CONFIRMATION AND RESTAURATION The necessary means of REFORMATION And RECONCILIATION For the Healing of the Corruptions and Divisions of the Churches Submissively but earnestly tendered to the Consideration of the Soveraigne Powers Magistrates Ministers and People that they may awake and be up and doing in the Execution of so much as appeareth to be necessary as they are true to Christ his Church and Gospel and to their own and others Souls and to the Peace and wellfare of the Nations and as they will answer the neglect to Christ at their Peril By Richard Baxter an unworthy Minister of Christ that longeth to see the Healing of the Churches Isa 44. 3 4 5. For I will pour water on him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my Spirit on thy seed and my Blessing upon thine Offspring and they shall spring as among the grass as willows by the water-courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob and another shall Subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel London Printed by A. M. for Nevil Simmons Bookseller in Kederminster and are to be sold by Joseph Granford at the Kings-Head in Pauls Church-yard 1658. TO THE READER Christian Reader HAving in divers writings moved for the Restitution of a solemn Transition of all that pass from an Infant-state of Church-membership into the number of the Adult and are admitted to their Priviledges and the Associated Ministers of this County having made it an Article of their Agreement at last came forth an excellent Exercitation on Confirmation written by Mr. Jonathan Hanmer very learnedly and piously endeavouring the Restoration of this Practice Being very glad of so good a work upon an invitation I prefixed an Epistle before it which hath occasioned this following Disputation For when the Book was read the designe was Generally approved as farre as I can learne and very acceptable to good men of all parties But many of them called to me to try whether some more Scripture proofes might not be brought for it that the Preceptive as well as the Mediate Necessity might appeare At the desire of some Reverend Godly Brethren I hastily drew up this which is here offered you 1. Partly to satisfie them in the point of Scripture Evidence 2. But principally to satisfie my own earnest desires after the Reformation and Healing of the Churches to which I do very confidently apprehend this excellent work to have a singular tendencie Here is a Medicine so effectual to Heale our Breaches and set our disordered Societies in joynt being owned in whole by the Episcopall Presbyterian Congregational and Erastian and in half by the Anabaptists that nothing but our own self-conceitedness perversness lazyness or wilfull enmity to the Peace of the Churches is able to deprive us of a blessed success But alas our minds are the Subjects of the disease and are so alienated exulcerated and so selfishly partial and uncharitable that when the Plaster is offered us and Peace brought to our doors I must needs expect that many should pievishly cast it away and others betray it by a lazy commendation and so disable the few that would be faithfull practical and industrious from that General success which is so necessary and desirable As for them that lay all our Peace on Episcopacy and Liturgie I intend if God will to send them after this some Healing motions on those subjects also And if they have no better success than presently to satisfy my own Conscience in the faithfull performance of so great a duty and to awaken the Desires Endeavours and Praiers of the more moderate and Impartial I shall not think my labour lost Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem they shall prosper that love it Let 's seeke it of God as well as men which is the daily though too defective practise of The most unworthy Servant of the King of Peace R. BAXTER April 7. 1658. If Magistrates or others who are obliged to promote the worke which is here commended to them do want leisure or patience to read the whole I desire them to peruse these following Contents and those parts of the Work in which they are most unsatisfied THE CONTENTS QUESTION WHether those that were Baptized in Infancy should be admitted to the Priviledges proper to Adult Church-members without Confirmation or Restauration by an Approved Profession of personal Faith and Repentance Neg. A general Rule to guide Reformers PROP. I. It is supposed that the Infants of Believers should be admitted by Baptism into the Church and so be partakers of Infant-priviledges A Breviate of Reasons for this PROP. II. There are many Priviledges belonging to the Adult-members of the Church which Infant-members are not capable of PROP. III. The Continuation of Priviledges received in Infancy is part of the Priviledges of the Adult or the Restoration of them if they be lost PROP. IV. The Title-Condition of Infant Church-membership and Priviledges is not the same with the Title-Condition of the Church-membership and Priviledges of the Adult so that if this new Condition be not performed when men come to age their former Title ceaseth and there is no other that ariseth in its stead Proved PROP. V. As a Personal faith is the Condition before God of Title to the Priviledges of the Adult so the Profession of this Faith is the Condition of his Title before the Church and without this Profession he is not to be taken as an Adult-member nor admitted to the Priviledges of such Proved and Vindicated from their Objections that plead against the necessity of an express Profession with some Application urging to the practice PROP. VI. It is not every kind of Profession that is the Condition or necessary qualification of those that are to be admitted to the Priviledges of Adult-amembers but such a Profession as God hath made necessary by his express Word and by the nature of the Object and the uses and ends to which he doth require it It must be a Profession of True Christianity in all the Essentials What are the Essentials as to Objects and Acts It must be a Credible Profession 1. It must seeme to be Understanding 2. And serious 3. And voluntary upon deliberation 4. Not nullified by a contradiction in word or deed 5. It must be Practice first that must make words Credible when the person by perfidiousness hath forfeited his credit PROP. VII The Profession of those that expect the Church-state and Priviledges of the Adult is to be tryed judged and approved by the Pastours of the Church to whose Office it is that it belongeth 1. An untryed Profession must not serve proved 2. Pastours by Office are the Tryers and Judges of the Prosession of such as to these Ends proved by 14 undenyable Arguments and Objections Answered Consent of the Ancients PROP. VIII Though it belong to the Pastours Office to Judge of the Profession of such
be but Meritoriously cut off it is the Churches duty to do it Sententially and Executively it being of indispensable obligation to give to all their due 3. It 's granted that Heresie cuts off But how doth Heresie cut off any otherwise then Meritorioâ—sly If therefore Wickedness do as much as Heresie then thus far they are equal 4. Either Wickedness signifieth some actual crime like Davids or Peters when the Church knoweth not whether it be joyned with Habitual Impenitence or else it signifieth Habitual stated wickedness with impenitency The first sort requireth but an Exclusion from Actual Church-Communion called suspension by some as it is but Actual sinne that deserveth it The second sort must have an Exclusion from their State and Church-relation as it is a State of Impenitency that deserveth it The first sort of Excommunication leaveth a man in the Church quoad Statum Relationem but out of it quoad actum usum The The second sort leaves him out of it both in State and Act. Not that the Excomunication puts him out of the Church as Invisible For that he did first himself meritoriously and so efficiently even by the efficiency of his demerits as the Law of Christ did it by its Obligatory efficiency But when he hath put himself out of the Church invisible and plainly declared this to the Church by his impâ—nitent courses the Church further declareth it by their Sentence and puts him out of the Church Visible executively when he had before put out himself meritoriously 5. As I said before the persons wickedness is either Notorious and out of question as if a man be an open persecutour of godliness or daily blaspheame God in the open streets or Congregation and many lower cases or else it is Controvertible needing proof and not notorious In the latter case a wicked man is not Actually cast out of the Communion of the Visible Church or cut off from it by his demerits till his fault be proved and sentence be passed But in the former case he is Excommmunicate ipso jure which is more then de jure We call him excommunicate de jure who ought to be excommucatenicate de facto but we call him excommuni ipso jure which is actually excommunicated by the Law without any further sentence of a Judge the Law it self sufficing to enable men to the execution so the Law of Christ commanding us to avoid and have no company with Drunkards Adulterers Hereticks c. if any be Notoriously such past doubt every man is obliged by this Lâ—w to avoid them in their several capacities after the due admonitions given them which the Law requireth whether the Pastours censure them or no but his censure layeth on them a double obligation Object If wickedness cut off a man excommunication cannot do it because it is done already Answ If wickedness being not Notorious do only cut him off meritoriously and de jure only he be excommunicate then Actual excommunication must do that which was not actually done but ought to be done But if by the Notoriety of the crime he be cut off ipso jure the Sentence yet may do the same thing by adding a Second Obligation to the first A Traitour in actual prosecution of the Soveraigne seeking his life is condemned ipso jure and any Subject may kill him without sentence and yet he may be proclaimed or sentenced a Traitour for all that Object It is proved by some Writers that such persons as have neither grace indeed nor in shew may yet have both a real and visible Interest in the Covenant and Church and the Arguments for this are yet unanswered therefore persons baptized in Infancy are in the Church and Covenant at age though they never by Profession made so much as a shew of grace Answ It was never proved by any Writer nor ever will be that any person at age and natural capacity ought to be a member of the Church of Christ under the Gospel no nor under the Law neither without a shew of grace even of Faith by his Profession of consent to the Holy Covenant It 's the Arguments against them that remaine unanswered But that all their Arguments that I remember are sufficiently answered I shall take for granted till I see a Reply And for them that tell us of the Church membership of the Adult considered without Respect to saving Grace I shall regard them when they have proved either that Faith and Repentance are no saving Graces or that Profession of Faith hath no Respect to Faith or that men may have Title to Church-membership without respect to Profession of Faith even of their Parents if they are Infants or their own if at age All these three points are yet unproved If any think the learned Mr. Fullwood to be of another mind let them judg by his own words Of the Visible Church cap. 28. pag. 180. Saith he Church-membeâ—ship c mark the Parenthesis And in his Epist Propos 3. 4. From the Prâ—mises it seems at least probable to me that the Church is to have some kind of respect unto the saving condition of the person Shee is about to admit into Communion c. 4. Yet I humbly conceive that more then a bare outward Profession is requisite to give real Interest in the Visible Church and the Priviledges thereof before God Though no more is requisite to give visible Interest before men c. And for Immediate right to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper he saith pag. 270. Where there is want of Knowledg whether naturally or morally there we are sure the Condition of Right is wanting and consequently admission is to be denied when all is done And for the maine designe of this Book he saith Append. pag. 1 2. mentioning Mr. Hanmer's Book Some happily may be willing to surmise that our two Propositions are irreconcileable and interpret me an enemy to that most ancient usefull and desireable Ordinance Wherefore if I may possibly prevent so scandalous a censure I shall not venture to hold my Reader in so long suspence till he come to the pages where Confirmation is considered in the Book nor yet barely to acknowledg my allowance of it under my hand but after my humble thanks heartily tendered to our worthy Author for his excellent paines in so seasonable a Subject I do also presume earnestly to beseech my Reverend Bretheren that what Mr. Baxter hath so smartly pressed upon the Ministry about it may be speedily and seriously considered and undertaken by us And many pages after he addes 7. Yea though after all due paines and endeavoures used we should not be able to reconcile our principles in every point yet if we can mâ—et in the same practice about Confiâ—mation though on some smal differing grounds why may not the Church be happily edâ—fied and the peace thereof in a measure obtained by such an Vâ—ity Vniformity in practice white the persons diffâ—ring
an Infidel or one that Professeth not to be a Christian Baptism is said to save us 1 Pet. 3. 21. And therefore they that will be Baptized must profess the qualifications necessary to the Saved The Key 's of the Kingdom of Heaven are put into the Churches hands and they that are loosed on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven if the Key do not erre And therefore Pastours of the Church must absolve none by Baptism that do not by Profession seem to be Absolvable in Heaven They must Profess to have the old man Crucified with Christ that the Body of sinne might be destroyed that henceforth they might not serve sinne Rom. 6. 5 6 7 8. As many as have been Baptized into Christ have put on Christ and are all one in Christ Jesus and are Abrahams Seed and Heirs according to promise Gal. 3. 27 28 29. This speaks the Apostle of the Probability grounded on a credible Profession And thereforeit is clear that the Profession was presupposed that might support this charitable judgment Our Baptism is the Solemnizing of our Marriage with Christ And it s a new and strang kind of Marriage where there is no Profession of Consent The Baptized are in Scripture called men Washed Sanctified Justified c. 1 Cor. 6. 11. 1 Cor. 14. 33. They are all called Saints and Churches of Saints 1 Cor. 1. 2. All Christians are called Sanctified ones or Saints therefore it s certaine that they professed themselves such But why should I go any further in this when the main substance of my Dispute of Right to the Sacraments proves it I intreat the Reader that would have more to prove not only the Necessity of a Profession but also of the Profession of a Saving Faith to peruse that Book or at least the second Disputation where are Twenty Arguments for it and the sence of all the Ancient Churches there cited out of Mr Gatakers Collections See also Dr Hammonds many testimonies to prove the use of the Abrenuntiation Paraenes pag. 18 19 20. I love not needlesly to recite whath others have already cited But he that knows not that the Universal Church from the daies of the Apostles hath baptized the Adult upon a personal Profession of Faith and Repentance and Vow or Promise or Covenant for obedience knows little of what the Church hath Practised And I hope few sober men will be found that will be so singular and self-conceited as to contradict the Practise of the Universal Church in such a case as this and set up their own private judgment against it and go about to perswade us to a new way of Church enterance and admission now in the end of the world Blame me not to be confident with you where I have so good ground as Scripture and so good company as the Primitive Universal Church To this let me adde that most or too many that we are to receive to the Priviledges of Adult members have violated their Baptism-Covenant and proved ungodly after Baptism and that by open notorious Scandals Now Scripture and the Practice of the Universal Ancient Church direct us to require of these an open Confession of sinne For they need an Absolution and not a meer Confirmation It is past all controversie that such have both an open Confession and Profession to make Yea how scrupulous the Ancient Church was of Receiving and Absolving such violators of the Baptismal Covenant and on how severe terms they did it is known to all that know any thing of those times I pray amongst others see what Grotius Discus Apol. Rivet pag. 221 222. citeth from Irenaeus Tertullian Pacimus Hierom c. ad pag. 235. n. And as to the last Objection that our Churches were true Churches when we made no particular Professions I Answer 1. Without some Profession of true Christianity our Churches could not have been true Churches And therefore against those that would prove them no Churches we plead and justly that a Profession was made by them 2. But I pray you mark that that will prove a Church to be a true Church which will not prove every person in the Parish to be a true Member of that Church 3. And he that thinks it enough that our Churches have a meer Metaphysical Verity such as Bishop Hall and multitudes of Learned Protestants allow the Church of Rome it self is as good a friend to it as he is to his wife or child that will let them go naked yea and be contented that they catch the plague or leaprosie yea and plead for it too and all because they have still the Truth of Humane Nature I know that any thing that may truly be called a Profession will in that point seem to prove the Being of the Church But as it will not seem to prove the well-being so an obscure Profession doth but obscurely prove the Being of it which an open plain Profession doth more clearly prove Let us not befriend either the Kingdom of darkness or the Seperatists so much as to leave our Churches so open to their exceptions and so apt to cherish and befriend their ignorance and infidelity of the world If coming to Church and sitting there be somewhat a probable argument that men do implicitly believe as that Church believes yet it 's a very dark proof that they understand what the Church believes especially when experience hath acquainted us with the Contray of many of them But now I have said this much for a personal and plain Profession I would faine know what any man hath against it The Church through the great mercy of God hath yet liberty to use it And we see how many thousands make a blind kind of shew of Christianity going from one publike duty to another and knowing not what they do And is there not need that they should be brought out into the open light and see their way If Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be the Essence of our Christianity in the Name of God I desire you to consider whether it be a thing to be hudled up in the dark Unless it be mens design to hide the Nature of Christianity and keep people in destructive ignorance and delude their Souls with a name and shew of a Religion which they understand not they will surely be willing that men should know the Covenant that they make and understand what they do before they enter into a Marriage bond with Christ if at Age or own it if they have been entered in infancy Why should we choose Darkness rather then Light Why should an Implicit Covenant and Profession be pleaded for when the being of a Profession is palam fateri openly to make known and when we know by sad experience that when we have all done the best we can to make our ignorant people understand we shall find enough ado to accomplish it Ignorance hath no need of frendship especially from Ministers it deserveth none especially in so great
become not Ministers I think 2. It is only the Ministers who being separated to the Gospel and Work of God do lay by all other business and give themselves wholly to these things Gentlemen much less all the people of the Church cannot lay by their callings to attend this business of trying and judging of mens Professions as Ministers must do if they will be faithfull Should private members have so muâ—h Church governing work as some cut out for them and should they bear such a burden as some would lay upon them under the name of Power and Priviledges it would undo them soul or body or both they would find time little enough for it in some places if they all cast off their outward callings And 3. The Pastours only are capable because of Unity For should the People have this work as some would have it the multitude would hinder execution and they would turn all to wrangling 1. Such bodies move slowly 2. Multitude with that divesity of parts and minds that is among them would set them by the eares and the Church would be almost alway in a flame If every man that is to make Profession of his Faith on this or the like occasion must be tryed and judged by all some would approve and others would disapprove and reject in most or very many cases Whereas the Pastours being single or not many and more experienced and able and vacant for a full enquiry have less reason to be partiall injurious or disagreed Arg. 14. The Practice of the Apostles Evangelists and the Pastours of Christ's Church in all Ages doth put us quite out of doubt that it is not only belonging to the Ministerill Office to judge and approve of such Professions but that it is a very great part of that Office John Baptist received and judged of the Profession of his Penitents before he did baptize them The twelve Apostles Mat. 10. 13 14. Were to judge of the worthiness or unworthiness of those that they were to abide with Mark 6. 11. Who were the Judges or Approvers of the Profession of the 3000 Converts Acts. 2. 41. but the Apostles that Baptized them or judged them to be Baptized Who else approved of all the believers that were added Acts 5. 14. even multitudes both of men and women They that Continued in the Apostles Doctrine and fellowship Acts 2. 42. and under their Government no doubt entered at first under their condâ—ct Philip was the Judge of the Eunuch's Profession Acts 8. 37 38. Ananias was scrupulous of admitting Paul but as God himselfe Approved of him to Ananias Acts 9. 13 14 15. So Aâ—anias also must ministerially approve him vers 17. Who judged of Lidia's Profession and the Jaylours Acts 16 but the Apostles or other Ministers of Christ What need we instance any more when we all know that no Convert entered at Age into the Church but under the hand of some Minister of Christ that did Baptize him or appoint him to be Baptized Object But this is not our Case for we were Baptized in Infancy and are in the Church already Answ You entred not into the number of Adult and more perfect Members in your Infancy nor did you make any personal Profession in your Infancy That 's yet to be done Your Parents Profession will serve you no longer then your Infant state These being not in the Gospel Church before were at once Baptized and entered thereby into the Number of the Adult members So would we do if we converted those that were the seed of Heathens or Infidels But though this be not your Case in respect of Baptism and an Insant Church-state yet this is your own Case in regard of personal Profession and Adult Church-state If the Ministers of Christ in Scripture time admitted none into an Adult Church-state and to the Priviledges of such but upon a Personal Profession approved by the said Ministers then neither must we do so now But the Antecedent is past doubt Therefore The Reasons of the Consequence is because the Scripture is our Rule and the Reasons of the Cases are the same If you say with the Anabaptists that I may as well argue from the Apostles example for the Baptizing of the Aged I Answer so I will when the Case is the same when they are converted from Infidelity or are not born and baptized into the gospel-Gospel-Church before The Apostles did not Baptize at Age any person that was born of believing Parents in the Gospel-Church after Baptism was instituted As to them that say that Mary was a Christian and yet Christ was not Baptized till full Age. I Answer 1. That Mary was not a Baptized person 2. That Baptism into the Name of Father Sonne and Holy Ghost was not Instituted in Christs Infancy How should he be Baptized in Infancy when there was no such Ordinance of God in the world as Gospel-Baptism or Johns Baptism If you think Baptism and Profession or Church-membership so inseparable that we must not require such a Profession but in order to Baptism 1. You speak without proof 2. You speak even contrary to the experience of the Jewish Church where in the wilderniss Circumcision was separated from Profession and Church-membership both of Infants and Adult the later being without the former 3. If we may be Baptized in Infancy without a Personal Profession then they are separable but the Antecedent is proved in due place 4. No man denieth that I know of but that Personal Profession approved by the Ministers is necessary in several Cases after Baptism But all the examples of the Baptized Adult in the New Testament will fully prove that all men should enter into the state and number of Adult Church-members upon a Personal Profession approved by the Ministers of Christ for so did all in the Scripture terms on Reasons common to them and us and no man can put by the obligation of the example by any pretence of an imparity of Reason but what will be as strong to evacuate almost all Scripture example and much of the commands But as to the Baptizing persons at Age we will do the same when the persons are such as the Apostles baptized aud that they baptized none others was never yet proved but more said for the Affirmative And ever since the Apostles daies it hath been the constant Practice of the Church that the Profession and claim of the Adult should be tried by the Ministers of Christ 1. In Case of Infant Baptism the Minister was to receive and approve the Parents Profession 2. In Case of the Baptism of the Aged they alwaies entred under the tryal approbation or hand of the Minister 3. In Case of the Confirming of those at Age that were Baptized in Infancy it was alwaies done under the hand and judgment of the Minister 4. In Case of Absolution of those that fell after either Infant or Adult Baptism it was alwaies upon a Profession approved by the Minister To prove
