we dare not think a Parliament did intend to forbid that which Christ his Church hath commanded Nor does the Act determine any thing about Lent Fast but only provide for the maintenance of the Navy and of Fishing in order thereunto as is plain by the Act. Besides we conceive that we must not so interpret one Act as to contradict another being still in force and unrepealed Now the Act of 1 Eliz. confirmes the whole Liturgy and in that the religious keeping of Lent with a severe penalty upon all those who shall by open words speak any thing in derogation of any part thereof and therefore that other Act of 5 Elizab. must not be interpreted to forbid the religious keeping of Lent Reply If when the expresse words of a Statute are cited you can so easily put it off by saying it does not forbid it and you dare not think that a Parliament did intend to forbid that which Christ his Church hath commanded and you must not interpret it as contradicting that Act which confirms the Liturgy we must think that indeed we are no lesse regardful of the Laws of the Governours than you But first we understand not what Authority this is that you set against the King and Parliament as supposing they will not forbid what it commands You call it Christs Church we suppose you mean not Christ himself by his Apostles infallibly directed and inspired If it be the National Church of England they are the Kings Subjects and why may he not forbid a Ceremony which they command or why should they command it if he forbid it If it be any Foreign Church ther 's none hath power over us If it be any pretended head of the Church universal whether Pope or general Council having power to make Laws that bind the whole Church it is a thing so copiously disproved by Protestants against both the Italian and French Papists that we think it needlesse to confute it nor indeed dare imagine that you intend it We know not the refore what you mean But whatever you mean you seem to contradict the forecited Article of the Church of England that makes all humane Laws about Rites and Ceremonies of the Church to be unchangeable by each particular National Church And that it is not necessary that Ceremonies or Traditions be in all places one or utterly like we most earnestly beseech you be cautious how you obtrude upon us a Foreign Power under the name of Christs Church that may command Ceremonies which King and Parliament may not forbid whether it be one man or a thousand we fear it is against our Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy for us do own any such Power And not presuming upon any immodest challenge we are ready in the defence of those Oathes and the Protestant Religion to prove against any in an equal conference that there is no such Power and for the Statute let the words themselves decide the Controversy which are these Be it Enacted that who soever shall by Preaching Teaching Writing or open speech notifie that any eating of Fish or forbearing of Flesh mentioned in this Statuie is of any necessity for the saving of the Soul of man or that it is the Service of God otherwise than as other Politick Laws are and be that than such persons are and shall be punished as the spreaders of false news are and ought to be And whereas you say the Act determines not any thing about Lent Fast it speaks against eating Flesh on any days now usually observed as Fish days and Lent is such and the senfe of the Act for the Lituigy may better be tryed by this which is plain than thus reduced to that which is more obscure The observation of Saints dayes is not as of Divine but Ecclesiastical Institution and therefore it is not necessary that they should have any other ground in Scripture than all other Institutions of the same nature so that they be agreeable to the Scriptare in the general end for the promoting piety and the observation of them was antient as appears by the Rituals and Liturgies and by the joynt consent of Antiquity and by the antient translation of the Bible as the Syriack and Ethiopick where the Lessons appointed for Holydayes are noted and set down the former of which was made near the Apostles times Besides our Saviour himself kept a Feast of the Churches Institution viz. the Feast of the Dedication S. Jo. 12. 22. The choice end of these dayes being not feasting but the exercise of Holy Duties they are fitter called Holydayes than Festivals and though they be all of like nature it doth not follow that they are equal The people may be dispensed with for their work after the Service as Authority pleaseth The other names are left in the Calender not that they should be so kept as Holydayes but they are useful for the preservation of their memories and for other reasons as for Leases Law-dayes c. Reply The antiquity of the Translations mentioned is far from being of determinate certainty we rather wish than hope that the Syriack could be proved to be made near the Apostles times But however the things being confessed of humane Institution and no Forreign Power having any Authority to command his Majesties Subjects and so the imposition being only by our own Governours we humbly crave that they may be left indifferent and the unity or peace of the Church or Liberty of the Ministers not laid upon them This makes the Liturgy void if every Minister may put in and leave out all at his discretion Repl. You mistake us we speak not of putting in and leaving out of the Liturgy but of having leave to intermix some exhortations or prayers besides to take off the deadnesse which will follow if there be nothing but the stinted Forms we would avoid both the extreme that would have no forms and the contrary extremes that would have nothing but forms But if we can have nothing but extremes there 's no remedy it s not our fault And this moderation and mixture which we move for is so far from making all the Liturgy void that it will do very much to make it attain its end and would heal much of the distemper which it occasioneth and consequently would do much to preserve the reputation of it As for instance it besides the Forms in the Liturgy the Minister might at Baptism the Lords Supper Marriage c. interpose some suitable exhortation or prayer upon special occasion when he finds it needful Should you deny this at the visitation of the Sick it would seem strange and why may it not be granted at other times It is a matter of far greater trouble to us that you would deny us and all Ministers the Liberty of using any other Prayers besides the Liturgy then that you impose these The gift or rather spirit of Prayer consists in the inward graces of the spirit not in ex
tempore expressions which any man of natural parts having a voluable tongue and audacity may attain to without any special gift Repl. All inward Graces of the spirit are not properly called the spirit of Prayer nor is the spirit of Prayer that gift of Prayer which we speak of Nor did we call it by the name of a special gift nor did we deny that ordinary men of natural parts and voluable tongues may attain it But yet we humbly conceive that as there is a gift of Preaching so also of Prayer which God bestows in the use of means diversified much according to mens natural parts their diligence as other acquired abilities are but also much depending on that grace that is indeed special which maketh men love and relish the holy subjects of such spiritual studies and the holy exercise of those Graces that are the soul of Prayer and consequently making men follow on such exercises with delight and diligence and therefore with success And also God is free in giving or denying his blessing to mans endeavours If you think there be no Gift of Preaching you will too dishonourably level the Ministry If Reading be all the Gift of Prayer or Preaching there needs no great understanding or learning to it Nor should Cobblers and Tinkers be so unfit men for Ministers as they are thought Nor would the reason be very apparent why a Woman might not speak by Preaching or praying in the Church But if there be any such Gift as is pretended it is to be subject to the Prophets and to the Order of the Church Repl. The Text speaks as Dr. Hammond well shews of a subjection to that Prophet himself who was the Speaker Inspiration excluded not the prudent exercise of Reason But it is a strange ordering that totally excludeth the thing ordered The Gift of Preaching as distinct from reading is to be orderly and with due subjection exercised But not to be on that pretence extinguished and cast out of the Church And indeed if you should command it you are not to be obeyed whatever we suffer And why then should the Gift of Prayer distinct from reading be cast out The mischiefs that come by Idle Impertinent Ridiculous sometimes Seditious Impious and Blasphemous expressions under pretence of the Gift to the dishonour of God and scorn of Religion being far greater than the pretended good of exercising the Gift It is fit that they who desire such liberty in publike devotions should first give the Church security that no private opinions should be put into their Prayers as is desired in the first Proposal and that nothing contrary to the Faith should be uttered before God or offered up to him in the Church Repl. The mischiefs which you pretend are Inconveniencies attending humane Imperfection which you would cure with a mischief Your Argument from the abuse against the use is a palpable Fallacy which cast out Phisicians in some Countries and rooted up Vines in others and condemneth the reading of the Scriptures in a known Tongue among the Papists If the Apostles that complained then so much of Divisions and preaching false Doctrines and in envy and strife c. had thought the way of Cure had been in sending Ministers about the world with a Prayer-book and Sermon-book and to have tied them only to read either one or both of these no doubt but they would have been so regardful of the Church as to have composed such a Prayer-book or Sermon-book themselves and not lest us to the uncertainties of an Authority not infallible nor to the Divisions that follow the Impositions of a questionable power or that which unquestionably is not Universal and therefore can procure no universal Concord If one man among you draw up a form of Prayer it is his single conception And why a man as learned and able may not be trusted to conceive a Prayer for the use of a single Congregation without the dangers mentioned by you as one man to conceive a Prayer for all the Churches in a Diocess or a Nation we know not These words That the mischief is greater than the pretended good seem to expresse an unjust Accusation of ordinary conceived prayer and a great undervaluing of the benefits If you would intimate that the Crimes expressed by you are ordinarily found in Ministers prayers we that hear so much more frequently than you must profess we have not found it so allowing men their different measures of Exactness as you have even in writing Nay to the praise of God we must say that multitudes of private men can ordinarily pray without any such Imperfection as should nauseate a sober person and with such seriousness and aptness of Expression as is greatly to the benefit and comfort of ourselves when we joyn with them And if such general Accusations may serve in a matter of publick and common fact there is no way for the Justification of the Innocent And that it is no such common guilt will seem more probable to them that consider that such conceived Prayers both prepared and extemperate have been ordinarily used in the Pulpits in England and Scotland before our dayes till now and there hath been power enough in the Bishops and others before the Wars to punish those that speak Ridiculously Seditiously Impiously or Blasphemously And yet so few are the Instances even when jealousie was most busy of Ministers punished or once accused of any such fault in Prayer as that we find it not easy to remember any considerable number of them There being great numbers punished for not reading the Book for playing on the Lords dayes or for preaching too oft and such like for one that was ever questioned for such kind of praying And the former shewed that it was not for want of will to be severe that they spared them as to the latter And if it be but few that are guilty of any intolerable faults of that nature in their Prayers we hope you will not go on to believe that the mischiefs that come by the failings of those few are far greater than the benefit of conceived prayer by all others We presume not to make our Experiences the measure of yours or of other mens You may tell us what doth most good or hurt to your selves and those that have so communicated their Experiences to you But we also may speak our own and theirs that have discovered them to us And we must seriously profess that we have found far more benefit to our selves and to our Congregations as far as our Conference and Converse with them and our observation of the effects alloweth us to discern by conceived Prayers than by the Common-Prayer-book We find that the benefit of conceived Prayer is to keep the mind in serious Employment and to awaken the affections and to make us fervent and importunate And the Inconvenience is that some weak men are apt as in Preaching and Conference so in Prayer to shew their
have no man cast out for using the worse It is more orderly decent and edifying for the Minister to read all the Psalms than for the people to read each second verse And yet we would not cast out men from the Church or Ministry meerly for that disorder It is more orderly and decent to be uncovered in divine worship than covered And yet rather than a man should take cold we could allow him to hear a Chapter or Sermon covered why not much more rather than he should be cast out But let us come to the Application It is no undecent disorderly worshiping of God to worship him without our Crosse Surplice and kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament 1. If it were than Christ and his Apostles bad worship undecently and disorderly And the Primitive Church that used not the Surplice nor the transient Image of the Croâ—e in Baptisme but in an unguent yea the Church for many hundred years that received the Sacrament without kneeling 2. Then if the King Parliament and Conâ—ocation should change these Ceremonies it seems you would take your selves bound to retain them For you say you must not worship God undecently But that they may be changed by Authority our Articles determine and therefore Charity may well require the Magistrate to change them without any wrong to the worship of God 3. We appeal to the common judgment of the Impartial whether in the nature of the thing there be any thing that tells them that it is undecent to pray without a Surplice in the reading place and not undecent to pray without in thâ— Pulpit And that it is undecent to baptise without crossing and not to receive the Lords Supper without And that it is undecent for the Receiver to take the Lords Supper without kneeling and not for the Minister to give it him standing that prayeth in the delivery These premised we Answer to your first Reason that those things which we call Indifferent because neither expresly commanded nor forbiden by God have in them a real goodnesse a fitnesse and decency and for that cause are imposed and may be so by the Rule of St. Paul by which Rule and many others in Scripture a power is given to men to impose Signs which are never the worse surely because they signifie something that is decent and comely and so it is not doubtful whether such power be given It would rather be doubtful whether the Church could impose such idle Signs if any such there be as signifie nothing Repl. To your first Answer we reply 1. We suppose you speak of a moral goodnesse And if they are such indeed as are within their power and really good that is of their own nature fiâ—ter than their opposites they may be imposed by just authority by equal means though not by Usurpers nor by penalties that will do more harm than the things will do good 2. Signs that signifie nothing we understand not It is one thing to be decent and another to signifie something that is decent what you mean by that we know not The Crosse signifieth our not being ashamed to profess the faith of Christ crucified c. do you call that something that is decent It is something necessary to salvation 3. Signs are exceeding various At present we use but two distinctions 1. Some are signs Ex primaria intentione instituentis purposed and primarily instituted to signify as an Esoucheon or a sign at an Inne door in common matters and as the Sacrament and Cross in sacred matters and some are signs but consequently secondarily and not essentially as intended by the Institutor so hills and trees may shew us what a clock it is And so every creature signifyeth some good of mercy or duty and may be an object