with them there is no reason to think that any other men should be punished in another World for the Non-performance of any other obligation whatsoever And yet that you are guilty of doing this appears from what you say in reference to the Spanish Bishops in the Council of Trent who would have had Residence of Bishops to be declared necessary Jure Divino Upon which if the Spanish Bishops â—ag 24 25. say you had been asked whether the Residence which they asserted to be of Divine Right included the whole year or only part of it they could not have agreed in it If Residence of the whole Year were required by the Law of God by what Authority did they appear in that place out of their Dioceses c. If only partial Residence were required who should define how much God would accept or how much might lawfully be spent out of their Dioceses It might have been alleged against them that since God himself had revealed nothing as to this matter it was an evident Argument that he intended no such obligation So that according to your wise way of arguing to reside even any the least part of a year in ones Bishoprick is not necessary Jure Divino And you do yet more openly assert this Doctrine when you bring the Incumbent before the great Tribunal at the last day and like a trusty Advocate for the Non-resident Pluralist you plead thus for him Pag. 33 34. And then as to a Proxy if the Priest allegeth that the same Authority of the Bishop which committed the Care of the Parish to him did disburden him of that Care and imposed it in whole or in part upon a Substitute there is no reason to believe that God will not accept this plea. Here you speak out indeed and all at once For if a Cure may be wholly served by a Substitute and if God at the day of Judgment will accept of such a Plea then 't is plain that all personal care and labour is unnecessary But Sir 't is to be hoped before that great and terrible day of the Lord's comes you will learn more Seriousness and Modesty than to think of preferring so thin and false an excuse to so great a Judge A false Excuse I say For what Statute or Canon of the Realm or Church of England doth authorize a Bishop to disburden an Incumbent of the Care of his Parish and impose it in whole upon a Substitute I know that Dispensations may be had for Local Non-residence But I challenge you or any Man else to produce any Authority that the Bishop hath either by our Canon or Statute-Law to transferr the Cure of Souls wholly from the Incumbent to another Though when I consider you as an Antiquary I have a good mind to revoke my challenge For you may have Rods in Brine and Canons perdue which a Countrey Gentleman never heard of before And we need not despair of having any thing made out by Men vers'd in such Studies since we have had such Doctrines published as the genuine Product of the Church of England represented in Convocation which the hundredth part of the Clergy themselves knew nothing of till they had layn in the dark about 80 years and were at last published either to prove some new Doctrine or else for nothing at all But let me as a Friend once more remind you of that wretched Plea which it seems you intend to make for your self and Brethren at the last day consider of it again and tell me whether you think it can pass in that great Court nay whether your own Conscience if you would let it speak out can vouch it or rely upon it I am so far from thinking that it will be accepted by him who is greater than our Consciences and knoweth all things That a Civil or Ecclesiastick Judge would or at least ought to reject it For 't is certain if any Bishop should pretend to a power beyond Law and Canon and the Nature of things all such pretensions would be vain both as to this World and another And I believe 't is as certain and true that no Bishop of the Church of England as now established did ever assume such a sort of Authority If any Prelate had a faculty of loosing Men from the obligations to their People I doubt not but he might have as much Custom amongst some of your Friends as 't is usually said that Priest might have who could procure a Commission for unmarrying People And for ought I could ever yet learn any Priest may as well and legally do the latter as a Bishop the former The Notion of transferring the Charge from the Incumbent to the Curate is new and I hope your own I do believe that 't was never heard of in General Council Parliament or Convocation And if you have no better thoughts to communicate to that Reverend Body last mentioned I hope you will never have the Vote of an honest Clergyman to sit in it But when you write again pray let us know by what Instruments Letters or Faculties a Bishop doth or can release an Incumbent wholly from his charge or in what Court such Letters Dispensatory can be procured For I believe I know some who would give money for them tho' I do not imagine any good Man would For I do not think that any Humane Power can take off that obligation which every Minister hath upon him of personal Labour amongst his People I shall reduce what I have to say on this subject to these following Propositions I. Tho' Plurality of Benefices be not in it self contrary to the Law of God yet for any one to take on himself such Charges as he cannot or will not perform is II. Tho' Curates may be used for the more full and perfect discharge of Duty yet the whole Care of the people is not intrusted with them III. Tho' perpetual Local Residence be not injoined by God yet to live so near the Cure and to be actually resident so far forth as effectually to answer all the ends of the Ministry is IV. Vicars by reason of their Oaths are obliged to Local Residence unless they be dispensed with by the Bishop I. Tho' Plurality of Benefices be not in it self contrary to the Law of God yet for any one to take on himself such Charges as he cannot or will not perform is It cannot indeed with any appearance of Truth be asserted that 't is unlawful to serve or have more Benefices than one The Scriptures do neither in express Terms nor by any Consequence fairly to be drawn from them prohibit it And thus far we are agreed I say as to the Conclusion tho' not as to the Premises For one of the arguments by which you would prove this is a meer Cavill I mean that pag. 37 c. where you undertake to conclude the Lawfulness of Pluralities from the Authority and Example of the primitive Church and that 't is lawful to
