manifestation of Unity and as a help to Unity and Edification and Peace is most desirable but too rigorous pressing of it is one cause of Schisms and Contentions To a clear stating of Schism we must enquire into the Church as invisible visible as in its one Essential Nature separate from Legal Establishment and in its Legal Establishment and accordingly distinguish of Schism which is aggravated from Circumstances In our days Non-Conformity and Schism are made convertible whereas the internal Causes may be in Conformists as well as Non-Conformists But what is the external Bond and Ligature of Conformity what makes the Conformist and what makes the Non-Conformist Take away the Mount and Pale and the Inclosure and the Openfield is all one Field for the Flocks to feed together Some have extolled the Act of Uniformity as a blessed Act and some as the Bulwark of the Protestant Religion It must be acknowledged that it is a Blessing to the Church to have nursing Fathers and to have our Religion established by Law But he that is the Author and Founder of our Religion is the Bulwark also and the King's Life and Constancy is a wonderful Mercy to us But alas what a Fence is the Act if the Governours were changed The Protestant Religion as Christian as opposite to Popery was before the Act was and would be if it were revised and changed The most that can be made of the Separations is that they are illegal and the aggravated Schism illegal The Differences are originally in the minds of Men and forced out by an Act. From this the Conformist and Non-Conformist receive their Denominations Before this were Dr. Bates Dr. Jacomb Dr. Annesly Mr. Gouge and others Schismaticks any more than the learned Dr. Tillotson or Mr. Nest They could edify the Church together carry on the Morning Exercise together and converse as Brethren But since a new Door and Partition hath been set up they appear to be as two Families and two Parties I doubt not but the Dean's Catholick Head and Heart can take them in If they hear him not perhaps they may incur the angry Mark of Separation if he hear any of them he may incur a Disfavour Take away the Doors and Partition-walls and the House is one again And there are great suspicions that the Surveyors made the Doors for Exclusion and not a large Admission 1. If you consider that which was an offensive Innovation to a Brownrig Ward Prideaux c. quanti viri is now made Legal viz. the service in Latin in the Universities Westminster Winchester Eaton when they please as was noted before 2. The Non-Conformists of old stuck at Subscriptions ex animo to the Canon but by this they must subscribe and declare c. a sure way to win them 3. Not only to Articles of Religion which was enough for a Conformist in Queen Elizabeth's days but all and every thing c. 4. Did some think that Bishops and Presbyters were but one Order Now to keep them out the Bishop is consecrated in a new Form to the Office of a Bishop as a Superiour Order at least as some conceive 5. Many had taken the Covenant which renounced not the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and by virtue of these conjunctly did adhere to Kingly Government under the Usurpation and endeavoured to restore the King But now that must be renounced still to help to bring in more into Conformity was it not the way Will they for Peace and Union quit the Directory and conform to a Liturgy it shall not bring them in Would they have the Liturgy amended They shall not but in as few things as may be Can they use the Ceremonies rather than be deprived they must declare openly as much Can they practise the old Conformity They shall renounce the Covenant by which they were bound to endeavour a Reformation Would they become Lecturers as heretofore they might be No not except they declare Assent and Consent once a month If one thing will not keep them out another shall if nothing at all will keep them out then they are hardly trusted without great Evidences if not Recantations And who are most gratified and encouraged to come in but a Man whose Conscience can reach many Miles to two several Diocesses it may be from Living to Living He hath no more to do but to come within his time and declare according to Law and read his Certificate of renouncing c. and the Law hath nothing more to require of him save that where he is Resident or Incumbent and hath no Impediment then indeed he shall read the Service c. once a Month or forfeit five Pound If a Man loves his Ease or his Profit let him conform all the difficulty is in getting in If he will he may do any thing per alium except dye and give up his Accounts When I consider these things I do not wonder there are so many Non-Conformists That Honour of his Profession and our Age and either the Example or the Shame of them that shall succeed Sr. Matthew Hales said to Mr. Baxter on whose word I take it this Act of Uniformity will never unite and heal us and did upon occasion draw up a new Bill of Uniformity His Judgment might as soon be taken as any Mans and because his Memory and Manuscripts are in honour with our late wise and great Parliament I pray God that Bill may not be over-look'd when that Honourable Assembly shall meet again to debate it Here I could stop without the decency of conclusion my running thoughts being put to a stand and ready to yeeld to a prevailing Impotency and grief of Heart First Because so few Heads and Hands were united and at work to repair the Breaches of a great Church which should be every good Man's Prayer and Endeavour Secondly Because the Result of the Debates and Counsels of tho but few yet great wise and good Men should be rejected But why should we look for better from those Men who saw not what they had done amiss nor repented of other great Evils which the whole Nation hath seen and felt when Men's Principles are but as Wheels moved by Interest the Interest must be changed before the Wheels turned backward Souldiers of Fortune prolong a War and Counsellors of Fortune prolong Distractions The Troubles of Israel that put the Horsemen into a disorder and scotch'd the Wheels of many of our Chariots were never for the drawing of them into one Body again and making them serviceable Some grave and good Men checked the progress of the rest and at last the best over-awed the Guilty and did gallantly bear up against daring Rome But the Opposition had been the more successful and secure if they had brought the differing Parties of Protestants into a mutual Trust and Assurance Blessed be the Men and blessed be their Memories and blessed be their Counsels who have laboured to heal the hurt of the Daughter of Sion and
have them to be all of her mind and uniform She is a Godly Woman indeed and keeps Prayers morning and evening in her House and she is earnest to have them Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained in a certain Book and use no other Some of them do not love to be impos'd upon and think they are of those years as to know how to pray and plead a Promise from their Master of his holy Spirit to assist them In the discharge of any Imposed Form but others can submit to that if that would do She would have them wear white Linen wide Sleeves c. kneel when they eat and drink at the Lord's Table and will have all their Children baptized and also crossed in the forehead which if you would see is not to be seen for indeed it vanishes as soon as made For these things she pleads Authority in her Self and from her Supreme Governour upon Earth Since her Marriage with Kings she is grown wealthy in Estate The Woman that was sometimes in the Wilderness drawn before Magistrates cast into Prison that was forced to hide her head in Conventicles in those nights of old that for many Ages spake a hard language wore a triple Crown went in gorgeous Apparel of Ceremonies upon Ceremonies carried in pomp Princes did kiss her feet that adorn'd her Walls with Tapistry and Images grew Imperial in making Laws and gave her mouth to Cursing and Bitterness I say she now can shew her face that was sometimes forced to hide it and is become Reformed and Chaste but having Lordships and Preferments to bestow she hath been rather like a Domineering Mistress than gentle Mother as some of her Children have complained of her and hath rather suted her self to the Mode of Earthly Kings than the Will of her Heavenly King and Husband It cannot be denied but that some have been ambitious of her Favour and for the Preferments which they have got by their Ceremoniousness have done her no good and to get up above her fellow-servants have set her above her self And for ought I see these ambitious covetous Persons have been evil Instruments of great Contentions and Differences with her Children and they also having a spice of Adam's nature and growing stomachful with their Reason could not bear a Superiority among Equals and seeing they were Children of the same Father knew no other difference than for Prudential Government a Priority of Order or the Honour of Seniors but not a Superiority of Degree and Power The more powerful House for alas they have divided Houses that they may make Laws and govern others do attribute great Authority to the Church indeed as great as Jesus Christ her King and Husband had as if when he ascended into Heaven he gave among his other Gifts even all that he had himself to his Church and Spouse One R. R. a Writer that professed to much intimacy with her as to undertake to give her Sense and Reason of her doings doth assert her Power and Authority to be twofold As all other Bodies Politick the one of Jurisdiction to correct and reform Preface before his Collection of Canons c. by Spiritual Censures to preserve the Churches Purity and reduce to Unity the Troublers of the Churches Peace not by Arguments alone but Spiritual Censures even to casting out of the Church The other a Power of Legislation to make Canons and Constitutions For tho our Great Lord saith he hath already given to his Church most holy and wise Rules and Laws for the same purposes yet because they are general and there may some doubts and controversies arise about their meaning it doth necessarily follow that there must be an Authority left to this Church and Governours thereof to make new Laws upon emergent occasions to determine particularities where by the way observe that from a Power to resolve the Doubts that may arise about the Sence and Meaning of those General Laws of Christ he gets ground by stealth even to infer a Power to make new Laws and there must be a definitive Sentence of Superiours to decide Doubts and Controversies He argues both from the reason of the thing and that Christ gave this Power Joh. 20.21 22. As my Father sent Me so send I you And one particular of Jurisdiction there expressed Whose soever Sins ye bind on Earth they are bound in Heaven The Legislative power of making Laws and Constitutions for regulating Manners and determining Controversies cannot be denied to be granted in that large Commission As my Father sent me so send I You c. Where again observe how he grows upon us from a Mission to a Commission They are sent indeed but their Commission is no other than to go when sent Yea in the next sentence he saith our Lord commissions his Apostles observe that pag. 1. he defines the one Holy Church to be the Society of Believers to whom that double power was given but here it is given to the Apostles Have the Society of Believers the same power the Apostles had or doth the Commission given to the Apostles impower the Society of Believers to do as they did He commissions the Apostles saith he with the same necessary standing Power that he had and exercised as a mans for the good of the Church this is a Commission in general for making Laws Then in particular for making Articles and Decisions of Doctrines controverted Power is more explicit and express Mat. 28. All Power is given unto me Go ye therefore and teach all Nations that is with Authority And what is it to teach with Authority but to command and oblige all people to receive the Truth so taught When I read such Discourses and such Consequences I do less wonder that they who are given to strong Delusions do see those dazling Wonders in Tues Petrus super hanc Petram or that see the two Swords committed to St. Peter in Passe Oves meas when he was only appointed to be a carefull Shepherd Passe Oves meas But some Men are perspicuous and have Eyes to lead others that want Eyes of their own and can see as clearly into a plain Text as a Priest can into the bottom of a Papist's Heart by his All seeing Ear in Auricular Confession Others do build their Towers and Castles upon other Texts which I pass by Thus for the ample power of the Church The power which Christ hath given to her I revere and acknowledge Others go another way to work and lay the specious Towers and Battlements of Vniformity and Discipline and Ceremonies upon the King's Supremacy affirming two things 1. That the Modes required are things indifferent 2. That the chief Magistrate may make Constitutions about things indifferent And some upon one and some upon another ground do raise a great Dust Contention and Discontent some quarrel not but are of a moderate and peaceable disposition and wish for Peace and Concord but these are quarrelled
