier Renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil so far as they are adverse And the requisite Qualification of the Adult for proper Church Priviledges and Communion in the Lord's Supper is That they forsake not the said Covenant or Christianity but publickly own it not rendering their Profession invalid by any Doctrine or Practice inconsistent therewith And that they understandingly desire the said Communion II. The Christian Churches have universally taken the Creed the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments as delivered by Christ for the Summary of the Christian Belief Desire and Practice expounding the Matter of the Baptismal Covenant Therefore all Pastors shall Exhort all Housholders to learn themselves and teach their Families the words and meaning of the Baptismal Covenant and of the Creed Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments And shall also thus Catechize such themselves as need their help as far as they or their Assisstants can do it III. No Minister shall Baptize any Person Adult or Infant till the Adult for themselves and the Parent or Pro-Parent who undertaketh the Education of the Child as his own have there professed their Belief of the Christian Faith and their fore-described Consent to the Christian Covenant in which they are to be solemnly devoted to God And such they shall not refuse Nor shall the Pastors admit any to the proper Priviledges of Church Communion and partaking of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ but those who have made Profession that they resovedly stand to their Baptismal Covenant in the foresaid Belief of the Christian Faith and Desire and Obedience to Christ. Which Profession shall be made in the Church or to the Pastor before sufficient Witness or to the Diocesan or some other Pastor who shall give Testimonial of it And if any shall go from the Parish-Church Pastor to be Confirmed by the Bishop or received by any other Minister without the Certificate or Consent of his own Parish Pastor the said Pastor shall not be obliged to admit him to Communion till to him also before Witness he have made the said Profession IV. Because in great Parishes and Cities where Persons live unknown and as Lodgers are transient and too great a Number desire not Communion and many Communicate only with other Churches and it is needful for Order that all Pastors know their Communicating Flock from the rest the Pastor may for his memory keep a Register of the stated Communicants of his Parish and put out the Names of those that deny or remove or are lawfully Excommunicate or that wilfully forbear Communion above fix Months not rendering to the Pastor a Satisfactory Excuse But occasionally he ought not to refuse any Stranger who hath Testimony of his Communion with any other approved Christian Church V. If by the Pastor's knowledge or by just accusation or same any Communicant be strongly suspected of Atheism Infidelity or denying any Essential part of Christian Faith Hope or Practice or to live in any heinous Sin the Pastor shall send for him and enquire of the Truth and if he be proved Guilty gently instruct him and admonish him and skilfully labour to bring him to Repentance And if he prevail not shall again send for him and do the same before some Witnesses And if he yet prevail not or if he wilfully refuse to come or to answer him shall open his Case before the Church Vestry or Neighbour Pastors and if he be present there admonish him and pray for his Repentance And if yet he prevail not to bring him to the profession of serious Repentance he shall declare that he judgeth him a Person unmeet for Church Communion till he Repent and shall till then forbear to give him the Sacrament But when he professeth serious Repentance shall receive him But if after such oft Professions he continue in such heinous Sin he shall not again receive him till actual Amendment for a sufficient time to make valid his Profession VI. Ordination to the Priesthood shall be a valid License to Preach And every just Incumbent being the Pastor Overseer or
Conversation amongst all Protestants and upon avoiding Divisions amongst Christ's Followers as that whatever obstructed these Concerns he was impatient of and warm against Truth Peace and Love was he a Votary to and Martyr for and hereunto did he devote most of his Life and Labours Dicam quod res est It is scandalous that there should be Divisions Distances Animosities and Contentions amongst Christians Protestants Dissenters against each other and in the Bowels of each Party But much hereof arises from unhappy Tempers Self-ignorance Confidence and Inobservance want of frequent patient and calm Conference and impartial Debates about things controverted addictedness to Self-Interest and Reputation with our respective Parties impatience of severe Thoughts and Studies and of impartial Consideration before we fix and pass our Judgment taking things too much upon Trust Prejudice against those whose Sentiments are different from our own laying too great a weight upon eccentrical and meaner things prying too boldly into and talking too confidentlyâ— about things unrevealed or but darkly hinted to us in the Sacred Text and representing the Doctrine of our Christianity in our own Artificial Terms and Schemes and so confining the Interest Grace and Heart of God and Christ to our respective Parties as if we had forgot or had never read Rom. 14. 17 19. Acts 10 34 35. Gal. 6. 14 16. and Eph. 4. 1 〈◊〉 That Person whose Thoughts Heart and Life shall meet me in the Spirit and Reach of 2 Pet. I. I II. shall have my hearty Love and Service although he determine never to hear me Preach or to Communicate with me all his days through the Impression of his Education or Acquaintance though at the same time I should be loth that such a narrow Thought should be the Principle Poise and Conduct of my Church Fellowship Spirit or Behaviour God hath I doubt not his eminent and valuable Servants inâ—all Parties and Perswasions amongst Christians An heavenly mind and Life is all in all with me I doubt not but that God hath many precious faithful Ones amongst the Men called Independants Presbyterians â—â—â—nabapâ—ists Prelatical And I humbly judge it reasonable that 1. The Miscarriages of former Parties be not imputed to succeeding Parties who own not nor abet their Principles as productive of such practical Enormities 2. That the Miscarriages of some particular Persons be not charged on the rest until they profess or manifest their Approbation of them 3. That what is repented of and pardoned be not so received as to foment Divisions and Recriminations 4. That my trust from Mr. Baxter and faithfulness to him and to Posterity be not constrâ—ed as the Result of any Spleen in me against any Person or Party mentioned in this following History 5. And that we all value that in one another which God thinks lovely where he forms and finds it And 6. O Utinam that we form no other Test and Canon of Christian Orthodoxy and Saving Soundness and Christian Fellowship than what the Sacred Scriptures give us as Explicatory of the Christian Baptismal Creed and Covenant as influencing us into an holy Life and heavenly Hopes and Joys I thought once to have given the World a faithful Abstract of Mr Baxter's Doctrines or Judgment containing the Sence of what he held about Justification Faith Works c. and yet laying aside his Terms of Art that hereby the Reader might discern the Consonancy of it to the Sacred Text and to the Doctrinal Confessions of the Reformed Churches his Consistence with himself and his nearer approach in Judgment to those from whom he seems to differ much than the prejudiced Adversaries are aware of But this must be a Work of Time if not an Enterprize too great for me as I justly fear it is But I will do by him as I would do by others and have them do by me viz. give him his owned Explication of the Baptismal Creed and Covenant as a fit Test to try his Judgment by and if his Doctrines in his other Treatises consist herewith others perhaps will see more Cause to think him Orthodox in the most weighty Articles and less to be suspected notwithstanding his different Modes of Speech The Things professedly believed by him as may be seen in his Christian Concord were THat there is one only God The Father Infinite in Being Wisdom Goodness and Power the Maker Preserver and Disposer of all things and the most just and merciful Lord of All. That Mankind being fallen by Sin from God and Happiness under the Wrath of God the Curse of his Law and the Power of the Devil God so loved the World that he gave his only Son to be their Redeemer who being God and one with the Father did take to him our Nature and became Man being conceived of the Holy Ghost in the Virgin Mary and born of her and named JESUS CHRIST and having liv'd on Earth without Sin and wrought many Miracles for a witness