us and dreame not that we have a work and not Power to do it or discern what we do Set others to do it that you can better trust 5. Who would you have trusted with this Power Some body must have it I have proved to you fully that every man must not be the sole Judge of his own fitness for Baptism or Church Priviledges and that the people or Magistrates are not the sole or chief Judges and who should it be but they to whom it is committed by Christ in their call to the office of the Ministry 6. Ministers as I before shewed have no Tyrannical or Arbitrary Power For Christ hath tied them by a Law who to admit and whom to reject And if they disobey this Law the Magistrate may correct them So that in the exercise of this Tyrannical Power every Minister is under the lash of the Magistrates violence if he grosly offend whereas none of the people are under any violence or force from us to obey us but if all of them disobey us and rebel it is their own loss and we have no remedy This is the Tyranny 7. Lastly If you think it as it is so great a Power for us to judge of mens Profession and fitness for Church Priviledges let it awaken you the more to get the wisest ablest men you can for the Ministry that are fit for so a great trust If the best that are to be got are not in the Office beshrew our Governours and the choosers And if you do not cast us all out if you can put fitter men into the place that are meeter for the trust beshrew you for your negligence we give you no thanks for it But if you have no fitter for this work and trust will you cast it upon unfitter or on none It is a great trust for a Physician to be trusted with your lives and a School-master and Tutour with your Children But what of that Will you therefore trust the good women or common neighbours about you with them yea or the Magistrate himself Or will you have no Tutours or Physicians Or rather will you not be the more careful to keep our Empiricks and unworthy persons and get the ablest and faithfulest that you can O unthankfull men that grudge us the Power of labouring and spending our selves for their Salvation and judging where we must act 4. Object Is it not the use of the Lords Supper to Confirm us and do not men there renew their Covenant and Profession What need is there then of any more Answ 1. You would think much if at the Lords Supper we should openly call each man to a personal explicite Profession of his Faith and Covenanting with God And indeed it would be a tedious as well as unseasonable work It is but a general or joynt Profession of all together that is there renewed and notwithstanding that there may for ought we know be many a one there that is an Infidel and knoweth not what Christianity is 2. The Lords Supper is the food of the Soul confirming by way of nutrition and augmentation and therefore you must shew that you are alive before you may partake of it It is a feasting upon Christ and with him in his family and at his Table It is a work of Communion with Christ and with his Saints It is one of the highest priviledges of the Church And therefore you must produce your little before you can lay claim to it If a man must be admitted to the Lords Supper without any precedent personal Profession or Covenanting with God upon supposition that by the act of Receiving he doth all this then men that know not whether there be a Christ or what he is may be admitted For multitudes of such there are that in Infancy were baptized And I know not by seeing him receive whether he know or believe any thing of Christianity If a man converted at Age from Heathenism may not be admitted to the Lords Table without a personal profession in Baptism then neither may such as are baptized in Infancy be admitted without a personal Profession in Confirmation or such as is without any other Baptism Our Parents Profession will not serve our turn in stead of our own when we come to age And therefore this Objection is vaine unless Infidels may be admitted to Communion and all be common But I need not speak much of this because I shall have few such Objectours to deale with Even the Papists themselves are many of them against promiscuous communion though the Jesuites of late have fitted almost all their work to their man pleasing designe See Joh. Thauleri flores cap. 23 24 pag. 257 c. An old Puritane among the Papists And they make confession also prerequisite Object 5. According to our arguing Confirmation is not necessary to those that were Baptized at full Age and therefore it is not necessary to any if not to all Answ I have given some Reasons why it should be used with all that have opportunity after Baptism but I have proved it more Necessary to those that were baptized in Infancy And if it were Necessary to no other it would not follow that it is not Necessary at all because not to all 6. Object Is it not better take up with an Implicit Profession and Covenanting then make so great a trouble to our selves and disturbance among the people as this will make Answ 1. Me thinks not only the face of the Roman Church but of our own might by this time have afforded us satisfying experience what Implicit Faith and Implicit Professions are and to what they tend Peruse the forementioned Evils of this course and look upon the state of our people where you may see them in existence and then judge whether this Objection be answered 2. An Implicit Profession is the lowest and least that in any case of extremity or necessity can be thought tolerable and accepted by God and consistent with the life and being of a Church And shall we deliberately choose to offer God the worst the least the lowest that 's possible to find acceptance Nay he will have the best as he deserves the best or he will not accept it when we have it to give Shall we think that in a case of freedom the same will be accepted which Necessity only can excuse Or shall we be content that our Churches have as many diseases as will consist with life and being 3. An Implicit Profession makes or proves men but Implicitâ—ly Christians Such dumbe uncertaine signes do leave us in So great uncertainty of the thing signified that it seems but a very mocking of God that will not be mocked when we have opportunity for an open Intelligible Profession and will not use it or require it 4. It is against Nature for a man that hath a Tongue in his head to refuse to utter his mind any other wise then by dumb shews and yet expect to be understood and
neighbours hate them and revile them and to live as Owles in the places where they live and to put themselves on a great deal of trouble Surely it is a very self-displeasing thing to the very Nature of man unless he be a monster to displease his neighbours and be hated and baited by them And it will provoke them not only to forbeare all acts of kindness or bounty but to deny them their due maintenance as far as ever they can And many if not most Ministers have no great mind to be so used nay had rather lose it then go to Law for all their dues the trouble and cost and odium of it is so great So that our Parliaments have been too much afraid lest Ministers should cease to be men or to be sinners and to be manpleasers and to indulge their flesh and lest we should runne into the fire and lie down among the thorns and choose a life of trouble and sufferings 3. And me thinks experience should satisfie men of this Do you not see how backward Ministers are to Church-Reformation and Discipline in the exercise when they have been most forward for the Power How little is yet done in it for all our liberty after all our Prayers and petitions and writing for it Do you find in most Parishes that Ministers are prone to overdo certainly you do not 4. Do you not know that all the Work of God is so much against Nature and hath such abundance of enemies and difficulties in the way that few men are like to be guilty of over-doing Why be you not as carefull to hinder men from overdoing in sanctifying the Lords day in teaching and praying with their families c. but because you see that few need your curb I am confident should Parliaments do their best to drive on Ministers to such works as these and make Laws upon Laws to spur them to the practice they would not be able to bring one half of us nor the tenth man to reach so farre as Christ hath bound us no nor one man of us in all respects And yet I againe say that if any rash men are overrigid and abuse their trust which is likest to be those whose maintenance no whit cometh from the people for in the rest there is more danger of the contrary we desire not that they should be exempted from the Magistrates Ministers or peoples due means for their amendment But let the spurre be most used seeing there is most need and let us see some severe Laws to drive us on to those duties that flesh and blood and all the world is so much against I Come now to the last part of mâ—â—aske which is to give some brief Directions for the most effectual Practice of this excellent needfull work And I shall first speake of the Duty of Ministers in order to it and 2. Of the peoples Duty and lastly of the Magistrates The Duty of the Pastours I judge to consist in these particulars Direct 1. Let the Pastours in each Country meet together and agree as one man in faithfulness and self-denial to do their duty that the most conscionable may not be liable to the reproach of singularity because the rest betray them and the Church and Cause of Christ by withdrawing and leaving the work undone so long hath the Church already suffered the neglect even of godly Ministers that in such a time of leave and helpe we still hold off and dare not venture on a little displeasure of the people when our Ancestours ventered on the flames I grieve to think what a shame it will be to our names and to the Reformed Churches and what a confusion it may bring upon our faces before our Righteous Judge And it is a griefe to me if I were sure of Magistrates assistance that all our Enemies shall say and that the Histories of this age shall tell posterity that the Ministers of England after fasting prayers warres and vowes pretended for Reformation would yet do little or nothing toward it but preach even in times of Liberty and encouragement till the Magistrate did it And that it must be the work of the Magistrate after our unworthy lazy or treacherous desertion of it Had we no more help then we have we might do much were we willing and unanimous Direct 2. Let us take heed of extending these Agreements to any unnecessary Circumstances so as to lay the stress of the business on them or to make that necessary which is unnecessary But let us Agree on the Generall certain points and leave particular men to their Liberty in modes and circumstances not judging each other if we differ herein or if one be more or less strict then another in the execution Direct 3. Let us yet all be very carefull that in point of tryall and judging mens Profession we avoid extreames On one side let us not be Righteous overmuch by keeping out any that make the most broken intelligible Profession of Faith and Repentance and a Godly life that may be taken for credible and remember that we are not searchers of the heart and that charity judgeth not evil of any that are capable of a better Judgment And certainly a humble Soul that 's conscious of its own infirmities and unworthiness will be very tender of condemning another without very satisfying Evidence Of this I referre you to my first Dispute of Right to Sacraments On the other side let us take heed of turning this duty into a meer formality and making nothing of it but mocking the Church and God Let us not take up with a Profession of any other kind of Faith but the true Christian saving Faith nor with any Profession of this Faith which we are able to prove to be Incredible Direct 4. None of the Aged that have already been admitted to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper may be brought under Confirmation by Imposition of hands as we have before shewed But all that were yet never admitted to this special part of Communion nor have made any solemne Approved Profession should yet be called to it be they young or ould when they demand Church-Communion If you ask me what shall be done with the rest seeing they were admitted irregularly without any Profession of the Faith I Answer 1. Acquaint them plainly with the Nature of Christianity and what a Church is and what is the Office of a Pastour and what the duty of the flock to God to him and themselves and one another 2. Then tell them that you resolve to proceed according to these Rules in the Government of your flock and to exercise this Discipline Tell them plainly that they be not deceived both what are the benefits of a Church-state and Discipline and what are the difficulties that unprepared men are like to grudg at and how hardly they will take it to be followed and not suffered to rest in sinne and openly reproved and cast out with shame if they
Two sorts we know this to be true by 1 Papists that are for Equivocation and Mental Reservation in their Professions and Oathes or for the Popes to dispense with them 2. Heathens and Infidels that believe not that there is any sinne or Devil or Hell or Heaven and therefore care not what they sweare And indeed these are the two Sects that now are up and all other are like to fall into these Alas by sad experience I speake it Those that will openly and to my face make an Orthodoxe confession do secretly harden many poor Souls by making a scorne of Scripture as a fable and of the Immortality of the Soul and of Christ and the Holy Ghost and Heaven and Hell and say all these are nothing but the inventions of men and that the Kâ—ave-Priests do perswade men that there are Devils and Hell as a bugbeare to make them do what they would have them and all Religion is but deceit Such Heathens are the predominant Sect in many places and higher in England then once I thought to have seen them And if all such perfidious Infidels and Jesuites shall have leave to Bâ—aspheame God Christ and Scripture because they once made an Orthoeoxe Profession then let Hell be turned loose upon our people and the Devil that was bound up from deceiving the Nations have a Toleration from the Magistrate to do his worst Thus I have shewed that Magistrates if they will may helpe the Church without any danger of persecuting the Truth if they take not Popery damnable Heresie and Heathenism for Truth 1. If the Approvers keep the doore of Toleration as well as of Publike Maintenance and Ministry 2. If a Church Justice or Civil Agent do keep the Churches Peace 3. If the Civil Visiter do purposely take cognisance of the state of Parishes and see the Laws put in execution 4. If the Commissioners for Ejections have power of Judging all Seducers and Blaspheamers as well as the publike Ministers And if these only have the Coercive Power but some able chosen godly Ministers be joyned with them for Advice and Exhortation as Magistrates and Ministers sate together before the daies of William the Conquerour Joh. 13. 17. If ye know these things happy are ye if ye do them Luke 12. 47. And the servant which knew his Lords will and prepared not nor did according to his will shall be beaten much Finitur Hebr. 13. 1648. Postscript READER AS great and needfull a duty as this is that I have here proposed and as clear as it is and commonly agreed on by all the Parties before mentioned I am yet far from expecting that all men should acknowledg it and obey it or that no person of contrary apprehensions or intentions should rise up against it as an enemy with all the strength that the measure of his wit and passions can prepare We cannot speak for God himself for Christ for Scripture for mens own Salvation but we meet with contradiction and resistance even from them that we would save And were it not for this what blessed work would the Gospel make and why might we not hope that all our people should be saved No wonder then if when ever we attempt Reformation or Reconciliation we meet with Learned Reverend Brethen that come against us armed with plausible cavils and contempts and cast away the medicine as dangerous or ungratefull and strenuously vindicate the Disease that should be healed And were it not that the Church hath many very many such what should have kept us unhealed so long And who could have continued our deformities and divisions and frustrated such means as have been used for our cure Satan is not so poore a Politician as to be without his Agents in our Ecclesiastike Armies and Councils and Pulpits to speak for his cause and do his work and resist and frustrate that which would displease him and all this under pretence of enmity to Satan and friendship to Christ and a better doing of his work As the names of the chiefest of Christ Servants were not cast out as Holy but as evil Luk. 6. 22. So their Doctrine was not cast out as Truth nor as Saving but as Deceit And his Meanes will not be openly resisted at least by those that are building with us as Reforming or Reconciling but as groundless or unproved or troublesome or unseasonable or as suspected of some ill designe or event Some will say it is meere Prelacie or a Prelatical designe and some that it is Independancie or an Independant designe and some that it is but Presbyâ—erian Examination Whereas they might know that it is proper to none of them which is common to them all If it be Prelacie how comes it to be found with Independants If it be Independancy how comes it to be approved by Prelates and Presbyterians Is it not rather like Christianity it self and the Truths and Duties which we commonly own and therefore not to be appropriated to any By all that I have heard and read of late concerning this Subject I understand that the principal Objections that are likely to be used against the Doctrine of this Treatise are these following Object We were all Baptized in our Infancy and therefore are Church-members and have Right to the Priviledges of the Adult when we are Adult without any new Title or Condition Our first Right continueth though we never make Profession of the Christian Faith nor personally renewed the Covenant with God that we made in Baptism And therefore though in some cases such an approved Profession be a duty yet is not any more Necessary to our Church-state and Right to the Communion of the Adult then that we were borne Church-members and so Baptized Nothing but Heresie Schisme or Apostacie can cut us â—ff And therefore all that were Baptized and are not thus cut off are still Church-members and have Right to all the Ordinances in the Church Answ 1. I have said enough to this already to satisfie the considerate impartial Reader proving the Necessity of a personall Faith before God and of some Profession of it Ecclesia Judice before the Church to the Being of the said Title of the Adult as its Condition and that all Scripture-Examples do make for the Confirmation of this Truth Moreover let me adde to answer the new or foreseen assaults 1. If there be no word of Promise in the Scripture that giveth the Priviledge of Adult-Communion to any upon their Infant title-condition only nor any example in the Gospel or the ancient Church that any possessed or used that Priviledg upon that Title-condition only then are we not to imagine that the Infant Title-condition alone is sufficient to the said Priviledge But the Antecedent is true as hath in part been manifested and will be more when the Dissenter shall bring forth his pretended Evidences by which his Title should be proved 2. The Title-condition of Infants is not sufficient to make any morally capable of
professeth himself to be a Believer which cannot be without knowledge This must satisfie them till he nullifie this evidence by a clean bewraying of his Infidelity Object But the Scripture saith not that ignorant persons cannot be Church-members or so much as that they ought meerly for their ignorance to be excommunicate Answ Doth not the Scripture exclude visible unbelievers and take in only visible believers of the Adult and make the Church a society of Believers separated from unbelievers Such ignorance therefore as is essentiall to or inseparable from Infidelity is in Scripture made the very brand of them that are without excluded from the Church If our Gospell be hid it is hid to them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the mindes of them that believe not lest the light of the glorious Gospell of Christ c. 2 Cor. 4. 3 4. That Preaching which Discipleth men Mat. 28. 19. Doth give them Knowledg or else it could not give them Faith For it openeth their eyes and turneth them from darkness to light c. Act. 26. 18. And surely we are translated out of the power of darknesse into the Kingdome of Christ Col. 1. 14. Those that in time past were not a people but now are the people of the living God are called out of darknesse into his marvellous light 1 Pet. 2. 9 10. And what Communion hath light with darknesse righteousnesse with unrighteousnesse Christ with Beliall the Believer with the Infidell 2 Cor. 6. 14 15 16. Object If Knowledg as such were necessary to membership then none could be a member without it But that 's not so Answ 1. Knowledg as such is necessary no otherwise then Faith as such and all one you may therefore as well plead thus against the necessity of Faith 2. And we grant that neither Knowledg nor Faith are necessary to uncapable Subjects that is in themselves You know Faith in Infants such as we call Faith is not necessary to their Justification and yet will you say it is not necessary to the Adult The promise hath made it necessary to the Capable 3. And we grant that neither Knowledg nor Faith justifying or dogmaticall are necessary to the being of a visible Member that is meerly such God only seeth the heart But yet the appearance or profession of Faith and so of Knowledge in the essentials of Christianity is of necessity 4. But though a personall Faith or Knowledg in truth or in profession be not necessary to an Infant either for Membership or Justification yet their Parents Faith or Profession is necessary or else the promise is to more then Believers and their Seed quod restat probandum Object But a Negative consent is sufficient to continue such in Covenant as before were admitted in Infancy or at age And this Negative consent is but non-actuall dissent or a non-renouncing of the Gospell And therefore as Posiâ—ive consent so actuall Faith and Knowledge are not necessary Answ A dangerous doctrine A negative consent is no consent Why then should the ears of men be abused by the â—ame when there is nothing to answer it A Negative Faith in english is Infidelity or not believing Is not this a delusory teaching of the Church to call unbelief by the name of Negative Faith or Negative Consent If a block a bruit or a Subject otherwise Naturally uncapable be the Subject then indeed it is inculpable and your Negative Consent or Faith is properly but a Negative dissent or unbelief But if a capable oblieged person be the Subject which is our case then your Negative consent is in english privative not consenting and privative unbelief or rejecting Christ What a meanness is here to convey flat Infidels into the Church or continue them there under the Cloake of an abusive name even by calling a non-dissenting conjunct with their Infidelity or not consenting to the Covenant of grace by the name of Negative consent Were it a person that had entered at age yet if he have afterward but your Negative consent which is neither to consent or dissent he is an Apostate And if he refuse consent when called to it by his lawfull governours he gives occasion to be suspected of Apostacie much more when he continueth to refuse consent when so much of the life and practise of Christianity consisteth in it and in the manifestation of it But especially when persons were Baptized in Infancy and never yet professed a Faith or Consent of their own If that man that had no Faith but his Parents and his being a Believers seed which you call Faederall Faith shall be continued at age a Member of the Church by a not-actuall dissenting or renouncing Christ by expresse words then le ts talk no more of a Church nor abuse poor Heathens and Infidels so much as to question their salvation or let them below us But again I answer you that not consenting is dissenting in the inward act it is undoubted that he that for one year or moneth doth not consent doth certainly dissent There 's no middle state between Believers and Infidels Consenters and Refusers How shall they escape that neglect of so great salvation Neglecting and not consenting in a capable invited Subject is certain Infidelity and therefore in the externall profession we must judge accordingly He that will not confess Christ even in a Christian Church and a peaceable age deserves not to be called a Christian He that is not for him is against him Object But Gods Covenant-people under the Law were not only admitted without their voluntary consent or knowledg but commanded to renue their Covenant in such a manner as that they that were absent and not in place to expresse consent were included in those that were present Answ 1. None but Infants were admitted without consent nor they without the consent of their Parents naturall or civill that had the power of disposing of them 2. Those that were admitted upon others consent were not continued at age without their own 3. The Covenant Deut. 29. 11 12 15. Was no mutuall Covenant to the absent or unborn there mentioned but only a Covenant offered to the Nation and conditionally made on Gods part as a promise to them and their posterity even to many generations But those unborn generations were not in Covenant on their parts as promisers in the stipulation Object Wickedness it self doth not put a man out of the Visible Church For a man is said to be cut off but either de jure or de facto Meritoriously or Effectually the former is improperly called cutting off being but the Desert of it therefore if those baptized in Infancy prove afterward wicked they are not thereby cut off Answ 1. Such persons as we have in question lose their Right and title by a Cessation for want of that personal Condition which the Covenant made Necessary to its continuance So that we need not prove any other cutting off 2. If he