of holy meditation so the colour and shape of our clothes may mind us of some good which yet was none of the primary or proper end of the maker or wearer 2. Signs are either arbitrary expressions of a mans own mind in a matter where he is let free or they are covenanting signs between us and God in the Covenant of Grace to work Grace on us as moral causes and to engage us Sacramentally to him such we conceive the Cross in Baptisme to be The Preface to the Common Prayer-book saith They are apt to teach and excite c. Which is a moral operation of Grace And the Canon saith It is an honourable badge whereby the Infant is dedicated to him that died on the Cross We are signed with it in token that hereafter we shall not be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified and manfully to fight c. now if a thing may be commanded meerly as a decent circumstance of worship yet it is unproved that a thing that in its nature as instituted and in the primary intention is thus sacramentally to dedicate and ingage us in Covenant to God by signifying the grace and duty of the Covenant be lawfully commanded by man 1. Decent Circumstances are necessary in genere There must be some fit Time Place Gesture Vesture as such Utensils c. But that there be some such dedicating engaging signs in our covenanting with God signifying the Grace of the Covenant and our state and duty as Souldiers under Christ besides Gods Sacraments this is not necessary in genere and therefore it is not left to man to determine de specie 2. If there be any reason for this use of the Cross it must be such as was in the Apostles days and concerneth the universal Church in all ages and places and then the Apostles would have taken care of it Thus much here in brief of signs and more anon when you again call us to it To the second that it is not a violation of Christs Royalty to make such Laws for decercy but an exercise of his power and authority which he hath given to the Church And the disobedience to such commands of Euperiours is plainly a violation of his Royalty As it is no violation of the Kings Authority when his Magistrates command things according to his Laws But disobedience to the command of those Injunctions of his Deputies is violation of his Authority Again it can be no impeachment of Christs Laws as insufficient to make such Laws for decency since our Saviour as is evident by the Precepts themselves did not intend by them to determine every minute and circumstance of time place manner of performance and the like but only to command in general the substance of those duties and the right ends that should be aimed at in the performance and then left every man in particular whom for that purpose he made reasonable to guide himself by rules of reason for private Services And appointed Governours of the Church to determine such particularities for the publick Thus our Lord commanded Prayers Fasting c. for the times and places of performance he did not determine every of them but
can be imagined justly to binder us from a ready complyance to this method of Service appointed by them and so live in unity Reply Prayer and Humility are indeed the necessarie means of Peace But if you will let us pray for peace in no words but what are in the Common-Prayer-book their brevitie and unaptness and the customariness that will take off the edge of fervour with humane nature will not give leave or help sufficient to our souls to work towards God upon this Subject with that enlargedness copiousness and freedom as is necessary to due fervour A brief transient touch and away is not enough to warm the heart arigne and cold Prayers are like to have a cold return and therefore even for Peace sake let us pray more copiously and heartily than the Common-Prayer-book will help us to do And whether this be that cause or whether it be that the Common-Prayer-book hath never a Prayer for it self we find that its Prayers prevail not to reconcile many sober serious persons to it that live in faithfull fervent Prayer 2. And for Humility we humbly conceive it would most effectually heal us and by causing the Pastors of the Church to know that they are not to rule the flocks as Lords but as ensamples not by constraint but willingly 1 Pet. 5. 2 3. and it would cause them not to think so highly of themselves and so meanly of their Brethren as to judge no words fit to be used to God in the publick Worship but what they prescribe and put into our mouths and that other men are generally unable to speak sensibly or suitably unless they tell us what to say or that all others are unfit to be trusted with the expressing of their own desires Humilitie would perswade the Pastors of the Church at least to undertake no more than the Apostles did and no more to obtrude or impose their own words upon all others in the publick Worship If they found any unfit to be trusted with the expression of their mindes in publick Prayer they would do what they could to get meeter men in their places and till then they would restrain and help such as need it and not upon that pretence as much restrain all the ablest Ministers as if the whole Church were to be nominated measured or used according to the quality of the most unworthy And it is also true that humility in private persons and inferiors would do much to our peace by keeping them in due submission and obedience and keeping them from all contentions and divisions which proceed from self-conceitedness and pride But yet 1. The humblest surest Subjects may stumble upon the scruple whether Bishops differ not from Presbyters only in degree and not in order or office it being a Controversie and no resolved point of faith even amongst the Papists whose faith is too extensive and favour too Ecclesiastical ambition too great and consequently they may doubt whether men in the same order do by divine appointment owe obedience unto those that gradually go before them 2. And they may scruple whether such making themselves the Governours of their Brethren make not themselves indeed of a different order or office and so incroach not on the authority of Christ who only maketh Officers purely Ecclesiastical and whether it be no disloyalty to Christ to own such Officers 3. And among those Divines that are for a threefold Episcopacy besides that of Presbyters who are Episcopi Gregis viz. General unfixed Bishops like the Evangelists or Apostles in their measure and the fixed Bishops of Parochial Churches that have Presbyters to assist them to whom they do preside and also the Presidents of larger Synods yet is it a matter of very great doubt whether a fixed Diocesan being the Pastor of many hundred Churches having none under him that hath the power of Jurisdiction or Ordination be indeed a Governour of Christs appointment or approbation and whether Christ will give us any more thanks for owning them as such than the King will give us for owning an Usurper Humility alone will not seem to subject these men to such a Government 4. And though their coercive Magistratical power be easily submitted to as being from the King how unfit Subjects soever Church men are of such a power yet he that knoweth his Superiours best doth honour God more and supposeth God more infallible than man and will feel himself most indispensibly bound by Gods commands and bound not to obey man against the Lord. And whereas there is much sayd against the peoples taking on them to judge of the lawfulness of things commanded them by Superiors we add 5. That humble men may believe that their Superiors are fallible that it is no impossibility to command things that God forbids that in such Cases if we have sufficient means to discern the sinfulness of such Commands we must make use of them and must obey God rather than men that when the Apostles acted according to such a Resolution Acts 4. 19. and Daniel and the three Witnesses Dan. 6. and 3. they all exercised a judgement of Discerning upon the matter of their Superiors commands that not to do so at all is to make Subjects Bruits and so no Subjects because not rational free Agents or to make all Governors to be gods And lastly That it will not save us from Hell nor justifie us at Judgement for sinning against God to say that Superiors commanded us nor will it prove all the Martyrs to be sinners and condemned because they judged of their Superiors commands and disobeyed them All which we say to shew the insufficiency of the Remedy hereby you propounded the humility of Inferiors unless you will also add your help without obedience there is no order or lasting concord to be expected And by abasing the eternal God so far as to set him and his Laws below a Creature under pretence of obedience to the Creature no good can be expected because no peace with Heaven without which peace with men is but a Confederacy hastning each party to Destruction And therefore absolute obedience must be given only to God the absolute Sovereign In all this we suppose that we are all agreed And therefore 6. and lastly We must say that the way to make us think the Bishops to be so wise and careful Guides and Fathers to us is not for them to seem wiser than the Apostles and make those things of standing necessity to the Churches unity which the Apostles never made so nor to forbid all to preach the Gospel or to hold Communion with the Church that dare not conform to things unnecessary Love and tenderness are not used to express themselves by hurting and destroying men for nothing And to silence and reject from Church Communion for a Ceremony and in the mean time to perswade men that they love them is but to stab or famish all the sick persons in the Hospital or Family whose stomachs cannot take
for 12 pence an oath and may swear an hundred times before he payes that 12 pence A Papist shall pay 12 pence for not coming to Church and a Protestant be thrust out of your Communion for not kneeling at the Sacrament and a Minister suspended imprisoned undone for not crossing a Child or wearing a Surplice May Magistrates or the Church thus urge their commands Can any thing be spoken plainer than the Scripture speaks against this course And would you make the world believe that the brethren that do not all that you bid them are so unreasonably and obstinately scrupulons as to have no matter of offence but what they lay before themselves when they have the practice of the Apostles and the custom of the Primitive Church for many hundred years against you and this called by them an Apostolical tradition and decreed by the most uncharitable Councils that ever were If you had but one of these the decree of a General Council or practise of all the purest Churches alone for one of your Ceremonies you would think him uncharitable that so reproached you for pretending Conscience Sect. 11. The case of St. Paul not eating of flesh if it offended his Brother is nothing to the purpose who there speaks of things not commanded either by God or by his Church neither having in them any thing of decency or fignificancy to serve in the Church St. Paul would deny himself his own liberty rather than offend his Brother but if any man breaks a just Law or Custom of the Church he brands her for a lover of Schism and Sedition 1 Cor. 11. 16. Reply But because at our last meeting it was said with so much confidence by one that the case in Rom 14. and 15. was nothing to ours we shall here say the more to what you say that St. Pauls not eating flesh is nothing to the purpose your reasons are first because he speaks of nothing commanded by God or his Church Secondly not of any thing of decency or significancy to serve in the Church To the first we have oft told you that which is undenyable First that Paul was a Governour of that Church himself that had no superiour to controule him If you say that he then wrote not as a Governour we answer Yes For he wrote as an Apostle and wrote the Epistle that was to be a standing Law or Canon to them If this be not an act of his Office and Authority there was none such And then you must say the like of all the rest of the Epistles 2ly Moreover as Paul the Apostle excludeth all such impositions so he wrote to all the resident Pastours that were at Rome for he wrote to the whole Church and therefore these commands extend to the Governours that they make not such things the matter of Contempt or Censuces or any uncharitable Course but bear with one another in them Will you call men obstinate self-offenders that differ from you when you have no better answers then these to the plain decisions of the Holy Ghost What we speak of Rom. 14. 15. we speak also of 1 Cor. 8. And 3ly It is to the Rulers of the Church that we are speaking and it is they that answer us and shall the Rulers say If it were not a thing commanded we might bear with you when it is themselves that command them ecclesiastically and we intreat them but to forbear that and to concurre with us in petitioning the King to forbear commanding them coercively who no doubt will easily for bear it if they do their part 4ly Yea à fortiori it layeth a heavier charge on such Governours then others If it be so heynous a sin as Paul maketh it to censure or despise one another for meat and daies and such like things how much more to excommunicate silence and undo one another deprive thousands of souls of the preaching of the Gospel that consented not to their Pastours non-conformity 5ly Paul letteth you know that these things are not the Center or matter of our necessary concord but of mutual forbearance therefore condemneth all that will make them necessary to our united Ministry or Communion And the difference is wholly to the advantage of our cause For those that Paul spake to were not come so high as to go about to force others to do as they did but only to despise them for not doing it 2. And therefore to your second Reason we answer 1. If the things had been different yet so was Pauls injunction different from our Request For Paul goeth so high as to command them to deny their own liberty in not eating lawfull meats themselves lest they offend and hurt their brethren whereas we are now desiring you that you would not force others to do that which they take to be a sin and that with penalties that fall heavier on the Church then on them They had on both sides fairer pretences then you have The Cases before us to be compared are four The Case of the Refusers of meats and observers of daies then The Case of the users of those meats and non-observers of those daies The Case of our Imposers And the Case of non-Conformists The pretence of their Refusers of meats had in 1 Cor. 8. was that being offered to Idols they thought it made them partakers of the Idolatry so they sinn'd through weakness in being offended at others and censuring them that used their liberty And had they not here a fairer pretence for their offence and censures than you for your impositions you cannot shew half so great an appearance of good in the things commanded as they could do of evil in the things for which they were offended And the offended censurer in Rom. 14. had this pretence that the thing was forbidden in Gods own Law even the meats which he refused and the daies commanded which he observed and he knew not that the Law in these matters of Order Ceremony was abrogated which Peter was ignorant of when he refused to eat things common and unclean But you have no pretence of Gods own command for the matter of your impositions as these men had for the matter of their offence and censure so that here you are in the worser-side And for the other party that in 1 Cor. 8. abused their liberty and Rom. 14. despised their brethren they had a double pretence one was that it was their liberty and if every scrupulous party should drive them from their lawfull meat and drink they knew not whither they might drive them another was that the Law was abrogated by Christ and therefore if they complied in practice with the scrupulous or did not shew their difference they might seem to be guilty of the restoring of the Law and complying with the Jews and the Hereticks that both then were enemies to the Church and agreed in this Had not these men now a far fairer pretence for eating 1 Cor. 8. and for the