of his Truth he gave up himself a Sacrifice for our Sins and a Ransom for 〈◊〉 in suffering Death on the Cross and being buried he is Lord of all in Glory with the Father And having ordained that all that truly repent and believe in him and love him above all things and sincerely obey him and that to the Death shall be saved and they that will not shall be damned and commended his Ministers to preach the Gospel to the World He will come again and raise the Bodies of all Men from Death and will set all the World before him to be judged according to what they have done in the Body and he will adjudge the Righteous to Life Everlasting and the rest to Everlasting Punishment which shall be Executed accordingly That God the Holy Ghost the Spirit of the Father and the Son was â—â—nt from the Father by the Son to inspire and guide the Prophets and Apostles that they might fully reveal the Doctrine of Christ And by multitudes of Evident Miracles and wonderful Gifts to be the great Witness of Christ and of the Truth of his Holy Word And also to dwell and work in all that are drawn to believe that being first joyned to Christ their Head and into one Church which is his Body and so pardoned and made the Sons of God they may be a peculiar People sanctified to Christ and may mortifie the Fesh and overcome the World and the Devil and being zealous of good Works may serve God in Holiness and Righteousness and may live in the special Love and Communion of the Saints and in hope of Christ's Coming and of Everlasting Life In the belief hereof the Things consented to were as followeth THat he heartily took this one GOD for his only GGD and his chief Good and this IESUS CHRIST for his only Lord Redeemer and Saviour and this HOLY GHOST for his Sanctifier and the Doctrine by him revealed and sealed by his Miracles and now contained in the Holy Scriptures he took for the Law of God
that was the fourth Sect the Quakers who were but the Ranters turned from horrid Prophaneness and Blasphemy to a Life of extream Austerity on the other side Their Doctrines were mostly the same with the Ranters They make the Light which every Man hath within him to be his sufficient Rule and consequently the Scripture and Ministry are set light by They speak much for the dwelling and working of the Spirit in us but little of Justification and the Pardon of Sin and our Reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ They pretend their dependance on the Spirit 's Conduct against Set-times of Prayer and against Sacraments and against their due esteem of Scripture and Ministry They will not have the Scripture called the Word of God Their principal Zeal lyeth in railing at the Ministers as Hirelings Deceivers False Prophets c. and in refusing to Swear before a Magistrate or to put off their Hat to any or to say You instead of Thou or Thee which are their words to all At first they did use to fall into Tremblings and sometime Vomitings in their Meetings and pretended to be violently acted by the Spirit but now that is ceased they only meet and he that pretendeth to be moved by the Spirit speaketh and sometime they say nothing but sit an hour or more in silence and then depart One while divers of them went Naked through divers chief Towns and Cities of the Land as a Prophetical act Some of them have famished and drowned themselves in Melancholy and others undertaken by the Power of the Spirit to raise them as Susan Pierson did at Claines near Worcester where they took a Man out of his Grave that had so made away himself and commanded him to arise and live but to their shame Their chief Leader Iames Nayler acted the part of Christ at Bristol according to much of the History of the Gospel and was long laid in Bridewell for it and his Tongue bored as a Blasphemer by the Parliament Many Franciscan Fryers and other Papists have been proved to be Disguised Speakers in their Assemblies and to be among them and it 's like are the very Soul of all these horrible Delusions But of late one William Penn is become their Leader and would reform the Sect and Set up a kind of Ministry among them § 124. The fifth Sect are the Bethmenists whose Opinions go much toward the way of the former for the Sufficiency of the Light of Nature the Salvation of Hearthens as well as Christians and a dependence on Revelations c. But they are fewer in Number and seem to have attained to greater Meekness and conquest of Passions than any of the rest Their Doctrine is to be seen in Iacob Behmen's Books by him that hath nothing else to do than to bestow a great deal of time to understand him that was not willing to be easily understood and to know that his bombasted words do signifie nothing more than before was easily known by common familiar terms The chiefest of these in England are Dr. Pordage and his Family who live together in Community and pretend to hold visible and sensible Communion with Angels whom they sometime see and sometime smell c. Mr. Fowler of Redding accused him before the Committee for divers things as for preaching against Imputed Righteousness and perswading married Persons from the Carnal Knowledge of each other c. but especially for Familiarity with Devils or Conjuration The Doctor wrote a Book to vindicate himself in which he professeth to have sensible Communion with Angels and to know by sights and smells c. good Spirits from bad But he saith that indeed one Month his House was molested with Evil Spirits which was occasioned by one Everard whom he taketh to be a Conjurer who stayed so long with him as desiring to be of their Communion In this time he saith that a fiery Dragon so big as to fill a very great Room conflicted visibly with him many hours that one appeared to him in his Chamber in the likeness of Everard with Boots Spurs c. that an impression was made on the Brick-wall of his Chimney of a Coach drawn with Tygers and Lions which could not be got out till it was hewed out with Pick-Axes and another on his Glass-window which yet remaineth c. Whether these things be true or false I know not but the chief Person of the Doctor 's Family-Communion being a Gentleman and Student of All Souls in Oxford was thus made known to me His Mother being a sober pious Woman being dissatisfied with his way could prevail with him to suffer her to open it to none but me of whole Conversion to them their Charity was much desirous Upon discourse with the young man I found a very good Disposition aspiring after the highest Spiritual state and thinking that visible Communion with Angels was it he much expected it and protest in some measure to have attained it for some lights and odd sights he had seen but upon strict Examination he knew not whether it were with the Eye of the Body or of the Mind nor I knew not whether it were any thing real or but fantastical He would not dispute because he thought he knew things by a higher light than Reason even by Intuition by the extraordinary Irradiation of the Mind He was much against Propriety and against Relations of Magistrates Subjects Husbands Wives Masters Servants c. But I perceived he was a young raw Scholar of some Fryar whom he understood not and when he should but have commended the Perfection of a Monastical Life which is the thing that they so highly magnifie he carried it too far and made it seem more necessary than he should They then professed to wait for such a Coming down of the holy Ghost upon them as should send them out as his Missionaries to unite and reconcile and heal the Churches and do wonders in the World But its fifteen years ago and yet they are latent and their work undone § 125. Among these fall in many other Sect-makers as Dr. Gell of London known partly by a printed Volume in Folio and one Mr. Parker who got in to the Earl of Pembroke and was one that wrote a Book against the Assemblies Confession In which as the rest he taketh up most of the Popish Doctrines and riseth up against them with Papal Pride and Contempt but owneth not the Pope himself but headeth his Body of Doctrine with the Spirit as the Papists do with the Pope And if they could bring men to receive the rest it will be easie to spurn down the Idol of their Fantasie or pretended Spirit and to set on the proper Head again To these also must be added Dr. Gibbon who goeth about with his Scheme to Proselyte men whom I have more cause to know than some of the rest All these with subtile Diligence promote most of the Papal Cause and get in with the Religious sort