are called to One even to the One Hope of their Calling The one writes You are guilty of Schism and the other says Who made it My Bowels my Bowels O thou the Prince of Peace make Peace in thine own House Family and Kingdom make of these twain one Body and let there be no Schism in it as they are made One Body in One the same Breastplate of Faith in the same Girdle of Truth so let them be shod with the Shoos of the Gospel of Preparation of Peace and let not one hinder another to run but cause both to walk in the same path to put on Charity and to have the same mind that was in thee Methinks it were but fit for us who weekly petition our good Lord to deliver us from all Vncharitableness from all false Doctrine Heresie and Schism out of a Spirit of Love if the Peace of God rule in our Hearts upon our knees to petition our Governours for our Brethrens enlargement and reunion with us that they may not lie under the Censures and Reproaches of open Sinners nor lie under the Imputation of Schism and other suspicions and be the subject of Scorn to every Papistical Scribler and many other Mischiefs and Slanders But there being no hope of that let every Man do his part for healing of the Breaches And therefore I cannot but ask my Superiours Pardon to handle a tender point indeed even to recommend the Case of my Reverend Brethren the Nonconformists to the good Opinion and charitable thoughts of them that can help with one Act to decide what a thousand Volumns cannot I would not if possible be misunderstood I am for Unity and Conformity but not such an Uniformity as hinders Unity by turning the Church into a Party I am not a partial Hyper-aspistes they can best manage their Cause as best knowing their own mind neither have they been wanting to it Nor shall I give my Mother the Church an unbeseeming word but yet between the Judicious Holy and Peaceable part of Fathers and Brethren of it and the Factionmaking Aspiring-party I cannot but distinguish Indeed these call themselves the Church but by monopolizing the Church and ingrossing the Goods of the Church if they could they have no greater share of the Spirit of the true Catholick Church than their despised Brethren commonly called Schismaticks by them These are supra or Trans-Conformists that keep the Rule of Conformity much as they do their Residence These Men are Nonconformists too as I could shew in some considerable particulars and are a Rubrick to themselves But my business is not to accuse them but seeing the most are Non-conformists either above or under the Rule a Rule if strictly kept at all times in all Offices where were a man's Prudence and if a Man hath no Pruderce to use or may not use it he is very unfit to be a Minister in the Church of God I am for the calling of more Non-conformists into the Company and for making Non-conformists Conformists Our blessed Saviour in the Parable compares himself to an Housholder going a far Journey that gave authority to his Servants and to every Man his work and commanded the Porter to watch and when he went he left Peace as a Legacy My Peace I leave with you But alas how few have sought to get and keep that Legacy or to do their Work We may with Sorrow look into it and find it in his Absence a most broken and divided House In it we shall find two sorts of Children all by the same Father but not as if all of a Mother The elder and the greater combine make a mighty Party and they even rule the Mother These have the best of every thing and snatch what the others had or should have and part all as they please among themselves and use their poor Brethren no better than if they were Bastards These complain and entreat and beg but if they beg they are not regarded if they complain they are peevish and discontented deserve nothing or no better than to be turned out of doors if a Man pities them and pleads for them he is one of them The greater say These peevish whining Children are disobedient to our Mother vex her Bowels out hinder all Government and Uniformity if it were not for them how happy would it be with us But who can tell but the great Ones may fall out among themselves The Ejected have written pleaded their Cause drawn up their Case and petitioned but to what purpose To as much as a Man that hath a good Right to a part of an Inheritance but possessed by an elder Brother who thinks he can prescribe for all and plead Possession and Law besides that his Friends being Judges in the Court have given it him This poor younger Brother has but a weak Purse and few Friends and what doth he but remonstrate open his Case to many and to his elder Brother with humble Entreaties But because he doth not go to Plow or go a begging or to some Corners of the Land or go to some Forreign Plantation he is rated as a troublesom Fellow factious and querulous and knows not what he would have Possessors are deaf to Petitioners He that would recover his Right must go to Law for it or lose all except a little Alms and that as pure Kindness without pretence of Right or Desert There were a Company of Justices that sate long upon the Bench and these first made an Order for Ministers to come in Bond to certain Duties or else they discharge the Parishes of them and turn them out of doors Many hundreds refused to give in their Bonds upon which they were turned out of their Houses and Parishes and by an after-Order they were not to come within five Miles of any Corporation that sent Burgesses to Parliament or of their own last Abodes forbidding them thereby any Employment in Corporations to get their Livings or the Charity of their former good Neighbours if they had any These and their Families are up and down the Nation indeed no better esteemed which is a shame to tell than Vagrants by too many yea unfit to live Now forasmuch as they may be very useful it would be an Act worthy your place to move the Honourable Bench of Justices that never liked that rigorous Order in Mercy and Justice to take the Case of these ejected Ministers to consideration and by another Order to capacitate them to dwell and labour in any City Town Corporate Village and Parish whatsoever any thing in any Law or Statute to the contrary notwithstanding I make bold to present these following Particulars to you with Truth and Charity 1. Their Sufferings 2. The Hardness of their Case 3. The Reasonableness and Equity of many of their Desires and Proposals 4. Qualifications and worth of their Persons 5. Their Behaviour 6. The Conclusion I. Their Sufferings And they admit of various Aggravations according to their various
Circumstances Some of them were Fellows of Colleges and not otherwise preferred in the heat of their Studies and thereby together with their Preferments and Livelihoods lost what could not be recompenced to them their Opportunities for learned Studies and their Increase of Abilities which is an inestimable Loss to any good and studious Man It was a Trial to ingenuous Men to be turned out of their Fellowships their little Regalities and become Chaplains or Schoolmasters for ten or twenty Pound per annum And there is a difference in a Man's Entertainment when he is courted and invited into a Family or Employment and when his Necessity drives him and his Entertainment looks more like a Courtesy than a Reward with Obligation and Acknowledgment Others had but a little Time of Settlement in their Country-Preferments to lay up any thing for themselves and Families The more consciencious the Ministers are the more apt to marry young chusing rather to cast themselves double upon the Providence of God than sin in a single Life honest Marriage being honourable tho attended with honest Poverty And the most of their Ejectors being single Persons and having eaten the Cream of Preferments in their rising Times had little consideration towards great and small Families Indeed as many as had treasured up Faith in God and his Promises had enough to hold out their Pilgrimage But if God was so kind as to give them Faith to live by they were unkind that would force them to that noble kind of Life If God had given them Grace care should have been taken to find them Work But God did not cast them out of their Work nor out of his Care He became their Patron whom Men ejected and presented them some to Places always vacant dark and neglected and others he preferred from Country-Villages to Towns and Cities One Instance comes into my Mind of Mr. Edward Lawrence of Basce-Church in Shropshire a worthy Preacher turned out with a Wife and many Children who being asked how he did intend to live made Answer The sixth Chapter of Matthew must maintain me my Wife and Children and it is enough for us all or words to this effect it is many years ago since a worthy Person told me the Story and so he found it true And being driven out of the Country by the Rigors of some Men his double Ejection the first out of his Parish the second out of the Country made way for his Settlement in London whither he was forced And such Reasons as these may be given why many of the Non-conformists resort to London and other Towns which is imputed to them by some as a Fault of Ambition or worse Others how far soever grown in Years and desirous of Rest in the Work of Christ must out of their quiet Quarters colligere Sarcinas remove their Beds and be gone and sell their Books And what many of them have suffered since is not my part to aggravate God hath taken care of many and given them Food and Raiment and Work at their Peril and Cost And others besides the Hardships of Imprisonments Chargeableness of many Removes have lived by their Industry by their Labours even of their hands a very hard and pinching Life as I doubt not is very well known to many of all Qualities and that many Ministers in the Church are very poor It is not well taken by some that they should complain of their Sufferings and may be not well taken from me to relate what I know and have heard of particular Persons to whom with their Children cast Suits have been acceptable to cover and adorn them I know it is objected that many live better than ever they did get Hundreds per annum keep Coaches c. I answer I do not think there is any Non-conformists in the Land but will quit what they have for what they had without seeking Considerations for Losses 2. If some that can graze upon a bare Common have a little Flesh and some Wooll upon their Backs others have wasted their Patrimonies and real Estates 3. It is their Wisdom to set the best Face on 't to shew they are not discouraged in their Conditions that they may not appear to beg as they go along to keep themselves from Contempt and other prudential Considerations 4. I wish some had better Feet and Legs than to be carried in Coaches I am glad they can keep hire or borrow whatever others are Others may object the Sufferings of the Royal Party and many worthy Divines into whose places many of the now Ejected violontly entred Answ Mercurius Rusticus saith enough to make a Man's Heart bleed I would not diminish those Sufferings by enlarging these I am sorry for both for either But if I may use my Freedom without offence to any in this afflicting Point I humbly offer 1. It is probable that many hundreds the now Ejected were not Men in those evil Days therefore not guilty 2. There was a Provision of a fifth part for the Wives of the Ejected then there is none for these 3. Who can answer for the Violences and Injustice of Actions in a Civil War Those Sufferings were in a Time of general Calamity but these were ejected not only in a Time of Peace but a Time of Joy to all the Land and after an Act of Oblivion when all pretended to be reconciled and to be made Friends and to whose common rejoycing these suffering Ministers had contributed their earnest Prayers and great Endeavours Many Ministers in the Church are poor in poor Livings in poor Curacies yet are preferred above or equal to their Merits many are poor through their Prodigality and superfluous Wigs and Habits Many Men of worth are kept low by reason of Pluralities and Engrossers that live at ease that had not a Heart to labour nor give the Labourers their Hire These are Grievances that call for Redress It is objected That they suffer through their own Faults they suffer for Disobedience to a Law Answer I do earnestly interrogate Can either those that voted for that Bill or they who used all Power and Art to procure those Votes to pass it into an Act say from their Consciences That it was Conscience towards God that obliged them to it that if they had not put into the old Conformity the new Additions they had sinned against Jesus Christ and their Faithfulness to him If they can then I query if that be not an erroneous Conscience And then the Question so often thrown upon the Non-conformists of the Obligation of an erring Conscience may be retorted upon the Imposers by indifferent judicious Men. If they cannot say so then they might put the Question to their own Souls Whether they have not sinned in imposing or procuring such things to be imposed as tend to the temporal Hurt and Ruine of many Families and the great Detriment to the Church of Christ if not by the Loss of the publick and profitable Labours of many able