why not as well to the Solemnity of Religious Worship And in particular no habit more suitable then white linnen which resembles purity and beauty wherein Angels have appeared Rev. 15. Fit for those whom the Scripture calls Angels and this habit was ancient Chryso Ho. 60. ad pop Antioch Repl. First if nothing can be added then we doubt the unanswered writings extant against these impositions will never be well answered 2ly We are desirous that no indecent Vestures or habits be used in Gods service Those that Scruple the surplice do it not as it is a habit determined of as decent but as they think it is made a holy vestment and so part of external worship as Aarons vestments were as may be seen in the Arguments of Cotton and Nicholls lately printed together Sect. 14. The Cross was alwaies used in the Church in immortali lavacro Tertul. And therefore to testify our Communion with them as we are taught to do in our Creed as also in token that we shall not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ it is fit to be used still and we conceive cannot trouble the conscience of any that have a mind to be satisfied Repl. That the Cross was alwaies used in the Church in baptism is an assertion certainly untrue and such as we never heard or read till now Do you believe it was used in the baptism of the Eunuch Lydia the Jaylor Cornelius the 300. Acts 3. or in those times And when it did come up it was with Chrism and not ever any transient Image and therefore you so far differ from the users 2ly The condemnation of genu flection on the Lords daies in adoration was at least as ancient and universall and commanded by Councils when the Cross was not and yet you can dispense with that and many such usages And if you will your selves fall in with custome yet every ancient common custome was never intended to be a matter of necessity to union or toleration of our brethren use no other force about the Cross than the Church then did 3ly Your saying that you conceive it cannot trouble the conscience of any that have a mind to be satisfied doth but express your uncharitable censoriousness while your brethren have studied and prayed and conferred for satisfaction its like as much as you and profess their earnest desire of it and their readiness to hear or read any thing that you have to say in order to their satisfaction Sect. 15. The posture of kneeling best suites at the Communion as the most convenient and so most decent for us when we are to receive as it were from Gods hand the greatest of Seals of the Kingdom of heaven he that thinks he may do this sitting let him remember the Prophet Mal. Offer this to thy Prince to receive his Seal from his own hand sitting see if he will accept of it When the Church did stand at her prayers the manner of receiving was more Adorantiun S. Aug. Psal 98. Cyril Catech. Mystag 5. Rahter more then at prayers since standing at Prayer hath been generally left and kneeling used instead of that as the Church may vary in such indifferent things now to stand at Communion when we keel at Prayers were not decent much lesse to sit which was never the use of the best times Reply To all this about Kneeling we say first we have considered the Text in Mal. and what you say and yet first we find that our Betters even Christs Apostles and the universal Church for many hundred years thought not kneeling more decent nor did the Church in the first Age think sitting unmeet in that service to the King of the Church and we hope you reprehend them not 2ly You require not the Adult that are baptized to receive that Seal or Sacrament kneeling 3ly When kneeling at Prayers was in use in the Apostles times yet kneeling in the reception of the Sacrament was not 4ly Why can you so lightly put off both the practice and Canons of the Church in this more then in other such things However you cannot here deny de facto but that kneeling on the Lords dayes in the receiving of the Sacrament was for many hundred yeares of the purer times of the Church dis-used and condemned And why do you not tell us what other general Council repealed this that we may see whether it be such as we are any way bound by When you say the Church may vary in such indifferent things First if kneeling or standing at prayer be an indifferent thing then so are they at this Sacrament 2ly Then you follow the changes and we the old pattern 3ly Then the Canons of general Councils and Customes pretended to be from Apostolical tradition may be changed 4ly What is it that you call the Church that changeth or may change these A Council or a popular custome Bring us not under a forraign power 5ly The thing then being so indifferent and changeable you may change it if you please for ends that are not indifferent 6ly And if now the Ministers may pray standing why may not the people receive standing 7ly When you say that to sit was never the use of the best times you deny the Apostles and primitive times to be the best as to the extent of the Church they were not the best but as to purity of administrations they were Sect. 16. That there were ancient Liturgies in the Church is evident S. Chrysostom S. Basil and others and the Greeks tells us of S. James's much older then they and though we find not in all ages whole Liturgies yet it is certain that there were such in the oldest times by those parts which are extant as Sursum Corda c. Gloria Patri c. Benedicite Hymnus Cherubinus c. Verè dignum justum c. Dominus vobiscum Et cum spiritu tuo with divers others Though those that are extant may be interpolated yet such things as are found in them all consistent to Catholick and primitive doctrine may well be presumed to have been from the first especially since we find no original of these Liturgies from general Councils Reply We know there wanteth not a Lindanus a Coccius to tell the world of S. Peters Liturgy which yet prayeth that by the intercession of S. Peter and Paul we may be defended c and mentioneth Linus Cletus Clemens Cornelius Cyprian Lucia Barbara and abundance such shall we therefore conclude that there were Liturgies from the first and that what is here consentient to Antiquity was in it There wants not a Marg. de la Bigne à Greg. de Valent. à Coccius to commend to us the Liturgy of Mark that prayeth Protege Civitatem istam proper Martyrem tuum Evangelistam Marcum c. And tells us that the King where the Authour lived was an Orthodox Christian and prayeth for the Pope Subdeacons Lelors Cantors Monks c. Must we therefore believe that all that 's Orthodox in it
or might doe by vertue of these our Letters patents or any thing therein contained in case he or they were personally present In witness whereof we have caused these our Letters to be made patents witness our self at VVestminster the 25 day of March in the thirteenth year of our Reign Per ipsum Regem Barker THE EXCEPTIONS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN Brethren Against some passages in the present LITURGY ACknowledging with all humility and thankfulness His Majesties most Princely condescention and indulgence to very many of his Loyall subjects as well in his Majesties most gracious Declaration as particularly in this present Commission issued forth in pursuance thereof we doubt not but the Right Reverend Bishops and all the rest of His Majesties Commissioners intrusted in this work will in imitation of His Majesties most prudent and Christian Moderation and Clemency judge it their duty that we find to be the Apostles own practice in a speciall manner to be tender to the Churches peace to bear with the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves nor to measure the Consciences of other men by the light and latitude of their own but seriously and readily to consider and advise of such Expedients as may most conduce to the healing of our breaches and uniting those that differ And albeit we have an high and honourable esteem of those Godly and Learned Bishops and others who were the first Compilers of the publick Liturgy and doe look upon it as an excellent and worthy Work for that time when the Church of England made her first step out of such a mist of Popish Ignorance and Superstition wherein it formerly was involved yet considering that all humane Works do gradually arrive at their maturity and perfection and this in particular being a Work of that nature hath already admitted several emendations since the first compiling thereof It cannot be thought any disparagement or derogation either to the Work it self or to the Compilers of it or to those who have hitherto used it if after more than one hundred years since its first composure such further emendations be now made therein as may be judged necessary for satisfying the scruples of a multitude of sober persons who cannot at all or very hardly comply with the use of it as now it is and may best suit with the present times after so long an enjoyment of the glorious light of the Gospel and so happy a Reformations especially considering that many godly and learned men have from the beginning all along desired the alteration of many things therein and very many of his Majesty's pious peaceable and loyal Subjects after so long a discontinuance of it are more averse from it than heretofore the satisfying of whom as far as may be will very much conduce to that Peace and Unity which is so much desired by all good men and so much endeavoured by His most Excellent Majesty And therefore in pursuance of this His Majesty's most gracious Commission for the satisfying of tender Consciences and the procuring of Peace and Unity amongst our selves we judge meet to propose I. That all the Prayers and other Materials of the Liturgy may consist of nothing doubtful or questioned amongst Pious Learned and Orthodox Persons inasmuch as the professed end of composing them is for the declaring of Unity and consent of all who joyn in the Publick Worship it being too evident that the limiting Church-Communion to things of doubtful disputation hath been in all Ages the ground of Schism and separation according to the saying of a Learned Man To load our Publick Forms with the private Fancies upon which we differ is the most Sovereign way to perpetuate Schism to the Worlds end Prayer Confession Thanksgiving reading of the Scriptures and administration of the Sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient Liturgy though nothing either of private Opinion or of Church pomp of Garments or prescribed Gestures of Imagery of Musick of matter concerning the dead of many superfluities which creep into the Church under the name of Order and Decency did interpose it self To charge Churches or Litnrgies with things unnecessary was the first beginning of all Superstition and when scruple of Conscience began to be made or pretended then Schisme began to break in If the speciall Guides and Fathers of the Church would be a little sparing of incumbring Churches with Superfluities or not over-rigid either in reviving obsolete Customs or imposing new there would be far less cause of Schism or Superstition and all the Inconvenience likely to ensue would be but this they should in so doing yield a little to the imbecility of their Inferiours a thing which S. Paul would never have rrefused to doe mean while wheresoever false or suspected Opinions are made a piece of Church-Liturgy he that separates is not the Schismatick for it is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falshood as to put in practice unlawful or suspected actions II. Further we humbly desire that it may be seriously considered that as our first Reformers out of their great wisdome did at that time so compose the Liturgy as to win upon the Papists and to draw them into their Church-Communion by varying as little as well they could from the Romish forms before in use so whether in the present constitution and state of things amongst us we should not according to the same rule of Prudence and Charity have our Liturgy so composed as to gain upon the judgement and affections of all those who in the substantials of the Protestant Religion are of the same perswasions with our selves In as much as a more firm union and consent of all such as well in Woship as in Doctrine would greatly strengthen the Protestant Interest against all those dangers and temptations which our intestine Divisions and Animosities do expose us unto from the common Adversary III. That the Repetitions and Responsals of the Clerk and People and the alternate Reading of the Psalms and Hymns with a confused murmure in the Congregation whereby what is read is less intelligible and therefore unedifying may be omitted the Minister being appointed for the People in all Publick Services appertaining unto God and the holy Scriptures both of the old and new Testament intimating the peoples part in publick Prayer to be only with silence and reverence to attend thereunto and to declare their consent in the close by saying Amon. IV. That in regard the Letany though otherwise containing in it many holy Petitions is so framed that the Petitions for a great part are uttered onely by the People which we think not to be so consonant to Scripture which makes the Minister the Mouth of the People to God in Prayer the particulars thereof may be composed into one solemn Prayer to be offered by the Minister unto God for the People V. That there may be nothing in the Liturgy which may seem to countenance
the observation of Lent as a Religious Fast the Example of Christ's fasting forty dayes and nights being no more imitable nor intended for the imitation of Christians than any other of his miraculous works were or than Moses his forty dayes Fast was for the Jewes and the Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. forbidding abstinence from flesh to be observed upon any other than a politick Consideration and punishing all those who by Preaching Teaching Writing or open Speech shall notifie that the forbearing of flesh is of any necessity for the saving of the soul or that it is the service of God otherwise than as other politick Laws are VI. That the Religious observation of Saints dayes appointed to be kept as holy dayes and the Vigils thereof without any foundations as we conceive in Scripture may be omitted that if any be retained they may be called Festival and not Holy dayes nor made equal with the Lords day nor have any peculiar Service appointed for them nor that the People be upon such days enforced wholly to abstain from work and that the names of all others not inserted in the Callendar which are not in the first and second Books of Edward the Sixth may be left out VII That the gift of Prayer being one special qualification for the Work of the Ministery bestowed by Christ in order to the edification of his Church and to be exercised for the profit and benefit thereof according to its various and emergent necessities It is desired that there may be no such Imposition of the Liturgy as that the exercise of that gift be thereby totally excluded in any part of publick worship and further that considering the great age of some Ministers and the infirmities of others and the variety of several services oft time occurring upon the same day whereby it may be inexpedient to require every Minister at all times to read the whole it may be left to the discretion of the Minister to omit it as occasion shall require which liberty we find to be allowed even in the first Common Prayer Book of Edward the Sixth VIII That in regard of the many defects which have been observed in that Version of the Scriptures which is used throughout the Liturgy many fold instances whereof may be produced as in the Epistle for the first Sunday after Epiphany taken out of Rom. 12. 1. Be you changed in your shape And the Epistle for the Sunday next before Easter taken out of Phil. 2. 