Assurgency to the attempting of difficult thing and so my Mind may retire to the Root of Christian Principles and also I have often been afraid lest ill-rooting at first and many Temptations afterwards have made it more necessary for me than many others to retire to the Root and secure my Fundamentals But upon much Observation I am afraid lest most others are in no better a Case and that at the first they take it for a granted thing that Christ is the Saviour of the World and that the Soul is Immortal and that there is a Heaven and a Hell c. while they are studying abundance of a Scholastick Superstructures and at last will find cause to study more soundly their Religion it self as well as I have done The better Causes are these 1. I value all things according to their Use and Ends and I find in the daily Practice and Experience of my Soul that the Knowledge of God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Truth of Scripture and the Life to come and of a Holy Life is of more use to me than all the most curious Speculations 2. I know that every Man must grow as Trees do downwards and upwards both at once and that the Roots increase as the Bulk and Branches do 3. Being nearer Death and another World I am the more regardful of those things which my Everlasting Life or Death depend on 4. Having most to do with ignorant miserable People I am commanded by my Charity and Reason to treat with them of that which their Salvation lyeth on and not to dispute with them of Formalities and Neceties when the Question is presently to be determined whether they shall dwell for ever in Heaven or in Hell In a Word my Meditations must be most upon the matters of my Practice and my Interest And as the Love of God and the seeking of Everlasting Life is the Matter of my Practice and my Interest so must it be of my Meditation That is the best Doctrine and Study which maketh men better and tendeth to make them happy I abhor the Folly of those unlearned Persons who revile or despise Learning because they know not what it is And I take not any piece of true Learning to be useless And yet my Soul approveth of the Resolution of Holy Paul who determined to know nothing among his Hearers that is comparatively to value and make Oftentation of no other Wisdom but that Knowledge of a Cruchfied Christ to know God in Christ is Life Eternal As the Stock of the Tree affordeth Timber to build Houses and Cities when the small though higher multiâ—arious Branches are but to make a Crowns Nest or a Blaze So the Knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ of Heaven and Holyness doth build up the Soul to endless Blessedness and affordeth it solid Peace and Comfort when a multitude of Schoolâ—Niceties serve but for vain Janglings and hurtful Diversions and Contentions And yet I would not dissuade my Reader from the perusal of Aquinas Scotus Ockam Arminiensis Durandus or any such Writer for much Good may be gotten from them But I would persuade him to study and live upon the essential Doctrines of Christianity and Godliness incomparably above them all And that he may know that my Testimony is somewhat regardable I presume to say that in this I as much gainsay my natural Inclination to Subtilty and Accurateness in Knowing as he is like to do by his if he obey my Counsel And I think if he lived among Infidels and Enemies of Christ he would find that to make good the Doctrine of Faith and of Life Eternal were not only his noblest and most useful Study but also that which would require the height of all his Parts and the utmost of his Diligence to manage it skilfully to the Satisfaction of himself and others 4. I add therefore that this is Another thing which I am changed in that whereas in my younger Days I never was tempted to doubt of the Truth of Scripture or Christianity but all my Doubts and Fears were exercised at home about my own Sincerity and Interest in Christ and this was it which I called Unbelief since then my soreft Assaults have been on the other side and such they were that had I been void of internal Experience and the Adhesion of Love and the special help of God and had not discerned more Reason for my Religion than I did when I was younger I had certainly Apostatized to Infidelity though for Atheism or Ungodliness my Reason seeth no stronger Arguments than may be brought to prove that there is no Earth or Air or Sun I am now therefore much more Apprehensive than heretofore of the Necessity of well grounding Men in their Religion and especially of the Witness of the indwelling Spirit For I more sensibly perceive that the Spirit is the great Witness of Christ and Christianity to the World And though the Folly of Fanaticks tempted me long to over-look the Strength of this Testimony of the Spirit while they placed it in a certain internal Assertion or enthusiastick Inspiration yet now I see that the Holy Ghost in another manner is the Witness of Christ and his Agent in the World The Spirit in the Prophets was his first Witness and the Spirit by Miracles was the second and the Spirit by Renovation Sanctification Illumination and Consolation assimilating the Soul to Christ and Heaven is the continued Witness to all true Believers And if any Man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Even as the Rational Soul in the Child is the inherent Witness or Evidence that he is the Child of Rational Parents And therefore ungodly Persons have a great disadvantage in their resisting Temptations to unbelief and it is no wonder if Christ be a stumbling block to the Jews and to the Gentiles foolishness There is many a one that hideth his Temptations to Infidelity because he thinketh it a shame to open them and because it may generate doubts in others but I doubt the imperfection of most mens care of their Salvation and of their diligence and resolution in a holy Life doth come from the imperfection of their belief of Christianity and the Life to come For my part I must profess that when my belief of things Eternal and of the Scripture is most clear and firm all goeth accordingly in my Soul and all Temptations to sinful Compliances Worldliness or Flesh-pleasing do signifie worse to me than an invitation to the Stocks or Bedlam And no Petition seemeth more necessary to me than Lord increase our Faith I Believe help thou my unbelief 5. Among Truths certain in themselves all are not equally certain unto me and even of the Mysteries of the Gospel I must needs say with Mr. Richard Hooker Eccl. Polit. that whatever men may pretend the subjective Certainty cannot go beyond the objective Evidence for it is caused thereby as the print
for such as Age or Persecution hindered to come to the more solemn Meetings yet Churches then were no bigger in number of Persons than our Parishes now to grant the most And that they were Societies of Christians united for Personal Communion and not only for Communion by Meetings of Officers and Delegates in Synods as many Churches in Association be And I saw if once we go beyond the bounds of Personal Communion as the end of particular Churches in the Definition we may make a Church of a Nation or of ten Nations or what we please which shall have none of the Nature and Ends of the Primitive particular Churches Also I saw a commendable care of serious Holiness and Discipline in most of the Independant Churches And I found that some Episcopal Men as Bishop Usher himself did voluntarily profess his Judgment to me did hold that every Bishop was independant as to Synods and that Synods were not proper Governours of the particular Bishops but only for their Concord § 6. 5. And for the Anabaptists themselves though I have written and said so much against them as I found that most of them were Persons of Zeal in Religion so many of them were sober godly People and differed from others but in the Point of Infant Baptism or at most in the Points of Predestination and Free-will and Perseverance as the Iesuits differ from the Dominicans the Lutherans from the Calvinists and the Arminians from the Contra-Remonstrants And I found in all Antiquity that though Infant Baptism was held lawful by the Churchâ— yet some with Tertullian and Nazienzen thought it most convenient to make no haste and the rest left the time of Baptism to every ones liberty and forced none to be baptized Insomuch as not only Constantint Theudâ—sius and such other as were converted at Years of Discretion but Augustine and many such as were the Children of Christian Parents one or both did defer their Baptism much longer than I think they should have done So that in the Primitive Churchi some were Baptized in Infancy and some at ripe Age and some a little before their Death and none were forced but all left free and the only Penalty among men of their delay was that so long they were without the Priviledges of the Church and were numbred but with the Catechumens or Expectants § 7. 6. As to Doctrinal Differences also between Arminians and Anti-Arminians I soon perceived that it was hard to find a Man that discerned the true State of the several Controversies and that when unrevealed points uncertain to all were laid aside and the Controversies about Words were justly separated from the Controversies about things the Differences about things which remained were fewer and smaller than most of the Contenders perceived or would believe § 8. 