they had not conformed It is hard to lay the Stress of many Parts of a Declaration as fully and distinctly express'd as the Wit of severe Men could word them upon one general word Vse It is a hard Construction of affirmative Propositions or Parts of a positive Declaration to be explained in a privative or negative Sence yet so we find them smoothed and rolled up in Liquorish that they may pass the narrowest Throats I shall take the Pains to transcribe two Constructions of two excellent Men which may be taken next to a publick Sence and Construction especially the one of them who was the most learned and rarely tempered Bishop Reynolds in his Sermon of Moderation before the House of Peers Novemb. 7. 1666. a Day of Solemn Humiliation for the Pestilence pag. 24. And truly it is an Honour which Learned Men owe to one another to allow Liberty of Dissent in Matters of meer Opinion salvâ compage Fidei salvo vinculo Charitatis salvâ Pace Ecclesiae for these three Faith Love and Peace are still to be preserved so it is a Charity which good Men owe to one another upon the same Salvo's to bear with the Infirmities of each other not to judg or despise or set at naught our Brethren as useless and inconsiderable Persons But whom God is pleased to receive into his Favour not to cast them out of ours This Latitude and Moderation of Judgment some learned Men have taken the freedom to extend even to the Case of Subscriptions by Law required The learned Author of the Book called An Answer to Charity maintained and the late learned Primate of Armagh Arch-Bishop Bramhall and quotes their Words in the Margent which are these For the Church of England I am persuaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any Man to disturb the Peace or renounce the Communion This in mine Opinion is all intended by Subscription The Words of the Arch-Bishop are these We do not suffer any Man to reject the Thirty Nine Articles of the Church of England at his Pleasure yet neither do we look upon them as Essentials of saving Faith or Legacies of Christ and his Apostles but in a mean as pious Opinions fitted for the Preservation of Vnity Neither do we believe any Man to believe them but only not to contradict them This Sermon being printed upon request of the Lords I thought this moderate Exposition of Subscription as it was aimed at by that rare Preacher I believe might pass for approved by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and be next to a legal authentick Sence of all things required by Law For if Subscription of Articles be in so laxe a Sence much more to some of the other things But Mr. Baxter who hath as good reason to know as any one Man hath dashed this Conceit for he writes that when the Lords would have put in this Proviso To the Vse of the Book the House of Commons refused it and the Lords acquiesced in their Reasons given in at a Conference about it Vbi supra p. 160. The other Expositor of our Declaration which I shall produce is the Reverend Dr. Stillingfleet Dean of St. Paul's who shines as a Star in our Firmament and in regard of his own great Reason and Acquaintance with other great Mens thoughts may direct the Course of fluctuating Coasters that look for a safe Landing-Place and sure footing before they proceed in the Service of the Church In his late controverted Sermon Mischief of Separation among other sharp Reflections upon his Friend Mr. Baxter he hath these words pag. 49. It is a hard Case with a Church when Men shall set their Wits to strain every thing to the worst Sence to stretch Laws beyond the Intention and Design of them to gather together all the doubtful and obscure Passages in Calendars Translations c. And will not distinguish betwixt the Approbation of the Vse and of the Choice of things for upon such Terms as these Men think to justify the present Divisions I much question whether if they proceed in such a manner they can hold Communion with any Church in the Christian World So far he From which Words I make bold to infer and if I am too bold I do seriously ask his pardon 1. It seems to me that he limits the sence of the Declaration of Assent and Consent to the scope and intention of the Law which is to the use of the Book and all things in it 2. That a Man may assent and consent to the use of those things which a Man would not or doth not choose if left to his choice and liberty 3. Here is a Blot cast by his Elegant Pen at least upon some of the things contained in and prescribed by the Book as things not to be chosen but only to be used by constraint 4. An Impeachment against the Contrivers and Exacters of Conformity for requiring Assent and Consent to all and every thing not making a difference contained in c. which such Excellent Men as the Dean is would not use if left to his choice nor any other wise man choose and so their meaning comes to this I will use this Book and all things to be used in it such as they are instead of better and tho not declaring our Assent is punishable with Deprivation or Non-Admittance into the Publick Ministry of the Church and the loss of a Man's Livelihood and Temporal Rewards of the Ministry 5. If our Governours shall from their great Wisdom and Compassion to a most divided Church alter the terms of Communion and Conformity and unlace the Garment which is made too strait for the Body which faints being straitly laced then no Man must be offended with the Reverend Dean or any other that conformed in this large sence if they disuse the things now in use and fall in with such things as may like them as well or better 6. I infer and retort which is to my purpose that it is a hard Case with a Church when Men shall strain their Wits to frame Declarations under such severe penalties to passages that are doubtful and obscure and capable of an ill sence that we must turn to Kalendars to find out Lessons in the Apocrypha that have Canonical Lessons enow to use other Translations than the last and best c. But Mr. Baxter doth instance in other things as well as Kalendars and Translations and holds occasional Communion with the Church as it is and would much rather if those passages which the learned Dean calls doubtful and obscure were not imposed and is Catholick enough to hold Communion with any Christian Church that hath not corrupted the Essentials of Christian Worship The second Declaration and Subscription contains Matter Political and mixed which is Not to take
up Arms c. a thing easily consented to I do confess that there have been fair Explications and Limitations published to make this gain Assent but yet it is hard unless all men could attain to the same sence and those Explications are not known to abundance that subscribe and declare and so promise and swear in the dark I am confident many never read the Covenant that renounce it and so renounce they know not what and may take their Informations from the Pulpit where a Thread-bare Jingle hath been of late much used by some of the Holy-League in France to root out the Protestants and the Selemn League which must be taken to be as bad as that being coupled together with it But that which is hard in these things is 1. To renounce what many do not know and most never took nor was ever like to he imposed but to expire with the Men that took it in the heat of War But the Time of the Expiration of this Part draws on 2. Not only renounce it our selves but to declare that no Man else is bound How can I judg of another Man's Obligation in his Place and Calling c. Besides admit I declare that there lies no Obligation upon any other Man any more than upon my self yet it is but my Opinion I think he is not obliged but my Opinion doth not absolve or release him that thinks himself obliged and all this while I do really renounce but for my self And it is hard for any Man to determine a Case of Conscience whose Case he doth it may be not well understand and may fail in the stating of it But I must not descend into Particulars neither do I determine against it but only transiently shew the Excusableness of them who cannot declare these things altho they do not refuse it from any Principle of Disloyalty or Faction and that from this undeniable Consideration and Argument That which all the Art and Wit and Interest of some Men in great Place and Power in the House of Lords could not make to pass but was opposed with that Clearness and Cogency of Reason and Resolution as if they were saving a Nation by resisting the Test which could not pass into a Bill must needs be hard to be imposed upon Ministers And it is not improbable but that noble Opposition gave the greatest Repulse to a dangerous Design long carried on to subvert the Government under a Pretence to preserve it as it is in all its Parts and Circumstances And the joint Opposition of some Popish Lords against the Test doth not at all abate the Strength of this Reason for they having a cruel Design destructive of this Frame could not chuse but oppose a Test which was pretended to preserve it unalterably as it is both in respect of the Persons that govern in the Throne Church and State and in its present Constitution And whereas many things have been carried on as tho to prevent the coming of such a Year as that unhappy Forty one yet really there have been great Endeavours used to bring us under the Obligation which some brought upon us in the Year Forty I mean the Et caetera Oath leaving out the Et caetera it self and under a colour to preserve us from a Long Parliament of the Complexion of Forty one Protestation and Covenant and War gave Umbrage to a fearful Plot to bring us under a Papal Slavery introduced by bloody Massacres And who talk'd more of Forty one than some that are of late discovered to be Traitors and having professed to be Sons of our Church committed Fornication with Rome who had almost gone out her full Time ready to be delivered of a Pope and had called the Midwife and many Ladies to the Labour bespoken Nurses and Gossips and Choice of Fathers to Antichristen the Monster with the Name of Catholick Church with all the Ceremonies of the Mass Some of the eminent Nonconformists being willing to declare their detestation of Disloyalty were taken with the Declaration sent out after the Oxford Oath or Five-mile Act being made believe that that Explication was sent forth by good Authority yet many smelling what was intended were resolved to venture their own private loss of Liberty by asserting the Publick Liberty and as things now appear the Government ows them a kindness and the Noble Lords and Commons that understood themselves and the encreasing Perils immortal thanks for their seasonable Activity to preserve the strong and ancient Government But to conclude this Head It is not kind to say no worse to engage all Ministers never so young or else they cannot enter into the Churches Ministry either to be Politieians to study State-Affairs for which many have been extreamly blamed or else to be led as Fools into they know not what And they that have given this further Test of their Loyalty have little cause to take it well as if the standing Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were not tye sufficient to keep us honest but dishonour us by a suspicion of Disloyalty and Treachery Observe the method of proceeding first they began with us as Guides of the People and next proceeded to draw in Corporations and from thence to impose it upon the Parliament it self to which if they had submitted we see what would have followed We might have seen such Commissioned by the King 's own Authority See the Commons Answer to his Majesties Message about Tangier as would have destroyed His Person and cut all our Throats having first tied our Hands Thus I have shewed what is required from them The second Particular follows II. Consider the Penalties to be inflicted upon such as will not conform 1. They who were in the Ministry must be divorced from those whom they had baptized and espoused to Christ among whom they had laboured and their remove was to the shaking of many Christians and to the great harm of the Church I will instance only these three ways First it was as bad to many as the change of a Nurse to a weakly Child I will ask no Pardon for the Comparison it being Apostolical 2dly It was enough to make many stagger and call in question all those Truths that had bin delivered to them since that their Preachers are judged unfit to be continued in Trust with Souls and tended to breed much Atheism and many Errors 3dly It tended to alienate the minds of many from the Government of the Church that would enforce Laws binding to many unnecessary things even to the Ejection and Deprivation of many Orthodox and painful Divines And this sticks with many to this day by which the Church-Rulers have not got but lost And these things aggravated with an imputation of Dishonesty in Ministers by the publication of their Assent c. in the full Congregation For if any had distinguished between the substance of Ordinances and Accidentals which was but necessary to many people who thought no Worship Divine