expectants yet are they bound up by the Laws of Christ what Profession to accept and what to refuse and if by breaking these Laws they shall dangerously or grosly wrong the Church it belongeth to the Magistrate to correct them and to the people to admonish them and disown their sin yea and in desperate cases to disown them The Positive Title-condition to be produced is The Profession of true Christianity The Minister that refuseth this Profession must prove it not credible Of tolerable ignorance PROP. IX It is evident that Magistrates Ministers and people have each a power of Judging but different as they have different works How far Ministers are Judges Proved by ten Reasons against the popular claim c. How far the people must Judge How far the Magistrate must Judge Ministers for these Matters and Ministers obey them PROP. X. To this Ministerial Approbation of the Profession and Qualifications of the Expectant there is to be adjoyned a Ministerial Investiture or Delivery of the Benefit expected How many Sacraments there are 1. More than seaven in the largest sense 2. Five in a large sense not intollerable 3. Two only in the strictest sense as we define them PROP. XI The solemn Ministerial Investiture of Professours into the right of the Church-Priviledges of the Adult is either 1. Of the Unbaptized who are now first entred 2. Or of the Baptized in Infancy that never proved ungodly nor violated that first Covenant 3. Or of those Baptized whether in Infancy or at Age that have since proved wicked and broke the Covenant The first of these Investitures is to be by Baptism the second by Confirmation and the third by Absolution So that the solemn Investiture that now I am pleading for is by Confirmation to one sort that never proved ungodly since their Baptism and by Absolution to the other sort that broke their Covenant which yet hath a certain Confirmation in or with it PROP. XII This solemn Investiture on personal Profession being thus proved the Ordinance of God for the solemn renewing the Covenant of Grace between God and the Adult-Covenanter it must needs follow that it is a Corroborating Ordinance and that Corroborating Grace is to be expepected in it from God by all that come to it in sincerity of heart And so it hath the name of Confirmation upon that account also PROP. XIII Ministerial Imposition of hands in Confirmation and the foredescribed sort of Absolution is a Lawfull and Convenient action or Ceremony and ordinarily to be used as it hath been of old by the Universal Church But yet it is not of such Necessity but that we must dispence in this Ceremony with scrupulous Consciences that cannot be satisfied to submit to it Imposition of hands is allowed in Scripture to be used Generally by Spiritual Superiours to signifie their Desire that the Blessing Guift or Power may be conferred on the Inferiour for which they have a call to mediate Proved Particllarly 1. We find in Scripture a Blessing of Church-members with laying on of hands 2. And that the Holy Ghost is in a special manner promised to Believers over and above that measure of the Spirit which caused them to Believe 3. And that Praier with laying on of hands was the outward means to be used by Christs Ministers for procuring this or investing them of it 4. And that this was not a temporary but fixed Ordinance All proved How the Holy Ghost is given before Faith and after Faith and how sealed in Baptism and how not What Hope of the success of Imposition with Praier for the spirit Scripture and Antiquity for it Reasons for the non-necessity of it to the the scrupulous PROP. XIV Though in receiving Adult-persons out of Infidelity by Baptism into the Church a sudden Profession without any stay to see their Reformation may serve turne yet in receiving these that were Baptized heretofore into the number of Adult-members or to the Priviledges of such their lives must be enquired after which must be such as do not confute their Profession PROP. XV. It is not of flat Necessity that the Profession of the Expectant be made in the open Congregation or before many in order to his Confirmation or admittance PROP. XVI When a person is admitted an Adult-member of a particular Church as well as of the Universal his Profession and Admission must be either before the Church or satisfactorily made known to the Church at least who must approve of it by a Judgment of discretion in order to their Communion with him and this among us is the ordinary case because it is the duty of all that have opportunity to joyne themselves to some particu-particu-Church and it is in such Churches that Communion in publique Worship and order must be had either statedly or transiently and temporarily Reasons to prove this Interest of the People Cases of difference between Pastours and people resolved PROP. XVII It is convenient though not of necessity that every Church do keep a Register of all that are thus Invested or admitted into the number of Adult-members PROP. XVIII Those that were never thus Ministerially and Explicitly Approved Confirmed or Absolved after an ungodly life but have been permitted without it to joyne usually with the Church in prayer and praises and the Lords Supper are Approved and Confirmed eminently though not formally though in so doing both the Pastours and themselves might sinne against God by the violation of his holy order Such therefore may be a true Church and are not to be called back to solemn Confirmation though in many cases they may be called to Tryall by their Overseers PROP. XIX So exceeding great and many are the Mischiefs that have befallen us by the neglect of a solemn meet Transition from an Infant into the Adult Church-state and which undoubtedly will continue till this be remedied that all the Magistrates Ministers people that dissemble not in professing themselves to be Christians should with speed and diligence attempt the cure The state of our Parishes anatomized Twenty intollerable mischiefs that follow the taking all into our Church-communion and neglecting this Confirmation such as all Christians should lay to heart PROP. XX. So many and great are the Benefits that would follow the generall practice of this duty of trying approving and confirming or Absolving all those that enter into the number of Adult-Christians that it should mightily provoke all Christian Magistrates Ministers and people to joyne in a speedy and vigorous execution of it Twelve excellent Benefits that will come by Confirmation It 's like to be an admirable increaser of knowledg and holiness and Church-Reformation It 's a singular means of Agreeing the Episcopal Presbyterians Congregational Erâ—stians and moderating the Anabaptists proved and urged Twenty Objections against this Approved Profession and Confirmation answered How little reason have Princes and Parliaments to restraine most Ministers here from overdoing The Duties that lie upon us all for the Execution of this
washt with Christ's Blood how can they deny to wash them with that water that is appointed to signifie and invest Moreover Infants are capable of many other Priveledges and of being the Adopted Sonnes of God the Members of Christ the Heirs of Heaven as having Right thereto and being the members of the Church and being under the Special Protection and Provision of God and in a special sort partakers of the Prayers of the Church with divers more As in the Commonwealth an Infant is capable of having Honour and Inheritance in Right though not Actally to use them and of the protection of the Laws for Life Reputation and estate and of being Tenant and obliged to pay a certain Rent and Homage when he comes to age and in the mean time to have Provisions from the Estate that he hath Title to But all this I have fuller exprest elsewhere And I have altely read Mr Tombes's last and large Reply to part of my Book and many others and must needs say that it leaves me still perswaded that it is the will of Christ that the Infants of his Servants should be Dedicated to him in Baptism and members of his visible Church and though upon the review of my Arguments I find that I have used too many provoaking words for which I am heartily sorry and desire pardon of God and him yet I must say that I am left more confident then before that the cause is Gods which Mr Tombes opposeth Of which if God will I intend yet to give some further account In the mean time I deal with this but as a Supposition that is already sufficiently proved though all men yea all good men see not the sufficiency of the proofe Prop. 2. There are many Priveledges belonging to the Adult Members of the Church which Infant members are not capable of THis is true both of Natural and Moral Capacities The Priviledges which I mean are the pardon of many actual sinnes committed since they are Adult the exercise of all Holy Graces Knowing God Loving him Trusting him Serving him the Communion that we have with God herein as particularly in Prayer in holy Praises and Thanksgivings in Heavenly Meditations The Peace and Joy that followeth Believing and the Hopes of Everlasting Life the Communion which we have with the Church of Christ in hearing praying Praises the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ in distribution by giving and receiving and an endearing holy Love within These and many more Priveledges are proper to the Adult That Infants are not Naturally capable of these is as needless to prove as that they are Infants And then that they are not Morally capable is an inseparable consequent For though Natural Capacity may be without Moral yet Moral cannot be without Natural In point of Duty Infants are not bound to the work as to Hear Pray Prayse c. beyond the Natural Capacity of their Intellects and bodies And so in point of Benefit we must have more sobriety then to suppose God to make over any Benefit to them which they are not capable of All this is plain Prop. 3. The Continuation of Priveledges received in Infancy is part of the Priveledges of the Adult or the Restoration of them if they be lost IF the cause discontinue the effect will cease Adult Priveledges comprehend the Infant Priviledges partly as that which is Perfect comprehendeth the Imperfect and partly as the whole comprehendeth the parts and partly as the thing Continued is the same with the thing Begun Infant Priviledges would all cease with Infancy if the Causes or Conditions cease and there be no other Cause for their continuance God never took Infants into his Church and Covenant with a purpose so to continue them without any other Condition then that upon which they were admitted This is past denyal and will be more cleared in the next Prop. 4. The Title-Condition of Infant Church-membership and Priviledges is not the same with the Title-Condition of the Church-membership and Priviledges of the Adult so that if this new Condition be not performed when men come to Age their former Title ceaseth and there is no other that ariseth in his stead 1. WE are agreed I think that our Title which is Fundamentum Juris is Gods Covenant Graunt or Guift As it is his Precept that constituteth our Duty so it is his Promise or Deed of Gift which is our title to the Benefit 2. And we are agreed I hope that this Promise or Grant from God is Conditional For if Church-membership and Priviledges he Absolutly Given then it is to All or but to Some Not to All for then the Church and the world are all one and then it is not Ecclesia caetus evocatus and then Heathens and Infidels have right which are things that no Christian I think will grant If it be but Some that have Title then there must be some Note to know them by or else the some will be equal to All or to None And if they be Marked out then it must be by Name or by Description Not by Name for we find the contrary Scripture doth not Name all that have Title to Church Priviledges If it be by Description it is either by meer Physical or by Moral Qualifications that they are described The former none doth imagine that I hear of If they are Moral Qualifications then either they are such as are prerequisite to our Right and Priviledges or not That they are prerequisite all must confess that read the Promise and all do confess that they are prerequisite to all the following Priviledges And if Prerequisite then either as Means or no Means The later none can affirm without going against so much light as ordinary Christians have still ready at hand to confute them with And if they are required as Means then either as Causes or Conditions And I think you will sooner yield them to be Conditions then Causes though either Concession sufficeth to the end that is before us But of this we need to say no more both because it is commonly confessed and because that the words of the Promises are so plaine and undenyable being uttered in Conditional terms Nor is this either inconsistent with or any way unsuitable to an Absolute Decree For as a Threatning so the Conditionality of a Promise are Instruments admirably suited to the accomplishment of an Absolute Purpose or Decree He that is fully Resolved to save us or to give us the Priviledges of his Church will deal with us as men in bringing us to the possession of the intended benefits and therefore will by Threats and Conditional promises excite us to a careful performance of the Condition and that Grace which is resolved to effect the very Condition in us is also resolved to make a Conditional Promise yea and a Threatening the Instrument of effecting it 3. Note that the great Question whether all the Infants of true Believers are certainly Justified or
whether some of them have but lower Priviledges is not here to be determined but in a fitter place And therefore I determine not what Priviledges they are that will cease if our Infant Title cease But that according to the tenour of the Promise the Continuance of them with the Addition of the Priviledges proper to the Adult are all laid upon a New Condition 4. Note also that when I call it another or different Condition I mean not that it is different in the Nature of the Act but in the Agent or Subject It is the same kind of Faith which at first is required in the Parent for the Childs behoof and that afterward is required in our selves But the Condition of the Infants Title is but this that he be the Child of a Believer Dedicated to God But the Condition of the Title of persons at Age is that they be themselves Believers that have Dedicated themselves to God The Faith of the Parent is the Condition of Infant Title and the Faith of the person himself is the Condition of the Title of one at Age. That their own Faith is not the Condition of an Infants Title I think I need not prove For 1. They are uncapable of Believing without a Miracle 2. If they were not as some Lutherans fondly think yet it 's certain that we are uncapable of discerning by such a sign I think no Minister that I know will judge what Infants do themselves believe that he may baptise them 3. And I think no man that looks on the Command or Promise and the Person of an Infant will judge that he is either Commanded then to believe or that his Believing is made the Condition of his Infant Title But that a Personal Believing is the Condition of the Title of them at Age is as farre past doubt and it 's proved thus Arg. 1. The Promise it self doth expresly require a Faith of our own of all the Adult that will have part in the Priviledges therefore it is a Faith of our Own that is the Condition of our Title Mark 16 16. He that Believeth and is Baptized shall be saved and he that Believeth not shall be damned Act. 8. 36 37. And the Eunuch said See here is water what doth hinder me to be baptized And Philip said If thou believest with all thy heart thou maist Act. 2. 38 41. Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sinnes c. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized Act. 10. 44 47 48. Act. 16. 14 15. 30. 32 33. Rom. 10. 12 13 14. With many other Texts do put this out of doubt Argument 2. We were engaged in our Infant baptismal Covenant to Believe and Repent when we came to Age as a means to our reception of the Benefits of the Covenant proper to the Adult therefore we must perform our Covenant and use this means if we will have the benefits Arg. 3. If another Condition were not of Necessity to the Aged beside the Condition that was necessary to them in Infancy then Turks Jews and Heathens should have right to Church-membership and Priviledges of the Adult But the Consequent is notoriously false therefore so is the Antecedent The Reason of the Consequent is evident Because a man that hath believing Parents may turn Turk as is known in thousands of Janizaries or Jew or Pagan and therefore if it were enough that he was the Child of a Believer his Title to Church Priviledges would still continue And so among professed Christians the Child of a Believer may turn Heretick or notoriously prophane and scandalous and yet have Title to Church Priviledges if his first Title still hold and a personal Faith be not a necessary Condition of his Right Adde to these the many Arguments tending to confirm the point in hand which I have laid down on another occasion in my Dâ—sputations of Right to Sacraments But I think I need not spend more words to perswade any Christians that our Parents Faith will not serve to give us Title to the Church Priviledges of the Adult but we lose our Right even to Church-membership it self if when we come to Age we adde not a personal Faith or profession at least of our own I only adde that this is a truth so farre past doubt that even the Papists and the Greekshave put it into their Canons For the former you may find it in the Decrees Part. 3. dist 3. pag. mihi 1241 cited out of Augustinin these words Parvulus qui baptizatur fiâ—ad anneâ—s rationales veniens non crediderit nec ab illicitis abstinuerit nihil ei prodest quod parvulus accepit That is An Infant that is baptized if comming to years of discretion he do not believe nor abstain from things unlawfull that which he received in Infancy doth profit him nothing And for the Greeks that this is according to their mind you may see in Zonaras in Comment in Epist Canon Can. 45. cited ex Basilii Mag. Epist 2. ad Amphiloch thus Siquis accâ—pto nomine Christianismi Christum contumeliâ afficit nulla est illi appellationis utilitas that is If any one having received the Name of Christianity shall repreach Christ he hath no profit by the Name On which Zonaras addeth Qui Christo credidit Christianus appellatus est cum ex Divinis praecept is vitam instituere oportet ut hac ratione Deus per ipsum glorificetur quemadmodum illis verbis praecipitur sic luceat Lux vestra coram hominibus c. Siquis autem nominatur quidem Christianus Deâ— vero praecepta transgreditur contumeliam irregat Christo cujus de nomine appellatur nec quicquam ex eâ appellatione utilitatis trahit That is Seeing he believed in Christ and is called a Christian ought to order his life by the Commandements of God that so God may be glorified by him according to that Let your light so shine before men c. If any one that is called a Christian shall transgress Gods Commands he brings a reproach on Christ by whose name he is called and he shall not receive the least profit by that Title or Name This is somewhat higher then the point needs that I bring it for And indeed it were a strange thing if all other Infidels should be shut out of the Priviledges of the Church except only the treacherous Covenant-breaking Infidel for such are all that being baptized in Infancy prove no Christians when they come to Age. As if persidiousness would give him right Prop. 5. As a Personal Faith is the Condition before God of Title to the Priviledges of the Adult so the Profession of this Faith is the Condition of his Right before the Church and without this Profession he is not to be taken as an Adult member nor admitted to the Priviledges of such THis Proposition also as the Sunne revealeth its self by its own light and therefore commandeth
approving of it belongeth to the Office of the Pastours of the Church The first is grounded by almost all Christians that I know of and therefore need not may words 1. If every man should be the sole Judge of the soundness and validity of his own Profession then Hereticks and Heathens and Infidels may all croud into the Church for when there is any outward advantage or other common motive to induce them to it they would all joyn with the Church as if they were Christians And we see that it is the custom of Hereticks to intrude And who shall say to any of them why do you so if themselves are the only Judges We meet daily among our own neighbours with abundance that know not whether Christ be God or man nor who he is nor what he hath done for us nor why he came into the world and are ignorant of almost all the Essentials of the Christian Faith and with abundance more that live in common drunkenness scorning at holy duties and at a Godly life and hating those that use it and giving up themselves wholly to the flesh and the world And yet all these men are so confident of the soundness and validity of their own Profession that they will hate that Minister that shall make any question of their Right to the Priviledges of the Church I speak not by hearsay or conjecture but by sad experience And if they be their own judges all these will be approved and admitted and indeed what man would not be admitted where Christianity is in credit or hath any worldly advantages so that it 's certain that this would pluck up the hedg and lay open the Vineyard of Christ unto the wilderness For self-love is such a powerfull blinding thing that it will make every man almost especially of the worser sort approve of that which is their Own 2. If every man should be the sole Judge of his own Profession and fitness for Church Priviledges then there could be no Communion of Saints For all the most ignorant and impious persons would intrude into our Communion and it would be a Communion not only of actual but of professed impious men But the consequent is intollerable as being contrary to an Article of our Belief and a principal part of Christian practice 3. If each man were the only Judge of his own Profession then there could be no exercise of Church Discipline nor keeping or casting out the wicked But the consequent is unsufferable Therefore 4. If each man be the only Judge of his own Profession then the Church is an unguided ungoverned Society but the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent 2. And now I prove that it belongeth to the Office of the Ministers to judge of and approve the Profession of such as expect admission or the Priveledges of the Church 1. If persons are not the sole Judges themselves then it must belong to the Minister to judge But the Antecedent is before proved The Consequence is proved thus It must belong either to the Pastours or the Magistrate only or the people only or to all or some of these conjunctly Not to the Magistrate only for 1. No man that I know of affirmeth it 2. It is another mans office Not to the people only for 1. None that I know of affirmeth this They all include the Pastours 2. As I said it is made part of the Pastours office If you say that it belongs to Magistrates People and Pastours jointly then you include the Pastours And I grant that in some sort it belongs to them but in a different sort as I shall tell you under the next Proposition 2 It is to Ministers as such that the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven are committed but to approve of the Profession of such as are to be admitted into the Church or to its Priviledges is part of the exercise of the Key 's of the Kingdom therefore it is Ministers to whom it belongeth thus to judge and approve I have proved in another place and so have many others more at large that the Key 's were not given to Peter or to the Apostles as to private men for so they were not nor as to a Church of private Christians for so they were not nor the representatives of any such nor yet as to Apostles only for then they should have belonged to none but themselves the contrary whereof is certain nor as to fixed Diocesan Bishops for such they were not and it 's generally granted that the Key 's belong also to Presbyters either wholly or the chief of them and particularly that in question Nor yet were the Key 's given them only as a Synod or Presbyterie for Peter was not such and this in question hath ever been exercised by such Ministers Arg. 3. The Rulers of the Church are the lawful Judges or Approvers of the Profession of those that come into the Church or demand the Priviledges of it But it is the Ministers of Christ that are the Rulers of the Church as is exprest 1 Thes 12. Acts 2. 28. Heb. 13. 7. 17. 24. 1 Tim. 5. 17. Therefore Arg. 4. Those that are by Office the Stewards of the Mysteries of God and Rulers over his houshould to give them meat in due season which they must do as faithfull and wise servants till their Lord cometh are the men that must judge of and approve the qualifications of those that come under their Stewardship Government and Administration of these Mysteries But such are the Ministers of Christ 1 Cor. 4. 1. Matth. 24. 45 46 47. Therefore Arg. 5. To whom it belongeth to receive men at age into the Church to restore by Absolution them that fell off and to Administer Christ's Ordinances to those that are within to them doth it belong to try judge and approve of them that are to be thus received absolved or that expect the Priviledges of the Church But it belongeth to Christ's Ministers to receive men absolve them and administer the Ordinances to them Therefore The Antecedent is commonly granted and plain in Scripture The Consequence hath Reason so evident as needs no confirmation Arg. 6. If all that enter into the Church or that are restored by Asolution or are stated in a Right to Church Priviledges of the Adult are therewithall engaged into a mutual voluntary Relation to Christs Ministers then must their Profession be judged of approved by Christs Ministers but the Antecedent is certain Therefore so is the Consequent The Antecedent is cleare because 1. All that enter into the Universal Church do enter under the hand of the Ministerie and thereby acknowledg their Relation to them and Authority to admit them 2. Because all such do engage themselves to be Christs Disciples and learn of him as their Master not as coming down from Heaven to teach them personally but as teaching them by his Word Spirit and Ministers conjunctly saying Luke 10 16 He that heareth you heareth me