7. Yea I found that our Doctrinal Controversies with the Papists themselves were very much darkned and seldom well stated and that in the Points of Merit Justification Assurance of Salvation Perseverance Grace Free-will and such others it was common to misunderstand one another and rare to meet with any that by just Distinction and Explication did well state the Controversies and bring them out of the Dark § 9. What I begin to write about any of these Doctrinal Differences in my Aphorisms Confession Apologie c. I will now pass by and the manifold Censures and Encounters which I had thereupon and the many Manuscripts of worthy Brethren animadverting upon my Aphorisms which I was privately put to answer Because it is not such Differences that now I am to speak of § 10. I perceived then that every Party beforementioned having some Truth or Good in which it was more eminent than the rest it was no impossible thing to separate all that from the Error and the Evil and that among all the Truths which they held either in Common or in Controversy there was no Contradiction And therefore that he that would procure the Welfare of the Church must do his best to promote all the Truth and Good which was held by every part and to leave out all their Errors and their Evil and not take up all that any Party had espoused as their own § 11. The things which I disliked as erroneous or evil in each Party were these 1. In the Erastians I disliked 1. That they made too light of the Power of the Ministry and Church and of Excommunication and did not distinguish sufficiently of a persuasive Power which is but private and is founded only in the Reason of the Speaker and a persuasive Power which is publick in an Officer of Christ which Camero well calleth Doctoral and is founded conjunctly in his Authority by God's Commission and his Arguments 2. That they made the Articles of the Holy Catholick Church and the Communion of Saints too insignificant by making Church Communion more common to the impenitent than Christ would have it and so dishonoured Christ by dishonouring his Church and making it too like to the Heathen World and breaking down the Hedge of Spiritual Discipline and laying it almost in common with the Wilderness 3. That they misunderstood and injured their Brethren supposing and affirming them to claim as from God a coercive Power over the Bodies or Purses of Men and so setting up Imperium in Imperio whereas all temperate Christians at least except Papists confess that the Church hath no Power of Force but only to manage God's Word unto Mens Conscienceâ—◠§ 12. In the Diocesane Party I utterly distiked 1. Their Extirpation of the true Discipline of Christ as we conceive by consequence though not intentionally not only as they omitted it and corrupted it but as their Principles and Church State had made it unpracticable and impossible while one Bishop with his Consitory had the sole Government of a thousand or many hundred Churches even over many thousands whose Faces they were never like to see not setting up any Parâ—chia Government under them But just as if the Archbishopsâ— or rather the Patriarchs in Câ—nstantiâ—â—'s days should have deposed all the Bishops in the Empire and have taken all their Charges upon themselves 2. That hereby they altered the Species of Churches and either would deâ— all particular Churches and have none but associated Diocesane Churches who hold the Communion by Delegates and not personally or else they would turn all the particular Parochial Churches into Christian Oratories and Schools while they gave their Pastors but a Teaching and Worshiping Power but not a Governing 3. That hereby they altered the ancient Species of Presbyters to whose Office the Spiritual Government of their proper Folks as truly belonged as the Power of preaching and worshipping God did 4. That they extinguished the ancient Species of Bishops which was in the times of Ignatius when every Church had one Altar and one Bishop and there were none but Itinerants or Archbishops that had many Churches 5. That they set up Courts that were more Secular
than Spiritual in the manner of other Secular Courts and that the Government of the Church by Excommunication Suspensions Absolutions c. was exercised by a Chancellor who was a civil Lawyer and a Lay-man even against Ministers themselves unless for a blind some Priest did formally pronounce the Sentence 6. That the great Church Business of these Bishops and Courts was to vex honest Christians that durst not worship God by such Ceremonies as their Consciences thought unlawful and to silence able godly Preachers that durst not subscribe and swear Obedience to them and use every one of their Formes and Ceremonies and profess the Lawfulness of all this and that by gratifying the multitude of the ungodly and espousing a Cause so perniceous to the Church which multitudes of sober Christians would dislike they had engaged themselves into a way of Enmity and Violence against a very considerable Number of as able Ministers and holy Christians as any were in the Land or in the known World 7. And hereby it came to pass that the Multitude of the Ignorant and ungodly People were become the zealous Pleaders for the Prelacie and made it the Brest-work to exercise their Enmity against the serious Practice of Religion 8. And that ignorant drunken Readers unfit to live in Christian Communion were the only Pastors under the Prelates of abundance of the Churches in the Land 9. And that their zeal for Formality and Ceremonies and their Enmity to the most serious way of Preaching Praying yea and Living did greatly tend to the suppressing of Godliness and the increase of Ignorance and Prophaneness in the People 10. And lastly That they were set upon a way of uncharitable Censuring Reproaching Cruelty and Force for the carrying on of so ill a Cause wherein their carnal Interest did evidently manage a War against the Interest of Christ and Godliness and the Souls of Men. § 13. 3. In the Presbyterian way I disliked 1. Their Order of Lay-Elders who had no Ordination nor Power to Preach nor to administer Sacraments For though I grant that Lay-Elders or the Chief of the People were oft imployed to express the Peoples Consent and preserve their Liberties yet these were no Church-Officers at all nor had any Charge of private Oversight of the Flocks And though I grant that one Church had oft more Elders than did use to preach and that many were most employed in private Oversight yet that was but a prudent dividing of their Work according to the Gifts and parts of each and not that any Elders wanted Power of Office to preach or Administer Sacraments when there was Cause 2. And I disliked the Course of some of the more rigid of them that drew too near the way of Prelacie by grasping at a kind of secular Power not using it themselves but binding the Magistrates to confiscate or imprison Men meerly because they were excommunicate and so corrupting the true Discipline of the Church and turning the Communion of Saints into the Communion of the Multitude that must keep in the Church against their Wills for fear of being undone in the World When as a Man whose Conscience cannot feel a just Excommunication unless it be back'd with Confiscation or Imprisonment is no fitter to be a Member of a Christian Church in the Communion of Saints than a Corps is to be a Member of a Corporation It 's true they claim not this Power as Iure Divino though some say that the Magistrate is bound to execute these Penalties on Men meerly as excommunicate nor no more do the Prelates when yet the Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo is the Life of all their Censures But both Parties too much debase the Magistrate by making him their meer Executioner when as he is the Iudge where-ever he is the Executioner and is to try each Cause at his own Barr before he be obliged to punish any and they corrupt the Discipline of Christ by mixing it with secular Force and they reproach the Keys or Ministerial Power as if it were a Leaden Sword and not worth a Straw unless the Magistrates Sword enforce it And what then did the Primitive Church for Three hundred Years And worst of all they corrupt the Church by forcing in the Rabble of the unfit and unwiling and thereby tempt many Godly Christians to Schisms and dangerous Separations In all this I deny not but that the Magistrate must restrain all sorts of Vice But not as a Hangman only that executeth the Judgment of another nor eo Nomine to punish a Man because he is Excommunicate that is most heavily punished already by others Till Magistrates keep the Sword themselves and learn to deny it to every angry Clergyman that would do his own Work by it and leave them to their own Weapons the Word and Spiritual Keys valeant quantum valere possunt the Church shall never have Unity and Peace hucusque probatum est 3. And I disliked some of the Presbyterians that they were not tender enough to dissenting Brethren but too much against Liberty as others were too much for it and thought by Votes and Number to do that which Love and Reason should have done 4. And when the Independents said A Worshiping Church and a Governed Church is and must be all one And the Presbyterians said They may be all one though it be not necessary yet in their Practice they would have so setled it that they should no where be all one but ten or twelve worshipping Churches should have made one Governed Church which prepared the way to the Diocesane Frame though I confess it is incomparably better because ten or Twelve Churches is not so many as a thousand or many hundred and because the Pastor of every Church had the Government of his own Flock in Conjunction with the Presbytery or Synod though not alone § 14. 