5. Found in his apparel as a man As also the Epistle for the first Sunday in Lent taken out of the fourth of the Galatians Mount Sinai is Agar in Arabia and bordereth upon the City which is now called Jerusalem The Epistle for Saint Matthews day being taken out of the second Epistle of the Corinthians and the fourth We go not out of kind The Gospel for the second Sunday after Epiphany taken out of the second of John When men be drunk The Gospel for the third Sunday in Lent taken out of the eleventh of Luke One house doth fall upon another The Gospel for the Annunciation taken out of the first of Luke This is the sixth month which is called Barren and many other places we therefore desire instead thereof the Translation allowed of by Authority may alone be used IX That in as much as the Holy Scriptures are able to make us wise unto salvation to furnish us thoroughly unto all good works and contain in them all things necessary either in Doctrine to be believed or in Duty to be practised whereas divers Chapters of the Apocryphal Books appointed to be read are charged to be in both respects of dubious and uncertain credit It is therefore desired that nothing be read in the Church for Lessons but the Holy Scriptures in the Old and New Testament X. That the Minister be not required to rehearse any part of the Liturgy at the Communion Table save onely those parts which properly belong to the Lords Supper and that at such time onely when the Holy Supper is administrated XI That the word Minister and not Priest or Curate is used in the absolution and in divers other places It may thoroughout the whole Book be used instead of those two words and that instead of the word Sunday the word Lords day may be every where used XII Because singing of Psalms is a considerable part of Publick Worship we desire that the Version set forth and allowed to be sung in Churches may be amended or that we may have leave to make use of a purer Version XIII That all obsolete words in the Common Prayer and such whose use is changed from their first significancy as read who smote thee used in the Gospels for the Monday and Wednesday before Easter Then opened be their witts used in the Gospel for Easter Tuesday c. may be altered into other words generally received and better understood XIV That no portions of the Old Testament or the Acts of the Apostles be called Epistles or read as such XV. That whereas throughout the severall offices the Phrase is such as presumes all persons within the Communion of the Church to be regenerated converted and in an actuall state of grace which had Ecclesiasticall Discipline been truly and vigorously executed in the exclusion of scandalous and obstinate sinners might be better supposed But that there having been and still being a confessed want of that as in the Liturgy is acknowledged it cannot rationally be admitted in the utmost latitude of Charity we desire that this may be reformed XVI That whereas orderly connexion of Prayers and of particular Petitions and expressions together with a competent length of the formes used are tending much to edification and to gain the reverence of people to them There appears to us too great neglect of this Order and of other Just Laws of method particularly 1. The Collects are generally short many of them consisting but of one or two Sentences of petition and those generally usherd in with a repeated mention of the Name and Attributes of God and presently concluding with the Name and Merits of Christ whence are caused many unnecessary intercessions and abruptions which when many Petitions are to be offered at the same time are neither agreeable to scripturall example nor suted to the gravity and seriousness of that Holy Duty 2. The Prefaces of many Collects have not any clear and speciall respect to the following Petitions and particular petitions are put together which have not any due order or evident connexion one with another nor suitable with the occasions upon which they are used but seem to have fallen in rather casually than from any orderly codtinuance It is desired that instead of these various Collects there may be one Methodicall and entire form of Prayer composed out of many of them XVII That whereas the Puplick Liturgy of a Church should in reason comprehend the summe of all such sins as are ordinarily in Prayer by
the Church to be confessed and of such Petitions and Thanksgiving as are ordinarily by the Church to be put up to God and that Puplick Catechismes or Systemes of Doctrine should summarily comprehend all such Doctrines as are necessarily to be believed and these explicitely set down The present Liturgy as to all these seems very defective particularly 1. There is no preparatory Prayer in your addresses to God for assistance or acceptance yet many Collects in the midst of the Worship have little or nothing else 2. The Confession is very defective not clearly expressing Originall sin nor sufficiently enumerating Actuall sins with their aggrivations but consisting only of generals whereas Confession being the exercise of repentance ought to be more particular 3. There is also great defect as to such Forms of publick prayers and thanksgivings as are suitable to Gospel-worship 4. The whole body of the Common Prayer also consisteth very much of meer generals as to have our prayers heard to be kept from all evil and from all enemies and all adversities that we may do Gods will without any mention of the particulars wherein these generals exist 5. The Catechism is defective as to many necessary Doctrines of our religion some even of the Essentials of Christianity not mentioned except in the Creed and there not so explicite as ought to be in the Catechism XVIII Because this Liturgy containeth the imposition of divers Ceremonies which from the first Reformation have by sundry Learned and pious men been judged unwarrantable as 1. That publick Worship may not be celebrated by any Minister that dares not wear a Surplice 2. That none may Baptise or be Baptised without the transient Image of the Cross which hath at least the semblance of a Sacrament of humane institution being used as an engaging sign in our first and solemn Covenanting with Christ and the Duties whereunto we are really obliged by Baptism being more expresly affixed to that Aery fign than to the holy Sacrament 3. That none may receive the Lords Supper that dares not kneel in the act of receiving but the Minister must exclude all such from the Communion although such kneeling not only differs from the practice of Christ and of his Apostles but at least on the Lords daies is contrry to the practice of the Catholick Church for many hundred years after and forbid by the most venerable Councila that ever were in the Christian world All which Impositions are made yet more grievous by that subscription to their lawfulness which the Cannon exacts and by the heavy punishments upon the non observance of them which the Act for uniformity inflicts And it being doubtfull whether God hath given power unto men to institute in his worship such mysticall teaching signs which not being necessary in genere fall not under the rule of doing all things decently orderly and to edification and which once granted will upon the same reason open a door to the arbitrary Imposition of numerous Ceremonies of which St. Aug. complained in his dayes and the things in Controversie being in the Judgement of the Imposers confessed indifferent who dare not so much as pretend any real goodness in themselves otherwise than what is derived from their being imposed and consesequently the Imposition ceasing that will cease also and the Worship of God not become indecent without them whereas on the other hand in the Judgement of the Opposers they are by some held sinful and unlawful in themselves by others very inconvenient and unsuitable to the simplicity of Gospel-Worship and by all of them very grievous and burdensome and therefore not at all fit to put in balance with the peace of the Church which is more likely to be promoted by their removal than continuance considering also how tender our Lord and Saviour himself is of weak Brethren declaring it to be much better for a man to have a Milstone to be hanged about his neck and to be cast into the depth of the Sea than to offend one of his little ones and how the Apostle Paul who had as great a Legislative power in the Church as any under Christ held himself obliged by that common rule of Charity not to lay a stumbling block or an occasion of offence before a weak Brother chusing rather not to cat flesh while the world stands though in it self a thing lawful than offend his Brother for whom Christ dyed we cannot but desire that these Ceremonies may not be imposed on them who judge such impositions a violation of the Royalty of Christ and an Impeachment of his Laws as insufficient and are under the holy Law of that which is written Deut. 12. 32. VVhat thing soever I command you observe to do it thou shalt not adde thereto nor diminish from it but that there may be either a total abolishion of them or at least such a liberty that those who are unsatisfied concerning their lawfulness or expedency may not be compolled to the practice of them or subscription to them but may be permitted to enjoy their Ministerial Functions and Communion with the Church without them The rather because these Ceremonies have for above an hundred years been the fountain of manifold evils in this Church and Nation occasioning sad Divisions between Ministers and Ministers and also between Ministers and people exposing many orthodox pious and peaceable Ministers to the displeasure of their Rulers casting them upon the edge of the penal Statutes to the loss not only of their Livings and liberties but also of their opportunities for the service of Christ and his Church and forcing people either to worship God in such a manner as their own consciences condemn or doubt of or else to forsake our Assemblies as thousands have done and no better fruits than these can be lookt for from the retaining and imposing these Ceremonies unless we could presume that all his Majesties Subjects should have the same subtilty of Judgement to discern even to a Ceremony how farr the Power extends in the things of God which is not to be expected or should yeeld obedience to all the Impositions of men concerning them without enquiring into the will of God which is not to be desired We do therefore most earnestly intreat the Right Reverend Fathers and Brethren to whom these Papers are delivered as they tender the Glory of God the Honour of Religion the Peace of the Church the Service of His Majesty in the accomplishment of that happy Union which his Majesty hath so abundantly testified his desires of to joyn with us in importuning His most Excellent Majesty that His most gracious Indulgence as to these Ceremonies granted in His Royall Declaration may be comfirmed and continued to us and our posterities and extended to such as do not yet enjoy the benefit thereof XIX As to that Passage in His Majesties Commission wherein we are authorized and required to compare the Present Liturgy with the most ancient Liturgy which have been used in
was personally present amongst them nor that which was used in the purest and primitive times of the Church may be left free as it was 1 2 Ea. 6. As touching Kneeling c. they may be used or left as every mans devotion serveth without blame And note That every Parishioner shall communicate at the least three times in the year of which Easter shall be one and after shall receive the Sacraments and other Rites according to the Orders in this book appointed Forasmuch as all Parishioners are not duely qualified for the Lords Supper and those habitually prepared are not at all times actually disposed but may be hindred by the providence of God and some by the distempers of their own spirits We desire this Rubrick may be wholly omitted or they altered Every Minister shall be bound to administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper at the least thrice a year provided there be a due number of Communicants manifesting their desires to receive And we desire that the following Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-Book in 5 6 Ed. 6. established by Law as much as any other part of the Common-Prayer-Book may be restored for the Vindication of our Church in the matter of kneeling at the Sacrament although the gesture be left in different Although no order can be so perfectly devised but it may be of some either for their ignorance and infirmity or else of malice and obstinacy misconstrued and depraved and interpreted in a wrong part And yet because that brotherly Charity willeth that so much as conveniently may be offences should be taken away Therefore we willing to do the same whereas it is ordered in the Book of Common-Prayer in the administration of the Lords Supper that the communicants kneeling should receive the Holy Communion which thing being well meant for the signification of the humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefit of Christ given to the worthy Receivers and to avoid the prophanation and disorder which about the Holy Communion might else ensue lest yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise We do declare that it is not meant thereby that any Adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christs natural flesh and blood forasmuch as concerning the Sacramental Bread and Wine they remain still in their very natural substance and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry to be aborred of all faithful Christians And as concerning the natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ they are in Heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christs natural body to be in more places than in one at one time Of Publick Baptism THere being divers learned pious and peaceable Ministers who do not only judg it unlawful to baptize children whose Parents both of them are Atheists Infidels Hereticks or unbaptized but also such whose parents are excommunicate persons Fornieators or otherwise notorious and scandalous sinners We desire they may not be inforced to Baptize the children of such until they have made open profession of their repentance before Baptism Parents shall give notice over night or else in the morning VVe desire that more timely notice may be given And then the Godfathers and the Godmothers and the people with their Children Here is no mention of the Parents in whose right the child is baptized and who are fittest both to dedicate it to God and to undertake to God and the Church for it We do not know that any persons except the parents or some other appointed by them have any power to consent for the children or to enter anto Covenant We desire it may be left free to parents whether they will have Sureties to undertake for their children in Baptism Ready at the Font. VVe desire it may be so placed as all the Congregation may best see and hear the whole administration In the first Prayer By the Baptism of thy well beloved Son c. didst sanctifie the flood Jordan and all other waters to the mystical washing away of sin It being doubtful whether either the flood Jordan or any other waters were sanctified to a Sacramental use by Christs being baptized and not necessary to be altered VVe desire this may be otherwise expressed The third Exhoreation Do promise by you that are their Sureties The Questions Dost thou forsake c. Dost thou believe c. VVilt thou be baptized c. VVe know not by what right the Sureties do promise and answer in the name of the Infant It seemeth to us also to countenance the Anabaptistical opinion of the necessity of an actual profession of faith and repentance in order to Baptism Thâ—s such a profession may be required of the parents in their own name and now solemnly renewed when they present their children to Baptism we willingly grant But the asking of one for another is a practice whose warrant we doubt And we desire that the two first Interrogatories may be put to the Parents to be answered in their own names and the last propounded to the Parents or Pro-parents thus Will you have this child baptized into this Faith In the second Prayer before Baptism May receive remission of sins by spiritual regeneration This expression seeming incovenient we desire it may be changed into this May be regenerated and receive remission of sins In the Prayer after Baptism That it hath pleased thee to regenerate this Infant by thy holy Spirit We cannot in Faith say that every Child that is baptized is regenerated by Gods Holy Spirit at least it is a disputable point and therefore we desire that it may be otherwise expressed After Baptism Then shall the Priest make a Cross Concerning the Cross in Baptism we refer to our eighteenth General Of Private Baptism VVE desire that Baptism may not be administred in a private place at any time unless by a lawful Minister and in the presence of a competent number That where it is evident that any child hath been so baptized no part of the administration may be reiterated in publick under any limitation and therefore we see no need of any Lyturgy in that case Of the Catechism Quest 1 VVHat is your name Quest 2. Who gave you that name Answ My Godfathers and my Godmothers in my Baptism Qust 3. What did your Godfathers and Godmothers do for you in Baptism We desire that these three first Questions may be altered considering that the for greater number of persons baptized within these twenty years last past had no Godfathers nor Godmothers at their Baptism The like to be done in the seventh Question Answ 2. In my Baptism wherein I was made a Child of God a member of Christ and an Inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven VVe conceive it might more safely be expressed thus Wherein I was visibly admitted into the