without the Common-Prayer See also Mr. Blake Covenant sealed p. 308. as I my self have known nor any Child rightly baptized without the Cross yet by this Act of Uniformity they must declare Assent and Consent to all and every thing to Cross as well as Baptism to Ceremony as well as Substance And how easie was it for sinful people and weak to say See what these Men can do Yea in case that in any after-time wise and moderate Governours should see a necessity of making Alterations Then again teaching Scorners to say Yea see what these Men can do to the great dishonour of Religion and disgrace of the best of Ministers And one would think that because the Courts continue to swear Churchwardens to present they had Spies enow upon our Nonconformists and Punishments smart enough they might have spared to require this Declaration or if they had thought us honest our promise to conform had been sufficient tho kept in the Registers and made at our Institutions Yet through this Dishonour we attain our Honour They are debarred from all exercise of their Ministerial Abilities their Wives and Children turned out of doors and when they had made a sad and chargeable Remove of late must remove again upon the Five-mile Act. And these Penalties were next to Death and I conceive proved the Death of many I remember the Renowned Bishop Morton wrote these words to the Nonconformists and desired them earnestly to consider the Censure of the Apostle's Wo being so dreadful I ought not to esteem any thing a just Cause why I should wilfully incur the Censure of Silencing my self from Preaching for which I ought not as willingly to adventure my Life The General Defence of the three Ceremonies Part 1. p. 163. The Nonconformists have suffered what is next to Death and too many have suffered even unto Death in Prisons where several caught their Death and others died it is a dreadful story of whom shall their Deaths be required And it is easie to retort those words of the Reverend Bishop Imposers should not esteem any thing a just Cause of bringing any under the censures of Silencing of Preachers from preaching for which they may not adventure to take away their Lives It is objected That they sin against the Law And they may answer Who procured the Law it is the Magistrate's Sword but who moved him to draw it They are told they have no cause to complain of Sufferings for the Magistrate hath been merciful and hath not execued the Laws Thanks be to God for the Mercy but all have not been so merciful as the King hath been or many inferiour Magistrates but their Mercy hath not been kindly taken by many who should have more tender bowels than any Man that wears a Sword To conclude A reasonable Understanding may judge that Law not fit to remain in force that is not fit to be put in execution That Law cannot be good that is not fit to be brought to act without more real hurt than good And if the wise and merciful God hath by many remarkable Providences put a stop to their execution it is time for Men to annul the Law 2. The Penalty is hard upon them that make their offers to be admitted into the Churches Service or that would come in but for these Injunctions It is but a narrow passage that is made for them that enter in yet what shall they do who have spent all they have in a Preparatory Education In they must tho but to a Curacy which is not easie to be had It is grievous to think with what Implicit Faith they do what is to be done yet must Assent to more than ever many have studied rather following Example than Reason or else there is nothing for them to do Others that are enclin'd to Learning and to serve in the Gospel are deterred upon many accounts and have great prejudices against Conformity because of the great reverence they have to Nonconformists and these are under a great temptation to perpetuate a Nonconformity which is more sutable to their inclinations as being a state of freedom to their Consciences from great Bonds and Obligations tho an Estate attended with hazard to their Bodies and Estates And all young Students are under this necessity either they must subscribe hand-over-head or else they must spend their time in these endless Controversies of the Church and be engaged in the dolefull and fearfull Wars of the Church on one side or other 3. The third Consideration that pleads for our Non-conforming Brethren is taken from the Reasonableness of their Demands I distinguish these Demands into those Proposals made by the Commissioners in the Savoy Anno 1662 with that Modesty Gravity Humility and Reason treating the Bishops and other Commissioners as Superiours 2. Into those which have been repeated by particular Persons and may be seen in the Writings of Laborious and Catholick Mr. Baxter Mr. John Corbet and Dr. Owen in his learned and moderate Book of Church-Peace Love and Unity I shall only generally compare what they humbly desired with what was declared 1. In his Majesties gracious Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs a most large and healing Plaister for the Churches Wounds and might have been a Pillar to have born up the Church in Unity as his Gracious Act of Indempnity and Oblivion hath held up the State if some Men who can be loyal for their own ends had not perhaps bin industrious to make Divisions by their Affected Terms of Union 2. They humbly moved but for what great Men and famous in the Church of God to all posterity thought fit to grant In that Year 1641 there was a Committee for Religion appointed in the House of Lords ten Earls ten Bishops ten Barons The Bishop of Lincoln Williams sent a Letter to some Divines to attend that Service who met in his House Breviat of his Life p. 24. the Deanery of Westminster upon which Arch-Bishop Laud hath this Note Upon the whole matter I believe this Committee will prove the National Synod of England to the great dishonour of the Church and what else may follow upon it God knows These Divines were no less Men than the most Venerable Arch-Bishop Vsher Bishop Williams of Lincoln Dr. Prideaux after Bishop of Worcester Dr. Brownrig after Bishop of Fxeter Dr. Ward Professor of Divinity in Cambridge and Arch-Deacon of Taunton Dr. Featly Dr. Hacket of late Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield All these subscribed a Paper called The Proceedings c. touching Innovations in Doctrine and Disoipline of the Church of England together with Considerations upon the Common-Prayer Book Out of which I draw a Parallel with the Proposals of the Divines appointed to treat by his Majesty's Commission with the Archbishop and Bishops and other Divines of the Church of England at the Savoy See Account of the Proceedings printed Lond. 1661. The Divines appointed to meet in the Dean's House 1641. Considerations on the
Hist of the Sabbath Just Weights Measures Case of the Sabbath nor which I wonder at to the judicious Bp. Sanderson as much as the Seventh was from the Creation What if an inquiring Child that is catechised should ask his Parent What day do we keep as Sabbath the First hee 'l say But saith the Child Why do we keep the First what Commandment for that or what Promise for we are taught in the Catechism God blessed the Seventh day Is not this a temptation to keep the Seventh-day Sabbath Had the Presbyterians pleaded for that Translation they might have heard of their ignorance in the Hebrew and demanding things not fit to be allowed they would not grant them lest they as the Puritans have been misrepresented should Judaize in keeping the Holy Sabbath The Doxologie or conclusion of the Lord's Prayer for thine is the Kingdom c. to be used always Query Whether they have not thereby taught us this Opinion that tho Forms of Prayers are lawful yet a variety is as lawful as a set form of words We prove the lawfulness by our Saviour's Prescription When ye pray say c. And may we not prove a liberty or a variety of expressions keeping still to the same matter when we read a difference in the same Prayer as delivered by two Evangelists inspired by the same Spirit and when we see the practice of the Church is sometimes to use and sometimes to omit the Doxologie and Conclusion And why shall the Church so severely enjoin the exact use of all her Forms and they who omit when their Prudence and Conscience as to some Prayers tells them they should sometimes concerning some Petitions and Persons are liable to censure when a part of the Lord's Prayer as delivered by St. Matthew is constantly omitted For ought I see a liberty and variety of Prayers strictly keeping to divine matter with abbreviations and enlargements is as lawful as a stinted invariable Form of words and is a matter of Christian Liberty to be used as shall best serve to the edification of the Church of Christ and divers expressions are as much from the same Spirit provided always they agree with the language of the Holy Ghost as diversities of Gifts and consistant with the Unity of the Spirit And they who plead for a necessity of Forms must also yeeld to a variety upon the same subject which we have for the King in the Service and a few others A Reformation was thought absolutely necessary to Union Hear what Mr. Herbert Thorndike one of the Commissioners for the Church in the Savoy wrote But now that Unity is not to be had without setling agreement in matters of Difference A due way of composing Differences printed with his Weights and Measures pag. 236. Edit 1662. to propose what may seem best for the Community of God's Church in the Cure of our Breaches is not to give offence but to take it away Nor do I know any Man professing the Reformation sincerely that could not wish with all his heart that the whole Order and Form to be setled with the Circumstance of the same might be according to the Primitive Simplicity and naked plainness of the Ancient Church p. 245. The form of Service now in force by Law may be acknowledged capable of Amendment without disparagement either to the Wisdom of the Church that prescribed it or of the Nation that enacted it Some promised much but granted little others begg'd more pleaded hard but obtained not And may not this justify the Nonconformists waiting for and earnestly desiring a redress of material things since they could obtain but very little then and cannot in conscience subscribe and declare now If they had been gratified then and had now been discontented without more there had been more reason for the prejudice that is propagated against them If it be objected Why could not they have Conformed as some of their Fellow-Commissioners did I Answer 1. Some very worthy Persons did Conform Dr. Wallis Dr. Horton Dr. Lightfoot and after about seven Years silence to the great loss of Exeter College Oxford and the Church of God Dr. Conant conformed and these were all 2. The Reasons why these did not is because as the same Spectacles will not serve all Mens sight so because they could not as they oft declared both to the shaking off some and the displeasure of others within the Pale My last Observation shall be upon the Persons that managed that Debate The Commissioners that pleaded for the Union as it was without a Reformation were the strongest and stiffest of any in the Church of England Men of great Learning long experience in the Ecclesiastical Government and that had suffered much and were much exasperated as being several of them next the Bishops most obnoxious to the Parliament as most guilty of Innovations in Doctrine and Discipline by the Informations and Complaint of as Learned and as great Men as any of them in the Church of England as may easily be produced out of the best account of those Times all except Dr. Morley Dr. Earle Dr. Sanderson against whom I remember no Complaints and a few beside Their Constancy and Sufferings did recommend them to the King's Favour and the great Agreement in their Persuasions held them to one another and having the disposing of Preferments as they pleased or at least the Recommendation of Candidates Expectants complied with them and were forward to walk according to their Measures The moderating Bishop Hall was gone to Heaven Prideaux Brownrig and others of another temper and so it was easier for them to carry all their own way and two things as conducing to their designs was necessary 1. To frame a Convocation to their minds and to that end great care and pains were used to keep out and to get in by very undue Proceedings Protestations were entred against all Incumbents not ordained by Bishops though it was not through their faults and to exclude others that they feared had any inclination to Moderation indeed under the name of Presbytery And such an Election being made as there was no great fear of calling any thing to free Debates few leading Men being of another mind so there were no Debates to speak of the greatest that I could hear of was between the Cambridg Professor Dr. Gunning and the Oxford Professor Dr. Creed about a hard Point indeed the Age of Children to be Confirm'd 2. For all his Majesty's most gracious and excellent Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs they laboured by all their Interest and Endeavours to have a Parliament that would pass what they would contrive and prepare for them And so they instead of sending more Labourers into the Vineyard hired as some say Labourers to turn out or keep out Labourers from entring in And the Labourers in Pension were not imployed only in State but also in Church-Work Their Interest was so great in that Parliament as to enact what was