THE CASE OF Pluralities Non-Residence RIGHTLY STATED In a Letter to the Author of a Book called A Defence of Pluralities c. shewing the false Reasonings and evil Doctrines therein contained By an Impartial Hand and a Hearty Well-wisher to the Church of England LONDON Printed for Richard Baldwin at the Oxford Arms-Inn in Warwick-Lane 1694. THE CASE OF Pluralities and Non-Residence Rightly Stated THE CASE OF Pluralities and Non-Residence RIGHTLY STATED c. SIR YOU have not thought fit to acquaint the World by what Name or Title you are dignified or distinguished or where you dwell and if I should know where your Parsonage or Vicarage-House stands your Book gives me reason to think that if I directed my Letter thither it would not find you at home And therefore I know not how to Salute you but from the Press 'T is not my design to find fault with any thing in your Book which is honest or tolerable I shall pass over some expressions which will not bear a Censure and not call you to account for every undecent or impertinent passage and if you had dealt thus with those whom you call Antipluralists I had had less to say to you You complain in your Introduction of some both of our Friends and Enemies who have made too violent exclamations against Pluralities in general But I desire you seriously to consider whether you have not been transported to the contrary extreme and endeavoured to palliate and justifie some things which are really blameable and sinful I know that upon all occasions men of your Spirit when you are pursued by arguments take your selves to the Church as a sure Sanctuary and no man must undertake to question or contradict what you say upon peril of being lookt upon and treated as her Enemies Though our Church pretends not to Infallibility or Perfection yet some who would be thought her choicest Sons seem to affect something very much like it They endeavour to put the Stamp of her Authority upon their own private opinions and even faults and impeach all such as will not admit them to be Current and Authentick for Faction and Disobedience And I do not know that our excellent Church hath reason to be asham'd of any thing more than such Sons who would perswade the World that their personal faults are committed by her Authority and countenanced by her Indulgence Such men as these thinking to make amends for failure in what is their proper Duty usually overdo the business in blustring and talking for her and in a superconformity as to lesser and external matters and which looks very ugly in Clergy-men they usually slight and vilifie those of their Brethren who conscientiously and industriously discharge their duty as a sort of popular and which amongst them is scandal enough moderate men especially if they upon any occasion express their dislike of enormous Pluralities and Non-Residence Some of those severe things which you say of some City-Preachers may be true And yet I believe that most of them do more Service to the Church than any Non-resident Pluralists or even the Defender of them They keep many in her bosome and in tolerable conformity to her who would soon be frighted into a Conventicle by a Minister of your temper But if they are to be blamed who Preach not so discretely as they ought how much more ought you in justice to blame those who hardly Preach at all at least in such places as they should And pray let me know by the next what reason you have to be so very angry with those honest Gentlemen who whilst they themselves faithfully perform their Office sometimes reflect upon others for not doing the like as to call them Puritans Infidels Traditors and to treat those who are guilty of the greatest fault that Ministers well can be viz. negglect of the Souls of People committed to their charge so very gently Let me know upon what grounds you deal with the former as Enemies to the Church and not the latter 'T is natural for men who do their own duty and bear the heat and burden of the day to be moved at the negligence and laziness of them who should be their Fellow-labourers especially if they find themselves rewarded by their Superiours with nothing but Scorn and Contempt and the others punished for their Idleness with the best Livings and Preferments 'T is no wonder if some men concern'd have perhaps too deeply resented and warmly declared against such proceedings I am apt to think that if so deserving a person as your self Sir should have had the ill luck to have had your merits overlook'd and gotten no Benefice at all or a very mean one and had seen many inferior to your self in true worth richly provided for you might thereby have been provok'd to write as zealously against Pluralities as you now write for them â—… 185. If yet a Soul oppress'd with poverty could ever have rais'd it self to attempt any such great design You may wonder how I am got already almost to the end of your Book but the reason of my referring to these words is because you seem plainly in that Paragraph to inform the World how you come to be an Author viz. by your being a Pluralist and Non-resident For there you would perswade us that hardly any but such can be Writers But if you have no excuse for your absence from or neglect of your Cures but this take my word for it you had better be amongst your Rusricks as you are pleased to call your Parishioners Tho' if a man have a mind to be an Author I do not know why he may not be so and yet serve his Cures too I despair ever to see you so effectually to serve the Church by writing as the Blessed Richard Hooker did who perform'd the Office of a diligent Pastor during the time of his writing those most Excellent Books of Eccl. Polity You are pleased to say that to your certain knowledge he had Ibid. and dyed possessed of very great Preferments and yet one may dare say he was no Pluralist and Non-resident if he had we should have heard of that too And here Sir I must tell you that one grievous thing I have to charge you with is that under a pretence of proving Plurality and Non-residence to be lawful Jure Divino you undertake to say that a Minister hath no obligation to personal labour in his Charge and that he may if he please be absent altogether from them Sit still O Pluralist Eat Drink and be Merry Farm out your Benefices and make the best of them And let the Curate look to the discharge of your Conscience and Duty to God and the People You have your Quietus given you by our Author There will never any account be required of you for the Souls of your People nor your own neither For if Ministers and especially Incumbents are not accountable for neglect of duty to the Souls intrusted