4 And in the Independent way I disliked many things As 1. That they made too light of Ordination 2. That they also had their Office of Lay-Eldership 3. That they were commonly Stricter about the Qualification of Church Members than Scripture Reason or the Practice of the Universal Church would allow not taking a Man 's bare Profession as Credible as a sufficient Evidence of his Title to Church Communion unless either by a holy Life or the Particular Narration of the Passages of the Work of Grace he satisfied the Pastors yea and all the Church that he was truly Holy whereas every Man's Profession is the valid Evidence of the thing professed in his Heart unless it be disproved by him that questioneth it by proving him guilty of Heresies or Impiety or Sins inconsistent with it And if once you go beyond the Evidence of a serious sober Confession as a credible and sufficient sign of Title you will never know where to rest but the Churches Opinion will be both Rule and Judge and Men will be let in or kept out according to the various Latitude of Opinions
whole Christian World 5. That the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth the Possessors Keepers and Teachers of God's Oracles and that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it is most sure and comfortable Truth But what is this to Rome any more than to Ierusalem or Alexandria The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Body of Christ the Universality of Christians the true Catholick Church But it may prevail against Corinthians Gallateans Romans or any particular part As it prevailed against Pope Iohn XXII alias XXIII to make him deny the Resurrection and against Pope Eugenius to make him a Heretick if General Councils are to be believed 6. As to what you say of Apostles still placed in the Church When any shew us an immediate Mission by their Commission and by Miracles Tongues and a Spirit of Revelation and infallability prove themselves Apostles we shall believe them Till then we remember that Church that was commended for trying them that said they were Apostles and were not and finding them Lyers Rev. 23. Peter and the Twelve Apostles with him we acknowledge and Paul we acknowledge but know none properly called Apostles living now But if it be only the Name and not the Office that you differ about and by Apostles you mean not Men immediately sent by Christ to preach the Gospel with a Spirit of Miracles and Infallability which is our Sense of that Word but some other sort of Men then if they be ordinory Pastors or Bishops it s no matter of Difference if not you must describe them before we can know them They are to blame whoever they be that they call not themselves Apostles and tell us where who and how many they are if they are so indeed 7. They were to be accounted Heathens and Publicans that heard not the Church admonishing them But sure other Pastors besides Apostles must admonish and be heard And other Churches besides the Roman must hold or refuse Communion as is there signified either you will erroneously have that Text understood of the Universal Church or else truly of a Particular Church If the former what 's that to the Roman Church that is but a corrupted Part If the latter it 's no more to the Roman than any other which are particular Churches also surely this is plain Truth if you are willing to see 8. You say The Faith of which Believers were was that of the Romans spread through the World Answ. Yes and it was the Faith of the Ephesians Philippians Colâ—ssians too and all one The Romans had not a Faith of their own specifically different from others Nor did the Holy Ghost by the Apostles ever give one Word of Command to other Churches to conform their Faith to Rome or take that Church for their Mistress or Sovereign These Fancies Pride hath set up against Christ The Faith of Ierusalem was as much known through the World as that of Rome and sure you think not that being known through the World made them the Rule or Rulers of the World 9. Upon Observation you find this Church shining as a Light and set as a City on a Hill And was not Ierusalem Antioch Alexandria Ephesus c. so too Sure they were All faithful Preachers of the Gospel especially the Apostles were observable as such Lights and City to the World that wondred at their Doctrine which is all that Christ there saith and as I said the universal Church is more observable than the Roman Sect And other particular Churches are and were as Light and Conspicuous as it And the most conspicuous Church hath from thence no Pretence to be the rule or Ruler of the rest 10. You say This Church hath been ever triumphant ever Heresies Answ. 1. What! when Honorius was by two or three General Councils condemned for a Heretick Pope Iohn XXII and Eugenius as beforesaid for that and worse with many more 2. Woe to the Churches if others had not conquered Heresy better than the Roman Party hath done 3. And veriâ—y did you think that a particular Church is therefore the Rule or Ruler to the rest because it triumpheth over Heresy 11. You add immoveable in Persecutions Answ. 1. For they have been the great Persecutors as Leeches sucking and swell'd with the Blood of Thousands and Ten Thousands of the Saints and Martyrs of Jesus O the Blood that will be found among them when the righteous Judge of all the World shall make Inquisition for Blood among their Massacrees and Inquisitions 2. Was that Church unmoveable in Persecution when the Head of it Pope Marcellinus offered Incense to Idols And Liberius subscribed to the Arrians and against Athenasius What should I tell you of more who I perceive are made believe the Crow is white 3. Again it is a pitiful Proof of their Rule to prove them immutable in Persecution The Church hath many Heads if every Church or Bishop be its Head that hath stood fast in Persecution 12. You add And always watchful in the Succession of Pastors I give you the same Answers 1. watchful indeed when their own Church Histories tell us of such Multitudes that came in by Symony or Poison or other Murder or Violence that have been Hereticks as aforeshewd or Adulterers Murderers and such impious Wretches as the Cannons depose and when Iohn XII or XIII was deposed by a Councell for ravishing Maids and Wives at his Doors and abundance more such Villanies and Iohn XXII for worse and when Eugenius continued the Succession when a general Council bad judged him a Heretick wicked deposed c. and when they have had such abundance of Schisms having two three or four Popes alive at once and one Schism of Forty Years in which no Man knew or knows to this Day which was the true Pope and when meer Possession is it that must prove their Succession For besides these Incapacities Mr. Iohnson you may see confesseth that no one way of Election by Cardinals People Emperors Bishops Councils c. hath been held or is necessary nor any Consecration necessary at all to the being of the Pope And if a Succession of bare Possession serve how many Churches have the like Yea 2. Constantinople Ethiopia Armenia and many other Churches have had a far more regular Succession than Rome of at least as good 3. And it 's a pitiful Argument that because a Church hath had a Succession of Pastors therefore they are the whole Church and others are no part or therefore they are the 〈◊〉 and Rulers to the rest or therefore we must be of that Particular Church only Surâ— none denies the Succession of Pastors in England as to meer possession of the Place if that will serve the turn 13. To what you say of being 〈◊〉 Holy Catholick and Apostolick and cannot deceive you I answer 1. O dreadful Delusion that a Church headed with horrid Monsters and not Men 〈◊〉 their own Histories describe a multitude of their Popes should