tends but to exasperate some and to shake others out of their own Communion if they prevent it not I do not speak at all adventures If some could have executed the Laws or prevailed with Magistrates so to do we should have had a Militant Church indeed In the Year 1669 we had several Articles sent down to the Clergy with private Orders to some to make the Conventiclers as few and small as might be The eighth and last was this Whether you do think * That is The Dissenters they might be easily supprest by the Assistance of the Civil Magistrate Some made bold to answer more than Ay or No. Since what encouragement had a sort of scandalous Persons to become Informers But God took some of these into his own hand some cut off and some convinced and through the gentleness of the Civil Magistrate and shame of the Office Meetings went on and grew as they are at this day Some of the Informers were struck into an Awe of the Preachers and manner of their preaching others baffled and some as Gibson of Leicester died miserably See the Life of Mr. John Tregoss I have been large in this Head I will be shorter in the rest 4. The fourth Consideration is The Qualifications of their Persons They have their Faults no doubt The Angels of the Churches are not Angels of Heaven They are better known to many Great Men in Church and State than to me who very rarely see or converse with any But if they required my Testimony I would give it That for Loyalty to their King I never knew any more They cannot drink his Health but they helpt to pray him to his Throne pray that he may long sit upon it and pray him towards Heaven They break his Laws say some and sow Sedition c. Do they so Then spare them not They are grieved they cannot keep his Laws that such Laws are made which they cannot keep But have they resisted when their Goods have been seised or broken Prison c. What Conspiracy have they been in Blessed be God who hath kept them above the Slanders of their Adversaries and convinced them if any thing will that they can Preach and Pray and not into a War and neither Preach nor Pray us into a War or a Plot. Their Holiness and Morality is conspicuous and they are useful many ways in the Common-Wealth and for their Ministerial Abilities allowing them but those Grains which no Man of Charity denies and no Man of any Abilities can pass for currant without they are Men of different statures it is true but some are eminent for variety of excellent and useful Learning and known to the Church of God by many rare pieces of Practical Divinity and Controversal Beside the many Tracts of particular Men that will be valued while Christianity hath any Name among Ages to come See but a Specimen of their Dexterity in Practical Divinity in those Lectures called The Morning Exercises at Cripplegate and Supplement For positive in their Morning Exercises at St. Giles in the Fields c. And their Polemical in their Morning Exercises against Popery and there are very able Divines and Preachers up and down the Land beside those that are known in London What Service hath Mr. Pool's Nullity and Dialogues Dr. Owen's Answer to Fiat Lux Mr. Baxter's Key for Catholicks c. and Mr. Clarkson's Moral Divinity of the Papists and his Observations upon the Jesuits Speeches done What a notable Book is Mr. Hughes's Man of Sin I hope no Man will think that I look upon them as the only Champions in this Cause or extol them to lessen or deprive any of our Conforming Worthies of the honour of their open and hazardous Engagements against that Daring Faction No but my Soul longs to see them all under the same Banner and of the same Body and the same Denomination The Measures of these must not be taken from some Mens Books who had magnified their Office more if they had not exposed and vilified them Are there any mean and weak among them They may be useful if nourished and improved but the best of them all hath no more Liberty besides what he ventures for than the very meanest I would conclude humbly proposing these Queries First Whether it is thought that any of them are enabled from above with Ministerial Abilities and instructed to the Kingdom of God I will not descend so low as our Legal Rule of Trial Are they fitted for the Ministerial Office Have they Understanding in the Scripture Skill in Original and other useful Learning Are they Orthodox in Judgment free from Heresie Do they consent to the avowed Doctrines of the Church of England Have they the Gift of Utterance Are they willing and desirous to serve in the Gospel of Christ No doubt but from the oldest to the youngest of them they will submit to an Examination if thought necessary to their Admission Besides the full Proof that many of them have given even to an Excellency above most of our Brethren What of all this will be said unto me They dissent from the Discipline Government and Legal Worship I ask again are they for any essential fundamental Parts of Apostolical truly Primitive Church Government Will they promise to administer all the Ordinances of the Gospel as Christ enjoyned them as the Apostles and their next Successors did celebrate them as nearly as can be learned from undoubted and currant History The chief of them say they can and it is that they contend for Lastly I ask Do we think that Christ would have sent them out to preach or forbad them the Apostles have given them the Right-hand of Fellowship or not Would St. Paul have rejoyced that the Gospel was preached by them or not Then secondly I query Whether any that are intrusted by Jesus Christ in the Over-sight of his Church and administration of Government and Discipline in it can forbid such Men to minister in his Church Here seems to me to be a Repugnancy between Christ and his Officers in his Church He fits and qualifies Men with Gifts and Furniture for his Churches Edification and Good who stand in need of them makes them willing to spend and be spent but the Governours of the Church will not admit them in but cast them out and by their Canon judg them excommunicate so whom Christ sends they refuse Whose Will should sway the Master of the Family Christ or his Stewards But it will be objected they will not conform to the Church as established by Law and better the Church should loose their Labours than the Hedg of Government thrown down for them Dr. Stilling fl Irenic p. 42. Says the Magistrate cannot forbid true Doctrine to be preached I humbly offer 1. Whether any such Laws should be made stand in force or executed against Men sound in Doctrine and enabled by Christ to serve him 2. Whether this Form of Government to which they cannot
conform be that Form of Constitution to which they must submit or else be deprived according to the mind of Christ I go upon this Supposition That all particular Laws of the Church must agree with the General Rules of Christ and not be to the damage of the Church of Believers 3. Whether the Apostolical Church-Practice be not rather a Rule to all succeeding Ages to follow than the Fourth Age which waxed wanton in Ceremonies and cast those Ceremonious Shadows from her Body because the Sun of Imperial Favour and Prosperity did shine upon her 4. I humbly offer that supposing that the present Church-Frame of Government Discipline Worship and Ceremonies which as it is with the scrupled Assents and Additions and Penalties is no older than 1662. be nearest of any in the World as near as may be to the Prime Primitive Apostolical Church for all this whether there be no way to be used or taken with the Non-conforming Brethren suppose them all under an Error as to this particular of Church-Government and Ceremonies but to silence them to forbid them to preach upon such penalties Or ought not the Governours of the Church out of respect to their Master Jesus Christ and to the Gifts and Graces which he hath given to them and thereby commended them in his Name to the Acceptation of his Flock to find out some way to render them useful to the service of his People I do suppose that all whom Christ hath qualified with Abilities and made willing and that have dedicated themselves to his Service ought to be received and imployed And may I speak and write it trembling Is there not implyed a Wo to them that hinder as well as to them that preach not the Gospel Objection But they are disobedient to the Law of the Land c. I answer To the Temporal Laws they submit to them To the Temporal Laws requiring Conformity I make bold to ask are any forbidden by that Law to preach c. whom Christ hath fitted for it then ought not that Law to be revised and repealed Are there no Conditions or Terms required by that Law but such as are strictly the Terms which Christ by whom the Christian Magistrate bears Rule hath directed them to make for all that shall enter into the Church If so then it must be a Law of the Medes and Persians But there is no such thing pretended This Law was not given in the Mount And there are many among us that are for the Expiration and Non-obligation of the fourth Law delivered by God himself There is no temporal Law but is nulled or amended when it appears detrimental to the Common-wealth and why not when the Church suffers by any Law Ought not that to be looked into Object But the Church needs them not and there are more in the Vniversities and Countries and Cities that will conform than the Revenue of the Church will maintain Answ 1. It is one thing to admit our Non-conforming Brethren to the Preferments of the Church and another to the Service of the Church admit them first and God will provide for them in time I believe they desire not that any Man should be displaced for them 2. Put them into a Capacity for the discharge of the Ministerial Office for which they are prepared and many of them have Episcopal Ordination 3. He that saith there are too many Labourers for the Work of Christ in the Church must hold that Christ gives Gifts superfluous and gives Talents to them that have no place to trade with them or knows not the weight of the Pastoral Charge or the great need of Souls and of more help 4. If there be such store of Ministers that there is no room it would be acceptable to Christ to take care of Forreign Plantations But alas How many go astray for want of Shepheards See Mr. Godwin 's Negroes Advocate Lastly I doubt not but it is in the Power of our Church Governors to make a great Change for the great Advantage of the Church some of them have a great influence upon the Legislation many have interest in if not great freedom with the great Men in Power Opportunities to speak for the Mourning Church and to shew them what is good which would more become the Ministers of Christ than to expose the Infirmities of the Non-conformists or misreport their Doings If in the present Exigence and Dangers of the Church which they are sensible of because of our Divisions or else many would not invite them in or condemn them for keeping out Our great Men in the Church do not all that in them lies to procure our Peace they are like to answer for it to the Prince of Peace They that urge the Law against their Brethren must either convince them of the goodness of the Law which they can never do as that to which they ought upon peril of their Salvation to submit or else declare their Grief that with all their Importunities Prayers and favour with Men in Power they cannot get the Law made easy or else this lies against them that many of the Church procured the Law which was enacted upon their Advice and to gratify them and if so then they but for a time conceal their own uncharitableness under the Wing of a Law which is pleasing to them It is evident to all that have Eyes to see and that have two Eyes to see withal who hath gotten by this Uniformity If it be said that Popery hath got by Non-conformity they will readily reply Who made them Non-conformists They gave them warning of the Danger and did all that was in the power of loyal peaceable honest Men for Unity and Peace For my part I cannot reply nor confute their vindication And so much for this Head 5. Consider their Behaviour since their unhappy Ejection under their many Sufferings That their Sufferings have been great is notorious to them that know them I have spoken of their Sufferings once and again but not for the same Cause nor the same Things or have Christian Bowels in them To what end shall I make a distribution of them into Spirituals into Temporals into Personal and Domestical They are condemned for making a Separation of all Men in the Land they have the greatest cause to be for Union and against Separation They have suffered many cutting Separations such as from the Magistrates Favour and good Opinion from their beloved Congregations from their Habitations and Maintenance from their Libraries and Studies from their own Friends especially the worldly-wise from their former Familiars from their Wives and Children Abundance of them have been made of the Order of Mendicants to eat other Mens Bread to wear other Mens Cloaths to procure their own Liberty and to dispose of their Children to Callings with other Mens Mony and Charity These things are nothing indeed to them that have no Sences Have they suffered in their Names in their Liberties Imprisonment where they