number of the members of Christ the Children of God and the Heirs rather than the Inheritors of the Kingdom of heaven Of the Rehearsal of the ten Commandements VVe desire that the Commandements may be inserted according to the new Translation of the Bible 10. Answ My duty towards God is to believe in him c. In this Answer there seems particular respect to be had to the several Commandements of the first Table as in the following Answer to those of the second and therefore we desire it may be advised upon whether to the last words of this Answer may not be added particularly On the Lords day otherwise there being nothing in all this answer that refers to the fourth Commandement Qu. 14. How many Sacraments hath Christ ordained Answ Two only as generally necessary to salvation That these words may be omitted and answer thus given Two only Baptism and the Lords Supper Qu. 19. What is required of persons to be baptized Answ Repentance whereby they forsake sin and Faith whereby they stedfastly believe the promise of God Qu. 20. Why then are Infants baptized when by reason of their tender age they cannot perform them Answ Yes they doe perform them by their Sureties who promise and vow them both in their names We desire that the entring of Infants into Gods Covenant may be more warily expressed and that the words may not seem to found their Baptism upon a real actual faith and repentance of their own And we desire that a promise may not be taken for the performance of such faith and repentance especially that it be not asserted that they perform these by the promise of their Sureties it being to the seed of Believers that the covenant of God is made and not that we can find to all that have such believing Sureties who are neither Parents nor Pro-parents of their children In the generall Wee observe that the Doctrine of the Sacraments was added upon the conference at Hampton Court is much more fully and particularly delivered then the other parts of the Catechism in short Answers fitted to the memories of children and thereupon wee offer it to be confidered 1. Whether there should not be a more distinct and full explieation of the Creed the Commandements and the Lords Prayer 2. Whether it were not convtnient to adde what seemes to be wanting somewhat particularly concerning the nature of Faith of Repentance of the two Covenants Justification Sanctification Adoption and Regeneration Of Confirmation The last Rubrick before the Catechism AND that no man should think that any detriment shall come to Children by deferring of their Confirmation he shall know for truth that it is certain by Gods Word that Children by being baptized have all things necessary for their Salvation and be undoubtedly saved Although wee charitably suppose the meaning of these words was only to exclude the necessity of any other Sacraments to baptized Infants yet these words are dangerous as to the misleading of the vulgar and therefore we desire they may be expunged After the Catechism SO soon as the Children can say in their mother tongue the Articles of the Faith the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandements and can answer to such other questions of the short Catechsm c Then shall they be brought to the Bishop and the Bishop shall confirm them We conceive that it is not a sufficient qualification for confirmation that Children be able memoriter to repeat the Articles of the faith commonly called the Apostles Creed the Lords Prayer and the ten Commandements and to answer to some questions of the short Catechism for it s often found that Children are able to doe all this at four or five years old 2. It crosses what is said in the third reason of the first Rubrick before confirmation concerning the usage of the Church in times past ordaining that Confirmation should be administred to them that are of perfect age that they being instructed in Christian Religion should openly professe their own faith and promise to be obedient to the will of God Thirdly VVe desire that none may be confirmed but according to his Majesties Declaration Viz. That Confirmatioin be rightly and solemnly performed by the information and with the consent of the Minister of the place Rubrick After the Catechism THen shall they be brought to the Bishop by one that shall he his God-father or God-mother This seems to bring in a second sort of God-fathers and God-mothers beside those made use of at Baptism and we see no need either of the one or other The Prayer before Imposition of hands Who hast vouchsafed to regenerate these thy servants by water and the holy Ghost and hast given them the forgivenesse of all their sins This supposeth all the Children who are brought to be confirmed have the Spirit of Christ and the forgivenesse of all their fins whereas a great number of Children of that age having committed many sins since their Baptism doe shew no evidence of serious repentance or of any speciall saving grace And therefore this confirmation if administred to such would be a perillous and gross abuse Rub. Before the Imposition of hands THe Bishop shall lay his hand upon each child severally This seems to put a higher value upon Confirmation than upon Baptism or the Lords Supper for according to the Rules and Orders of the Common-Prayer-Book every Deacon may Baptize and every Minister may Consecrate and administer the Lords Supper but the Bishop only may confirm The Prayer after Imposition of hands VVE make our humble supplication to thee for these children upon whom after the Example of thy holy Apostles we have laid our hands to certifie them by this signe of thy favour and gracious goodness towards them We desire that the practice of the Apostles may not be alledged as a ground of the Imposition of hands for the confirmation of children both because the Apostles did never use it in that ease as also because the Articles of the Church of England declare it to be a corrupt imitation of the Apostles practice Art 25. VVe desire that Imposition of hands may not be made as here it is a signe to certifie children of Gods grace and favour towards them because this serms to speak it a Sacrament and is contrary to that fore mentioned 25. Art which sayes that Confirmation hath no visible signe appointed by God The Rub. after Confirmation NOne shall be admitted to the holy Communion until such time as he can say the Catechism and be confirmed VVe desire that Confirmation may not be made so necessary to the holy Communion as that none should be admitted to it unless they be confirmed Of the Form of solemnization of Matrimony THe man shall give the woman a Ring c. shall surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made whereof the Ring given and received is a token and pledge
minde them of their duty as they do us of ours telling us it is our duty to imitate the Apostles practise in a special manner to be tender of the Churches peace and to advise of such expedients as may conduce to the healing of breaches and uniting those that differ For preserving of the Churches peace we know no better nor more efficatious way than our set Liturgy there being no such way to keep us from Schism as to speak all the same thing according to the Apostle Reply If you look to the time past by our Duties we suppose you mean our Faults For it is not Duty when it 's past If you in these words respect only the time present and to come we Reply 1. The Liturgy we are assured will not be a less but a more probable means of Concord after the desired Reformation than before the defects and inconveniencies make it less fit to attain the end 2ly Whether the Apostle by speaking the same thing did mean either all using this Liturgy of ours or all using any one form of Liturgy as to the words may easily be determined This is of much later date unless you will denominate the whole form of the Lords Prayer and some little parts And those that affirm that the Apostles then had any other must undertake the task of proving it and excusing the Churches for losing and dis-using so precious a Relict which if preserved would have prevented all our strifes about these things And in the mean time they must satisfie our Arguments for the Negative As 1. If a Liturgy had been indited by the Apostles for the Churches being by universal Officers inspired by the Holy Ghost and so of universal use it would have been used and preserved by the Church as the Holy Scriptures were But so it was not Ergo no such Liturgy was indited by them for the Churches 2ly If a prescript form of words had been delivered them there would have been no such need of exhorting them to speak the same thing for the Liturgy would have held them close enough to that And if the meaning had been see that you use the same Liturgy some word or other to some of the Churches would have acquainted us with the existence of such a thing and some Reproofs we should have found of those that used various Liturgies or formed Liturgies of their own or used extemporary prayers and some express exhortations to use the same Liturgie or Forms But the holy Scripture is silent in all those matters It is apparent therefore that the Churches then had no Liturgy but took liberty of extemporate expressions and spoke in the things of God as men do in other matters with a natural plainess and seriousness suiting their expressions to the subjects and occasions And though Divisions began to disturb their Peace and holy Orders the Apostle instead of prescribing them a Form of Divine Services for their Unity and Concord do exhort them to use their Gifts and liberties aright and speake the same thing for matter avoiding Disagreements though they used not the same words 3. Just Martyr Tertull. and others sufficiently intimate to us that the Churches quickly after the Apostles did use the personal Abilities of their Pastors in prayer and give us no hint of any such Liturgy of Apostolical fabrication and imposition and therefore doubtlesse there was nothing for it could not have been so soon lost or neglected 4. It is ordinary with those of the contrary judgment to tell us that the extraordinary Gifts of the Primitive Christians were the reason why there were no prescribed forms in those times and that such Liturgies came in upon the ceasing of those Gifts And 1 Cor. 14. describeth a way of publick worshiping unlike to prescript forms of Liturgy So that the matter of Fact is proved and confessed And then how fairly the words of the Apostles exhorting them to speake the same thing are used to prove that he would have them use the same forms or Liturgy we shall not tell you by any provoking aggravations of such abuse of Scripture And indeed for all the miraculous Gifts of those times if prescript forms had been judged by the Apostles to be the fittest means for the Concord of the Churches it is most probable they would have prescribed such Considering 1. That the said miraculous Gifts were extraordinary and belonged not to all nor to any at all times and therefore could not suffice for the ordinary publick Worship 2. And those Gifts began even betimes to be abused and need the Apostles Canons for their regulation which he giveth them in that 1 Cor. 14. without a prescript Liturgy 3. Because even then divisions had made not only an entrance but an unhappy progress in the Churches to cure which the Apostle exhorts them oft to Unanimity and Concord without exhorting them to read the same or any Common-Prayer-book 4. Because that the Apostles knew that perillous times would come in which men would have itching ears and would have heaps of Teachers and would be self-willed and unruly and divisions and offences and heresies would encrease And Ergo as upon such fore-sight they indited the holy Scriptures to keep the Church in all generations from error and divisions in points of Doctrine so the same reason and care would have moved them to do the same to keep the Churches in unity in point of Worship if indeed they had taken prescribed forms to be needfull to such an unity they knew that after departure the Church would never have the like advantage infallible authorized and enabled for delivering the universal Laws of Christ And seeing in those parts of worship which are of stated use and still the same forms might have suited all ages as this age and all Countries as this Country in the substance there can no reason be given why the Apostles should leave this undone and not have performed it themselves if they had judged such forms to be necessary or the most desirable means of unity If they had prescribed them 1. The Church had been secured from error in them 2. Believers had been preserved from divisions about the lawfulnesse and fitnesse of them as receiving them from God 3. All Churches and Countries might had one Liturgy as they have one Scripture and so have all spoke the same things 4. All ages would have had the same without innovation in all the parts that require not alteration whereas now on the contrary 1. Our Liturgies being the writings of fallible men are lyable to error and we have cause to fear subscribing to them as having nothing contrary to the word of God 2. And matters of Humane institution have become the matter of scruple and contention 3. And the Churches have had great diversity of Liturgies 4. And one age hath been mending what they supposed they received from the former faulty and imperfect So that our own which you are so loath to Change hath
not continued yet three Generations And it is most evident that the Apostles being entrusted with the delivery of the entire rule of Faith and worship and having such great advantages for our unity and peace would never have omited the forming of a Liturgy of universal usefulnesse to avoid all the foresaid inconveniences if they had taken this course of unity to be so needfull or desirable as you seem to do Whereas therefore you say you know no better or more efficatious way than our Liturgy c. We reply 1. The Apostles knew the best way of unity and of speaking the same thing in the matters of God But the Apostles knew not our Liturgy nor any Common-Prayer-book for ought hath yet been proved Ergo the said Liturgy is not the best way of unity or speaking the same thing c. 2. The Primitive Church in the next ages after the Apostles knew the best way of unity c. But they knew not our Liturgy Ergo our Liturgy not known till lately is not the best way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If it be said that our Liturgy is antient because the Sursum Corda the Gloria Patri c. are antient We answer if indeed it be those ancient Sentences that denominate our Liturgy we crave the justice to be esteemed users of the Liturgy and not to suffer as refusers of it as long as we use all that is found in it of such true antiquity This experience of former and latter times hath taught us when the Liturgy was duly observed we lived in peace since that was layd aside there hath been as many modes and fashions of publick Worship as fancies we have had continual dissention which vaeriety of Services must needs produce whilest every one naturally desires and endeavours not only to maintain but to prefer his own way before all others whence we conceive there is no such way to the preservation of peace as for all to return to the strict use and practise of the form Reply Pardon us while we desire you to examine whether you speak as members that suffer with those that suffer or rather as insensible of the calamities of your Brethren that is as uncharitable You say you lived in peace but so did not the many thousands that were fain to seek them peaceable habitations in Holland and in the Desarts of America nor the many thousands that lived in danger of the High Commission or Bishops Courts at home and so in danger of every malicious neighbour that would accuse them hearing Sermons abroad when they had none at home or of meeting in a Neighbours house to pray or of not kneeling in the receiving of the Sacrament c. We would not have remembred you of these things but that you necessitate us by pleading your peace in those dayes as an argument for the imposing of the Liturgy 2. Might not Scotland as strongly argue from this Medium against the Liturgy and say before the Liturgy was imposed on us we had peace but since then we have had no peace 3. When the strict imposing of the strict use and practice of these forms was the very thing that disquieted this Nation taking in the concomitant Ceremonies and subscription when this was it that bred the Divisions which you complain of and caused the separations from the Churches and the troubles in the Churches it is no better arguing to say we must return to the strict use of that form if we will have peace than it was in the Israelites to say we will worship the Queen of Heaven because then we had peace and plenty when that was it that deprived them of peace and plenty we compare not the Causes but the Arguments nor is it any better an Argument than if a man in a Dropsie or Ague that catcht it with voracity or intemperance should say while I did eat and drink liberally I had no Dropsie or Ague but since my appetite is gone and I have lived temperately I have had no health Ergo I must return to my intemperance as the only way to health Alas is this the use that is made of all our experiences of the causes and progresse of our Calamities what have you and we and all smarted as we have done and are you so speedily ready to return to the way that will engage you in violence against them that should be suffered to live in peace If the furnace that should have refined us and purified us all to a greater height of love have but inflamed us to greater wrath wo to us and to the Land that beareth us what dolefull things doth this prognosticate you that prisons or other penalties will not change mens Judgements And if it drive some to comply against their Consciences and destroy their Souls and drive the more conscientious out of the Land or destroy their bodies and breed in the minds of men a rooted opinion that Bishops that are still hurting and afficting them even for the things in which they exercise the best of their understanding and cautelously to avoid sin against God are no Fathers Friends or edifyers but destroyers Alas who will have the gain of this O let us no more bite and devour one another least we be devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. or Christ be provoked to decide the Controversie more sharply than we desire or expect 4. But really hath liberty to forbear the Liturgy produced such divisions as you mention The Licence or connivance that was granted to Hereticks Apostates and foul-mouthed raylers against the Scripture Ministry and all Gods Ordinances indeed bred confusions in the Land But it is to us matter of admiration to observe clean contrary to your intimation how little discord there was in Prayer and other parts of Worship among all the Churches throughout the three Nations that agreed in Doctrine and that forbore the Liturgy It is wonderfull to us in the review to consider with what love and peace and concord they all spoke the same things that were tyed to no form of words even those that differed in some points of Discipline even to a with-drawing from locall communion with us yet strangely agreed with us in worship And where have there been lesse Heresies Schisms than in Scotland where there was no such Liturgy to unite them If you tell us of those that differ from us in Doctrine and are not of us it is as impertinent to the point of our own agreement in Worship as to tell us of the Papists And the best expedients to unite us all to that again and so to peace are besides our prayers to the God of Peace to make us all of one mind in an house to labour to get true humility which would make us think our Guides wiser and fitter to order us than we our selves and Christian Charity which would teach us to think no evil of our Superiors but to judge them rather carefull Guides and Fathers to us which being obtained nothing