Resolution to become the effectual Moderator in our Differences and your self to bring us together by procuring such mutual Condescâ—ntions as are necessary thereto and also by your gracious Acceptance of our Proposals which your Majesty heard and received not only without blame but with Acknowledgment of their Moderation and as such as would infer a Reconciliation between the differing Parties that we must needs say the least Abatement of our Hopes is much the more unwelcome and grievous to us And it is no small Grief that surprizeth our Hearts from the Complaints of the Students ejected in the Universities and of faithful Ministers removed from their beloved Flocks and denied Institution for want of Subscription Re-ordination or an Oath of Obedience to the Bishop but especially from many Congregations in the Land that cry out they are undone by the loss of those Means of their Spiritual Welfare which were dearer to them than all Worldly Riches and by the grievous Burden of Ignorant or Scandalous or dead unprofitable Ministers set over them to whom they dare not commit the Guidance and care of their Immortal Souls and whose Ministry they dare not own or countenace lest they be guilty of their Sin And it addeth to our Grief and Fear in finding so much of the proposed necessary Means of our Agreement especially in the point of Government here passed by in your Majesty's Declaration as if it were denied us But yet remembring the gracious and encouraging Promises of your Majesty and observing your Majesty's Clemency in what is here granted us and your great Condescention in vouchfasing not only so graciously to â—hear us in these our humble Addresses and Requests but also to grant us the Sight of your Declaration before it is resolved on with Liberty of returning our Additional Desires and hope that they shall not be rejected we re-assume our Confidence and comfortably expect that what is not granted in this Declaration that is reasonable and necessary to our Agreement shall yet be granted upon fuller Consideration of the Equity of our Requests As our Designs and Desires are not for any worldly Advantages or Dignities to our selves so have we not presumed to intermeddle with any Civil Interest of your Majesty or any of your Officers nor in the matters of meer Convenience to cast our Reason into the Ballance against your Majesty's Prudence but meerly to speak for the Laws and Worship and Servants of the Lord and for the Peace of our Consciences and the Safety of our own and Brethrens Souls It lifts us up with Joy to think what happy Consequents will ensue if your Majesty shall entertain these healing Motions How happily our Differences will be reconciled and the exasperated Minds of Men composed How Temptations to Contention and Uncharitableness will be removed How comfortably your Majesty will reign in the dearest Affections of your Subjects and how firmly they will adhere to your Interest as their own How chearfully and zealously the united parts and Interests of the Nation will conspire to serve you What a Strength and Honour a righteous Magistracy a learned holy loyal Ministry and a faithful praying People will be to your Throne And how it will be your Glory to be the King of the most religious Nation in the World that hath no considerable Parties but what are Centered under Christ in you What a Comfort it will be for the Bishops and Pastors of the Church to be honoured and loved by all the most religious of their Flocks to see the Success of their Labours and the Beauty of the Church promoted by our common Concord and Brethren to assemble and dwell together in Unity serving one God according to one Rule with one Heart and Mouth And on the contrary it astonisheth us to foresee the doleful Consequents that would follow if which God forbid your Majesty should refuse the most necessary moderate Ways of Concord and be engaged by a party to exalt them by the Suppression of the rest How woful a Day would it prove to your Majesty and your Dominions in which you should thus espouse a Cause and Interest injurious to the Interest of Christ and the Cause of Unity and Love and contrary to your Majesty's gracious Inclinations be engaged unawars in a seeming necessity to deal hardly with the Ministers and Servants of the Lord How considerable a part of the Three Nations for Number Wisdom Piety and Interest you would be drawn to govern with a grievous Hand and to lay them under the greatest Sorrow who restored and received your Majesty with Joy How the Dissent of Ministers from the Government and Ceremonies of the Church were it expressed but by their Groans and Tears and moderate Complaints to God or Not-praying for that Church Government which they dare not pray for would be reckoned as Discontent and Sedition and it would be judged a Crime to feel when they are hurt What Occasion this would give to irreligious Temporizers to arrogate the Name of your Majesty's best Subjects and to let out their Malice against the Upright and make Religion a Reproach And then what a Hindrance that would be to the Conversion and saving of the Peoples Souls and what a fruitful Nursery of all Vice How grievously Charity would be overthrown while the People are engaged in the hardest Thoughts and Speeches of each other What a Temptation it would be to the afflicted part to abate their Honour and due Respect to those they suffer by when they are deprived of that which is dearest to them in the World and when the Groans and Cryes of afflicted Innocents arrive at Heaven and have awakened the Justice of the King of Kings the greatest cannot stand before him And what a Snare and Grief will it be to the Bishops and Pastors of the Church to be esteemed Wolves and to be engaged to suppress them as their Adversaries that else might be the Honour of their Ministry and the Comfort of their Lives And when Divisions and separated Assemblies are thus multiplied the People being driven from the publick Congregations either it will bring them under Trouble or let in Papists and others that are intollerable into an equal Tolleration and such Discontents and Distractions in the Church will not be without their Influence on the State And by all this how much will Satan and the Enemies of our Religion be gratified and God dishonoured and displeased And seeing all this may safely and easily be now prevented we humbly beseech the Lord in Mercy to vouchsafe to your Majesty a Heart to discern of time and Judgment And as these are our General Ends and Motives so we are induced to insist upon the Form of Synodical Government conjunct with a fixed Presidency or Episcopacy for these Reasons 1. We have reason to believe that no other Terms will be so generally agreed on And it is no way injurious to Episcopal Power but most firmly establisheth all in it that can
world's Experience lowdly telleth us that Clergymen are fitter to be kept by the Sword in Peace and Quietness than to be trusted with the Sword and we would not have Kings be made their Executioners For we are past doubt that the Controversies and Contentions of the Worldly Tyrannical and the self-conceited Clergy have been many hundred years more Calamitous to the Christian World than the most bloody Wars We are our selves so far from desiring Grandeur and Dominion that we would not be so much as the Pastors of any but Consenters and wish that the Clergie's State were such as neither starved or straitened the diligent Labourers nor so tempted and invited Ambitious Worldly minds as that such being the seekers must usually be the Masters of the Church who are likest to be Enemies to the holy Doctrine which condemneth them We long we pray we groan for the Concord of the Christian World And we are sure that whoever shall be the blessed and honoured Instruments of that work must do it by breaking dividing Engines and making the primitive simplicity the terms of Vnion even a few plain certain necessary things while the Sword of the Magistrate constraineth the turbulent to peace and mutual forbearance in the rest We are not for cruelty to any We greatly approve of your Majesties Aversness to persecution But we believe that it is the Learning Godliness and Concord of the Ministry which shall be publickly settled by your Laws which must be the chief means of preserving Religion Loyalty and Peace and therefore must deeply resent it that we are rendered so unserviceable in that kind and that well meaning men should so long misunderstand our cause and judge defame and use us as if we were the hinderers of that sweet agreement which our Souls most earnestly desire and would purchase by any Lawful price In summ the belief of the Heavenly Glory through Christ kindling the Love of God and Man and teaching us to live Soberly Righteously and Godly and the Government of Magistrates keeping all in peace upon these terms is the Religion and State that we desire And the grief of our Souls for the present Divisions doth call up our thankful remembrance that once by your Majesty's favour we were Commissioned to speak for our selves about the old Conformity and to treat with your Bishops for such Alterations