Judgment and Conscience approve and do them needs no great labour to prove it to any Man of Charity 1. Because their Interest as well as Duty hath put them upon the serious study of the Case And being Men of Learning Light Beside Mr. Baxter Mr. Corbet and others The Sacried Hierarchy and the small Treatise of Scandal and indifferent Things give evidence of close and deep investigation of things Labour and of Years they may be supposed as fit to find out their own part as other Men to find it for them And to any that hath but the desire to see patience to read and that thinks not to throw them off with a scornful Huff they have written like Men of Parts Judgment and Temper And they daily almost send abroad into the World the Issues of serious Thoughts and ripe Understandings and Appearances of great Seriousness and Resolution 2. They do not follow the Dictates of a weak and erring Conscience but fear to sin against a tender Conscience upon the best information of their Judgments There is a great difference between a weak Conscience and a tender Conscience a weak Conscience follows a weak Judgment and the clearer and stronger the Judgment is the more tender should tho Conscience be It may therefore seem that their dissent proceeds not from their Weakness and that their obstinacy proceeds not from their Will as opposing Light and Reason but from the settlement and determination of their Judgment and their Sincerity not daring to act against their Judgments But if it were their Weakness it must be indulged if it were their Obstinacy against Reason which appears not what will a wise Father do with a stomachful Child Will he provoke and encrease his Stomach by requiring of him needless things with great rigour and not rather qualify and win him 3. If it be not Conscience of Sin that makes them dissent it is either their Policy for some worldly Interest or their Folly If the first then it cannot consist with worldly Policy to take ways directly contrary to what they aim at What honour is it for a Man to be railed upon reviled suspectd c. What Profit is it for a Man to quit a Certainty for an Uncertainty and to live precariously Where the Policy of Non-Conformity lies doth not appear to me Is it their Folly Are there no wise Men among them not one They have had Experience by this time to make them wise if nothing else If they are Fools it is for Christ They come not behind their Neighbours for Wit and Abilities 4. What but Conscience of Sin and Duty could afford them that Peace and Joy in Disgraces and Sufferings in Hazards both living and dying You 'l say Fanaticism may end in fancied Joys and Comforts True but these Men could as well distinguish between the Effects of Imagination and Self-examination between a Rock and Sand and have taken as much pains to avoid a Cheat as other Men. It must be granted that many that have drawn Sufferings upon themselves deservedly by their Imprudence have flattered themselves in high Conceits and conceited Comforts But whether the Sufferings of Men of understanding ripeness of Judgment Inquisitiveness into their Case their Reasons Motives and after Prayer and Diligence have deliberately chosen a suffering Part and found Comfort from the Conscience of their Sincerity be no more than the Comfort of a Hypocrite under the Power of Delusion ought not rashly to be censured and be rejected as no Argument of their being conscientious 5. If they are not conscientious in their Non-conformity then they are disobedient to the King and the Laws they are Factious Disturbers of the Churches Peace Schismatical and Enemies to the Churches Growth and Union they are hypocritical and in a word Atheistical they are unrighteous unkind unmerciful to their own Flesh to their Wives and Children oppressive to those few that are liberal to them yea many have destroyed themseves and no less than this can be said of their Way that it is the high-way of Sin and certain Damnation And if they are such wicked Persons such Hypocrites in Masks and Cloaks they are but used too well and better they should be out of the Church than in it But then to bring them off from these horrid Imputations these things are considerable 1. If they were not Men of Integrity and Consciences they would not keep without because there is more to be got within Doubtless they are not the only conscientious Men for there are many thousands I hope of sincere good Men that conform that have Peace and Comfort in a faithful discharge of their Duties But I say if our Dissenting Brethren were not conscientious and sincere then they would swallow Oaths or Declarations subscribe to Salt and Spittle for the sake of the present World He that acts not with respect to the World to come must needs act for the good things of this Now 't is clear that the Conformists have the higher Honour and Precedence and the fattest Morsels 2. Our Non-Conformists have a better Character and are looked upon as Conscientious Men and fit for the Churches Service 1. Because of the due Respect and Repute they have among Men of Parts Estates and Temper 2. Because of the many Invitations and even Chidings to unite and come in which supposeth them to be Men of Worth and Goodness or else the further off the better 3. Because of the oft vanishing talk of an Indulgence in the first Years of their Non-Conformity Comprehension since and fair Promises often made 4. Because that many Justices of the Peace angry enough for the Church and not pleased with them have forborn to act against them and could not find in their Hearts to execute the Laws upon Conscientious Men though of different Apprehensions My Conclusion is That they appear to be Men of Conscience and if so way should be made for their coming in One thing is urged to prejudg their tenderness that Conscientious Men should come as far they can and as near a closure as may be Ah! what though they can do much yet as to actual Admission It is not doing some or many things that will bring them in for they must declare and subscribe to all and every thing I knew a Man of Years and Parts that could conform to all things save the Cross and lost near 200 l. per Annum for that It is all or nothing in this case If we would bring them in take down the narrow Doors and make them a Passage of just Dimension and Latitude upon these Premises That the Case of the Dissenting Brethren is hard that what they demanded or proposed upon the Kings Commission to the Bishops and the Commissioners for the Church were but what was thought fit to be considered of by Men no doubt of as great Learning and other Qualifications as any other of the same Quality That their Sufferings have been very great their
Demeanour peaceable their Abilities valuable and their Dissent conscientious I do humbly conclude and propose it to my Reverend Superiours in any place of Power Favour or Interest that they would sincerely endeavour the qualifying of these worthy Persons for a legal discharge of their Ministerial Duties A thing so pleasing to God agreeable to the Government and Condescention of Jesus Christ to the Christian Temper so conducing to the Churches Union Peace Growth and establishment to the silencing of many Controversies and that fearful Clamour and Accusation of Schism that I am not able to express it I cannot it is acknowledged judg what is another Man 's particular Duty but I humbly conceive it is mine in my place which is but low indeed to provoke any Superiours to it And if I were in their place which is but a Supposition next to a Dream I should neither eat nor drink not sleep with Satisfaction till this were done or endeavoured nor think of appearing before Jesus the Chief Shepherd with Joy or Acceptation Hath he required this Uniformity at our hands of this Extent with these Sanctions having for many Years seen no better Effects of them Hath not his Gracious Majesty by a late Proclamation for a great and necessary Duty of fasting and Prayers made this one end of that Solemn Duty to unite the Hearts of his Protestant Subjects Have we not in one Prayer representd bleeding Wounds from our Divisions and in another prayed for Union Have many taken Direction to wrestle with God Laugh and Scorn who dare at the Word to grant us that Blessing And what was the meaning of it Was no more to be understood by it than to bring the Dissenting Brethren on a sudden to see what after many Years Study Prayers and Sufferings they cannot see On a sudden to convert them against their Reason And to condemn themselves for their Dissent Surely I cannot think it for what were this but to pray for an Impossibility or a Miracle and to pray in vain in our Solemn Humiliation If Union be so desirable a Mercy as certainly it is what shall we do for Union Are there no other Terms of Union but these Without doubt it is their great Sin not to come as near to a Closure as possibly they can but doth all the Duty lye on their side and no more upon us than to call them in And if not let them be excommunicated from the Church if not accursed of God! Or were they never meant As being no Protestants or not Loyal Subjects And what are they that say or think so The Lord in Mercy grant he may not see such a Trial as I doubt not they would by the Grace of God as forwardly engag'd in as true Protestants and as Loyal Subjects to the King and Government to the Expence and Profusion of their dearest Blood I cannot think any thing more suitable to the Clemency of the King's Nature who hath always been ready to gratify peaceble Designs Can we think it is not suitable to the Constitution of the late Great and United Parliament or to any other that shall be chosen by a free Election This great Body hath as quick discerning Eyes as ever any other had and have made as deep Discoveries of the Works of Darkness as any other for their time and see a necessity of uniting Protestants at home and succouring Protestants abroad and cannot they discern by what Persons whose Endeavours to whose purposes our Constitutions have been screwed so high They are not unsensible by whom they have been called a Presbyterian Paliament and who are afraid of their undoing all Perhaps indeed they would think it hard Measure that every Man in England should be turned out of Doors that will not be content that his House shall be exactly Uniform They may by Experience know that there may be Peace and Unity and Charity in Houses that are of different Figure and Form There is a vast Difference between pulling down painted Glass which keeps out Light and making Doors wider or taking down some Partitions and pulling down of Houses Oh! let it never be said that Church-Men are most morose difficult and stiff and can grant nothing but in a great Extremity And I pray God that he would move and effectually work upon their Hearts to take the Opportunities and Advantages God puts into their Hands to supplicate and promote the great Work of Healing It will be a Work most pleasing to all Conformists that have the truest Principles of Christianity that are not factious to keep what they have or think the gain of Peace to the Church will bring a loss to of them or that are not Melancholy and given to pore upon Shadows and to think their Fancies to be the unalterable Frame of Antiquity If we cannot distinguish between an Alteration and a Dissolution between Reformation of what hath been changed one way or other in every Princes Reign since the 2d of Edw. 6. and an Extirpation we are not Cathedral-men that know the Note may be changed and the Instrument unbroken and that the same Psalm may be read and sung Many cry out upon Schism that miss of the Notion It is a very great Sin Should we not therefore do what possibly we can to remove the Causes and to redeem Souls from the Sin and Guilt of it To this end let us take notice that the Carnal Heart is the Seat of Schism Are there no Schismatical Notions or Passions and Lusts in us within the Pale We know that Vniformity in Discipline and Modes of Worship could not extinguish or restrain Divisions in former days How was the Church divided between those two the prevailing and rising Arminian Innovators and the Anti-Arminian Propugnators of the Doctrine and ancient Discipline of the Church And the Feuds were greater between these in many Respects than between the Conformist and Non-Conformist And the straining of the Girdle of Vniformity burst the Buckles and the Garments hung loose till by a new Act the Girdle was made stronger and less than it was before and new Buckles made a purpose for it There is an Unity where there is not an Uniformity and Vice versa To what Church in London can a Man go and find an Uniformity exactly keeping with Rubricks and Orders and yet there is a Conformity and in general an Vnity I might instance in Ministers and People's deviating from the Rule in Prayers What Uniformity among the People some standing others kneeling and others leaning if not sitting Some facing the East others the West and others the North and South some use the Responds some low and others loud and others silent and yet there may be an Unity in the Amen either oral or mental Vniformity will never be forced to Particulars it must lie in Generals as Unity in Essentials God both in the works of Nature Providence and Grace is most glorious in Variety in Multiformity Uniformity as it is an outward
present Age. But Addabatorum more pugnant clamores quantos excitant It was a bloody Civil War visibly about Civil Matters it was called Bellum Episopale not by some Parliament-Men only but one Bishop or more to make the rising Clergy part with their Mony to maintain it but it was Bellum Papale pro Rege contra Regem as well as against Parliament and Protestants 3. Our persecuting Fire-brands are against Protestant Peace and Union They approve of persecuting Laws if they might have a Parliament to make them and it shall not be persecution against Dissenting Protestants but Justice because it is but the Execution of Laws and Dissenters must be undone to preserve the Law and Government How freely do they exclaim against it closly gird at our last Parliament fly upon our Blessed Reformation from Popery blemish it with Aspersions of Sedition and Rebellion an Affront to Religion not to be endured If they read no more than Dr. Du Moulin Pr. of Canterbury's Answer to Philanax Anglieus they will be more just to the Reformation These Men are so well prepared for a Popish Successor that they can trust God with their Religion tho in Popish Hands And cannot they trust themselves too but cannot trust a Non-conforming Protestant with preaching a Sermon or Praying not in an open Pulpit These blow up Controversies into unquenchable dissentions into large Differences into wide Chasms and unpassable Gulfs They condemn the Magistrate for Coldness if he let a Dissenter preach or leave him a Bed to lie upon The Ejected are like Suburbs without the Walls of Uniformity burn the Suburbs to save the Church within whereas one would think it were the safer way to build a Wall about the Suburbs and bring them within the Line They hate House-preaching and running into Corners and would bring out the Non-conformists into the Sun-shine but only in the Dog-days Caniculum Persecutio tui video Tertull. Parce Civibus Miles is Heathen Latin but Occide manduca is in the Original It was a severe word of King James If this be all quoth he which they have to say meaning our famous Dr. Jo. Rainolds and the other Divines called Non-conformists I shall make them Conform themselves or I will hurry