and he that despiseth you despiseth me 3. Because they all engage themselves to take Christ for their King who ruleth them by his Laws and Officers and his Ministers are his Ruling Officers 1 Tim. 5. 17. Heb. 12. 7. 17. 24. 1 Thes 5. 12. 4. Because they are all engaged to take Christ for the great High Priest of the Church who hath appointed his Ministers to officiate under him in leading them in publike Worship of the Church and in offering up the Praises of God and blessing the people and praying for them and celeberating the Commemoration and Representation of Christs Sacrifice on the Cross 5. Because they that enter into a particular Church where only the constant stated use of holy Ordinances and Priviledges are to be had though occasionally elswhere do enter into a Relation to the Pastours of that particular Church as members of their flock and Church whom they must oversee and watch over all this is past controversie And then for the Consequent of the major Proposition that therefore Ministers must approve of their Profession I prove it thus Ministers are naturally free-men as well as others and therefore no man can become a member of their charge and put them upon so great duty as the Relation doth require against their wils without their consent and contrary to their Judgment and Consciences It is an exceeding great burden that lieth on us and a great deal of work that is required of us to each particular Soul in our charge we must exhort instruct admonish in season and out of season publikly and privately and watch over and govern them visit them in sickness comfort strengthen them c. O what a mountain lieth on me and how should I bear it if God did not support me And if every man that will shall make me more work and put himself under my Care without my Consent then I am so far from being a free-man as all other are that I am enslaved and undone in slavery For 1. They may oppress me when they will with Number and so many may flock in to my charge in despight of me as shall nullifie the particular Church and by the magnitude make it another thing by making it uncapable of its ends 2. And hereby they may force me to leave undone my duty both to them and others by oppressing me with work For when I have ten times more then I can teach and oversee I must needs neglect them all or most 3. And they may abuse the Church and me with the evil qualities as well as the excessive quantity of members and we shall be obliged to give that which is holy to dogs and to use those as Church members that are enemies to the Church and to administrate Sacraments to any that will have them how unfit soever and to prophane all Gods Ordinances and turn them to a lie 4. And by this means the Church will be utterly ruined and made a den of thieves and a stie of swine For besides that all the worst may at pleasure be members of it all men that are faithfull or most at least will runne away from the Ministry and sooner turn Chimny sweepers then Pastours For what man dare venture his Soul on so great a charge for which he knows he must give an account when he is certain to leave undone the work of his Office in so great a measure and when he knows he may be thus opprest in soul and body and so undone by wicked men when ever they please yea if they purposely do it to despight him Arg. 7. That which belongeth to all other Superiors in voluntary Relations is not to be denied to Ministers in theirs but a free consent and Approbation of them that they are related to belongs to all other Superior voluntary Relations Therefore to us A Schoolmaster is to Approve the capacity of his Schollars and a Physician is to judge of the fitness of a person to be his patient and his fitness for this or that medicine in particular Not only a Master would take it ill if he may not have the approbation of his own servants but have as many and as bad thrust on him as shall please but a husband would think it hard if he might not have the approbation and choice of his own wife but that any might force him to take them that they please And are the Pastour of Christs Church the only slaves on earth How improbable a thing is this Arg. 8. That Relation which must be rationally regularly and faithfully managed must be rationally regularly and freely entered for otherwise we cannot so manage it But the Relation of a Minister to each member of his charge must be thus managed Therefore Arg. 9. It is plainly exprest in the Ministers Commission that he is to approve of the Profession of Disciples therefore it belongeth to his Office Matth. 28. 19. Go Disciple all Nations baptizing them teaching them to observe all things Which plainly manifesteth that it 's they that must judge when a man is made a Disciple and when not or else how can they either Baptize them as such or teach them the Precepts of Christ as such So when he giveth to his servants the Key 's of the Kingdom Matth. 18 c. it sheweth that they are to judge who is to be admitted and who not as is aforesaid or else he would never have set them at the door and made them the Porters and Key-bearers of his Church to let men in Arg. 10. No man in the Administration of holy Ordinances is ordinarily to renounce his own Reason and Conscience and to act against them But thus it would be if we have not the approving of the Profession or Qualification of those that we must administer them to Therefore He that is to Execute here is to judge For 1. Else you will force Ministers to go against their Reason and Conscience in all administrations 2. You will deny them so much as Judicium Discretionis which you allow to every Christian much more Judicium Directionis which belongeth to their Office Every man must judge and understand what he doth and why he doth it you will not force the people to participate of Sacraments against their Consciences Why then should Ministers be forced to Give them against their Consciences Administring is their work and therefore they must know why they do it and on what grounds Else you will make them but like hangmen or worse if they must do Execution against their judgments because it is anothers judgment And whose judgment is it that we must follow when we go against our own Arg. 11. If it belong to Christ to pass an open Approbation of the Qualification of such as are to be admitted into his Church or to his special Ordinances or Church Priviledges then doth it belong to the Ministers of Christ as his instruments But it doth belong to Christ 1. For all that enter either
these things is vaine it being the Subject of so many Canons and so commonly known both by Record and Practice Mr Herbert Thorndike in his forcited Discourse of the Right of the Church is full upon it pag. 32. he saith As the Power of Judging who is and who is not thus Qualified presupposes a Profession so that an Instruction obliging the obedience of them which seek Remission of sinnes by the Gospel and therefore confidently assuring it to them which conform themselves In a word because admitting to and excluding from the Church is or ought to be a just and lawfull presumption of admitting to or excluding from Heaven N. B. it is morally and legally the same act that entitleth to Heaven and to the Church that maketh an heir of Life Everlasting and a Câ—ristian because he that obeyeth the Church in submitting to the Gospel is as certainly a member of the Invisible as of the Visible Church You see here in his Judgment both what kind of Profession it must be and who is the Judge of it of which he is more large And surely they that see Confirmation and Penance or Absolution grown up to the reputation of proper Sacraments and understandeth how they came to it will never question whether the Universal Church hath still taken the Pastours for the lawfull Judges and Approvers of that Confession and Profession which in such Cases was requisite And that it was a Profession both of saving Faith and Repentance that was expected by the Church which the Pastours were to Judge of I mentioned some plain testimonies of Antiquity Apol. pag. 95. to which I shall adde some more Justin Martyr Apolog. 2. Expressing how Baptism was then admitted to the Adult saith As many as being perswaded do believe these things to be true which we teach and do promise to live according to them they first learn by prayer and fasting to beg pardon of God for their former sinnes our selves also joyning our prayer and fasting then they are brought to the water and born againe in the same way as we our selves were born againe And of the Lords Supper he saith This food we call the Eucharist to which no man is admitted but he that believeth the truth of our Doctrine being washed in the Laver of Regegeneration for Remission of sinne and that so liveth as Christ hath taught Nazianzen Orat. 40 vol. 1. pag. Basil's words and many more to the like purpose there recited I forbeare And that a man baptized is not so much as to be taken for a Christian if by word or deed he nullifie that Profession much more when he never made a Personal Profession when he is at Age the Ancients commonmonly agree Some I cited before Tertullian again saith Apol. cap. 44. Speaking of the Jaylor Nemo illic Christianus nisi plane tantum Christianus aut se aliud jam nox Christianus Athenagoras in Legat. pro Christ pag. 3. Nullus Christianus malus est nisi haut professionem simulaverit Damascene Orthodox fid lib. 4. cap. 11. pag. 303. Qui enim secundum traditionem Catholicae Ecclesiae credit sed communicat operibus Diabolo infidelis est Salvian de Gubern lib. 4. in the begining Nam cum hoc sit hominis Christiani fides fideliter Christi mandata servare fit absque dubio ut nec fidem habeat qui infidelis est nec Christum credat qui Christi mandata conculcat Ac per hoc totum in id revolvitur ut qui Christiani nominis opus non agit Christianus non esse videaâ—ur Nomen enim sine actu atque officio suo nihil est Cyprian de dupl Mart. Frustra miscetur caetui Sanctorum in Templo manufacto si submotus est ab universo Corpore Mystico Christi August de Baptis cont Donatist lib. 4 cap Etcap 4. In corpore unica columbae nec heretici nec improbi nominantur See the like passages of the Ancient Schoolmen cited by Davenant in Colos 1. 18. pag. 118. And thus I have shewed you the Necessity of a Profession and of what sort of Profession and that the Pastours of the Church are by Office appointed by Christ to try approve and receive it Prop. 8. Though it belong to the Pastours Office to judge of the Profession of such expectants yet are they bound up by the Laws of Christ what Profession to accept and what to refuse and if by breaking these Laws they shall dangerously or grosly wrong the Church it belongeth to the Magistrate to correct them and to the people to admonish them and disown their sinne IN summe as is aforesaid It is a credible Profession of true Christianity which they must accept And as that which seemeth not to be Understanding and serious and voluntary and deliberate is not credible nor that which is Nullified by Verbal or Actual Contradiction nor that which is made by one that hath forfeited the credit of his word so on the other side a Credible mans Profession is his Title-condition in the Judgment of the Church or that Evidence of the Condition that we must take up with And if a man produce the Positive Evidence of his Title we must be able to disprove and invalidate it before we reject him so that it is a Profession of true Christanity which we cannot prove to be false at least by a Violent Presumption as the Lawyers speak which we must accept By this it appears 1. That a grosly ignorant person that knoweth not the Essentials of Christianity is not to be taken for a Professed Christian For tryal of such the Ordinance of Parliament of October 20. 1645. doth give us satisfaction recited in the form of Church Government of March 29. 1648. 2. Nor one that denieth any of the said Essentials Heretically 3. Nor one that speaketh Ludicrously and jestingly 4. Nor one that speaks in a Passion not deliberatly 5. Nor one that is manifestly forced and unwilling 6. Nor one that saith and unsaith 7. Nor one whose life doth prove his Profession to be incredible 8. Nor one that hath perfidiously been a breaker of Covenant with God already till his reformed life shall recover the credit of his word So that with a Credible person his bare Profession is Evidence fefore the Church of his Right and we must prove him a Lyar or false in his Profession before we can reject him But a man that hath been wicked after open Covenanting with God or Profession of Christianity hath forfeited his credit and therefore must shew us a new life as well as a verbal Profession before he is to be restored to his Priviledges In the first case with a Credible person we must prove his Profession false before we reject him but in the second Case with an incredible person he must Evidence his Profession to be true by probable Evidences that shall make it credible If I thought that the very light and law of Nature joyned with the known General Rules of Scripture did
Grace betwixt him and the Covenanter and a delivery Representation and Investiture of the Grace or Benefits of that Covenant thus we have only two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper But truly I would not quarrel with them for the meer name as to the five which I mentioned Prop. 11. The solemn Ministerial Investiture of Professours into the Right of the Church priviledges of the Adult is either 1. Of the unbaptized who are now first entered 2. Or of the Baptized in Infancy that never proved ungodly nor violated that first Covenant 3. Or of those Baptized whether in Infancy or at Age that have since Proved wicked and broke that Covenant The first of these Investitures is to be by Baptism the second by Confirmation and the third by Absolution So that the solemn Investiture that I am pleading for is by Confirmation to one sort that never proved ungodly since their Baptism and by Absolution to the other sort that broke their Covenant THe Baptism of the Adult we have not now to do with Of those that are Baptized in Infancy some do betimes receive the secret seeds of Grace which by the blessing of a holy education and some among the prophane is stirring within them according to their capacity and working them to God by actual desires and working them from all known sinne and entertaining further Grace and turning them into actual acquaintance with Christ as soone as they arrive at full natural capacity so that they never were Actual ungodly persons To these their Investiture in the state of Adult-members upon their personal Approved Profession is a Confirmation of the mutuall Covenant that it findeth them under and of them in that Covenant But there are others I doubt the most that since their infant Baptism have proved Actual wicked ungodly persons if not openly flagitious and scandalous yet at least unacquainted with any special sanctifying work till after they attain to the full years of discretion These break their Covenant made with God in Baptism in which they were devoted to him and engaged to live to him forsaking the flesh the world and the Devil And therefore these must come in as Penitents even as if they had proved wicked after an Adult Baptism they must do and therefore it is first an Absolution which they must receive not only a Particular Absolution from an Act of haynous sinne which afterwards may be renewed upon particular penitence but a General Absolution from a state of sinne Yet this doth consequently participate of the Nature of the former and hath a Confirmation in it or with it Not a Confirmation in the wicked state that such have lived in but a Renewal and solemn Confirming of the Covenant between God and them which in Baptism was made So that to such it is as an Absolution and Confirmation Conjunct Prop. 12. This solemn Investiture on personal Profession being thus proved the Ordinance of God for the solemn renewing of the Covenant of Grace between God and the Adult Covenanter it must needs fâ—llow that it is a corroborating Ordinance and that corroborating Grace is to be expected in it from God by all that come to it in sincerity of heart And so it hath the name of Confirmation upon that account also THe Papists quarrel with us and curse us in the Counsel of Trent for denying their Ends of Confirmation and making it another thing But they fasly describe our Opinion We do not take it to be a meer Catechising or receiving the Catechized to the Lords Supper or to a higher form But we take it to be the Approbation of the personal Profession of them that claime a Title to the Church-state and Priviledg of the Adult and an Investing them solemnly therâ—in upon the solemn Renewal and personal Adult enterance into Covenant with God Now in this Renewed Covenant as they give up themselves to Christ afresh and personally engage themselves to him and renounce his enemies owning their Infant-Baptism when this was done by others in their names so God is ready on his part to bless his own Ordinance with the Collation of that Corroborating Grace which the Nature of the Renewed Covenant doth import Otherwise God should appoint us means in vain and fail them in the Use of his own Ordinances that use them as he hath appointed which is not to be imagined Though the unsound hâ—pocritical Receivers may miss of this blessing and though as the Degrees of Coroborating Grace God is free to give it out as he pleaseth So that the Papists shall have no cause to say that we needlesly or erroneously do deny either the name of Confirmation or the true use and ends of it or the notional Title of a Sacrament to it in a larger yet not the largest sence We affect not to fly further from them then we needs must much less to fly from the Ancient Practice of the Universal Church But we must cravâ— their pardon if we introduce not their Anâ—ointing though ancient seeing when iâ— was used of old but as an Indifferent Cereâ—monie they have turned it now into a proper necessary Sacramental signe And if we give not the Confirmed a boxe on the eare as they do for a holy signe or abuse it not as they in many respects and turne it not into a meer deceiving formality in this also we must needs crave their pardon So much of the Name and Ends of Confirmation Prop. 13. Ministerial Imposition of hands in Confirmation and the fore-described sort of Absolution is a lawfull and convenient Ceremony and ordinarily to be used as it hath been of old by the Vniversall Church But yet it is not of such Necessity but that we must dispense in this Ceremony with scrupulous Consciences that cannot be satisfied to submit to it THus must we take heed of both extreams either of rejecting a Ceremony that hath so much to be said for 〈◊〉 as this hath or of making it more Necessary then it is to the wrong of tender Consciences that are not yet ripe enough to be well informed of it and to Answer the Objections that they have heard against it nor yet to receive your Answers I. For the first Part of the Proposition I think it may suffice 1. That Imposition of hands was used in Scripture times and so used as may invite us to imitation but not deter us from it at all 2. And that it hath been since of ordinary use in the Universal Church in this very case so that no other Original of it can be found but Apostolical yea we have exceeding probable evidence that the use of it was never interrupted from the daies of the Apostles down to the Reformation 3. Nor is it laid aside in many of the Reformed Churches So that you will find that as it 's easie to prove Lawful so it 's more likely to be a Divine Institution Necessary Necessitate praecepti then to be unlawfull I shall purposely say
of the means now And 1. When I have proved it once Appointed it lyeth on the contrary minded to prove it changed or ceased That 's the task of them that affirm it ceased If I shew them an obligation once laid they must prove it taken off Their only Argument is that the persons and occasion were only extraordinary and are ceased and therefore so is the signe or means To which I Answer 1. By denying the Antecedent both as to persons and occasion They were not Only extraordinary 2. By the denying the Consequence as it is inferred from the persons For extraordinary persons were our patterns for ordinary durable works But I prove the Negative 1. The Use and Ends of the Ancient Imposition of hands do still continue Therefore we are to judge that the signe and means is not to cease For the proofe of the Antecedent remember that I have before proved that it was not only though very eminently the gift of Tongues and Miracles that was then meant by the Holy Ghost that was given but also Corroborating Grace And the necessity and actual collation and use of this doth still continue 2. There is still a discernable Aptitude in the means to these necessary Ends. The Baptized believer may yet want the Joy of the Holy Ghost and boldness of Access to God and the shedding abroad of fuller Love in the heart Rom. 5. 5 And that Consolation which is much of the work of the promised Spirit which therefore is called the Comforter and that Corroboration and Stability which he needeth Now to have a Messenger of Christ that hath received a binding and loosing power in the Name of Christ to Encourage us in our Profession and to put up Solemn Prayers for us and as it were take us by the hand and place us in the higher form at least to place us at our first personal Profession among Adult believers and make particular application of the Promise to us and Bless us in the Name of Christ by virtue of their Ministerial Office this must needs tend much to confirm and comfort and encourage the weak Though still further Ministerial Confirmation by Praying and Exhortation will be necessary to the end Acts 14. 22. 15. 31 32. 3. The Scripture signifieth to us that Imposition of hands was of standing use in the Church and therefore not to cease with Miracles In Heb. 6. 2. We find it named among the parts of the Foundation Laying on of hands Now all the doubt is what Impositon of hands is there mentioned 1. For them that think the Apostle meaneth Jewish Imposition when he mentioneth the Christian Foundation Points I think their Opinion saveth me the labour of Confuting it 2. Either then it is Imposition of hands in case of Ordination or in case of Confirmation or in case of Absolution or for working Miraculous cures The last alone it cannot be because we find it among Foundation Points and find it a continued thing and because there is no evidence to lead us to such a restrained exposition And if it be in the case of Absolution or Ordination that Imposition is to continue it will by consequence be proved that it no more ceaseth here then there And usually they that question the use of it in one case question it in the rest 3. For my part I think that it is no one of these cases alone that the Scripture here speaketh of but of the Power and use of it in General for the Ministers of Christ to be his Instruments in conferring Evangelical Gifts and Power by imposition of hands We must not limit and restrain the sence of Scripture without Evident cause It is as if the Apostle had said You are long agoe taught the Necessity of Repenting and forsaking the works of Death and of Believing in the true God and of being Dedicated and Engaged to Father Sonne and Holy Ghost in the Baptismal Covenant in which you your selves have been consecrated unto God and received the remission of sinne and you have seen the Power that is given to the Ministers of Christ that by their Prayers and Imposition of hands Miracles have been wrought to confirm their Doctrine and Grace is given to confirm the Soul and Absolution and Peace is given to the Penitent and Ministeriall Power delivered to others c. But however you understand this Imposition of hands without apparent violence you must confess either Imposition in the case that we are speaking of or that which will warrant it and stands on the same ground to be here meant So 1 Tim. 5. 22. Lay hands suddenly on no man neither be partaker of other mens sinnes Some think that here is meant Imposition of hands in Ordination and some that it 's meant only of Confirmation and some of Absolution but however it will help us in the following Argument 4. Scripture fully proveth that Laying on of hands is a thing to be continued to other Vses where the reason of continuance is the same Therefore we are not to judge it ceased as to this use This Text last named shews that it is a standing or continued thing and if for Absolution then for Confirmation and if for Ordination then for both the other So 1 Tim. 4. 14. sheweth that the Presbytery did lay hands on Timothy in Ordination And if it cease not to this it ceaseth not to other continuing uses This much from Scripture for Imposition of hands is more then Nothing though it may not be so full as you expected But on the contrary Nothing is brought to prove it unlawfull that 's worth the mentioning The last thing that I have to do is to argue from the Practice of the Church as the Exposition of these texts of Scripture If the Universal Church of Christ have used Confirmation by Prayer and Laying on of hands as a Practice received from the Apostles and no other beginning of it can be found then have we no reason to think the Ceremony to be ceased or to interpret the forementioned Scripture contrary to this Practice of the Universal Church But the Antecedent is true as I now come briefly to prove supposing what Mr Hanmer hath said It is commonly known that the Ancientest Canons of the Church do speak of this as the unquestioned Practice and duty of the Church So that to recite Canons were loss of time in so known a case And if any say that Anointing and Crossing were Ancient I Answer 1. That they were as ancient in the Popish use as the Matter of a Sacrament or as necessary signes is not true nor proved but disproved by our Writers against the Popish Confirmation frequently 2. Nor can it be proved that they were as Ancient as Indifferent things 3. We prove the contrary because they were never used in Scripture times their being no mention of them 4. So that we bring Antiquity but to prove the continuance of a Scripture Practice and so to clear the sence