as were necessary to our Concord And that your Majesty published so Gracious a Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs as had it lived had prevented our present fractions yea that your House of Commons gave your Majesty the publick Thanks for your healing means Tho now some take all our Divisions and Distractions to be a smaller evil than the Terms of that your Majesty's Declaration would be And if ever your favour allow us to speak for our selves also as to the New Conformity and to open to the world the matter and reasons of our Nonconformity we cannot doubt but it would much abate the Censures and Injuries of Multitudes that understand us not and consequently abate their guilt and all unbrotherly Distances and Schisms and Men's unthankful dislike of your Majesty's Clemency And so far as God by your Majesty's favour shall open our Lips that our mouths may shew forth his praise we shall be obliged to greater thankfulness to your Majesty and to pray for your pious and prosperous Reign and that we may all live a quiet and peaceable Life in all Godliness and Honesty as becometh your Majesty's Loyal Subjects § 289. While the said two Bishops were fraudulently seeming to set us on this Treaty their cause required them outwardly to pretend that they would not have me troubled but understand I was still the first that was haunted after and persecuted And even while I was in this Treaty the informers of the City set on work by the Bishops were watching my preaching and contriving to load me with divers convictions and fines at once And they found an Alderman Justice even in the Ward where I preached sit for their Design one Sir Thomas Davis who understood not the Law but was ready to serve the Prelates in their own way To him Oath was made against me and the place where I preached as for two Sermons which came to threescore pounds fine to me and fourscore to the owner of the place where we assembled But I only was sought after and prosecuted § 290. The Reader must here understand the present case of the City as to such things The Execution of these Laws that were to ruine us for preaching was so much against the hearts of the Citizens that scarce any could be found to execute them Tho the Corporation Oath and Declaration had new moulded the City and all the Corporations of the Land except some few as Taunton c. which were utterly dissolved by it yet were the Aldermen for the most part utterly averse to such Imployment so that whenever an Informer came to them tho they forfeited an 100l every time that they refused to execute their Office yet some shifted out of the way and some plainly denyed and repulsed the Accusers and one was sued for it And Alderman Forth got an Informer bound to the behaviour for breaking in upon him in his Chamber against his will Two fellows called Strowd and Marishal became the General Informers in the City and some others under them In all London notwithstanding that the third parts of those great Fines might be given the Informers very few would be found to do it And those two were presently fallen upon by their Creditors on purpose and Marishal laid in the Compter for Debt where he remained for a considerable time but Strowd keeping a Coffee-House was not so deep in debt but was bailed Had a Stranger of another Land come into London and seen five or six poor ignorant sorry Fellows unworthy to have been inferiour Servants to an Ordinary Gentleman hunting and insulting over the ancient Aldermen and the Lord Mayor himself and all the Reverend faithful Ministers that were ejected and eighty nine Churches were destroyed by the Fire and in many Parishes the Churches yet standing could not hold a sixth or tenth part of the People yet those that Preached for nothing were prosecuted to utter ruin with such unwearied eagerness sure he would have wondered what these Prelates and Prosecutors are and it may convince us that the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 given in Scripture to some Men translated false Accusers is not unmeet When Men pretending to be the Fathers of the Church dare turn loose half a dosen paltry silly Fellows that know not what they do to be to so many Thousand Sober Men as Wolves among the Sheep to the distraction of such a City and the disturbance of so many thousand for worshipping God How lively doth this tell us that Satan the Prince of the Aereal Powers worketh in the Children of Disobedience and that his Kingdom on Earth is kin to Hell as Christ's
before I give any Answer I shall first willingly yield these two Propositions 1. That an infallibly lawful Ordination is necessary to make us infallibly lawful Ministers 2. That an infallible Proof that we have been lawfully ordained is necessary to make us infallibly know that we have been lawfully Ordained But I deny that an infallible Knowledge tâ—at we have been lawfully Ordained is necessary to make us lawful Ministers Or that an infallible Knowledge that we have been lawfully ordained is necessary to give us true Peace in the exercise of our Ministry The former Negative is so clear from the extrinsical Nature of Knowledge to the Essences of the things known and the Posteriority of the Nature of Scientiae a re Scibilis that it is altogether superfluous to say any thing in order to the Proof of it But the other being indeed the thing you doubt of I shall offer you what is upon my own Understanding and what it is that persuades me to take the negative part And my Reason is this I do therefore think that an infallible Knowledge that his Ordainers had full Authority is not necessary to give a Man true Peace in the Exercise of his Ministry Because true Peace according to Gospel Equity is not founded upon exactness but upon utmost diligence and sincere Endeavours And particularly in point of Knowledge or in the Question What is our Duty to know True Peace is not founded upon exact or infallible Knowledge but upon an utmost Diligence or sincere Endeavour to know And therefore if we can but truly say that we do use our utmost Diligence to know we have the Foundation of true Peace though we be in the mean time in much Ignorance about the thing we enquire after And to the Question in hand if we can truly say that we have used our utmost Endeavours to know whether our Ordainers had full Power to Ordain we may have true Peace in the Exercise of our Ministry though in the mean time we cannot infallibly prove and by consequence cannot infallibly know that they had any such Authority True Peace according to Gospel measure very well agreeing with inculpable Ignorance And the Truth is if it were not thus in óther things I do not see how any Man could with Peace of Conscience enjoy those things which we call their Inheritances For it can never be infallibly proved nor they by consequence infallibly know that they have just Right and Title to them If they be not lawfully begotten they have no just claim to their Inheritances Now if they do not or indeed cannot infallibly know that they have been lawfully begotten they cannot know infallibly that they have a just claim to their Inheritances But they can never come to an infallible Knowledge that they have been lawfully begotten and by consequence upon such Principles as these can never with Peace of Conscience enjoy that which all Men usually call their due Inheritances And I conceive upon the same Grounds The Levites and Iewish Priesthood could never with any Peace of Conscience have exercised their Sacred Offices in regard they could never come to an infallible certainty that they did descend from Aaron upon which account only they had their just claim to those holy Employments Yea and all the Princes in the World who derive by dissent their Titles to their Crowns would upon such a Principle as this fit either very loose or with little ease in their imperial Chairs being never able upon infallible Proof to make good that they were the true legitimate Heirs to their Predecessors Which Considerations a posterioris as the Argument alledged doth a priori over-rule my Iudgment to determine that an infallible Knowledge that our Ordainers had full Authority to Ordain is not necessary to give us true Peace in the Exercise of our Ministry which was the only thing intended at the present By Your Fellow-labourer and Enquirer after Truth M. Iohnson Wamborn Decemb. 26. 