them out of this Land or else do worse Conference at Hampton-Court p. 85. It is as likely that they know not what Spirit they are of that are for hurrying good Men as it was from a Spirit of Flattery that a Lord said He was persuaded the King spoke in that Conference by the Holy Ghost How well soever he spake in some parts of it yet that saying might have been spared 4. Idle and insufficient Ministers that live at ease and as the manner of speaking is enjoy themselves that are more Abroad than at Home and as seldom in their Studies as they are in their Pulpits are indisposed to a Closure These Conform perhaps above Conformity sometimes whose Surplices are as Cloaks for their Faults and their pretended Loyalty makes them impregnable against deserved Censures Many of these consort with Companions of a Feather inflame one another into a degree of madness These drive away their People and when they are gone throw after them and revile those that entertain them better These with all their Might cry the Church the Church declaim against much preaching and is not that a good way to save their pains by calling it needless We are not now to convert Heathens they would rather confirm than convert them much preaching hath spoiled the World I hate these Presbyterians nothing will serve them but Preaching cry out against Calvin the Parliament the Fanaticks and run over their Railery as Papists do their Beads These are afraid of admission of more good Preachers that their Manners will be inspected and their Churches quite deserted that they must take more and better pains or else be exposed 5. Ecclesiastical Merchants Ecclesiae Possessivae Filii are against admission of more to the exercise of the Sacred Function The Trade hath been in some great Mens Hands and the engrossing of the Commodities of the Church hath enriched many that never would have touched the Burden with one of their Fingers but for double Wages But if more Ministers are capacitated by Law the Endowments of the Church will be distributed into more hands These turn Prophets that the Church will fall when due Encouragements are taken away from Learned Men in which Rank they place themselves q. d. Take away Pluralities you discourage Learning whereas it is too well known to both our Universities that they are a discouragement to Learning that many are not rewarded with a Plurality for their double Portion of Learning and that the Learning of the Curat is as much the Ornament and Support of the Church as theirs many of whose Absence is as profitable to their Parishes except to the Poor who have no Alms at their Doors nor relief from the Parsonage as their Presence These are potent in their Patrons Friends and Relations and may obstruct the Work when things come to the Vote and Flesh and Blood pleads Reason against the true Interest of Religion and the crying Necessity of Souls But let them not fear for there is no danger of putting them out to bring others in Nor do the Non-conformists desire their Liberty with the deprivation of any now in possession 6. Some honest and good Men are afraid of an Alteration from a mistated Case Many ran into Conformity to be out of Confusion and are now tenacious of this Conformity for fear of a Toleration of Popery and Antichristian Sects But there are Mediums between Extreams The Non-conformists offered to Conform to Arch-Bishop Usher's Model They argue in their haste from the Necessity of a Church-Government against an abatement of Rigor as if the sodering of Parties would be a throwing of all into the Fire and the running of the whole into a shapeless and formless Lump Many are boldly imposed upon into an ill Opinion of our Parliament and composing Minds as if they designed a Dissolution of Government and indeed do by their causless Fears discover the ill temper of our Cement that if you do but touch our present Church Frame it will be in danger of falling 7. Some are warped from a Closure by the influence of Self-love They have Conformed and are afraid of an after-condemnation for Conformity and that the Non-conformists will come in as Victors and be puffed up into an ostentation of their Refusal and Sufferings upon better Grounds and Principles But Brotherly-love and Self-denial which are so essential to Christianity must be our Exercise carrying on the common Salvation with one Heart and Shoulder But these two last named will not be grieved at our Union when it appears to be good Lastly Our many Breaches with God is the great Gulf between On the one hand if Church-men would lay to Heart and mourn for our Divisions and clearly see whence
you at this present which is That you would seriously think of some course to beget a better Union and Composure in the minds of my Protestant Subjects in Matters of Religion whereby they may be induced not only to submit quietly to the Government but also chearfully give their assistance to the support of it And in his Speech to both Houses Nov. 9. 1678. He saith I meet you here with the most earnest desire that Man can have to unite the Minds of all my Subjects both to Me and to one another and I resolve it shall be your Fault if the Success be not sutable to my Desires Besides that end of Union which I aim at and which I wish could be extended to Protestants Abroad as well as at Home I purpose by this last step I have made to discern whether the Protestant Religion and the Peace of the Kingdom be as truly aimed at by others as they are really intended by Me. Some Bishops formerly and of late have most pathetically pleaded the Case of the Non-conformists whose Apostolical Zeal and Charity are worthy the Consideration and Imitation of the present Bishops and Fathers of our Church at this Time especially A former Bishop of St. Davids in the Convocation-House May 23. 1604. speaking of those who were scrupulous only upon some Ceremonies c. Being otherwise Learned studious grave and honest Men whose Labours have been painful in the Church and profitable to their several Congregations he says tho I do not justify their Doings yet surely their Service would be missed at such a Time as need shall require them and us to give the right hand of Fellowship one to another and to go Arm in Arm against the common Adversary that so there might be Vis unita fortior If these our Brethren aforesaid should be deprived of their Places for the Matters premised I think we should find cause to bend our Wits to the uttermost extent of our skill to provide some Cure of Souls for them where they may exercise their Talents Furthermore if these Men being divers hundreds as it is bruited abroad should forsake their Charges as some do presuppose they will who I pray you should succeed them Besides this for so much as in the Life-time of the late Arch-Bishop of Canterbury these things were not so extreamly urged but that many Learned Preachers enjoyed their Liberty herein conditionally that they did not by Word or Deed openly disgrace or disturb the State established I would know a Reason why it should not be so generally and exceeding strictly called upon especially considering these Men are now the more necessary by so much as we see greater encrease of Papists to be now of late than were before To conclude I wish that if by Petition made to the King's Majesty there cannot be obtained a quite remove of the Premises which seem so grievous to divers nor yet a Toleration for them which be of the more staid and temperate carriage yet at the least there might be procured a mitigation of the Penalty if they cannot be drawn by other Reasons to a Conformity with us Thus far this Bishop in those days when the Terms of Conformity were not so hard The present Lord Bishop of Hereford in his Naked Truth with hearty Compassion and Zeal pleads the Case of our present Non-conformists both with the then two Houses of Parliament and the Bishops in particular First In his Address to the Lords and Commons in general he thus expresses himself My Lords and Noble Gentlemen you have fully expressed your Zeal to God and his Church in making Laws for Unity c. I call God the searcher of all Hearts the God of Life and Death to witness That I would most readily yea most joyfully sacrifice all I have in this World my Life and all that all Nonconformists were reduced to our Church but it falls out most sadly that your Laws have not the desired effect our Church is more and more divided c. And concludes with earnest Prayers That God would direct them to that which may make for the Vnity of our Church by yeelding to weak Ones c. And in pag. 10. Edition in Folio he thus earnestly and seriously Addresses him to the Bishops My Reverend Fathers and Judges of the Church I with St. Paul Col. 3. beseech you put on fatherly bowels of Mercies Kindness humbleness of Mind Meekness Long-suffering towards your poor weak Children and so long as they hold fast the Body of Christ be not so rigorous with them for Shadows if they submit to you in Substance have patience tho they do not submit in Ceremonies and give me leave to tell you my poor Opinion This violent pressing of Ceremonies hath I humbly conceive been a great hinderance from embracing them Men fearing your Intentions to be far worse than really they are and therefore abhor them And pag. 11. This force-urging Uniformity in Worship hath caused great division in Faith as well as Charity for had you by abolishing some Ceremonies taken the weak Brethren into your Church they had not wandred about after seducing Teachers nor fallen into so many gross Opinions of their own Now I beseech you in the fear of God set before your Eyes the dreadful Day of Judgment when Christ in his Tribunal of Justice shall require an account of every Word and Deed and shall thus question you Here are several Souls who taking offence at your Ceremonies have forsaken my Church have forsaken the Faith have run into Hell the Souls for which I shed my precious Blood Why have you suffered this Nay why have you occasioned this Will you Answer It was to preserve our Ceremonies Will not Christ return unto you Are your Ceremonies more dear unto you than the Souls for which I died Who hath required these things at your hands Will you for Ceremonies which you your selves confess to be indifferent no way necessary unto Salvation suffer your weak Brethren to perish for whom I died Have not I shewed you how David and his Souldiers were guiltless in eating the Shew-bread which was not lawful but only for the Priests to eat If David dispensed with a Ceremony commanded by God to satisfy the hunger of his People Will not you dispence with your own Ceremonies to satisfy the Souls of my People who are called by my Name and profess my Name tho in weakness Or will you tell Christ they ought to suffer for their own wilfulness and perverseness who will not submit to the Laws of the Church as they ought Will not Christ return Shall they perish for transgressing your humane Laws which they ignorantly conclude Erroneous And shall not you perish for transgressing my Divine Laws which you know to be Good and Holy Had I mercy on you and should not you have mercy on you fellow Servants With the same measure you meeted it shall be measured unto you again I tremble to go farther but most humbly beseech you for Christ's sake endeavour to regain these strayed Sheep for which he shed his precious Blood and think it as great an advantage as great an honour to you as it was to St. Paul to become all things to all Men that you may gain some as doubtless you will many tho not all and the few standers off will be the more convinced and at long running wearied out and gained also I close this Bishop's earnest Requests with one of the Prayers made by the Bishops for the late Fast on Decemb. 22. 1680. appointed by the King's Proclamation among other ends to Unite the Hearts of all Loyal Protestants and I hope my Lords the Bishops will join their sincere endeavours with this devout Prayer Viz. For Union among our Selves BLessed Jesu our Saviour and our Peace who didst shed thy precious Blood upon the Cross that thou might st abolish and destroy all Enmity among Men and reconcile them in one Body unto God Look down in much pity and compassion upon this distressed Church and Nation who 's bleeding Wounds occasion'd by the lamentable Divisions that are among us cry aloud for thy speedy Help and saving Relief Stir up we beseech thee every Soul of us carefully as becomes sincere Christians to root out of our Hearts all Pride and Vain-glory all Wrath and Bitterness all unjust Prejudice and causless Jealousy all Hatred and Malice and desire of Revenge and whatsoever it is that may any way exasperate our Minds or hinder us from discerning the things that belong unto our Peace And by the Power of thy Holy Spirit of Peace dispose all our Hearts to such meekness of Wisdom and lowliness of Mind such calm and deliberate Long-suffering and Forbearance of one another in Love with such due esteem of those whom thou hast set over us to watch for our Souls as may turn the Hearts of the Fathers to the Children and the Hearts of the Children to the Fathers that so we may become a ready People prepar'd to live in Peace and the God of Peace may be with us To this End give us all Grace O Lord seriously to lay to heart not only the great Dangers we are in at present by these unhappy Divisions but also the great Obligations to this godly Vnion and Concord which lie upon us That as there is but one Body and one Spirit and one Hope of our Calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all so we may henceforth be all of one Heart and of one Soul closely united in one holy bond of Truth and Peace of Faith and Charity and may with one Mind and one Mouth glorify thee O Lord the Prince of Peace who with thy blessed Father in the Vnity of the Holy Spirit livest and reignest ever one God World without end Amen FINIS