hold two Bishopricks because some Primitive Bishops presided over two several Cities Now did ever any one in his right Wits assert the Bounds and Limits of Dioceses and Parishes to be fixed by a Jus Divinum Do not you frequently throughout your Book suppose them to be constituted and determined by Laws Humane and Ecclesiastical And if it be left to men to bound out the precincts why may they not alter unite and divide them as they please The Primitive Examples you your self answer and prove them to be of no force by the Canon which you quote part of which says Civitates praedictae nunquam proprios Episcopos habuerunt For if those Cities were never two distinct Dioceses then he who held them could not be a Dualist even according to your own argument unless you take it for granted That a Christian City qua talis be a Bishop's See which I am sure you will never be able to prove Some of our present Dioceses do indeed contain such an extent of Land as formerly made two but how came they of old to be two was it not meerly from humane Authority and why may not things be altered by the same Power they were at first constituted And therefore I am asham'd to hear you trifle and cry out Pag. 39. No humane Authority can make that lawful which God and the Nature of things have made unlawful Whoever said that God and the nature of things divided Dioceses and Parishes And what Child's play is it to talk as you do Pag. 42. where you would prove the lawfulness of Pluralities from the lawfulness of one that is Bishop of one Diocese to undertake the Administration of another during its vacancy or the incapacity of him to whom it belongs I will only observe that you make the Bishop of Sarum to lead the Van in both Cases and look upon it not as an argument but a Jest ad hominem It ill becomes one who pretends so great a Reverence and Tenderness for the Order as you do always to be aiming at a Bishop and studying to expose him tho hitherto God be thanked you have exposed your self most of all But if you do not take more care of your self you will become one of the Traditors before you are aware of it And yet as I said though I agree not with you in this medium yet thus far I agree with you in the Conclusion That Plurality is not in it self against the Divine Law and considering the Poverty of some Churches 't is absolutely necessary and some men may better merit and serve two than others one and therefore in God's Name let them have ' em Yet No Man ought to have more Souls committed to his Charge than he can or will watch over This doth evidently appear both from the Law of Nature and the Gospel whatever you pretend to the contrary For I think it will be needless to prove that by them both we are oblig'd to perform our promises and execute the several Offices we undertake and unless you have forgotten your Vows and Engagements plighted to God and his People at your Ordination you cannot but know that 't is the Vow and Office of a Presbyter of the Church of England to watch over and instruct the People committed to his charge And he who shall say that he is not obliged to serve in the Church committed to his charge doth in effect renounce his Orders in the Church of England And he who shall further assert That he is not obliged by the Vows and Promises which he hath made if they are not unlawful doth in consequence renounce the Christian and even Natural Religion And he who undertakes any Engagements which he knows he cannot perform or makes any Vows he resolves not to fulfill in taking of them he doth worse than break them So that he who accepts so many or great Benefices as he cannot or will not look after transgresses the Law of Christ and Nature too But there are two things pretended in this Case 1. The Dispensation of the Bishop To which I answer That there is no Dispensation to be had for perpetual Non-residence and neglect of the People Tho' I must confess the Dispensations are larger than a good man would wish for yet they will not come up to your purpose You often indeed call upon the Bishops to execute the Discipline of the Church and to make Incumbents perform the Terms and Conditions of their Dispensation that is to Preach Thirteen times a Year in each Church and to reside two Months which is too little in all conscience and yet as little as it is I do not doubt but if the good Bishops should take you at your word and send you and your Brethren to labour amongst your Rusticks you would think your selves severely handled and look on it as a harder imposition than that which the Parliament lays upon you and be ready to cry out of an eleventh Persecution I should look on that Pluralist to have something of Conscience who having gotten two of the best Livings in Thirty Miles distance should do at least what the Canon and his Dispensation requires of him 'T is but a low pitch of vertue to be just so good as the Law of Man would have us and yet it were well if such as you defend especially your dear self could do but this Your Dispensations which you now plead in your own defence shall hereafter rise up in Judgment against you For I know many Pluralists and I believe Sir you know one at least who Preach not half so often and reside not half so much upon both their Livings as they ought to do in each And yet after all if the Dispensation were as full as you could desire it would certainly be invalid as tending to the Breach of Vows which no Christian Bishop can pretend to without usurping a Papal Power He who shall undertake to annull a Minister's Vows of feeding the People committed to his charge may by the same Authority dispense with my Oath of Allegiance or with those Natural duties which I owe to my Parents or Children But some have answered That these Vows and Promises are to be taken in a legal sence and are qualified by those words according to the Order of this Church of England so that he who takes no more Liberty than the Canons of this Church allow cannot justly be accused for violation of his Faith But 1st The Church allows no such liberty as that of perpetual Non-residence and neglect of labour as is already proved 2dly These words do not at all affect our obligation to personal labour and therefore cannot in the least mitigate or abate it And that this may appear I will set down the whole Question of which these words are part Do you think in your heart that you be truly called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Order of this Church of England to the Order and