1653. Numb III. Letters between Mr. Baxter and Mr. Lambe Mr. Lambe's Letter to Mr. Baxter SIR PERHAPS my Boldness may seem much in this Address to one unknown by Face but want of that is no sufficient Plea to restrain me knowing it 's no Impediment to the Communion of Saints These Lines are writ out of much Affliction of Heart and in many Tears which have run over at the Throne of Grace many a time about the Case presented The Reason of my Address to you rather than any other is because of some Converse I have had with your Writings whereby I judge you to have the Tongue of the Learned to speak a Word in Season being experienc'd your self in Spiritual Affairs and Temptations the immediate Cause of this Address was my reading your last Direction in the Book of Getting and keeping Peace and Comfort The Case is mine only as it is the Case of one who is my self in the dear Relation of a Husband it is an unusual one and therefore will require I doubt you more Pains to reach it and so is the more boldness in me but from you will be the more Service to Christ Jesus if you engage in it I would be brief but must of necessity declare Circumstances This dear Husband of mine Mr. Lambe is one that hath been devoted to God's Fear from his Youth up and hath desired exceedingly and delighted greatly to serve Christ Jesus our Lord the Ministry he was nourished and bred up in was Mr. Iohn Goodwin's for Twelve or Thirteen Years where he joined a Member and afterward by common Consent and Prayer and Fasting was ordained an Elder over that Flock and did labour in the Word and Doctrine then with great delight striving to adorn the Gospel in all Acts of Love Righteousness and Mercy Going on thus with Joy about Five Years ago the great Controversion of Baptism had some access into his Judgment through the means of another Member of that Body Mr. Allen a very Holy and good Man who having had long doubts about Infant Baptism was carried to the other by means of Mr. Fisher since Quaker by these Arguments presented Mr. Lambe was taken in his Judgment and in Conscience of his Duty did practice accordingly not thinking then but still to hold communion with the Church notwithstanding but then suddenly was led farther namely to love the Communion of that Church and finding not where to find any Society in that Engagement where they could have such means of Edification as they had left they were induced to join in a Body with some others about Twenty that came off by their means from the same Fellowship and so for Five Years have gone on till there is an Addition of about an Hundred Pray Sir pardon my troubling of you with this Story but that which follows cannot so well be understood without it Which is That now about Nine Months last past by some Experiences and Sights of the Faults of some particularly that of Fishers and
lived at Kidderminster some had defamed me of a covetous getting many hundred pounds by the Booksellers I had till then taken of Mr. Underhill Mr. Tyton and Mr. Symmons for all save the Saints Rest the fifteenth Book which usually I gave away but if any thing for Second Impressions were due I had little in Money from them but in such Books as I wanted at their Rates But when this Report of my great Gain came abroad and took notice of it in print and told the World that I intended to take more hereafter and ever since I took the fifteenth Book for my Friends and self and Eighteen pence more for every Rheam of the other fourteen which I destinated to the Poor With this while I was at Kidderminster I bought Bibles to give to all the poor Families And I got Three hundred or Four hundred pounds which I destinated all to Charitable Uses At last at London it increased to Eight hundred and thirty pounds which delivering to a worthy Friend he put it into the Hands of Sir Robert Viner with an Hundred pounds of my Wives where it lyeth setled on a Charitable Use after my Death as from the first I resolved If it fails I cannot help it I never received more of any Bookseller than the fifteenth Book and this Eighteen pence a Rheam And if for after Impressions I had more of those Fifteenths than I gave away I took about two third parts of the common price of the Bookseller or little more and oft less And sometimes I paid my self for the printing many Hundreds to give away and sometimes I bought them of the Bookseller above my number and and sometimes the Gain was my own necessary Maintenance but I resolved never to lay up a Groat of it for any but the Poor Now Sir my own Condition is this Of my Patrimony or small Inheritance never took a Penny to my self my poor Kindred needing much more I am fifteen or 16 years divested of all Ecclesiastical Maintenance I never had any Church or Lecture that I received Wages from But within these three or four years much against my Disposition I am put to take Money of the Bounty of special particular Friends my Wives Estate being never my Propriety nor much more that half our yearly Expence If then it be any way unfit for me to receive such a Proportion as aforesaid as the Fruit of my own long and hard Labour for my Necessary and Charitable Uses and if they that never took pains for it have more right than I when every Labourer is Master of his own or if I may not take some part with them I know not the reason of any of this Men grudge not at a Cobler or a Tailor or any Day-labourer for living on his Labours And why an ejected Minister of Christ giving freely five parts to a Bookseller may not take the sixth to himself or to the Poor I know not But what is the Thought or Word of Man Dr. Bates now tells me that for his Book called the Divine Harmony he had above an Hundred pounds yet reserving the Power for the future to himself For divers Impressions of the Saints Rest almost twice as big I have not had a Farthing For no Book have I had more than the fifteenth Book to my self and Friends and the Eighteen pence a Rheam for the Poor and Works of Charity which the Devil so hateth that I find it a matter past my power to give my own to any Good Use he so robs me of it or maketh Men call it a Scandalous Thing Verily since I devoted all to God I have found it harder to Give it when I do my best than to get it Though I submit of late to him partly upon Charity and am so far from laying up a Groat that though I hate Debt I am long in Debt c. c. c. SIR Yours R. B. Numb VIII The general defence of my Accused Writings called Seditious and Schismatical 1. MAtter of Right cannot be determined without foreknowing the following Matter of Fact I. There is an Enmity and War through all the Earth between Christ and Satan Christ and his Soldiers strive for Light Love and Mercy or Beneficence Satan fighteth for Darkness against Light and for Harred against Love and for Hurting and Destroying against Mercy and Good Works All Christians in Baptism are Vowed and Listed in this Warfare to Christ against Satan All Ministers are vowed in their Ordination to be Leaders in Christ's Army and to preach the Gospel according to the Holy Scriptures In all Ages and Nations Satan hath wofully prevailed against this Light Love and Mercy by hindering Preachers partly by Persecution and mostly by Corrupting them Till Christ came as the Light of the World the Darkness of Ignorance and Idolatry overspread the Earth Three hundred years all Princes were against the Gospel when Constantine owned it the rest of the Empires of the World long resisted and to this day all that receive it are but a sixth part of the World And in the Christian Empire and Churches the erroneous and corrupt Princes and Bishops took up Satan's Silenceing Work Constantius and Valens and the Arrian Bishops almost extinguished the Orthodox Light The Gothes did the like The Macedonians Nâ—storians Eutychians and the Parties for and against the Council of Ephesus of 〈◊〉 the â—ria Capitula the Monâ—thelites the Adoration and Use of â—mages and the Councils for and against Photius and Ignatius c. left but few Bishops of Note in the Eastern Empire that were not by turns Condemned and Deposed by the contrary side when it was upper most The Pope himself was an hundred years at once renounced by a great part of Italy II. But the corrupt sort of Popes out did all others They Silenced the Christians that reproved their Crimes and murdered say Historians above a Million calling them Hereticks Hunnericus and the Gothish Arrians had before kill'd many and cut the Tongues of some that after spake by miracle but the Pope made more general Desolation In the Wars between many Emperours and Popes Bishops that were for the Emperours were damned as Henrician Hereticks and decreed by Councils to be burnt when dead General Councils decreed to Excommunicate and Depose all Temporal Lords that would not Exterminate as Hereticks all that were against Transubstantiation and such like Divers Popes did so notoriously do Satan's Work that they interdicted the Preaching of the Gospel and all Publick Worship of God to England France and other whole Nations for a Quarrel with the King Robert Grosthead the holy Bishop of Lincoln wrote to Innocent the Fourth That the hindering of the preaching of the Gospel was next the Sin of Lucifer and Antichrist the greatest in the World and not to be obeyed by any Christian whoever commanded it As Reforming Light arose Papal Silenceing and Cruelty increased till Inquisitions Flames Massacres in Spain Low-Countries Bohemia Germany France