they arise and the great Loss to the Church at home and Scandal to the Churches abroad by the Ejection of so many able good Men whom no other Nation could spare and turn the Heat of Disputation into Love and Compassion and spare themselves by not disgracing others we might have more hopes That Doctor I conceal his Name for he is fallen asleep who saw London-fire and was deeply affected with it who after his return to his Place in the Country on the Fast following reckoned this among the many Sins and Judgments and Provocations of the Land that many able Ministers were turned out of the Ministry was in a right temper for a Solemn Fast but was chidden and rated into Tears for his melting Charity by his angry Diocesan On the other Hand when dissenting Christians or Auditors bring forth more Fruit under the unwearied Labours of their Preachers and obey the Gospel of Christ and can bless God for the many able publick Preachers and receive the Faith and Word without respect of Persons and be sorry for their Anger and evil-speaking we may come to an Union and see the Partition-Wall thrown down But surely our Legislators are too wise and more resolved upon the most necessary Work of composing Differences than to endanger the whole by a division of Parts to gratify these I have named who are not of so much worth as to compensate the loss of publick Church-Protestant-Peace for their sakes 2. The Case and Qualifications of the Non-conformists is such as no good Man of any Spirit should be afraid to own by way of Intercession or Solicitation for their readmission 1. Those few that are yet alive who were Men before the War are as safe under the Healing Wings of the Act of Grace as any other Men who needed that Protection as much as they and have been placed as near the King and Court as they have been driven from him The greater is their Transgression who peck at that Foundation of our Peace and that tear that Covering from their Neighbours backs in their Pulpits and Pamphlets 2. They need no more Clemency nor Pardons since than other Men except for their Preaching 3. They are admitted into the private Converse of the most eminent of all Qualities in the Land except a few Who can say of any of them with such an one no not to Eat Therefore they are admittable into a publick Station where they can do more good and less hurt if doing hurt were their Design and Faculty than in private Me-thinks no Man should be permitted to preach to five and from five to five from House to House that may not be permitted to preach publickly For may they with Safety and Edification to Souls preach to five at a time why not to five hundred at a time Or if their preaching in publick be dangerous to the State and Church is it not much more in private Our Priests and Jesuits have not perverted their boasted of Numbers in publick but in private Families are the Nurseries of Church and State corrupt them and the poison is dispersed Me-thinks it should not be at all lawful for Non-conformists to preach to a number not exceeding five at once or as lawful to preach in publick where if they were a Depraving Heretical Sect of Men which they are not but to be preferred before thousands that Officiate in the Land they will be more wary and temperate than to lose their Hearers or hazard their Liberty which they obtain with so much difficulty Suppose twenty Non-conforming Ministers should keep strictly to their legal number of five these twenty Ministers preach to a hundred Citizens if these twenty should Lecture the hundred into Atheism Blasphemy Infidelity Heresy Sedition or Rebellion would it be endured would not the Pestilence spread And that of the Mind is as quickly diffused and as silently conveyed as the Plague from Body to Body and House to House If they are Men of pernicious Principles they are allowed too much if not they are allowed too little It is true they have taken Liberty contrary to Law to preach to greater Numbers and have patiently born the Penalties when inflicted And by their adventuring they have vindicated themselves and testified to the Gospel which they believe and stop'd the Mouths of many besides much good done upon many thousand Souls that had been else neglected and declared to the World what manner of Men they are what Doctrine they preach and that they have not sowed Sedition and ill Principles of Disloyalty and Treasons And the many Years experience and proof given of their Principles and Abilities is not only an Apology for them against them that judg them vel prejudicio nominis but furnish the Wise and Moderate with some Arguments to plead for reasonable Abatements for them 4. They have done as much as any Men of their Degrees to support and save the Nation and the Protestant Profession and as great a Terror to the Papists as any of their number and quality in the Land And I believe if they thought that either Popery or any Antichristian Sects should enter in by them though they cannot conform to keep them out by that they would ask leave to remove into other Nations rather than be a Door to let in Miseries upon their own 5. They are Men of great Parts Piety and Prudence sound Divines good Preachers and Writers no Man that knows their Persons or their Labours or their Writings but ought to give them their due without detraction from others With what a sweet Spirit and Stile Learning Judgment Argument hath Mr. Polehill vindicated them and the Doctrines of the Church against Dr. Sherlock's Imputations 6. Wise and great Men for Power Place Wisdom and Experience in Affairs both of Church and State have endeavoured a Composition though in vain I should not be ashamed or afraid to my best ability to commend the Endeavours of but one Lord Keeper Bridgman of but one Lord Chief Justice Hales What would we have given for him since his Death of but one Bishop Wilkins or either of the Deans of Canterbury and Pauls But I have shewed how some of the sharpest Procurers of our Laws grew mild and gentle But beside those venerable Persons the Right Reverend Bishops Reynolds Gawden were tenderly affected as was Bishop Earle and as the now most learned Bishop of Chester as I have it from a good hand the Bishop of Hereford beside others more than I can or will name of eminent worth in the Church of England And surely rigor and suppression of so sound a number of Ministers doth neither become Men as Wise Experienced Self-searchers Charitable or to descend below a Christian it is not humane nor genteel The more wise experienced self-acquainted Christian or genteel any Man is the more moderate in Ceremonies different Rites and Impositions See the close of these Sheets 7. I never heard any Wise Learned good Man of the Church of England
justify their Ejection nor approve of their Suppression some have wished they would give way to the Wrath of angry Magistrates either by abstaining from publick Preaching or in time of Publick that they might escape the edg of the Law 8. It is no more to their prejudice that they are not all of the same mind than that we are not all of a mind no not in the point of Conformity it self 9. To intercede for them and their admission is not to plead for turbulent factious schismatical Persons that are insufferable Make them one with us by a Law and where is the Faction and Schism Suppose the King and Parliament for them and against us their way made legal and ours as it is only by a voluntary Profession as tied up to it in Conscience but without or against the Law on whom would the charge of Schism fall The Magistrates Favour and Law removes or fastens the Crime I know there is a Schism and it is a great Sin without respect to humane Laws but he that endeavours to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace is no Schismatick although he cannot come up to the Terms of Conformity I have a tenderness in imputing Schism to any good Men who cannot live and die in Sin but if this be a sin many good Men have died in it never declaring their Repentance for their Non-conformity or Preaching against the Prohibition of the Law I do verily believe they were not only seemingly but sincerely good Men 't is too hard to judg them dead in Sin 10. They are Protestants if they come not to that Test reject them they are peaceable they are loyal are true to the King according to Law they have born their burden with us Do we pray for the King so do they and for all that are in Authority that under them they may lead peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty Do we Fast they do the same with great importunity Who more abundant in Labours than they Who more Orthodox according to the Doctrines of the Church than they My Paper is almost at an end and so am I. Thus I have communicated my Thoughts with great plainness and truth I shall say what was once spoken in Parliament Let us first fear God then shall we honour the King the more for I am afraid we have been less prosperous in Parliaments because we have preferred other Matters before him Let Religion be our Primum Quaerite for all things else are but Et caetera's to it c. Sir Ben. Rudyer And whether Exclusion of Papists or Inclusion of Protestants be first endeavoured is left to the Wisdom of my Superiors God prosper both For my Brethren and Companion 's sake I will now pray Peace be upon Israel Violentis Consiliis nec sanari mentes nec tranquillitas Ecclesiae restitui unquam poterit Phil. Melanch ad Hen. 2. Fran. Reg. Quod si squamnae Leviathan ità cohoereant ut earum opere textili densato quasi Loricatus incedat Satan Cataphractus quod de soedere Concordiae quâ malignantis Ecclesiae Membra se complexa muniunt circumvallent Elegantissimè Lutherus verè cur immane quantum hient obsecro quasi ruinam Vniversae Fabricae minitantes inhientque quasi vasto foedoque rictu se devoraturi vivi Lapides in vero Templo Collocati c. inquit Dr. Stoughton Epistola Elegantiss cui Titulus Foelicitas ultimi Soeculi p. 40. Addenda I Will fill up these Sheets with some Royal Condescensions and Episcopal Pleas besides those mentioned before which I humbly entreat those in Authority especially my Lords the Bishops seriously to consider in behalf of the Non-conformists which may be found in his Majesty's Speeches and Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs and some of the Bishops own writing And first observe what his present Majesty says concering the Non-conformists c. In his Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs Octob. 25. 1660. When We were in Holland says he We were attended by many Grave and Learned Ministers from hence who were looked upon as most able and principal Assertors of the Presbyterian Opinions with whom We had as much Conference as the multitude of Affairs which were then upon Us would permit Us to have and to Our great satisfaction and comfort found them Persons full of Affection to Us of Zeal for the Peace of the Church and State and neither Enemies as they have been given out to be to Episcopy or Liturgy but mostly to desire such Alterations in either as without shaking Foundations might allay the present Distempers which the Indisposition of the Time and tenderness of some Mens Consciences had contracted And concerning Ceremonies pag. 6. he says Now We do not think that Reverence We have for the Church of England in the least degree diminished by our Condescensions not peremptorily to insist on some particulars of Ceremonies which how-ever introduced by the Piety and Devotion and order of former Times may not be so agreeable to the present but may even lessen that Piety and Devotion for the improvement whereof they might happily be first introduced and consequently may well be dispensed with and we hope this charitable Compliance of Ours will dispose the minds of all Men to a chearful submission to that Authority the preservation whereof is so necessary for the Unity and Peace of the Church and that they will believe the support of the Episcopal Authority to be the best support of Religion by being the means to contain the minds of Men within the Rules of Government And pag. 16. And therefore Our present Consideration and Work is to gratify the private Consciences of those who are grieved with the use of some Ceremonies by indulging to and dispensing with their omitting those Ceremonies And pag. 7 8. As for what concerns the Penalties upon those who living peaceably do not conform thereunto viz. the Act of Uniformity through scruple and tenderness of Conscience but modestly without scandal perform their Devotions in their own way We shall make it our special Care so far forth as in us lies without invading the freedom of Parliament to incline their Wisdom to concur with Us in the making some such Act for that purpose as may enable Us to exercise with a more universal Satisfaction That Power of Dispencing which We conceive to be inherent in Us Nor can We doubt of their chearful cooperating with us in a thing wherein we do conceive our selves so far engaged in Honour and in what we owe to the Peace of our Dominions which We profess We can never think secure whilst there shall be a colour left to the Malicious and Disaffected to inflame the minds of so many Multitudes upon the score of Conscience with despair of ever obtaining any effect of our Promises for their Ease And in his Speech to both Houses of Parliament Feb. 10. 1667. saith He One thing more I hold my Self obliged to recommend unto