of it But the Papists plead the Fathers for that which Scripture is a stranger to If Ignatius ad Heronem Diaconum be genuine there 's this testimony Nihil sine Episcopis operare Sacerdotes enim sunt tu autem Diaconus Sacerdotum Illi baptizant sacrificant manus imponunt tu autem ipsis ministra I recite it out of Vshers ' Latin copy as supposed the most pure Tertullian lib. de Proscript cap. 36. appealing to the practice of the Apostle John in the Africane Churches mentioneth as his Faith that he taught one God the Creatour and Jesus Christ the Sonne of God and the Resurrection of the body and that he joyned the Law and Prophets with the Evangelical and Apostolik Writings and thence drunk this Faith And of his Practice he saith Aquâ signat Sancto Spiritu vestit Euchristiâ pascit as three distinct Ordinances Lib. de Baptismo cap. 8. Having mentioned Baptism and the Unction joyned to that and not then to Confirmation he addeth De hinc manus imponitur per benedictionem advocans invitans Spiritum Sanctum Idem de Resur Carn cap. 8. Sed caro abluitur ut anima emaculetur Caro unguitur ut anima consecretur Caro signatur ut anima muaiatur Caro manus Impositione adumbratur ut anima Spiritu illuminetur Cyprian ad Stephan Epist 72. Et ad Jubaian is too much for it I will not trouble you in citing any Writers since General Councels were in use because their testimony is enough He that would see such may read Barronius ad An. 35. at large So much for the proof of the fitness of Imposition of hands in Confirmation I come now to the second Part of my Proposition viz. That this Ceremony is not of such Necessity as that such as scruple it should be denied liberty of forbearing the reception of it if they submit to the Ministerial tryal and Approbation of their Profession and admission and reception to Church priviledges For proof of this consider 1. That we do not find that God any where Instituted this signe as a matter of Necessity still without interruption to be used but only that by holy men it was applyed as a convenient signe or gesture to the works in which they used it Even as Lifting up of hands in Prayer was ordinarily used as a fit gesture not wilfully to be neglected without cause and yet not of flat necessity or as kneeling in Prayer is ordinarily meet but not alway necessary We find no more Scripture for the one then for the other Which indeed sheweth on one side how causeless it is to question the Lawfullness of it any more then of Listing up the the hands or Kneeling and yet how little reason there is on the other side to make it a matter of flat necessity 2. As we find that Kneeling in Prayer and Lifting up the hands were oft omitted so we find that sometime the Holy Ghost is given before Baptism or Imposition of hands Acts 10. And we find not that the Apostles used it to all though I confess the Negative arguing is infirm yet it seems not probable that this was alwaies done 3. It is somewhat suspicious to find in Martyr's description of the Christian Churches Practices no mention of this nor any Sacrament but Baptism and the Lords Supper nor any of the Roman Ceremonies And Irenaeus and some other are silent in it 4. God maketh no Ceremonies under the Gospel so necessary except the two Sacraments not layeth so great a stress on them as under the Law And therefore we are not to interpret the Gospel as laying mens Salvation or the Peace of the Church on any Cerimonies unless we find it clearly expressed 5. For all that I have said from Scripture for Imposition of hands in Confirmation though the lawfulness of it is proved past doubt yet the proofe of the duty of using it is lyable to so many Objections as that I must needs conclude that the Gospel tenderness the sense of our mutual infirmities and our care of tender Consciences and of the Churches Peace should restrain all the Sons of Piety and Peace from making it a matter of flat Necessity and forcing them that scruple it to submit to it And now having said thus much of Imposition of hands and Confirmation as grounded on the Apostles example I must againe and againe remember you that this is in a manner but ex aebundanti and that the cause that I am pleading doth not at all need it but that I did before most clearly manifest the Truth of my position upon other grounds upon which I shall proceed and having shewed the Necessity of Ministerial judging of mens Profession and the personal Covenanting of the Adult and the Lawfullness of imposing hands therein I go on as to the manner Prop. 14. Though in Receiving Adult persons out of Infidelity by Baptism into the Church a sudden Profession without any stay to see their Reformation may serve tuâ—n yet in the receiving those that were Baptized heretofore into the Number of Adult-members or to the Priviledges of such their lives must be enquired after which must be such as do not confute their Profession VVE find in Scripture that the Converted were suddenly Baptized and they stayed not for any Reformation of life to go before Indeed the Ancient Chrches aferwards kept their Catechumens long in expectation but that was not to see their lives first reformed but that they might have time to teach them the Doctrine of Christ which they must know before they could be Converts indeed The Apostles did suddenly Baptize converted Jews and Proselites because they had so much preparatory knowledg as that a shorter teaching might acquaint them with the Christian doctrine But the Heathens must belong in learning so much as the Jews knew before Conversion Yet if the Catechumens did fall into gross sinne in time of their expectation and learning they were so much the longer delayed because it signifyed that their first professed desires of entering into the Church upon Christs terms were not right But the Baptized stand upon other terms For 1. They are already in Covenant with God the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost and have renounced the flesh the world and the Devil and promised obedience to God and to live according to their Covenant And this the Church hath still required of them as I shewed out of Justin Martyr and others before Dionysius or whoever else in lib de Hierarch Eccles saith Ipse autem se omnino ea quae tradentur sequuturum esse pollicetur And Ex eo praeterea quaerit num ita instituat vivere cum promisit asseverationibus c. upon which saith Albaspinaeus Quia scilicet fidem Christianam Christianumque vivendi genus mores sese complexos persequnturisque jucabant antequam baptizarentur in Tertul. de Paenit pag. 289. Postea Non accedebant ad Baptismum nisi de rebus
fidei plane instructi id est de Dei magnitudine potestate rebusque quae in Evangeliis continentur uno excepto Eucharistiae mysterio neque baptizabantur nisi post quam ea omnia se credere jurassent quorum fides a fide poenitentiae incipiebat c. Et in sequ Jucabant in Baptismo solennibus verbis se nunquam peccaturos deinde renunciabant Diabolo pompis ejus Denique Censurâ si peccarent post baptismum coercebantur So that men that are engaged in covenant with God must keep Covenant or manifest themselves Penitent for the violation of it before they are admitted to further Priviledges There is a long time in which they grow up from an Infant-state to an Adult and how they live in that time must be enquired after 2. Otherwise the Apostate would have equal Acceptance and Priviledges with the Faithfull 3. And so Penitence and Absolution would be excluded and confounded with meer Confirmation 4. Moreover the Baptized are obliged to be responsible for their lives being under the Government of Christs Ministers and among his Saints 5. For the sake of their own Souls and of the Church and Ordinances we must endeavour to preserve them from Corruption which lying Professions would introduce and therefore must not overlook or neglect such Evidence as is within our reach 6. Else Ministers that are by office to judg of their Profession would be unfaithfull Judges and forfeit their trust if they shall wilfully neglect any Evidence within their cognisance by which they may be enabled to judge But yet it is not the certainty of inward saving Grace that we must find out by mens lives for no man can have such certainty of another but only that their lives be not such as Null and Invalidate and confute their Profession and they live not in the perfidious violation of their Baptismal Covenant Prop. 15. It is not of flat Necessity that the Profession of the Expectant be made in the open Congregation or before many in order to his Confirmation and Admittance PRoved 1. It is not of Necessity that Converted Infidels be admitted by Baptism into the state of Adult-members upon a Publique Profession in a Congregation therefore it is not of Necessity that others be so admitted in Confirmation The Antecedent is proved by the instance of the Eunuch Acts 8. whom Philip Baptized in their way and the Jaylour and his houshold Acts 16. Baptzed in the night at home The Consequence is proved by the propriety of reason and case 2. If a man may by Confirmation be admitted into the Number of Adult Christians in the Church Universal without being admitted into a particular Church then his Profession and Admission need not in that case to be before the Congregation But the Antecedent is true as I prove thus A man may by Adult Baptism be admitted first into the Universal Church only As was the Eunuch the Jaylour Lydia Sergius Paulus and every first Convert in any City where the Apostles came Therefore a man may by Confirmation be admitted into the Number of the Adult in the Catholick Church only For the reason is the same and the former admitteth them into the same number The Consequence of the Major is plain For no one Congregation more then another can claim the cognisance of the Admission of a member into the Universal Church or Confirming them in it 3. Scripture hath no where made such Publique Admission to be of constant Necessity therefore it is not so 4. Else none could be Admitted or Confirmed when persecution hindereth Church Assemblies 5. The Church is to believe and trust the Pastours to whom it doth by office belong to try and admit them 6. General unfixed Ministers may thus try approve and confirm who are not Pastours of any particular Church such as Apostles Evangelists and others were therefore they are not alwaies to do it before a particular Church Nor indeed did they alway do so Prop. 16. When a Person is admitted among the Adult-members af a Particular Church as well as the Vniversal his Profession and Admission must be either before the Church or Satisfactorily made Known to the Church at least who must Approve of it by a Judgment of Discretion in order to their Communion with him and this among us is the ordinary case because it is the duty of all that have opportunity to joyn themselves to some particular Church and it is in such Churches that Communion in publique Worship and Order must be had either statedly or transiently and temporarily 1. THe solemnity it self of our Transition into the number of Adult-members and their Communion is of very great advantage as I shall manifest more anon 2. We that are commonly against the private Admission of Infants at least except in some urgent case have less reason to be for the private Transition and Admission of men among the Adult and that into a particular Governed Church 3. The whole Society among whom such a person is entered do owe him much duty and brotherly assistance They must Love him with a special Love They must live though not in a Levelling yet in a Charitable Community with him not shutting up the bowels of Compassion from him when they see him in want but relieving him as if they sufferd with him They are not only to Love him and Relieve him as a man but as one of Christ's little ones or friends yea as his brethren yea as loving and relieving Christ in them Matth. 25. 35. to the end They must receive and relieve a Disciple in the name of a Disciple Besides this they must have Church-Union and Communion with him as one Body and must pray for him and rejoice with him in Gods Praises and the Lords Supper and watch over him and admonish and reprove him in sinne for his recovery and avoid him if he walk disorderly and be impenitent in scandalous sinne c. Now 1. No man can perform all this duty to a man that he knoweth not to be thus related to him If he know not that he owes him this duty any more then to any one else in the world how shall he pay it him To say that we are bound to take all men that converse with us to be such is to say that Christians must renounce their witts and turn the Church into Bedlam 2. And as this proves that the Church-members must be made known to one another so it proves that they must have a Judgment of Discretion in receiving them though the Pastours have the Judgment of Governing Direction For 1. God hath not left the Pastours at liberty to take in whom they Please but hath described what Profession they shall accept or what persons they shall admit and whom they shall reject If therefore the Pastours go against the Word of God then this following is the peoples duty 1. If they know not the errour or the case be doubtfull they
are to rest in Obedience to their Pastours for that 's undoubtedly their duty the work being the Pastours and not theirs 2. But if the case be plainly contrary to the Scripture as if he would admit an Impenitent Drunkard Fornicatour c. they must disown his sinne that it lie not upon them and refuse private familiarity with that person but not withdraw from publick Ordinances because of his presence For when they have done their duty and rid themselves of the guilt by a dissent the person is to them as Morrally absent though Locally and Physically present and the Ordinance is not defiled to them by his Corporal presence but the guilt will lie on the Rulers of the Church otherwise all Churches should be broken in pieces if the people must seperate when every one that they are confident is unworthy is Introduced and the Governed will become the Governours 3. But if it be not a few that the Pastours thus introduce against the certain Word of God but so many and such as will corrupt the substance of the Church and make it an uncapable matter for the form and so to become another thing and destroy the very Ends of Church-association so that it is no longer a Communion of Saints then the people fearing God are bound to stop this before it have quite corrupted the Church by admonishing the Pastours and advising with neighbour Churches to admonish them and if that prevail not by rejecting them and if they cannot do so by reason of a Major Vote of uncapable persons they ought to withdraw themselves and worship God in such a Church as is truly capable of the Name and Ends And this is a Lawfull and Necessary separation of which as it is a duty God is the Cause and as it is a forsaking of the rest the culpable cause is only in themselves I can easily prove all this but that I think it needless tediousness 4. And indeed it would be very hard measure if at the corrupt administration of a carnal or carless or erroneous Pastour all the Church must be under an Obligation to give their estates by way of relief to every one that he will put the name of a Christian and Church member upon unworthily Then may he force them to maintaine all the beggars and rogues about them though they were Infidels and impious men I speak not of the common relief of the needy for that I know they owe to an Infidel but of the special Community which Charity must make among the Disciples of Christ It 's against all Reason that an erring or careless Pastour shall thus Command all the Peoples estates by introducing such without their consent whom they are bound thus to maintaine 5. Yea indeed the Spirit of God is in the Saints a Spirit of discerning so that it is not Possible that all the Church should in their Affections obey such a corrupt Administratour by Loving all the notorious ungodly men as Saints with the special Love of brethren whom he will carelesly or erroneously put in the place of Saints I cannot possibly Love that man as a Saint or Disciple of Christ that I am certain is his enemy and none such I conclude therefore that though the people be not Church-governours by a Vote that 's a great errour yet they have a Judgment of Discerning according to which they must obey or reject their Pastours administrations And he that denyeth this and would have them yield an Absolute obedience without trying choosing and refusing would not only make the Pastours to be of a Papal streine but would give them a Jesuitical Obedience above what the moderate Papists give the Pope And therefore seeing that ad finem there is a Necessity that the People consent or else they cannot Obey nor hold communion with the person therefore there is also the same Necesity ad finem that they have satisfaction offered them and have either the cognisance of the Profession and admission of the person or that they be satisfied in the fidelity of their Pastours in Administration and that he seek their consent or which is best that some chosen persons do Represent them and be present at such Professions with the Pastours and the Pastours and their own Delegates together do acquaint the Congregation of all that are Admitted and of their Satisfactory Prfession that they may hold Communion with them This I speak of those which are very many that are fit for Church-communion and yet through bashfullness or want of utterance are unable to make a Publike Profession before all The choisest Christians that I have known have been such But those that are able should rather in Publike make their own Profession Object But what if one part of the Congregation approve of the Person and Profession and the other disallow it Answ 1. They are to be governed by the Pastours 2. And consult with the Pastours of Neighbour Churchâ—â— in rules of great weight aed danger 3. And the lesser part of the Church in doubtfull cases and tollerable differences is to yield to the greater part Not as if a Major Vote had the Government of the rest much less of their Governours but in Order to Vnity the fewer must submit Quest But what if the people would have the Pastour Baptize Confirm or introduce an open hereticke or wicked person in his impenitency Answ The Pastour must obey God and refuse to obey them Quest And what if the People think a man unfit whom the Pastour would Approve and Introduce Answ 1. He may admit him into the Universal Church notwithstanding their unjust refusall 2. He hath power to Admit him into that particular Church against their unjust dissent as he is the Ruler of the Church and the Administratour of the Ordinances 3. He hath Authority to perswade and command them from Christ to hold communion with the person and do their duty to him which if they do not they commit a double sinne one of unjustice and uncharitableness in a causless rejecting of a member of Christ and another of disobedience against the fifth Commandement 4. But yet the Pastours cannot force the people to obey their advice and command nor effectually procure it perhaps 5. And therefore their forementioned Power is not alwaies to be exercised For it is in vaine to use a means that will rather hinder the End then attain to it and so is at that time no means Sometimes the Pastour may see just cause to exercise all this Power and execute his part of Church communion with the person in administring the Ordinances to him and leave the people answerable to God for refusing their part But this is not an usual case Usually if he see the People resolve against Communion with that person how fit soever he is publickly to cleare himself by disallowing them in their sinne and reproving them for it and leaving the blame on them and then in Prudence to forbear the Intruding
of the person because no duty is at all times a duty to be performed and especially when the hurt that will follow upon it in the divisions of the Church is like to be far greater then the good if it be done 6. But if the Church should be so corrupted as that the Major Vote doth set against Faith and Godlines as such and so will not admit a sound member to be added to them the Pastour with the Minor part may after due Admonition and Patience as justly reject the guilty and obstinate as if they were but one man and not a Major part What is said of this case of Admission holds also of Rejection by Excommunication and of other Antecedent acts of Discipline 4. Lastly If Excommunication must usually be done in publique before the whole Church that they may know whom to avoid and know the Reason of it then Admission must usually be done in publique the Person or the Pastour opening the case to the people that they may know whom to have Communion with and know the Reason of of it but the Antecedent is confessed by almost all And it s proved plainly by Paul's practice and direction 1 Cor 5. throughout And it was the custom of the Christian Churches in Tertullians daies Apolog. cap. 39. There also in the Christian meeting for Worship are exercised exhortations castigations and the Divine Censure for Judgment is passed with great deliberation or weight as with men that are assured of the presence or sight of God and it is the highest Representation of the Judgment to come if any one so offend as that he be discharged or banished from Communion of Prayer and of the Assembly and of all holy Commerce or fellowship Abundance more out of Cyprian and others might be easily produced to prove that this which I have spoken was the ancient interest of the people in these Church-affaires Yea in the choise of their Pastours yea and in rejecting unworthy Pastours Cyprian saith they had a chief Interest Not by Ruling Power but by a prudent exercise of obedience choosing the good and refusing the evil Self-preservation is naturall to every body where it is not by evil means and to the hurt of the Publike State It 's hard if a Natural body may not lawfully refuse or cast up Poison if a Governour should give it them God bindeth none to the perdition of their Souls nor any holy Society to destroy it self or suffer it self to be destroyed or corrupted by others without the use of all just means to resist the bane But of this I shall desire the Reader that would know the Judgment and Practice of the Ancient Church to peruse Dr Blondel de Jure plebis in Regimine Ecclesiast adjoyned to that excellent piece of Grotius de Imperio summarum Potâ—statum circa Sacra This much may satisfie you that it should not be usually a secret but a solemn Transition from an Infant-state of membership into an Adult-state and that by a publike Profession or Notification of it the particular Church should have satisfaction herein Prop 17. It is convenient though not of Necessity that every Church do keep a Register of all that are admitted thus into the Number of the Adult-members AS we were wont to keep a Register of the Infants Baptized so have we as much Reason of the Adult Approved and Confirmed or Restored Corporations of old were wont to keep a book of the names of their Burgesses or Citizens in respect to which God is said to have a Book of Life wherein he writes mens names and out of which he blots them speaking after the manner of men The Church hath great reason for this practice the business being of so great weight that we forget not who are of our Communion which without a Register in great Congregations must needs be done If any be so vaine as to demand a Scripture proofe of this let him first bring me a Scripture-proofe that he may read with spectacles or write a Sermon from the Preachers mouth or use Notes in the Pulpit or print c. and then I will give him proofe of this In the mean time if this do not satisfie him he shall have liberty to disuse it Prop. 18. Those that were never thus Ministerially and Explicitly Approved Confirmed or Absolved after an ungodly life but have been permitted without it to joyne ordinarily with the Church in Prayer and Praises and have been admitted to the Communion of the Church in the Lords Supper are approved and confirmed Eminently though not Formally though in so doing both the Pastours and themselves did sin against God by the violation of his holy Order So that such may be a true Church though much corrupted or disordered THis I adde for two Reasons 1. To confute them that say our Churches are no true Churches for want of an explicite Profession 2. And to acquaint you who it is among us that are or are not to be called to Confirmation 1. It is not the degree of clearness and openness in our Profession or in the Ministerial Approbation or Admission that is Essential to a Church-member An obscure Profession may be truly a Profession Some obscure Profession hath been ordinarily made by our people in this Land heretofore by their ordinary hearing the Word and standing up at the Recital of the Creed and joyning with the Church in Prayer and Praise and confessing the Scriptures to be the Word of God and acknowledging the Ministry And a further Profession they made by actual receiving the Lords Supper which is a silent Profession of their Faith in Christ And though they were not solemnly Approved and Confirmed except that one of many had a Cerimonious Confirmation from the Bishop in their Childhood yet were they Actually admitted to daily Communion with the Church and the special part of Communion in the Lords Supper And though this Profession and admission was lamentably defective of which more anon yet it is such as may prove our ordinary Assemblies to have been true Churches 2. And I do not think it fit that any that have been already admitted to Church-communion in the Lords Supper should be now called out to Confirmation by Imposition of hands though where there is just cause to question their Knowledg Faith or lives they may by the Postour be called to give an account of them and put upon a clearer Profession then they have yet made But sure when they have been admitted to the Lords Supper by any regular Ministry and Church they are to be taken for Adult-members till they are justly cast out or do cast out themselves For the more Perfect doth include the less Perfect in it If a man be ordained a Presbyter that was never ordained Deacon he is not to be called back againe and made a Deacon If you make a man free of your Trade before he was ever bound prentice you cannot call him back againe and bind him
upon the duty of Personal instruction I should never have known the state of the people But now we have dealt with them almost all in private personally I shall truly tell you the state of this Parish by which you may conjecture at the rest of the Nation I know not a Congregation in England that hath in it Proportionably so many that fear God and yet our whole Parish consisteth of all these sorts following 1. Among eight hundred Families there are about five hundred persons such as the vulgar call precise that are rated to be serious Professours of Religion or perhaps somewhat more These live in Unity and seem to me to seek first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness and are of as peaceable harmless humble Spirits and as unanimous without inclination to Sects or Ostentation of their parts as any people I know 2. Besides these there are some of competent Knowledg and exterior performances and lives so blameless that we can gather from them no certain Proofe or violent Presumption that they are ungodly or that their Profession is not sincere So many of these joyning with the rest as make about six hundred do own their Church-membership and consent to live under so much of Church-Order and Government as unquestionably belongeth to Presbyters to exercise and to be my Pastoral charge 3. Besides these there are some that are tractable and of willing minds that by their expressions seem to be ignorant of the very Essentials of Christanity which yet I find to have obscure conceptions of the truth when I have condescendingly better searcht them and helped them by my enquiries These also as weak in the Faith we receive 4. Some there are that are of competent understandings and of lives so blameless that we durst not reject them but they hold off themselves because they are taught to question if not to disown our Administrations for all that we give liberty to all that in tollerable things do differ 5. Some there are that are secret Heathens believing with Aristotle that the world was from Eternity making a scorn of Christ and Moses and Heaven and Hell and Scripture and Ministers and all Religion thinking that there is no Devill no Immortality of the Soul or Everlasting Life But this they reveale only in secret to those that they find capable by viciousness unsetledness or any malignity or discontent against the Godly or the Orders of the Church And yet for the hiding of their minds they will hear and urge us to baptize their children and openly make the most Orthodox Confessions and secretly deride it when they have done as I can prove And this is the only differing party among us in Judgment and designe that is in danger of leavening many that God forsaketh 6. many there are that have tollerable knowledg and live in some notorious scandalous sins some in gross Covetuousness and these will not be convinced some in common drunkenness and those will confess their faults and promise amendment a hundred times over and be drunk within a few daies againe and thus have spent the most part of their lives some in as constant â—ipling drinking as great a quantity but bearing it better away some in ordinary swearing cursing ribaldry whoredomes sometimes Many in neglect of all Family-duties and the Lords Day and some in hatefull bitter scorns at Prayer holy Conference Church-Order and holy living and the people that use it sometimes rising up in tumults against the Officers that endeavour to punish a drunkard or Sabboth breaker and rescuing them and seeking the ruine of the Officers 7. Some there are that are of more tractable dispositions but really know not what a Christian is that heare us from day to day yea and some few of them learn the words of the Catechism and yet know not almost any more then the veryest Heathen in America They all confess that we must mend our lives and serve God but they know not that God is Eternal or that Christ is God or that he is man but say he is a Spirit some say neither God nor man some say God and not man some say man and not God abundance say He was man on earth but now He is not Abundance know not what He came to do in the world nor that there is any satifaction made for sinne but what we must make our selves and they tell me they trust to nothing for Pardon and Salvation but Gods Mercy and their good serving him which is only saying every night and morning in bed or as they undress them the Lords Prayer and the Creed for a Prayer and comming to Church They say openly they do not know of any surety that we have or any that hath borne the punishment of our sinne or suffered for us And when I repeat the History of the Incarnation life death and resurrection of Christ to them they stand wondering and say they never heard it before what the Holy Ghost is they know not nor what Sanctification Faith or Justification is nor what Baptism is nor the Lords Supper nor to what use but in general for our Salvation What a Church is they know not nor what is the Office of Pastour or People save only to preach and hear and give and receive the Sacraments If I ask them what Christianity is the best answer is that it is a serving God as well as we can or as God will give us leave So that there is scarce an Article of the Creed or very few that they tolerably understand Nay one of about fourescore yeares of age now dead thought Christ was the Sunne that shineth in the Firmament and the Holy Ghost was the Moone 8. Many there be that joyne this Heathenish ignorance and wicked obstinacy together hating to be instructed scorning to come neer me to be taught and to be told of their sinne when they come They will raile at us bitterly behind our backs if we will not let them have their own will and way about the Sacraments and all Church-affaires but they will not submit to that Teaching that should bring them to know what Christ or Christianity is 9. Some there be that are of tollerable knowledg and no Drunkards nor Whoremongers that the world knoweth of but of more plausible lives and have some formes of Prayer in their families but yet live in idle or tipling company or spend their lives in vanity and hate more a diligent serving of God and heavenly life then the open Drunkars do These make it their work to possess people with a hatred of strict Professours and of our Churches and Administrations and to that end get all the books that are written for admitting all to the Lords Table that they can light of and contrary to the Authors meanings they make them Engines to harden others in their Impiety and hatred of Reformation The like use they make of the Writings of manâ—y Dissenting Divines about Church-governemnt or