requisite that no man should come to the Holy Communion but with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet Conscience though it be every mans duty to be perfect pro statu viatoris yet it is not requisite that no man come till he be perfect He that hath but a weak Faith though not a full trust must come to have it strenthned And he that hath an unquiet Conscience must come to receive that mercy which may quiet it It is a private Opinion and not generally received in the Catholick Church that one of the People may make the Publick Confession at the Sacrament in the name of all those that are minded to receive the Holy Communion It is a private and not generally received distinction that the body of Christ makes clean our bodies and his blood washeth our souls It is a doubtful opinion to speak easily that when the Lords Supper is delivered with a Prayer not made in the Receivers name but thus directed to him by the Minister the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ c. preserve thy Body and Soul it is so intollerable a thing for the Receiver not to kneel in hearing the Prayer that he must else be thrust from the Communion of the Church and yet that no Minister shall kneel that indeed doth pray But he may pray standing and the Hearers be cast out for standing at the same words It is not a generally received but a private opinion that every Parishioner though impenitent and conscious of his utter unfitness and though he be in despair and think he shall take his own damnation must be forced to receive thrice a year when yet even those that have not a full trust in Gods mercy or have not a quiet Conscience were before pronounced so uncapable as that none such should come to the Communion Abundance more such Instances may be given to shew how far from truth the Assertion is that the Church hath been careful to put nothing into the Liturgie but that which is either evidently the Word of God or which hath been generally received in the Catholick Church unless you speak of some unhappie unsuccesful Carefulness But we thankfully accept of your following words and if the contrary can be proved we wish it out of the Liturgie which we entreat you to perform and impartially receive our proofs But then we must also entreat you 1. That the Primitive Churches Judgment and practice may be preferred before the present declined much corrupted State And 2. If Gods Law rather than the sinful practises of men breaking that Law may be the Churches Rule for Worship For you call us to subscribe to Art 19. that as the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch hath erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith and saith Rogers in Art 20. they are out of the way which think that either one man as the Pope or any certain Calling of men as the Clergie hath power to decree and appoint Rites or Ceremonies though of themselves good unto the whole Church of God dispersed over the universal world and indeed if you would have all that Corruption brought into our Liturgie and Discipline and Doctrine which the Papists Greeks and others that undoubtedly make up the far greater number of the now universal Church do use you would deserve no more thanks of God or man than he that would have all Kings and Nobles and Gentry levelled with the poor Commons because the latter are the greater number or than he that would have the healthful conformed to the sick when an epidemical disease hath made them the Majority or than he that would teach us to follow a multitude to do evil and to break more than the least Commands because the greater number break them we pray you therefore to take it for no justication of any uncertain or faulty passage in our Liturgie though the greater number now are guilty of it 3. And we must beseech you if the Churches Judgment or Practice must be urged that you would do us the justice as to imitate the ancient Churches in your sense of the quality and the mode and measure of using and imposing things as well as in the materials used and imposed Consider not only whether you finde such things received by the ancient Churches but also consider how they were received esteemed and used whether as necessary or indifferent as points of Faith or doubtful Opinions whether forced on others or left to their free choice If you finde that the generality of the ancient Churches received the White Garment after Baptism and the tasting of Milk and Honie as Ceremonies freely though generally used you should not therefore force men to use them If you finde that the Doctrine of the Millennium or of Angels corporeity was generally received as an Opinion it will not warrant you to receive either of them as a certain necessary truth If you finde that the General Councels forbad Kneeling in any Adoration on the Lords daies but without force against Dissenters you may not go denie the Sacrament to all that kneel nor yet forbid them to kneel in praying So if you find some little parcels of our Liturgie or some of our Ceremonies used as things indifferent left to choice forced upon none but one Church differing from another in such usages or observances this will not warrant you to use the same things as necessarie to order unitie or peace and to be forced upon all use them no otherwise than the Churches used them We heartily desire that according to this Proposal great care may be taken to suppress these private Conceptions of Prayers before and after Sermon lest private opinions be made the matter of Prayer in publick as hath and will be if private persons take liberty to make publick Prayers Reply The desire of your hearts is the grief of our hearts the Conceptions of Prayer by a publick person according to a publick Rule for a publick use are not to be rejected as private Conceptions We had hoped you had designed no such innovation as this in the Church When we have heard any say that it would come to this and that you designed the suppression of the free Prayers of Ministers in the Pulpit suited to the varietie of subjects and occasions we have rebuked them as uncharitable in passing so heavie a censure on you And what would have been said of us a year ago if we should have said that this was in your hearts nothing will more alienate the hearts of many holy prudent persons from the Common-Prayer than to perceive that it is framed and used as an Instrument to shut out all other Prayers as the Ministers private Conceptions Such an end and design will make it under the notion of a means another thing than else it would be and afford men such an Argument against it as we desire
in this Church and Nation occasioning sad divisions betwixt Minister Minister betwixt Minister and People exposing many Orthodox Preachers to the displeasure of Rulers And no other fruits than these can be looked for from the retaining these Ceremonies Repl. We had rather you had taken our Reasons as we laid them down than to have so altered them Ergo having told you that some hold them unlawful and others inconvenient c. and desired that they may not be imposed on such who judge such Impositions a violation of the Royalty of Christ c. You seem to take this as our own sense and that of all the Ceremonies of which we there made no mention You referre us to Hooker since whose writings Ames in his fresh suit and Bradshaw and Parker and many others have written that against the Ceremonies that never was answered that we know of but deserve your Consideration Before we give particular Answer to these several Reasons it will not be unnecessary to lay down some certain general premises or rules which will be useful in our whole discourse 1. That God hath not given a power only but a command also of imposing whatsoever should be truly decent and becomming his publick Service 1 Cor. 14. After St Paul had ordered some particular Rules for Praying Praising Prophesying c. He concludes with this general Canon Let all things be done 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a fit Scheme Habit or Fashion decently and that there may be uniformity in those decent performances let there be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rule or Canon for that purpose Repl. As to your first rule we answer 1. It is one thing to impose in general that all be done decently and in order This God himself hath imposed by his Apostle And it s another thing to impose in particular that this or that be used as decent and orderly Concerning this we adde it is in the Text said Let it be done but not let it be imposed yet from other Scriptures we doubt not but Circumstances of meer decency order as determined time place utensils c. which are common to things civil and sacred though not the Symbolical Ceremonies which afterwards we confute may be imposed with the necessary cautions and limitations afterward laid down But 1. that if any Usurpers will pretend a power from Christ to impose such things on the Church though the things be lawful we must take heed how we acknowledge an usurped power by formal obedience 2. A just power may impose them but to just ends as the preservation and successe of the modified Worship or Ordinances And if they really conduce not to those ends they sin in imposing them 3. Yet the Subjects are bound to obey a true Authority in such impositions where the matter belongs to the Cognizance and Office of the Ruler and where the mistake is not so great as to bring greater mischiefs to the Church than the suspending of our active obedience would do 4. But if these things be determined under pretence of order and decency to the plain destruction of the ordinances modified and of the intended end they cease to be means and we must not use them 5. Or if under the names of things decent and of order men will meddle with things that belong not to their Office as to institute a new Worship for God new Sacraments or any thing forbidden in the general Prohibition of adding or diminishing this is a Usurpation and not an act of Authority and we are bound in obedience to God to disobey them 6. Where Governours may command at set times and by proportionable penalties enforce if they command when it will destroy the end or enforce by such penalties as destroy or crosse it they greatly sin by such commands Thus we have more distinctly given you our sense about the matter of your first rule Not Inferiours but Superiours must iudge what is convenient and decent They who must order that all be done decently must of necessity first judge what is convenient and decent to be ordered Repl. Your second Rule also is too crudely delivered and therefore we must adde 1. A Judgement is a Sentence in order to some Execution and Judgements are specified from the ends to which they are such means When the question is either what Law shall be made or what penalty shall be exercised the Magistrate is the only Judge and not the Bishop or other Subject In the first he exercises his judicium discretionis in order to a publick Act. In the second he exerciseth a publick judgement When the question is what order pro tempore is fittest in Circumstantials for this present Congregation the proper Presbyters or Pastors of that Congregation are the directive Judges by Gods appointment 3. The Magistrate is Ruler of these Pastors as he is of Physicians Pailosophers and other Subjects He may make them such general Rules especially for restraint to go by as may not destroy the exercise of their own Pastoral power As he may forbid a Physician to use some dangerous Medicine on his Subjects and may punish him when he wilfully killeth any of them But may not on that presence appoint him what and how and when and to whom he shall administer and so become Phisician himself alone 4. When the question is who shall be excluded from the Communion of a particular Church The Pastors of the Church or Congregation are the first proper Judges 5. When the question is who shall be excluded from or received into the Communion of all the associated Churches of which we are naturally capable of Communion The associated Pastors or Bishops of these Churches in Synods are Judgâ—â— Beyond this there are no Judges 6. When the question is whether the Laws of Magistrates or Canons of Bishops are agreeable or not to the Word of God and so the obedience is lawful or unlawful the Conscience of each individual Subject is the Judge per judicium discretionis as to his own practise And if men had not this judgement of discerning but must act upon absolute implicite obedience then first man were ruled as unreasonable Secondly the magistrate were made a God or such a Leviathan as Hobbs describeth him Thirdly And then all sin might lawfully be committed if commanded But we are assured none of this your sense These Rules and Canons for decency made and urged by Superiours are to be obeyed by Inferiours till it be made as clear that now they are not bound to obey as it is evident in general that they ought to obey Superiours for if the exemption from obedience be not as evident as the Command to obey it must needs be sin not to obey Repl. To your third Rule we adde It is first considerable what the thing is and then how it is apprehended if it be really lawful and well commanded and to be obeyed it is no ignorance doubt or errour of the