the Souls of our poor people are deluded and they are made believe that they are Christians when they are not and in a state of Salvation when it 's no such thing As Mr Thorndicke saith as aforecited No man is to be admitted to the Assemblies or visible societies of Christians till there be just presumption that he is of the Heavenly Jerusalem that is above And admitting to and excluding from the Church is or ought to be a just and Lawfull presumption of admitting to or excluding from Heaven It is morally and legally the same act that entitleth to Heaven and to the Church that maketh an heir of life Everlasting and a Christian And if so then what greater mischief can we do the Soul of an ungodly man then so to delude him by our admitting him into the Church and make him believe he is in a state of Salvation when it 's no such thing False faith and false hopes are the things that fill Hell and are the common undoing of the world And all that ever we can do is too little to cure it When I bend all my studies and labours but to make a wicked man know that he is wicked I cannot procure it I can make him believe that he is a sinner but not that he is an unconverted ungodly sinner and in a state of Condemnation O the power of blinding self-love that will not suffer them to see themselves miserable when they see themselves sinfull and all because they would not have it so when yet it 's most visible to others And shall we all joyne to strengthen this potent Enemy and lay this share and thrust men headlong into Hell that are running down-hill so fast already and all under pretence of Charity and Compassion 7. We shall put them by this means into a way not only of losing the fruit of Ordinances but of misapplying all to the increasing of their deceit When we preach Peace to the true believer the wicked will misapply it and say it belongs to them When we speak against the unbelievers and ungodly they 'l think that this is not their part but bless themselves because they are Christians In our praises they are tempted with the Pharisee to thank God and perhaps for mercies which they never had as Justification Adoption Sanctification c. The Sacraments by misapplication will confirm them in Presumption And thus as they enter by deceit among Adult-believers so will they turn all the Ordinances of God and the Priviledges of the Church to feed that deceit more effectuall then among the expectants it would have been 8. But the greatest mischief that troubleth me to think of is this that by this hastening and admitting all the unprepared into the Number of Adult-Christians and members of the Church we do either put a necessity upon our selves to throw away Church-discipline or else to be most probably the damnation of our peoples Souls and make them desperate and almost past all hope or remedy I must confess that what I am saying now I was not sensible of till lately that experience made me sensible While I medled not with Publike reproofs or censures I disputed of these things without that experience which I now find is one of the greatest helps to resolve such doubts which makes me bold to tell the Church that the Practice of so much Discipline as we are agreed in is a likelyer way to bring us all to agreement in the rest then all our Disputings will do without it And that I resolve hereafter to take that man for an incompetent Judge and unmeet Disputer about Church-discipline that never exercised it or lived where it was exercised And I shall hereafter suspect their judgments and be almost as loath to follow such as to follow a swimmer that never was before in the water or a Pilote that was never before at sea or a Souldiour that never saw warres before but have only learned their skill by the Book Our case stands thus If we take all our Parishes according to the old Church-constitution to be particular Churches and all the Parishiones to be members then either we must exercise the Discipline which Christ hath commanded or not If not then we disobey our Lord and Master and own such a Church as is utterly uncapable of Church-ends and consequently of the essence seeing that it is a Relative being For it 's supposed that it is not for any unusual accident that we cannot exercise this Discipline but from the very Church constitution or incapacity of the matter And then 1. We shall be Traitours to Christ under the name of Pastours if we will wilfully cast out his Ministerial Kingly Government 2. We shall betray the Church to licentiousness And 3. We shall set up a new Church-way which is contrary to that which hath been practised in all ages from the Apostles daies till Impiety had overspread the Christian world He that dare take on him to be an Overseer and Ruler of the Church and not to oversee and rule it and dare settle on such a Church-state as is uncapable of Discipline is so perfidious to Christ and ventureth so boldly to make the Church another thing that I am resolved not to be his follower But if we shall exercise the Discipline of Christ upon all in our ordinary Parishes what work shall we make I will tell you what work from so much experience as that no reasonings can any more perswade me to believe the contrary then that wormwood is not bitter or snow not cold 1. We shall have such a multitude to excommunicate or reject that it will make the sentence grow almost contemptible by the commonness 2. We shall so extreamly enrage the spirits of the people that we shall go in continual danger of our lives Among so many that are publikly reproved and cast out it 's two to one but some desperate villains will be studying revenge But all this is nothing but that which sticks upon my heart is this 3. We shall be the cruellest enemies to the Souls of our poor people in the world and put them the very next step to Hell For as soon as ever we have rejected them and cast them under publique shame they hate us to the heart and either will never heare us more or heare us with so much harted and malice or bitterness of spirit that they are never like to profit by us If you say that doubtless Discipline will have better fruits if it be an Ordinance of God I Answer 1. It 's no time now in the end of the world to question whether that be an Ordinance of God which Scripture speaks for so fully and so plainly and which the Catholike Church hath so long practised and that with such severity as it hath done 2. I know the Discipline is of excellent use and is likely to have excellent effects But upon whom Upon such as are fit to come under Discipline and with
is Excommunication to be deferred as long as there is any Hope by other meanes but only till we have used other means in vaine for such a season as is meet that the ends of Discipline be not frustrate For else there should never man be Excommunicated For there is some Hope that preaching against his sinne may do him good at last though he come drunk to the Lords Table twenty years together you cannot say that his Conversion is Impossible And yet we must not hereupon deferre the casting out of such a member But in his Expectant state or among the Catechumens we may beare with him lawfully in his wickedness without excluding him from among our hearers and if he heare us seaven years and seaven in vaine there is yet some Hope of his Conversion while he waiteth in his own place and way And yet I yield this much to the Objectours freely that when fit persons are taken into the Church yea or unfit by negligence we must wait with all patience that is consistent with the ends of Government and cutting off must be the last remedie and that when it is necessary it must be used though we see that it 's ten to one it will plunge the person occasionally into a worse condition For the Publike Ends of Discipline the credit of Christianity the preservation of the Church and abundance more are to be preferred before the good of that mans Soul and as paena debetur Reipublicae and we cut not off malefactours for their own good so much as the Common-wealths which by their hurt must be promoted so is it as to the Church But this must be done but upon a few for example and therefore but few that will need this severity are supposed to be in our Communion And I cannot believe that way to be of God that would bring such multitudes into this miserable state Object Your very keeping them from the Communion of the Church and not Approving or Confirming them would as much exasperate them Answ It 's no such matter Much it may but not neare so much as I certainly know by experience Those not Admitted heare with Hope but to the rejected I speak as almost hopeless except such as were fit to live under Discipline on whom it may have its due effect 9. And by this admitting all men without tryal and Confirmation to come unobservedly into the state of Adult-Christians we breed and feed continual heart burnings against the Ministers of Christ while we are necessitated to do our work upon such unprepared Souls And how much the hatred and contempt of Ministers doth conduce to the destruction of the people Satan is not ignorant that is the diligent promoter of it 10. By this means also we frustrate our own studies and Ministerial Labours to abundance of our people Partly by deluding them actually in the Reception of them among Christians that really are no Christians and partly by this provocation of their hatred 11. By this means also we breed and feed abundance of Controversies in the Church For when once we displace any parts of the frame we shall find almost all in pieces and one errour draweth on so many that Controversies grow numerous and will never be reconciled by meere words and writings till we actually set the Church in joynt againe 12. By this course also we lay open the Ordinances of God to a continual prophanation while abundance that know not who Christ is nor what Christianity is are admitted as Christians to our Christian Communion and so themselves are involved in more sinne and Gods own Worship turned into Provocation so that we may feare lest God should frown upon our Assemblies and withdraw the tokens of his Presence and deny his blessing to those prophaned Ordinances Though the innocent may still have their share in the blessing yet may the Pastours and the guilty majority deeply suffer by this great abuse of holy things 13. By this means also it is that so many Scruples are cast in our way about Administrations and reception of Ordinances and the comfort of Ministers and people in them is much abated 14. And I doubt it is a hinderance to the Conversion of many sects about us and of many ungodly ones among us who if they saw the primitive holiness of Churches might be drawn in 15. And it much corrupteth the Communion of Saints and turneth it to another thing when this Holy Communion is so much of our duty and our comfort and such a Representation of Heaven it self 16. And if it be not a practical denial of some of the Articles of our Faith it 's well We say there that we Believe the Catholike Church to be Holy and that it is a Communion of Saints that is by the parts of it to be exercised And shall we deny this in our works which in words we profess 17. By this means also we dishonour the work of Reformation when we hinder the fruits of it that should be visible to the world and make men believe that it lieth but in a change of bare opinions They that see no great difference between the Reformed and the Romanists in their lives will think it is no great matter which side they are joyned to It 's noted by some Protestant Writers that when Luther opposed Popery in Germany abundance of the common licentious people that were weary of Popish Confessions and Penances did joyne with those that were truly conscientious and dishonoured the Reformation by their lives though they increased the number and did the service as Erasmus his Gospeller that used to carry a bottle of wine and Erasmus New Testament with great brass bosses and when he disputed with a Papist knockt him about the pate with the Bible and so confuted him 18. And by this means we give the Papists more roome then they should have to reproach our Churches and glory comparatively of the Holiness of theirs Though I know that their glory is exceeding unreasonable and that our Impurities are no more to theirs then a few boiles to a Leprosie yet we do ill to give them so much occasion as we do who are ready to make the worst of all 19. By this means also we leave all Sects to quarrel with us and dispute against us even whether we be true Churches of Christ or not because our Adult-profession and Covenant is no more express and discernable then it is And though we have enough to prove our selves a Church yet do we leave them under their temptations and our selves under the obloquy And indeed we perversly maintain our own dishonour while we think it a condition to be rested in if we can but prove our selves true Churches when our Learned Divines do give as much to the Romanists themselves though not as Papal yet as Christian A Leper is a true man and yet his cure is a thing to be desired 20. Lastly By this means also we tempt many well meaning people among
Opinion right let it not so farre dispossess you of Charity and Reason as to unchurch all the Churches of Christ that thinke otherwise or to cast off Communion with the Godly that are not of your Opinion as long as we come so near you as to take none into the Number of Adult Church-members but those that are Confirmed or Approved by Christs Ministers upon their personal credible Profession of Faith and Holiness Lay all this together and we may well conclude that this Practice of Ministerial Approbation and Confirmation or Restoration of all that are admitted into the Number of Adult-Christians or visible Church-members and to their Priviledges is so necessary and so admirably fitted both for Reformation and Reconciliation of the Episcopal Presbyterian Independants Erastian and moderate Anabaptists and to stop the mouths of the Intemperate and of the Papists that all Magistraâ—es Ministers and People that love the Churches Purity and Peace and long to see it clensed and healed should gladly embrace it and vigorously promote it it I Have two things yet more to do upon this Subject 1. To answer some Objections and 2 To give some Directions to all sorts for the effectual putting it in execution The Objections are these Object 1. You will tempt the Anabaptists to say that this is but a shift of our own devising instead of Baptism lest we should yield to them when we are convinced of the Necesity of a personal Covenanting by the Adult Answ There is no Ordinance or Truth of God that will not be spoken against by mistaking men and yet we must not therefore cast them away Nor is it the way to vindicate a Truth or Ordinance from reproach to disclame it and so to reproach it actually our selves Nor is it the way to get advantage of an adversary to fly fom him too far into the contrary extreame but rather to come as neare him as the truth will give us leave And to the Anabaptists Objection we shall give them our reasons against their way in a fitter place and have already done it We are most certain that the Servants of God of old both with Circumsion and without it Deut. 29. did enter their children into Covenant with God as well as themselves And if it be the express Word of God that both Infants and Aged should be entered and engaged to him in Covenant we will obey his Word and do both though the Anabaptists will do but the one He must have a hard face that will deny that it was once the duty of Parents to offer their children to God and enter them into Covenant with him and when they have proved that this Duty or Power is recalled which I never yet saw done no not in Mr. Tombes his last Voluminous Review then we will forbeare it but till then it is not mens talk and confident words that must make a tender Conscience yield to omit so great and plain a duty or give up so great a Mercy as this is I am sure that Infants were then no more able to believe themselves nor enter themselves in Covenant with God then now and I am sure the Parents by Gods appointment did it for them offering and engageing them to God and that God hereupon is called their God and they his people and that usually the signe of the Covenant was annexed And I am sure that Parents have as much Natural Interest in their children now as then And I never yet saw where God had acquit us of this duty or withdrawn this Mercy from us and our seed Object 2. The proof which you bring for this Confirmation is so obscure that it is not like to be generally received Answ It was generally received in almost all the Churches on earth till lately And as far as I plead for it it is yet Doctrinally at least owned and maintained even by those Churches that practically have disused it Of all the Christians on Earth I suppose there is a thousand if not ten thousand for it doctrinally or dogmatically for one that is against it if we judge by the Laws Confessions and writings of their guides Though the Greeks I know do not own the Popish Confirmation nor have it not so formally as they should and the Papists have corrupted it by their abuse yet the thing in substance is owned dogmatically by almost all the Christian world And they must be very singular persons that disowne it 2. And I think the proofe that hath been given you is clearer then you have for the Morality of the Lords day for constant family Prayer for Infant Baptism and many a holy Duty which yet we have sufficient proof for What would you have plainer Is there the least doubt of it whether a Presonal Profession and Covenanting with God be necessary to him that will be taken into the Number of Adult Christians and possess their Priviledges and Communion Or whether this Profession must be approved by the Pastour of the Church and known to them that must hold Communion with him Prove if you can that ever one man was admitted among Adult-Christians to enjoy Communion with them without such a personal Profession You cannot prove it If Infant-Covenanting were enough for the Adult then Infidels are Believers 3. Object But this will make Ministers to be Lords of the Church when no man can be taken into the Church or possess the Priviledges of a Christian till he be Approved by them This will put a Tyrannical Power into their hands Answ 1. Such a Tyranical Power as every Physician hath who may choose or refuse his patients or every School-master hath that may choose or refuse his Schollars if he engage not himself to the contrary as Plato Zeno and every Philosopher did in his Schoole 2. It is such a Tyranny as Christ hath unquestionably set up and to accuse him of setting up Tyranny is an unkind part of them that look to be saved by him 3. It is a Power that hath Constantly been exercised by the Officers of Christ and did not men smel out the Tyranny of it till now What Prince did govern the Church doores and judge who should be admitted from the daies of Christ till Constantines daies when the Church was at the purest yea or ever after for many a hundred yeares Did not all the Apostles and every Preacher of the Gospel Baptize those that they convetred and judge of them whether they were Baptizable And did not the Bishops Confirm the Baptized without consulting another Power Half that were admitted into the Church by Baptism and more for some hundred yeares after Christ were the Adult and of these the Pastour required a personal Covenant and Profession The other half were their Infants and for them they required the Parents Profession and entering them into Covenant But still the Pastours were the Judges who were the administers 4. If you think it too much Power for us I beseech you think it too much work for
Christians but to give them Infant Priviledges upon the Parents Profession but to require of them a sober serious Profession and Covenanting by themselves in owning their Baptismal Covenant before we number them with Adult-Christians And that God hath suffered the Anabaptists to make such a stirre among us will prove a mercy to us in the End if we have the wit and grace to learn this upon this troublesome occasion and then the Reformation will do us more good then ever the Anabaptists did us harm But if we will not learne nor obey Gods call we must yet looke to be molested by them more or else to do and suffer worse Object 9. But if you will not take a non-renouncing of Christ and Infant Baptism as sufficient without a Personal Covenant and Profession you may on the same grounds call men every week to such a Profession because that the former Profession shews not what they afterwards are but what then they are Answ 1. The case is quite another In your instance it is but the continuance of the same Profession and Condition that is requisite And I am bound to take it as continued while I have no Evidence to question it and see the performance of it as far as belongeth to my cognisance But in my case the Conditions and the Professions are not the same A new Condition of Right is necessary to the Adult which they had not at all in their Infant Baptism Then they entered upon their Parents Faith or Profession but at age they must necessarily have a Faith or Profession of their own or else they actually cease to be Christians 2. And yet let me adde that frequent Professions of Faith and renewing Covenant with God have ever been used in the Church both before Christs Incarnation and since and indeed the Lords Supper doth import it And for my part I thinke it a very convenient edifying course to have the Articles of our Faith every day repeated as the Belief of that Church and the people to stand up at it to signifie their consent so be it you will not take up with this silent Profession alone and exclude a more explicite one when it is requisite But this fitly signifieth our standing to the first Object 10. But this will cast you upon the same difficulties which you Object to the Anabaptists you will not know at what Age to take men for Adult-Christians Answ 1. We shall not accept them for their Age but for their Profession And we can easily tell when they offer themselves to tryal and Profession and desire the Communion of the Church As the Ancient Churches could tell when their Catechumens were to be baptized 2. And for the time when we must judge their Infant Church-state to cease if they own not the Covenant personally we cannot set a certaine yeare nor is it necessary but when their Infancy ceaseth then their Infant-state ceaseth That is when they come to the full or competent use of Reason But then observe 1. That if they be called at such a time to profess their Faith and own their Covenant and refuse it then we must judge them refusers of Christianity unless the Reasons of the Refusal allows another judgment 2. Or if they will fully neglect for a considerable space to own their Baptismal Covenant and to seeke a standing among the Adult-Christians it 's a strong presumption that they are Backsliders 3. If they only suspend their personal Profession at age we must only suspend our Judgment till we have some light to discern the cause and cannot be sure that there are Deserters or Apostates 4. But we are sure that they are nor to be numbred by the Church among Adult Christians till they have produced the Evidence of their Title which is no other then A Credible Personal Profession So that it 's easy to know when any such person is to be admitted and publikely owned as an Actual Believer though it be not so easy to discern of all before that time whether they are to be reckoned as Desertours or not He that wilfully neglecteth to come among the Adult Christians long after he hath the full use of Reason which is not with all at the same age is to be much suspected at least And commonly about 16 or 17 or 18 years of age is the time when we have reason to expect that they should seek the Communion and Privilidges of the Adult For about that age they have a competent use of Reason Object 11. But if you admit them into the Church in Infancy say the Anabaptists you will be obliged to excommunicate them all that prove ungodly when they come to age and not to let them silently pass out of the Church again Answ Excommunication is either an excluding them from all Relation of members to the Catholike Church or from the actual Communion of the Church or from both The former we can do but Declaratively In the latter we also adjoyne the charge of God for the execution of the sentence But those that were never personal Professours of Faith nor admitted into the Communion of Adult-Christians are not fit to be cast out of it And this is the common use of Excommunication to remove those as unfit from the Communion of the Adult that once were in it and forfeit that Communion which cannot belong to them that never were in it And for our Declaring them Desertours or Apostates we may do it upon just occasion but we are not bound to do it publikely by all that are guilty this being not the Excommunication that is so enjoyned in the Scriptures Where do you find that the Church in Scripture-times or after was wont to Excommunicate Apostates And yet Apostates were formerly of the Church It is those that hang on and pretend still to be of the Church and intrude into the Actual Communion of it that we must cast out when they deserve it Object 12. But if they cease to be Christians you must Baptize them againe if you will receive them Answ No such matter The Anabaptists themselves will not Rebaptize an Apostate when he returneth to the Church He is to be received by Confession and Absolution and not by Baptism If a Christian turn Turk and afterward Return he is not to be Rebaptized Object 13. But by this means you will unchristen the people and then they will be exasperated and turn Heathens or hearken to any seducers that will mislead them Answ 1. No we will unchristen no man but do that honour to Christianity and that right to the Church and the Soules of men as to make a difference between Christians and Infidels and that somewhat wider then the bare Names He that is a Christian shall be more encouraged by this course and he that is not cannot be unchristened by us If men will not unchristen themselves they need not fear lest the just trying and approving of their Christianity should unchristen them 2. How little
honour it is to Christ and the Church to have the number made up by such as we would disallow I have shewed you before and also what a mischief that is to themselves which some would give them as a benefit 3. If Magistrates and Ministers do their duty yea or but Ministers alone they will better be kept from Heathenism or other evils in the state of Expectants and Catechumens then in the state of Church-members where Discipline will make them mad Object 14. But at least your designe lookes as if you would keep the Children of all such unchristened and what work would that make Answ I medle not with that Question but leave every man to his own Judgment And if I did my self keep off such children I think it would prove but very few For 1. I would refuse none of the Parents that had aliquid Christi that made but a Credible Profession of Christianity 2. I am perswaded that this Practise would bring almost all the people to a tollerable Profession when they know it is expected and what lieth on it 3. Upon experience now I find that both the Parents are seldom so bad as to be uncapable of offering their child to God in the Judgment of the Church Nay commonly here the more one of the persons is in scandalous sinne the more the other hates it And they are seldom both grosly ignorant And those that were delayed on these terms would receive no wrong by it Gods way is the best The Children of unbelievers must not be inchurched in waies of our devising nor respected before the honour of Christ and the common good of the Church of God But of this I say againe I interpose not my Judgment but leave each man to his own Object 15. But though Confirmation be a duty yet none but Bishops have power to do it and therefore it is not a lawfull thing for Presbyters to attempt it Answ 1. What mean you by Bishops It is a word that hath by mens application got so many significations that we may well expect that you give us the Definition of a Bishop before you make him the matter of your Dispute And yet I have read so many Bookes that Dispute for Episcopy and so few that tels us what they mean by it that I must needs say that most of them lose their labour with such as I. If by a Bishop you mean such as our English Bishops were or any fixed Pastour of many particular Churches I deny that such were ever Instituted by Christ much less have they the sole Power of such administrations 2. Do you meane that it is by Gods Law or the Laws of men that Diocesan Bishops only may Confirm If by Gods Laws prove it and we shall quickly yield But that it 's very unlikely you should do If you say that only the Apostles had this Power I Answer 1. That then fixed Diocesan Bishops had none of it For the Apostles were none such 2. Then Timothy Titus â—paphroditus c. when they pretend to have been Bishops had it not 3. Ananias was no Apostle that laid hands on Paul that he might receive the Holy Ghost of this more anon But if you say that this Power is given to the Bishops meerly by the Laws of men then either by the Laws of Magistrates or of Bishops For the former we know of none in force with us to that purpose and if they were it is a work without their line which Christ hath done before them and not left to them to describe the Offices of his Church And for Bishops Canons we know no Power that any Bishops ever had to make standing Laws for the Universal Church nor of any such Laws that are obligatory to us And the Opponents themselves do violate the Canons of General Councils without scruple as the 20th of 1. Con. Nic. and abundance more and how can they oblige us more then them 3. Presbyters have the Keys of the Kingdom Therefore they may takein and Confirm thereby 4. Presbyters may by Baptism take in members into the Vniversal Church and judge of their fitness in order thereto therefore much more may they Confirm them and judge of their fitness in order thereto 5. It s granted that Presbyters may Absolve which was ordinarily by Imposition of hands yea saith Bishop Vsher the Deacons were sometime allowed it therefore Presbyters may Confirm Or if you yielded but Absolution you would yield much of what we contend for seeing so many violate their Baptismal Covenant that Absolution for Restoring of them will be as necessary as Confirmation 6. Hierome that makes Presbyters and Bishops by Gods Law to be the same doth yet according to the custom of the Church say that What doth the Bishop except Ordination which the Presbyter doth not therefore he supposed that Presbyters might Confirm 7. The same Hierome expresly saith that Imposition of hands was reserved to the Bishop for the honour of Priesthood rather then by Divine Ordinatlon Therefore it is but a humane institution 8. The Episcopal Divines and other Writers of their side do commonly maintaine the validity of Presbyters Ordination viz. that in case of Necessity it is lawfull and where there is no flat Necessity it is not a nullity where it is irregular I cited Christian Concord pag. 53 54 c. many Bishops and their defenders that thus justifie the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops as Dr. Field Bishop Dâ—wname Bishop Jewel Saravia Bishop Alley Bishop Pilkington Bishop Bridges Bishop Bilson Grotius Lord Digby Mr. Chisenhal Bishop Davenant Bishop Prideaux Nowel Bishop Andrews Mr. Chillingworth to whom I adde to make up twenty 17. Bishop Bramhal of Schism 18. And Dr. Steward in his Answer to Fountaines Letter 19. Dr. Ferne 20. And Bishop Vsher in his Judgment lately published Abundance more might easily be added but Mr. Mason's Book in vindicacation of the Ordination of the forraigne Reformed Churches may serve instead of more 9 We have no Bishop to do it and therefore it must be done by Presbyters Or we have none that we know of and non esse non apparere are to us all one 10. Presbyters may Impose hands in Ordination and ever did here in England Therefore much more in Absolution and Confirmation 11. King Charles by the advice of his Doctours in the Isle of Wight reserved only Ordination and not Confirmation and Absolution to the Bishops 12. Presbyters are Governours of the Churches which are their Pastoral charge and are called Rectors see Bishop Vshers Reduction of Episcopacy c. proving it Therefore they may do this which is an act of Government or Guidance of the particular Church 13. Presbyters must teach and oversee the people as their charge and deliver them the Sacrament Therefore they must judge to whom they must do it 14. A Diocesane Bishop is uncapable of doing it faithfully Could one man Try Approve and Confirm faithfully all
the Souls in 200 or 300 Churches It 's known that here they did not and it 's plain they cannot If they lay hands on them without Tryal upon the Presbyters word then 1. This yieldeth all save the Ceremony which we require 2. And it is a venturing their practises on the judgment and fidelity of other men who may send them Infidels to be Confirmed for ought they know But if they Try themselves they are never able to do for so many in season some will be old men before the Bishop will have leisure to Confirm them and many a hundred die without it Nor do they know the people as their Pastours do 15. The Doctrine and Practise of the Church of England under the Bishops is for the Power of Presbyters herein as far as we desire For 1. The Presbyters of Curates had by the Rubrick the Tryal and Approbation of those that were sent to the Bishop for Confirmation 2. The Bishops accordingly tooke them on their words with a Certificate and used not to try them themselves but only to Impose hands with Prayer and blessing 3. And this by the Canon their suffragane also might do which yieldeth that a Presbyter may do it 16. The Pope himself doth yield that Presbyters may do it And Gregories Epist to that end is put into their Canon Law Dist 95. 1 part Baptizatos etiam Chrismate eos tangere conceditur and Gregories Epist to Januar. Calaritan is annexed By which it appeareth that they took his former prohibition so ill that he was faine to reverse it And though c. 11. he be forbidden Infantes signare in the presence of the Bishop without his command yet so he was forbidden also to administer the Eucharist yea and the Rural Presbyters might not give the cup or bread in presence of the City Presbyters c. 12. ex Concil Neocaesar 1. c. 13. But certainly this proveth neither the one nor the other out of their Power 17. The Papists commonly confess that Presbyters may ex dispensatione Confirm by Imposition of hands so Bellarmine himself And the Shool-men ordinarily make it an act of the Presbyters Power 18. If it be proper to Bishops then either because of their Order or Jurisdiction Not of Order For they are of the same Order with Presbyters as is frequently confessed by Bishops and Papists themselves and differ but in degree Not of Jurisdiction for it is no more an act of Jurisdiction to Confirm then to Baptize or give the Eucharist 19 Protestant Divines are commonly agreed that Confirmation is not proper to Bishops but may be used by Presbyters For 1. France Belgia Helvetia Denmarke Saxonie Sweden the Palatinate the Countries of the Duke of Brandenburge of the Duke of Brunswike the Land-grave of Hassia with the rest of the Protestant Princes of Germany and also Hungarie Transilvania the Protestants in Poland c. besides Scotland and so many in England are all without Bishops having put them down And though three or foure of these countries have superintendents yet they make not Confirmation proper to them 2. The English Bishops ordinarily maintaine against the Papists that Presbyters may Confirm and therefore we have their concurrance as in Dr. Field Bishop Downam Mason and many others is apparent 20. If all this will not satisfie you for Peace sake we will forbeare Imposition of hands which you suppose to be the Bishops proragative and we will be content to do no more then Presbyters alwaies did in Baptizing the Adult even to judge and Approve of the Capacity of those whom they Baptized and so will we only judge of the Profession and Capacity of those that we take charge of and own as Adult-Christians and must administer the Lords Supper to And this common reason cannot deny us Object 16. But if Presbyters may do it yet so cannot you For you are no Presbyters as wanting Episcopal Ordination or else schismatical as having cast them off to whom you were sworn Answ 1. In my second sheet for the Ministry and my Christian Concord I have answered already And for fuller answer I referre you to the London Ministers Vindication to Mr. Mason's Vindication of the Ordination of the Protestant Churches c. If Bishop Bancroft himself as Dr. Bernard mentions in Bishop Vsher's Judgment and the rest of the Prelates were against the reordaining the Scots Ministers me thinks few should be so much more intemperate then that intemperate Prelate as to judge their Ordination Null And if the Papists in the Canon Law do judge that in some cases an excommunicate mans Ordination is valid me thinks Protestants should not be worse to the Church then they Especially those that are for the Necessity of an uninterrupted succession of justly ordained Pastours who must I dare boldly say derive their succession from unmeeter and more uncapable hands then English Pastours 2. No more is necessary to the Authority and just ordination of a Pastour but that he enter according to the Laws of God which Laws require us to submit to the tryal of our Rulers and Brethren Magistrates in some cases and Pastours and to come in according to the best means for Election and Approbation that are then to be had and used but they bind us not to come in by waies Impossible nor to see that our Antecessours through all generations have been lawfully ordained 3. I have shewed already and God willing shall more fully do it in a Disputation on that subject that our English Episcopcay was not that which God established but intollerably inconsident with it And therefore neither are men the less Ministers for being without their Ordinations nor are they Schismaticks for consenting to their deposition 4 As for breaking Oathes of Canonical Obedience to them I think but few among us did take any such oath and therefore broke none 5. Many among us were Ordained by Bishops and some that were Ordained took not that oath and others that did yet obeyed them while they stood and what could they do more 6 The younger sort of Ministers had no hand in taking down the Bishops and therefore are not scismatical thereby And that their Ordination is no Nullity Bshiop Vsher and other twenty Prelatical witnesses forecited will testifie Object 17. But on the contrary side it will be said that you would set up the Popish Sacrament of Confirmation againe Answ The Papists have made another thing of it They use it to Infants and so will not we They make a proper Sacrament of it They make the visible signes to be Anointing and Crossing in the name of the Father Sonne and Holy Ghost and they make Imposition of hands no part of it but cast it off though in words they own it They adjoyn a boxe of the eare to signifie the opposition that Christs Souldiers must expect They make it to imprint I know not what indelible Caracter and to give grace ex opere operato They make it to be an entering
penalties they will beare it at their hands and take it the better when we deale with them as the Word of God requireth I heare it with my eares to the grief of my heart how some of my neighbour Ministers are spoken against with bitterness by their people because they give not the Lords Supper to all even to the most ignorant and ungodly that refuse to be instructed or so much as to take themselves for any members of the Ministers charge And that which they say is that though Bishops and Common Prayer be taken down yet the giving of the Sacrament to all the Parish is not taken down And they that now submit so quietly to the disusing of many other things because Ministers are punishable if they use them would also do the like in this case And yet if you are jealous that Ministers will go as far on the other hand in refusing the people that are not to be refused though with one of an hundred there 's little feare of that we are contented that you looke to us also in this To which end these two things will be sufficient 1. Let the Magistrate joyne with the Pastours and Delegates of the Church in their meetings where Church-affaires are transacted that he may see what we do If there be no Justice of Peace in the Parish let every Church have a Church-Magistrate purposely chosen by the chief Magistrate or some Agent on his behalf deputed hereunto 2. And let the Magistrates Agent acquaint the Commissioners how things are transacted in cases of Complaint and let them by the advise of the Assistant Ministers correct us as we deserve if you should imagine this to be necessary Direct 4. The Magistrate should promote encourage countenance yea command the Pastours to Associations and Brotherly correspondencies for the more cautelous and vigorous and effectual management of these works and for the concatenation and Communion of Churches and the right understanding of each others affaires that he that hath Communion in one Church may by Communicatory Letters have Communion in any of the rest and he that is cast or kept out of one may not be received by the rest till it be proved that he is excluded unjustly And those that joyne not so fully as the rest may yet be provoked to owne one another as farre as they can that so we may maintaine brotherly Love with all that differ from us by tollerable defferences and may own them as Churches though we cannot own their different opinions or waies and may have such Communion with them as we may and upon their Letters may admit their members to our Communion This the Magistrate should at least openly provoke and encourage the Churches and Pastours to seeing no man can doubt whether it be for the edification of the Church Direct 5. For the better promoting of this Necessary work I conceive it would be a very ready and unquestionable way for the Magistrate to appoint an able Godly moderate Minister to be a Visiter in each County or rather in each half or quarter of a County to see the Churches thus Reformed and prvoke the several Pastours to their duty and assist them in it where there is need But not to have any Episcopal power to punish or cast out any Minister or excommunicate them suspend them or the like But let every Visitor have an Agent of the Magistrate joyned with him armed with authority to convent the Ministers and examine witnesses and do what more the chief Magistrate shall see meet so that still these two Visitors go together but have not the same Authority or work but let the Minister only enquire direct exhort and give account and advice to the civil Visiter and let the civil Visiter have all the Coercive Power And let both of them transmit such causes as are exempt from their determination to the Commissioners for ejecting scandalous Mininisters who by the advise of the Assistant Ministers may determin them These Visiters did very much to the first and great Reformation of Scotland when Popery had overrun all Nor did they Scruple the using of them for all that they were against Prelacy Direct 6. It is one of the chief and unquestionable parts of the Magistrats duty in order to the Reformation and Peace of the Churches and the saving of mens Souls to see that dangerous Seducers be restrained from infecting and carrying away the ignorant ungodly discontented people that are kept under Ministerial Teaching as Expectants I do not move to have men driven into our Churches Nor do I move to have an unnecessary restraint laid upon mens tongues or pens in case of tollerable differences among the Servants of Christ In this case I only desire now that the Dissenting Godly Brethren would agree together to meddle with their differences no more then needs and to manage their Disagreements with such Cautions and in such manner and season and measure as may least hinder their success in the common work viz. the promoting of the common Fundamental Verities and the converting and saving of the Ignorant and ungodly and getting down the reigning sinnes of the world And then they will find 1. That if there by any truth in the private Opinions which they would propagate it will farre easier be received when the minds of their brethren are sedate and peaceable then when they are allarmed to the conflict by unseasonable preaching for the said Opinions 2. And that the Errours of this lower nature among Brethren which some feare a tolleration of will sooner die of themselves for want of fewel in such Peaceable deportment then when the bellowes of opposition contradiction reproach and violence are blowing them up and putting life continually into them For most Dividers are proud and selfish and must needs be noted for somewhat extraordinary And you take the principal way to animate them when you make so much ado with them Whereas a few yeares neglect and not observing them as if there were no such men in the world unless when they impose a Necessity on us would more happily extinguish them I speak but what I have seen and tryed This therefore is not the matter of my present request that Magistrates would use rigor and violence with godly men about tollerable differences which the Power of greater Light and Love in the contrary minded is the principal means to reconcile But the thing requested now of Magistrates is that they would keep out the Wolves while we are feeding the Sheep or help us in it That they suffer not damnable deceivers or any that plainly go about to subvert mens Souls or the state of the Church to fall in with our Ignorant ungodly people in the time of their Learning and Expectancy And as I shall be ready against any Libertine Infidel or Papist in the world to prove this to be in the Magistrates Power and his flat duty of which I hope no sober Christian doubteth so I shall
man is out of it and you may next question whether the Devill be not a Member that believeth much more then he But when I say that Infidelity Impiety Heresie do cut off or cast out I meane it but Meritoriously Either these crimes are private and unknown or provable If not provable then they merit this and more Coram Deo but not Ecclesiâ judice that is though there be guilt or demerits yet we are no capable judges of it But if the crime be provable then it is either such as needs a judgment or not If it need a judgement the person is only de jurâ— cast out before the sentence which is terminus diminuens and is noâ— actuall casting out and he is actually cast out by the sentence and the execution so that his sin cast him out Meritoriously the Law Obligatorily the Paflors of the Church Sententially and the whole Church Pastors and People Executively in avoiding him But if there need no judgement then he is excommunicate actually ipso jure by the Law alone without a Judge which may be in many a casâ—â— Aâ— if he be a notorious Infidell Atheist Blaspheamer or notoriously beyond all doubt and controversie one of those that the Law commands us to avoid we must execute this Law though there be no sentence pronounced The want of a mans sentence will not excuse us from obeying Gods Laws And where there is no controversie through the notoriousness of the case there needs no Judge 6. If Birth-priviledge will serve alone for the Adult to prove their Title to the Church-state and priviledges of the Adult then no man that is born of Christian Parenâ—s can be obnoxious to excommunication or justly excommunicate For he is still a Child of Believing Parents and no sin will make them otherwise And therefore if that were enough he hath a good Title still Nay it would follow that he cannot Apostatize for he cannot fall away from this But the consequence is absurd therefore so is the Antecedent 7. If Infant Title only be sufficient to the Adult then no Parent is necessarily oblieged to professe himself a Christâ—aâ— or actuall believer in order to prove the interest of his Child to Baptism nor any that offer him in the Parents stead For it is sufficient if the Parents or susceptors say We were Infant-members and Baptized and therefore our Child must be so but whether we are actuall Believers now it is not necessary that we tell you But the Consequent is so absurd that whoever should have offered a Child to Baptism on these terms in the Aâ—cient Church or any Church that I know of till very lately would have been rejected The acceptance and Baptism of our Infants is one of the priviledges of Believers But no one hath right to this priviledg that his children be thus accepted into the Church upon a bare Infant-Title without the profession of a personall actuall â—aith Therefore c. 8. If the opposed Doctrine should hold good then all the world hath right to Church-Communion or Mâ—llions of Infidels at least But the consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the Consequence is plain because Noah was a Church-member and all the world came out of his Loynes And the men of Thracia Bithynia and most of Asia where Mahomet is worshipped may say Our Ancestors were Christians Therefore the Birth-priviledges still going down from generation to generation even to the Thousandth generation it must follow that the present generation of Mahometans and other Infidels are Church-memberâ— still For they lost not their naturall Relation to their Parents 9. It will not prove a Society of Adult persons to be a Christian Church if they have no more but their Infant-Condition therefore it will not prove a single person to be a Member of the Church That which is necessary to make a society a Christian society is necessary to make a person a Christian person But I hope none will deny but that some kind of Profession is necessary to make or prove a company of men to be a Christian Church therefore some profession is necessary to make or prove a man to be a Church-member 10. If Infant-conditions will suffice to the Adult for Church-membership and common priviledges then will they serve for Justification and Salvation that are speciall priviledges But the Consequent is false therefore so is the Antecedent The reason of the consequence is because though the benefits be various yet the Covenant and Conditions are the same by which we have right to one and to the other It is the Appearance of the same Faith by profession before men that give Title Coram ecclesiâ whose inward sincerity giveth right Coram Deo as was aforesaid And God giveth Title to all the blessings of the Covenant Coram Deo on the same conditions And there is also a parity of reason For if it be enough to prove our right to Adult Communion to praise God and have all his Ordinances and helps in the Church c. that we had Christian Parents then must it be enough to prove our Title in all the rest of our benefits The ancient Fathers and Churches thought that Baptism did as certainly give the Infant rightly Baptized a right to pardon of Originall sin and eternall life aâ— to outward Church-priviledges And if the same Covenant give both on the same condition then he that hath the condition of one hath of both I have proved in another Disputation that God hath not two Covenants of grace on his part one of spirituall or inward mercies and another of outward Ordinances and that he giveth not these inward benefits and the outward signes of them upon various conditions but on the same 11. Faith or the profession of it in the Adult is either necessary to Church-communion or unnecessary if unnecessary then Christians have no more to do in the Church then Heathens if necessary then either as a meer duty or as a condition or other means Not as a meer dutyâ— for then still the Infidels should be equally received though not applauded It must be therefore necessary as a meanes And the very words of the promise tells us what sort of meanes it is that makes Faith to be its condition 12. I would know of my adversary what he would do with the Son of a Believer that were unbaptized at 40. or 50. years of age would be Baptize him without a profession of actuall Faith of his own or not if he would then he would make new fashioned Christians and Churches and might Baptize all the posterity of the Apostates or the ancient Christians in the world that would consent Yea he could not indeed Baptize them for Baptism essentially containeth a profession of consent unto the Covenant which therefore others make for Infants that have the dispose of them But if he would not Baptize such without profession then it seems he takes not their Birth-priviledges to be a