left them to be guided as we have said So that it is no impeachment of his Laws as insufficient to make Laws for determining those particulars of decency which himself did not as is plain by his Precepts intend to determine but left us Governours for that purpose to whom he said As my Father sent me even so send I you and let all things be done decently and in order of whom he hath said to us Obey those that have the over sight over you and told us that if we will not hear his Church we must not be accounted as Christians but Heathens and Publicans And yet nevertheless they will not hear it and obey it in so small a matter as a circumstance of time place habit or the like which she thinks decent and fit and yet will be accounted for the best Christians and tell us that it is the very awe of Gods Law Deut. 12. 32. that keeps them from obedience to the Church in these commands not well considering that it cannot be any adding to the Word of God to command things for order and decency which the Word of God commands to be done so as they be not commanded as Gods immediate Word but as the Laws of men but that it is undenyably adding to the Word of God to say that Superiours may not command such things which God hath no where forbidden and taking from the Word of God to deny that power to men which Gods Word hath forgiven them Repl. To make Laws to determine of undetermined circumstances necessary in genere to be some way determined and left to Magistrates or Ministers de specie and to do this according to the general rules of Scripture and in order to the main end and not against it and is not against the Royalty or will of Christ But to make new dedicating covenanting Symboles to signify the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace and solemnly ingage us unto God and place those in the publick worship which are not meet Circumstances but substantial institutions not necessary in genere that there should be any such at all besides Gods Sacraments we fear this is a violation of the Royalty of Christ and a reflection on his Laws as insufficient for first if it belong to the power proper to Christ then it is a violation of his Royalty for any man to exercise it But it belongeth to the power proper to Christ ergo c. The minor is proved thus If it belong to the universal head or Ruler of the Church as such then it belongs to the power proper to Christ for we are ready to prove there is none under him no universal head or ruler personally or collectively and civilly one But c. If in the reason of it it should be the matter of an universal Law if of any then it should be the work of the universal Lawgiver if any But c. If in the reason of it it be equally useful to the Church universal as to any particular Church or age then it should according to the reason of it be the matter of an universal Law if of any But c. it hath the same aptitude to engage us to a duty of universal necessity and hath no reason proper to this age or place for it but common to all Moreover it is no where committed to the power or care of man ergo it is proper to the care and power of Christ no Text is shewed that giveth man power in such things To do all things decently and orderly and to edification is no giving of power on that pretence to make new Covenanting dedicating signes to do Gods work decently c. is not to make more such of our own heads It is but the right modifying of the work already set us And to do all decently orderly and to edification was a duty in Moses time when yet such things as these in question might not be added by any but God when we say by God we mean by his inspired Instruments and when we say by Christ we mean by his inspired Instruments If we should make Laws that every one is publickly to tast Vinegar and Gall as a sign that we are not ashamed of but resolved through all flesh displeasing difficulties to follow Christ that died so and thus to engage and dedicate our selves to him this were to do more then to do all things decently and orderly which he appointed If milk were to be publickly sucked or drunk by all in profession that we will feed on the sincere milk of his word and so dedicate us to him by Covenant or if we were to put on an Helmet other Armour in token that we will be his Souldiers to the death and manfully fight under c. These engagements by such publick signs are Sacraments in the sense as the word was used of old when it signified a Souldiers solemn lysting or Covenanting with his Commander Thus by distinguishing decent and orderly modes and Circumstances necessary in genere from new ordinances even solemn dedicating covenanting or such like mystical signs we have shewed you what we grant and where you fail and what is indeed a wrong to Christ and an accusation of his Laws and what not and how unjust your following accusation of us is who never yet told you we would be accounted the best Christians but to desire to please Christ as near as we can is not blame worthy Abundance of things of lesser moment than these are commanded by God in the Law to which he added that sanction Deut 12. 32. What ever things I command thee c. And we conceive that the words as my Father sent me so c. had some what proper to the extraordinary mission and if he hear not the Church c. is neither spoken of a Church universal nor of Magistrates making Laws for such Ceremonies or signs But if he hear not the Church with which he was in Communion and which admonisheth him for his sin let the Church reject him from their Communion The command for decent Ceremonies may still continue in the Church notwithstanding the 12. of Deut. and so it may too for all the exceptions taken against them by sundry learned pious and Orthodox persons who have judged them they say unwarrantable And if Laws may be abrogated assoon as those that list not to obey will except against them the world must run into confusion But those that except are weak Brethren whom by Christs Precept and example we must not offend If by weak we understand ignorant they would take it ill to be so accounted and it is their own fault if they be there having been much written as may satisfy any that have a mind to be satisfied And as King James of blessed memory said at Hampton-Court If after so many years preaching of the Gospel there be any yet unsatisfied I doubt it proceeds rather out of stubbornesse of opinion than out of tendernesse
of Conscience If by tendernesse of Conscience they mean a fearfulnesse to sin this would make them most easy to be satisfied because most fearful to disobey superiours But suppose there be any so scrupulous as not satisfied with what hath been written the Church may still without sin urge her command for these decent Ceremonies and not be guilty of offending her weak brother for since the scandal is taken by him not given by her it is he that by vain scrupulosity offends himself and layes the stumbling-block in his own way Repl. But the command for mans Institution of a new worship of God or of Rites Sacramental or so like to Sacraments as the Crosse is or for the unnecessary Imposition of unnecessary things which should be left to every prudent Ministers discretion and this upon pain of being cast out of the Church or Ministry and the Law for subscribing that all these are lawful and for swearing obedience to the Bishops all these Laws are not to be found in Scripture If you should but command your Servant to do what you bid him decently and orderly you would think he mistook you if upon that pretence he would do any other work which he could but say tended to the decency of yours And we would gladly hear what you think your selves is forbidden in Deut. 12. 32. If not such humane Ordinances And why you forbear giving the truer sense of the Text. It is a sad case with the poor Church when Gods wisdome that made a few and necessary things the matter of his Churches concord is no more valued But we will be wiser and when the experience of the Church that hath been torn into pieces 1400. years by mens Inventions and needless usages and Impositions is yet of no more force with us that come after them but what ever can be said or done or seen we will still make Laws that all men shall be tantum non unchristened and damned that is cast out of the Ministry or Church communion that will not wear this or that or bow thus or thus or look this way or that way or say this word or that word and when we have laid such a needless snare we will uncharitably cry out the world will be brought into cofusion because men that list not to obey would have the Laws abrogated Where hath Christ set you to make such Laws Is it not work enough for us you to obey the Laws that he hath made Why made he none for postures and vestures words teaching signs of this nature if he would have had them If he had not told us that there is one Lawgiver one Lord and that his word is able to make us wise unto Salvation and that he would lay no greater burden on us than necessary things and would not have us despise or judge each other on such occasions If he had but told us that he left any Officers after his inspired Apostles for the making of Ceremonies or new Laws of worship or teaching engaging signs for the Church we would as gladly understand and obey his will in these things as you what hurt is it to us to use a Crosse or other Ceremony if it were not for fear of disobeying God Enforce Gods Laws upon us zealously if you will and see if we will disobey But that the world shall run into confusion rather than we shall have leave to serve God as Peter and Paul did without Crossing Surplices and Kneeling at the Sacrament and then that we shall be reproached as the cause of all by our disobedience God hath told the world by his word and will tell them by his Judgements that this is not his way to Unity and Peace As to the Argument from your Brethrens weaknesse we say first It is not your strength to slight it or them Nor is it their weaknesse that they are willing to be esteemed weak The Apostle called those weak that placed a necessity in indifferent things Rom. 14 And not those that understood their indifferency But the truth is the nature of things indifferent is not well undestood by all on either side some may think evil of some things that deserve it not and in this they are weak though in other matters they may be strong And for the rest we speak according to the worst that you your selves can charitably suppose you can say no more of them but that they are weaker that is in this know lesse than you though perhaps we may take them to be stronger that is to be more in the right yet are we nor so confident as to censure you or others but speak of things difficult and doubtful as they are But how prove you it we would take it ill to be our selves or have those we speak of accounted ignorant in such things as these use us no worse than the ignorant should be used and till you would turn a man out of the Ministry or Church for being ignorant of the nature of a Ceremony which never was in his Creed the Decalogue or Scripture dealt not so by us that would be wiser if we knew how That all our ignorance is our own fault we deny not but it is an expresse of confidence and uncharitablenesse to rell us that there is so very much written as may satisfie any man that hath a mind to be satisfied and when we professe in his sight that knoweth the hearts that we have a mind to be satisfied and would know the truth at what rate soever if we knew how what would you have us do that we do not to be satisfied Do we not read as much for Ceremonies as the dissenters use to do against them Many Books against them are yet unanswered and we never shunned any publick or private conference with any of you and such reasonings as these are not like to convince us If you will be the judges of your brethrens hearts and say it is not tendernesse of Conscience but stubbornnesse we shall refer that to the day when your hearts and ours shall be opened Must none be tender Conscienc'd that dare not venture to obey you in such things When you may with undoubted safety forbear the imposing of your Ceremonies and so forbear the casting out of your brethren if you will not who shews lesse tendernesse of Conscience That the scandal is taken and not given is still the thing in question as to many things and if it were not just occasion of oftence you ought not to lay that which anothers weaknesse will turn into a stumbling block unnecessarily before them if the Apostles Argument be good Rom. 14. the Church may not urge unlawful things nor things meerly lawful upon such penalties as will exclude things necessary If an idle word be to be accounted for an idle Law is not laudable much less when all men must be excluded the Ministry or Communion that scruple it when yet a man may be a prophan swearer
the Usurper would quickly have brought Livings to that competency as would have maintained able Preachers we may not question whether just Authority will do it 2ly When abundance of able Ministers cast out would be glad of liberty to preach for nothing this pretence hath no taste or sense in it 3ly When we may not without the imputation of uncharitableness once imagine that your Lordships with your Deans and other Officers do not value the saving of souls above money we may conclude that you will voluntarily allow so much out of your ample Revenues as will supply such places or many of them The rather because we find you charging them as desiring inordinately the honours and wealth of the world that would have had all Ministers to have had 100. li. or 80. li. per annum a piece and therefore may conclude that you will take no more if you hate that sin more than they do that are accused of it But the next place of your Answer frighteth us more to which we say that we will not differ with you for the name Whether reading Homilies may be called Preaching But we take the boldnesse to say That it is another manner of preaching that Christ and his Apostles sent men to perform and which the Church hath gloried in and been edified by to this day and which thousands of souls have been brought to Heaven by and which we again desire may be enjoyned and not left so indifferent Sect. 3. Sentences The Sentences tend all to exhort the people to pious liberalitie whether the Object be the Minister or the Poor and though some of the Sentences be Apocryphal they may be useful for that purpose Why Collection for the poor should be made at another time there is no reason given onely change desired Reply 1. We have oft told you why the Apocrypha should be cautelously used in the Church That Usurper that should pretend to the Crown and have a more numerous party then the King that hath the undoubted right will be lookt on more suspitiously then ordinary subjects 2. It is a sordid thing for Ministers to love money and its sordid unlesse in extraordinay necessities to have them beg and beg for themselves and beg under pretence of serving God even in times when the Clergy seems advanced 3. We confesse our selves deceived in thinking we should have free personal debates with you which made us reserve many of our Reasons Reasons are 1. for lesse disturbance 2. Because the peoples affections are much more raised usually and so fitter for returns when they have received 3. Because especially it is most seasonable to do the Acts of gratitude when we have received the obliging benefits and so say What shall I give the Lord for all his benefits when we have partaked of them and to offer our selves first and with our selves what he giveth us unto Him when we have received him and his grace offered to us These are the Reasons that brought us under your censure of desiring a change Sect. 4. P. 19. 3. Exhort The first and third Exhortations are very seasonable before the Communion to put men in mind how they ought to be prepared and in what danger they are to come unprepared that if they be not duly qualified they may depart and be better prepared another time Reply But is it not more seasonable that in so great businesse such warning go a considerable time before Is there leisure of self-examination and making restitution and satisfaction and going to the Minister for Counsel to quiet his conscience c. in order to the present Sacrament We yet desire those things may be sooner told them Sect. 5. Exc. 1. We fear this may discourage many Certainly themselves cannot desire that men should come to the holy Communion with a troubled conscience and therefore have no reason to blame the Church for saying It is requisite that men come with a quiet conscience and prescribing meanes for quieting thereof If this be to discourage men it is fit they should be discouraged and deterred and kept from the Communion till they have done all that is here directed by the Church which they may well do considering that this Exhortation shall be read in the Church the Sunday or Holiday before Reply But we can and do desire that many that have a troubled conscience and cannot otherwise quiet it should come to the Communion for remedy and not be discouraged or kept away Sect. 6. Minister's turning The Minister's turning to the people is not most convenient throughout the whole Ministration when he speaks to them as in Lessons Absolution and Benedictions it is convenient that he turn to them when he speaks for them to God it is fit that they should all turn another way as the ancient Church ever did the reasons of which you may see Aug. lib. 2 de Ser. Dom. in monte Reply It is not yet understood by us why the Ministers or people for which you mean by they all we know not should turn another way in prayer we think the people should hear the prayers of the Minister if not Latine prayers may serve and then you need not except against extemporate prayers because the people cannot own them for how can most of them own what they hear not whatever it be As for August reason for looking towards the East when we pray Ut admoneatur animus ad naturam excellentiorem se convertere id est ad Dominum cum ipsum corpus ejus quod est terrenum ad corpus excellentius id est ad corpus celeste convertitur We suppose you will not expect that we should be much moved by it if we should Why should not we worship towards any of the creatures visible when we can pretend such Reasons for it as minding us of superiour things and why should not we look Southward when the Sun is in the South And we fear the worshipping towards the Sun as representing or minding us of Christ's heavenly body is too like to the prohibited worshiping before an Image and too like that worshipping before the Host of Heaven in which the old Idolatry consisted or at least which was the Introduction of it of which our Protestant Writers treat at large against the Papists on the point of Image-Worship See also Vâ—ssius de Idololatriâ lib. 2. cap. 23. c. Sect. 7. Exc. 3. It appears by the greatest evidences of Antiquity that it was upon the 25. day of Decemb. S. Aug. in Psal 132. Reply It is not Aug. alone in Psal 132. that must tell us which way the greatest Evidences of Antiquity go and his reasoning that John must decrease and Christ must increase as proved by John's being born when the days decrease and Christs being born when the days increase doth not much invite us to receive his Testimony We conceive the Ancient opinion of Jerusalem and other Eastern Churches that were nearest to the place is a greater Argument for