but in lighter matters may waite upon the Lord in this good service for the greâ—t blessing of Vnanimity promised also Object But he addeth the proviso that Coâ—firmation be not thought to have any ingrediency into the nature or being of our membership and that the temper of the people be found such as will admit of such a change Answ We shall easily grant that Confirmation as it is a solemn Reception of the person by Imposition of hands or without Imposition in a purposed solemnity commonly known by that name is not of necessity to the Being of our membership and that all those that are received upon profession of Faith may be Church-members and that the ordinary use of Christian Assemblies and exercises of worship is a Profession though obscure and that a baptized person that never was called to a Verball Profession may be taken for a Christian or Church-member upon such a Practical sort of Profession joyned with a not denying of Christ in word or life But yet we are far from thinking that the Infant-Title-condition of such a one serveth to prove his present Church-state and Title now he is at capable age The Infant-Title ceaseth if he continue it not by a Personal Profession at age And as there is no middle betweene Believers and unbelievers so there is no such thing in a capable subject as non-dissenting in a moral sense but true Consenting It is not possible for the Soul to be neuter when the thing is offered to our consent but we must either will or nill consent or dissent though if it were yet not willing or not consenting is Infidelity and Rebellion in such a Subject And accordingly we maintaine and must maintaine that Profession of some sort or other is a necessary Condition of the Title and Church-state of the capable Adult and of Right to the Priviledges And as an obscure kind of Profession may serve when a man is called to no more to prove his Right so a clearer sort of Profession is necessary to the clearer proof and ad bene esse Ecclesiae And I have shewed what great and weighty Reasons we have to require an open cleare intelligible Profession And he that is justly called to for such giveth cause to the Church to question him of Apostacy if he refuse without cause So that of the three Conditions in question the first which is our Infant-condition is utterly insufficient to the capable Adult and the second which is an obscure signification of our mind by our Christian practises may serve ad esse at least when no more is required and the third which is an open approved Profession by word or subscription is necessary ordinarily ad bene esse Thus farre we are agred But what if we were not Must we therefore refuse to agree in the practice of the aforesaid Confirmation Will any good and peaceable man refuse to joyne with those that think it necessary to Adult Church-membership If this opinion of the said Non-necessity had been an Article of Faith and among the necessâ—ry Credenda of the Church we should have had it in some Creed or heard more of the necessity of it then we have done from the Ancient Churches If we meet about the agenda in our practice let men take head how they divide from such as differ in the Reasons of their Practice till they can prove that they deny some Article of the Faith which is of necessity to be believed And as for the peoples unfitness or any disturbance that will follow thereupon 1. If there be such a thing it will be much long of the Ministers Let them unanimously agree and they may do well enough with the people or much the better But when Ministers themselves are the bellows of faction and think they can never sufficiently vilifie dissenters and so have themselves taught the people to take such a Practice for a Prelaticall foppery or formality or for an Independent rigidity and extreamity no wonder if when they come to practice their duty they meet with such reproaches from the people as they have taught them 2. But suppose that people would disturb us that may in some cases excuse us as to the mode of Confirmation or Profession but no unfitness of the people can excuse us as to the substance of the duty the requiring and approving their Profession We are false to our trust and the Church of God if to avoid disturbance we will confound Believers and Infidels and destroy the nature of the Church and Ordinances under pretence of the peoples good Object But it would be your only sure and happy course to exercise Discipline upon all that are baptized in their Infancy whether at age they consent or no And finding them in the Church you must do so Answ I have said enough to this before Have they that talk thus tried this course or have they not If they have not we will beare with them as well meaning men that talk of what they never tryed as we would do with a confident man that would condemn the actions of Souldiours and Seamen that himself was never in at warres nor at Sea But if they have tryed it what kind of Discipline do they exercise Would they make us believe that they are able in a Parish of 4000 or 5000 or 6000 Souls to exercise the Discipline mentioned in Scripture and the Canons of the Ancient Churches and that upon such persons as our Parishes commonly consist of I know they cannot do it I have had tryall to tell me what a man can do With the help of divers Ministers and many hundred godly people to watch over others and promote this work I am not able to do it on all this Parish if I might There is so many offendours weekely to be dealt with and so much time required to heare witnesses and admonish them that it 's more then I could pâ—ssibly do How Bishops deale with Diocesses let them see themselves And if we could do it yet the people will not consent If you send for them they will not come neer you If you admonish them in the Congregation by name they will have an Action at Law against you if they can However you will have such a multitude enraged by the exercise of Discipline if it be faithfully though never so tenderly done that the Church will be in a flame and your Mâ—nistry hated and the people undone as I have before declared So that it is but a name of Discipline to the destruction of discipline that this Objection pleadeth for or else it dishonoureâ—h it self and the Authors And as they do by Discipline so they do by Christian Charity which is a greater thing Of old the Visible members of the Church were the Objects of brotherly Christian Love And so as they seemed to them to be Believers and penitent persons the living members did love all the body with that special Love that was the matter of the new Commandment
ejus salubriter percipit And saith the Synod of Dort Artic. 1. 8. 17. Quandoquidem de voluntate Dei ex verbo ipsius nobis est judicandum quod testatur liberos fidelium esse sanctos non quidem natura sed beneficiâ— faederis gratuiti in quo illi cum parentibus comprehenduntur pij parentes de electione salute suorum liberorum quos Deus in Infantia ex hac vita evocat dubitare non debeâ—t And if there be such certainty of the Election and Salvation of all such Infants of the godly as ought to exclude all doubting surely the visible Church-state of the Adult also hath some respect to saving grace so farre as that its credible fide humanâ that such have saving Faith And saith Mr Fullwood Append. p. 6. I conceive that such an ones personall profession in his generall owâ—ing the true Faith and usuall attending Gods publick worship doth superadde a kinde of new right and mingle it with such a persons former right had by his Birth priviledge And if the new Right be not a necessary Right I think it will prove no right I will contend with no man whether the approved profession which I have pleaded for in this book be the very same thing with the Ancients confirmation I have given you my thoughts of it and I am sure the thing in question is our duty and the name not unfit and that its the same with the Confirmation owned by the Divines of the reformed Churches and particularly with that established and recommended in the Book of Common-Prayer here in England for the substance I shall conclude with this serious request to my Brethren seconded with weighty reasons Even that they would take heed of both extreams in their judging of Church-members and managing the Discipline and Ordinances of Christ 1. Should we be so loose as to cast out Discipline or settle the Churches either with such materials for quality or quantity as that it shall be uncapable of Discipline we shall never be able to answer it to Christ And should we make a new qualification of Adult Church-members even their Infant-Title-condition alone or the profession of a Faith that is not saving we should come too neere the making of a new Baptism and Church And truly if we do but slubber over the business and to avoid offence or trouble to our selves should take up with a profession utterly incredible especially in these times when we have so much liberty and countenance from the Magistrate for a fuller Reformation we shall be guilty of so much injury to the Church and the Christian name and our people souls as is little considered by many that have their eye only on the contrary extreame as if there were no danger but on one side 2. On the other side if we go so rigidly and unrighteously to work as some men are bent to do we may accomplish those ends that we are endeavouring to overthrow and frustrate our own which we think to attain If we will reject the Scripture-ancient-Character or Evidence of Title to Church-priviledges even a credible profession of Christianity we shall confound our selves and trouble the Church and be at a losse for a certain Evidence and never know what ground to rest upon And we shall injure the souls of multitudes of true Believers and keep out those that Christ will entertain For there are no other terms besides taking mens profession by a humane Faith on which we can admit persons without excluding multitudes that should not be excluded I doubt many Ministers that have had a more ingenuous education themselves are not sufficiently sensible of the great disadvantage that Countrey People are under by their want of such Education Many that are bred where holy discourse is strange and never were used to any thing of that nature no nor to common Urbanity of speech or behaviour may be brought to hearty sorrow for sinne and desires after Christ and Grace long before they can expresse their knowledg or desires in any such manner as some men do expect Many gracious souls as farre as I can discerne I have met with that never were noted for any thing extraordinary in Religion though they lived among such I had rather let in many that are unregenerate into the Church then keep out one that 's a true Believer if there be no other remedy The Lord Jesus that died for them and sent the Ministery for them and will at last admit them into Heaven will give us little thanks for excluding his weakest Members from the Church and from the use of the Sacrament and Communion of Saints who have most need of them of any that have right to them For my part I desire not nor dare be guilty of that way of Government in the Church as shall grieve those that Christ would not have grieved and exclude the weak and turne or keep out the Infants in Grace from the Family of the Lord. A compassionate Minister is likest to Christ that will not break the bruised reed How dealt he with the woman taken in adultery How tenderly excuseth he the sluggishnesse of his Disciples that could not watch and pray with him one houre in his last extreamity with the Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak when many now that think well of themselves would almost excommunicate men for as small a fault We know not in such cases what Spirit we are of But this is not all I must confesse Brethren which I beseech you patiently to hear these three things very much stick upon my thoughts 1. I cannot but observe how many eminent Professors of Piety have miscarried and grievously miscarried of late when some of lower Professions have stood fast And I think God suffers the falls of many of his own to let them know the frailty of our natures and cause them to be compassionate to others And some censorious mens hearts might smite them if they had heard from their Master Let him that is faultless cast the first stone 2. And it sticks very much upon my thoughts how small a handfull the censorious way would reduce the Catholike Church of Christ to When it is but about the sixth part of the world that are at all Baptized Christians and scarce the sixth part of them that are Protestants and of the Protestants so few except in England that are so qualified for holiness as in your admissions you exspect and in England how small is the number that you would admit I am deeply afraid lest you hainously injure the Cause of Christ by your excessive rigor and lest confining even the visible Church into so exceeding small a compass should tempt men to infidelity For he that to day can believe that Christ died not for one of a hundred thousand in the world may to morrow believe that he died for none at all I hope the little flock of the Elect is not so little as some would have
the visible Church of the called 3. We are deeply sensible of the increase of Infidels here in England They are too thick about us under severall garbs especially under the maske of Seekers and are perswading people against the Christian Faith and truth of Scripture and the life to come and so much do these Apostates now abound that we have reason to be jealous of them And if any of you should strike in with good men that are of this censorious over rigorous way consider how farre they may make use of such to accomplish their designs If by you they can get almost all the world un-Churched in estimation and fifty for one if not an hundred for one in England actually un-Christened and their children after them left unbaptized what will follow I doubt this if God should not save us from your miscarriages When there is but one of an hundred in all the Land that is a Christian the rest will want neither malice nor power to put an end here to the Christian name or at least to the liberty and glory of Christianity They may choose our Parliaments for us and in a word do with us what they list when they are exasperated to the greatest hatred of us and cut off our liberties and set up Infidelity or Heathenism by a Law I trust God will never suffer this But let us take â—eed of gratifying Infidels and casting all our safety upon miracles lest we be found to be but foolish builders and tempters of God still you may find that over-doing is the most effectuall undoing And if you would find out the most dangerous enemies of the Gospell look for them among those that seem over zealous against the enemies of the Gospell and seem to over-doe in the work of the Gospell I desire to bring no partyâ— of godly men into suspicion or odium by this but indeed I desire to counter-mine the Apostates and it would be the most amazing consounding thing that could befall us in this world if we should see the Church of God betraied into the hands of Infidels and the Gospell lost by the indiscreet and inconsiderate over-doing of those well-meaning men that did the work of Infidels and ungodly men for them while they thought that none were so much against them If the neck of Religion be broken among us I am afraid the imprudent will be some cause that would lead us above the top of the Ladder Sure I am between you both you have the easiest way to the flesh that run into extreams Durst I cast off Discipline and only preach and please all the parish in Sacraments and other Ordinances how easie a life should I have to the flesh And if I durst take out one of a hundred that are eminent in Piety that will scarce ever call me to any penall acts of Discipline I should have a much more easie life then the former But they are both so easie that I the more suspect them to be the fruit of the wisdome of the flesh Indeed both the extreames do cast off Discipline for the most part whatever they pretend One sort never meane to exercise it And the other sort extoll it and when they have done they separate a few of the best that are like to have no need of the troublesome part of it and so sit down without the exercise of it pretending to be Physicians but refusing to receive the sick into their Hospitals Brethren I speake not as an accuser but a Monitour and shall continue to pray for the Churches Purity and Peace while I am R. B. July 30. 1658. Dr H. Hammond In his view of the-Direct § 41. p. 45 46. For Confirmation which being so long and so scandalously neglected in this Kingdome though the Rule have also been severe and carefull in requiring it will now not so easily be digested having those vulgar prejudices against it yet must I most solemny profess my opinion of it That it is a most ancient Christian Custome tending very much to Edification which I shall make good by giving you this view of the manner of it It is this that every Rector of any Parish or Curate of charge should by a Familiar way of Chatechizing instruct the Youth of both Sexes within his Cure in the Principles of Religion so farre that every one of them before the usuall time of coming to the Lords-Supper should be able to understand the particulars of that vow made in Baptism for the Credenda and Facienda yea and Fugienda also what must be Believed what done and what forsaken and be able to give an intelligent account of every one of these which being done every such Childe so prepared ought to be brought to the B P for Confirmation Wherein the intent is that every such Child attain'd to years of Understanding shall singly and solemnly before God the B P and the whole Congregation with his own consent take upon himself the Obligation to that which his God-Fathers and God-Mothers in Baptism promised in his Name and before all those Reverend Witnesses make a Firm Publick Renued promise that by Gods help he will Faithfully endeavour to discharge that Obligation in every point of it and persevere in it all the dayes of his life Which resolution and promise so heightned with all those solemnities will in any reason have a mighty impression on the Child and an influence on his actions for ever after And this being thus performed by him the B P shall severally impose his hands on every such Child a ceremony used to this purpose by Christ himself and bless and pray for him that now that the Temptations of sinne begin more strongly in respect of his age to assault him he may receive Grace and Strength against all such Temptations or Assaults by way of prevention and speciall assistance without which obtained by Prayer from God he will never be able to do it This is the Sum of Confirmation and were it rightly observed and no man admitted to the Lords-Table that had not thus taken the Baptisme-Bond from the Sureties into his own Name and no man after that suffered to continue in the Church which brake it wilfully but turned out of those Sacred Courts by the power of the keys in Excommunication It would certainly prove by the Blessing of God were it begun a most effectuall meanes to keep men at least within some terms of Christian civility from fallings into open Enormious sinnes and that the defaming and casting out of this so blamelesse gainfull order would be necessary or usefull to any policy save only to defend the Devill from so great a blow and to sustaine and uphold his Kingdome I never had yet any Temptation or Motive to suspect or imagine Instead of considering any Objections of the adversary against this piece whether of Apostolicall or Ecclesiasticall Discipline which I never heard with any colour produced I shall rather express my most passionate wish unto my
and proved them to be Christ's Disciples No man knew the hearts of others and therefore knew not whom to Love as Christians infallibly discerned But the Profession of Saving Faith and Holiness being then and ever the test of Adult-members they took all the members of the Visible Church as credibly of the invisible though with different degrees of Credibility And accordingly they loved them all with a Christian special Love of the same species though with different degrees of that Love Whereas this Popish new found trick of making a new common sort of Faith and Visible membership that hath no respect to saving Faith doth teach all Christians to Love the members of the Visible Church but with a common love and relieve and help them but with a common Charity And so the device is to confine our special Brotherly Love and Charity to a corner of the Visible Church to a few whom we will please to think to be godly I have oft marvelled in observing some Learned Divines that bend that way that they think compassion and Christian Charity is on their side What Charity can their Doctrine glory of They will be so mercifull to Infidels that are uncapable of a Church-state as to plead them into the Church and when they are there they leave them under the curse and in a state of damnation in their own judgments teaching us to judge uncharitably of the Visible Church in general for their sakes and to look on them as without respect to any saving grace and so without any special Love A cold comfort I to bring them into no more capacity of Gods Mercy nor of our Charity but into much more capacity of aggravated damnation which they might better have prevented by being kept in their proper station till they were capable of more I confess though my belief of mens Profession have different degrees as I see in them different degrees of Credibility yet I have Charitabler thoughts of the members of the Visible Church then these that make so low and miserable a description of them And though I know that there are abundance among them that are Hypocrites and unsanctified yet know I none but Saints and Hypocrites that are tolerable in the Church nor will I accuse particular persons of Hypocrisie till I have cause Neither in my secret or open censures will I pluck up the tares upon any such terms as will not stand with the safety of the wheate but rather let them grow together in my esteeme in the Church till the time of harvest And that I may think charitably of the Church and walk charitably in and towards it therefore I would not have it consist of such notorious ungodly or heretical men as are uncapable objects of Christian Brotherly Love For Heresie the foresaid learned Brother tells us that it cuts men off from the Church I say so to meritoriously at least if by Heresie be meant the exclusion of any essential Article of the Christian Faith But pag. 199 where he saith the Controversie may be easily ended by parting stakes viz. that some Heresie which absolutely denyeth some particular fundamental truth and taketh up some one or few stones thereof is consistent with Church interest and other Heresie which raiseth up the very foundation of Religion denying most or the most chief if not all of the Articles of our Christian Faith is inconsistent therewith I must humbly but very confidently say that this answer will not serve the turne If by Fundamentals be meant as commonly the Essential Articles of Christian Faith then the absolute denying of any one Article doth prove that person to be no Christian nor capable of a Church state For the form is wanting where any Essential part is wanting But if any thing else be meant by Fundamentals no man can decide the Controvesie by it till it be known what it is And it will be hard to fasten it on any thing where the absolute denyal of many points shall unchurch and the absolute denial of one or two points of the same rank and kind not do it Saith he p. 198. The Jews held that an heretical Isralite had no communion with the Church of Israel and why but because Communion supposeth union and union with Israel or the true Church is lost with Faith They also held as Selden noteth that an Israelite turning an Heretike i. e. denying any of the thirteene fundamental Articles to be as an Heathen man And a few lines before he saith that historical Faith which hath the Doctrine of Faith for its Object none do doubt to be an Essential requisite to a true Church-member Yet that with me is a Visible member that hath not this much which is said to be Essential no man doubting of it If they Profess true Faith though they are stark Atheists at the heart and have not so much as historical Faith I shall believe them till they nullifie their own Profession But if they profess not also to consent to have Christ to be their Saviour I shall not take it for a Profession of Christianity Certain I am that the ancient Doctours with one consent did look on the baptized generally as pardoned justified and adopted and therefore thought that Visible Church-membership did imply a credibility at least of a state of saving grace Saith Cyprian Epist 76. Magn. In Baptismo unicuique peccata sua remittuntur And upon this supposition run the Arguments of the councell of Carthage and Firmilian Epist ibid. Saith Augustine De Catechizandis rudibus cap. 26. His dictis interrogandus est an haec credat atque observare desideret Quod cum responderit solemniter utique signandus est ecclesiae more tractandus Obedience it self was promised and a consent to it professed before Baptism then and ever since Christian Baptism was known Idem Epistol 119. Ad Januar. cap. 2. Secundum hanc fidem spem dilectionem quâ caepimus esse sub gratia jam commortui sumus cum Christo consepulti per baptismum in morte c. Baptism then supposeth credibly Faith Hope and Love Idem Epist 23. Having shewed why Parents Faith profiteth Infants and yet their after-sins hurt them not saith Cum autem homo sapere caeperit non illud Sacramentum repetit sed intelligit ejusque veritati consonâ etiam voluntate coaptabitur Hoc quamdiu non potest N. B. valebit Sacramentum ad ejus tutelam adversus contrarias potestates tantum valebit utsi ante rationis usum ex hac vita emigraverit per ipsum Sacramentum Ecclesiae charitate ab illa condemnatione quae per unum hominem intravit in mundum Christiano adjutorio liberetur Hoc qui non credit fieri non posse arbitratur profecto infidelis est etsi habeat fidei Sacramentum longeque melior est ille parvulus qui etiamsi fidem nondum habeat in cogitatione non ei tamen obicem contrariae cogitationis opponit undè Sacramentum