us to hear so much of the Churches Primitive practice where so litle evidence of it is produced Aug. ep 23. talketh not of Primitive practice Ab initio non fuit sic Was it so in the Apostles daies And afterwards you prove not that it was the judgment of the Catholick Church that bare Sponsors instead of Parents Pro-parents or Owners of the Children might procure to the Children of all Infidels a title to Baptism and its benefits Such Susceptors as became the Owners or Adopters of the Children are to be distinguished from those that pro forma stand by for an hour during the Baptizing of the Children and ever after leave them to their Parents who as they have the naturall interest in them and power of their disposall and the Education of them so are fittest to covenant in their names The Font usually stands as it did in Primitive times at or near the Church door to signify that Baptism was the entrance into the Church mysticall we are all baptized into one body 1 Cor. 12. 13. and the people may hear well enough If Jordan and all other waters be not so far sanctified by Christ as to be the matter of Baptism what authority have we to baptise and sure his Baptism was Dedicatio Baptismi Reply Our less difference of the Font and flood Jordan is almost drowned in the greater before going But to the first we say that we conceive the usual scituation for the people's hearing is to be preferred before your Ceremonious position of it And to the second we say that Dedicatio Baptismi is an unfitting phrase and yet if it were not what 's that to the sanctification of Jordan and all other waters Did Christ sanctify all Corn or Bread or Grapes or Wine to an holy use when he administred the Lords Supper Sanctifying is separating to an holy use But the flood Jordan and all other water is not separated to this holy use in any proper sense No more than all mankind is sanctified to the Priestly office because men were made Priests It hath been accounted reasonable and allowed by the best Laws that Guardians should Covenant and contract for their Minors to their benefit by the same right the Church hath appointed sureties to undertake for Children when they enter into Covenant with God by Baptism And this generall practice of the Church is enough to satisfy those that doubt Repl. 1. Who made those Sureties Guardians of the Infants that are neither Parents nor Pro-parents nor Owners of them We are not now speaking against Sponsors But you know that the very original of those Sponsors is a great Controversie And whether they were not at first most properly Sponsors for the Parents that they should perform that part they undertook because many Parents were Desertors and many proved negligent Sponsors then excluded not Parents from their proper undertaking but joyned with them God-fathers are not the Infants Guardians with us and therefore have not power thus to Covenant and Vow in their name VVe intreat you to take heed of leaving any Children indeed out of the mutual Covenant that are baptized How are those in the Covenant that cannot consent themselves and do it not by any that truly represent them nor have any Authority to act as in their names The Authority of Parents being most unquestionable who by nature and the word of God have the power of disposing of their Children and consequently of choosing and covenanting for them VVhy should it not be preferred at lest you may give leave to those Parents that desire it to be the Dedicators of and Covenanters for their own Children and not force others on them whether they will or no. 2. But the question is not of Covenanting but professing present actual believing forsaking c. In which though we believe the Churches sense was sound yet we desire that all things that may render it lyable to mis-understanding may be avoyded Receive remission of sins by spiritual Regeneration Most proper for Baptism is our spiritual Regeneration S. John 3. Unlesse a man be born again of Water and the Spirit c. And by this is received remission of sins Acts 2. 3. Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins 's So the Creed one Baptism for the remission of sins Repl. Baptism as an outward Administration is our visible Sacramental Regeneration Baptism as containing with the Sign the thing signified is our spiritual real Regeneration As we are regenerated before Baptism as you know adult Believers are so we cannot pray to receive remission of sins by that same Regeneration renewed As we are regenerated really in Baptism that Regeneration and Remission are conjunct benefits But if Baptism at once give Regeneration and Remission it follows not that it gives Remission by Regeneration But as Regeneration comprehendeth the whole change reall or Physical and relative so we acknowledge that as the part is given by the whole you may say that Remission is given by Regeneration but more fitly in it than by it But we are not willing to make more adoe about words than needs We cannot in faith say that every Child that is baptized is regenerate c. Seeing that Gods Sacraments have their effects where the Receiver doth not ponere obicem put any bar against them which children cannot do we may say in faith of every child that is baptized that it is regenerated by Gods Holy Spirit and the denial of it tends to Anabaptism and the contempt of this holy Sacrament as nothing worthy nor material whether it be administred to children or no Concerning the Cross we refer to our Answer to the same in general Repl. All Gods Sacraments attain their proper end But whether the Infants of Infidels be the due Subjects and whether their ends be to seal up Grace and Salvation to them that have no promise of it or whether it be only to seal the Covenant to believers and their seed are Questions yet undecided wherein we must intreat you not to expect that we should implicitly believe you and it is as easy for us to tell you that you are promoting Anabaptism and much more easy to prove it We take those but for words of course PRIVATE BAPTISM We desire that Baptism may not be administred in a private place And so do we where it may be brought into the publick Congregation But since our Lord hath said S. Joh 3. Unlesse one be born of Water and the Holy Ghost he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven We think it fit that they should be Baptized in private rather than not at all It is appointed now to be done by the lawful Minister Repl. We must needs suppose you are disputing with Protestants who ordinarily shew the Papists that that Text Joh. 3. asserteth no absolute necessity of Baptisme to salvation But we believe as well as you that it is the regular way of solemn
The reserving of Confirmation to the Bishop doth argue the Dignity of the Bishop above Presbyters who are not allowed to Confirm but does not argue any excellency in Confirmation above the Sacraments St. Hierom argues the quite contray ad Lucif cap. 4. That because Baptism was allowed to be performed by a Deacon but Confirmation only by a Bishop therefore Baptism was most necessary and of the greatest value The mercy of God allowing the most necessary means of Salvation to be administred by inferiour Orders and restraining the lesse necessary to the higher for the honour of their Order Reply O that we had the Primitive Episcopacy and that Bishops had no more Churches to oversee than in the Primitive times they had and then we would never speak against this reservation of Confirmation to the honour of the Bishop But when that Bishop of one Church is turned into that Bishop of many hundred Churches and when he is now a Bishop of the lowest rank that was an Arch-bishop when Arch-bishops first came up and so we have not really existent any meer Bishops such as the Antients knew at all but only Arch-bishops and their Curates Marvel not if we would not have Confirmation proper to Arch-bishops nor one man undertake more than an hundred can perform But if you will do it there is no remedie we have acquit our selves Prayer after the Imposition of hands is grounded upon the practice of the Apostles Heb. 6. 2. Acts 8. 17. Nor doth 25. Article say that Confirmation is a corrupt imitation of the Apostles practice but that the 5. commonly called Sacraments have ground partly on the corrupt following the Apostles c. which may be applied to some other of those 5 but cannot be applied to Confirmation unless we make the Church speak contradictions Reply But the question is not of Imposition of hands in generall but this Imposition in particular And you have never proved that this sort of Imposition called Confirmation is mentioned in those Texts And the 25. Article cannot more probably be thought to speak of any one of the 5. as proceeding from the corrupt imitation of the Apostles than of Confirmation as a supposed Sacrament We know no harm in speaking the language of holy Scripture Acts 8. 15. they laid their hands upon them and they received the Holy Ghost and though Impositions of hands be not a Sacrament yet it is a very fit sign to certifie the persons what is then done for them as the Prayer speaks Reply It is fit to speak the Scripture language in Scripture sense But if those that have no such power to give the Holy Ghost will say Receive the Holy Ghost it were better for them to abuse other language than Scripture language After Confirmation There is no inconvenience that Confirmation should be required before the Communion when it may be ordinarily obtained that which you here fault you elsewhere desire Reply We desire that the credible approved profession of Faith and repentance be made necessaries But not that all the thousands in England that never yet came under the Bishops hands as not one of many ever did even when they were at the highest may be kept from the Lords Supper for some cannot have that Imposition and others will not that yet are fit for Communion with the Church The Ring is a significant sign only of humane institution and was alwayes given as a pledge of fidelity and constant love and here is no reason given why it should be taken away nor are the reasons mentioned in the Roman Ritualits given in our Common-Prayer-Book Repl. We crave not your own forbearance of the Ring but the indifferencie in our use of a thing so mis-used and unnecessary These words in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost if they seem to make Matrimony a Sacrament may as well make all sacred yea civil actions of weight to be Sacraments they being usual at the beginning and ending of all such It was never heard before now that those words make a Sacrament Reply Is there no force in an argument drawn from the appearance of evil the offence and the danger of abuses when other words enow may serve turn They go to the Lords Table because the Communion is to follow Reply They must go to the Table whether there be a Communion or not Consecrated the estate of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery c. Though the institution of Marriage was before the Fall yet it may be now and is consecrated by God to such an excellent mystery as the representation of the spiritual marriage between Christ and his Church Eph. 5. 23. We are sorry that the words of Scripture will not please The Church in the 25. Article hath taken away the fear of making it for a Sacrament Reply When was Marriage thus consecrated If all things used to set forth Christs offices or benefits by way of similitude be consecrated then a Judge a Father a Friend a Vine a Door a Way c. are all consecrated things Scripture phrase pleaseth us in Scripture sense The new married persons the same day of their marriage must receive the Holy Communion This inforces none to forbear Marriage but presumes as well it may that all persons marriageable ought to be also fit to receive the Holy Sacrament And marriage being so solemn a Covenant of God they that undertake it in the fear of God will not stick to seal it by receiving the Holy Communion and accordingly prepare themselves for it Is were more Christian to desire that those licentious Festivities might be supprest and the Communion more generally used by those that marry the happiness would be greater then can easily be exprest Unde sufficiat ad enarrandum felicitatem ejus Matrimonii quod Ecclesia conciliat confirmat oblatio Tertul. lib. 2. ad Uxorem Reply Indeed will you phrase and modify your administrations upon such a supposition that all men are such as they ought to be and do what they ought to do Then take all the World for Saints and use them accordingly and blot out the doctrine of Reproof excommunication and damnation from your Bibles Is it not most certain that very many married persons are unfit for the Lords Supper and will be when you and we have done our best And is it fit then to compell them to it But the more unexpected the more welcom is your motion of that more Christian course of suppressing of licentious festivities When shall we see such Reformation undertaken Visitation of the Sick FOr as much as the condition c. All which is here desired is already presumed namely that the Minister shall apply himself to the particular condition of the person but this must be done according to the Rule of prudence and justice and not according to his pleasure therefore if the sick person shew himself truly penitent it ought not to be left
whoredom perjury oppression yea Infidelity or Atheism c. But suppose we cannot be infallibly certain that the man is damned because it is possible that he may repent though he never did express it will you therefore take him for a brother whose soul is taken to God in mercy You are not sure that an excommunicate person or an Heathen doth not truly repent after he is speechless But will you therefore say that all such die thus happily This is a most delusory Principle The Church judgeth not of things undiscovered Non esse non apparere are all one as to our Judgment we conclude not peremptorily because we pretend not here to infallibility As we are not sure that any man is truly penitent that we give the Sacrament to so we are not sure that any man dieth impenitently But yet we must use those as penitent that seem so to reason judging by ordinary means and so must we judge those as impenitent that have declared their sin and never declared their repentance It seems by you that you will form your Liturgy so as to say that every man is saved that you are not sure is damned though he shew you no repentance and so the Church shall say that all things are that are but possible if they conceit that Charity requireth it But if the living by this be kept from Conversion and flattered into Hell will they there call it Charity that brought them thither O lamentable Charity that smoothers mens way to Hell and keepeth them ignorant of their danger till they are past remedy millions are now suffering for such a sort of Charity Lay this to the formentioned propositions and the world will see that indeed we differ in greater things then Ceremonies and Forms of Prayer Churching Women IT is fit that the woman performing especial service of Thanksgiving should have a speciall place for it where she may be perspicuous to the whole Congregation and neer the Holy Table in regard of the Offering she is there to make They need not fear Popery in this since in the Church of Rome she is to kneel at the Church door Reply Those that are delivered from impenitency from sickness c. perform a special service of thanksgiving c. yet need not stand in a special place but if you will have all your Ceremonies Why must all others be forced to imitate you We mentioned not the Church of Rome The Psalm 121. is more fit and pertinent then those others named as 113 128. and therefore not to be changed Reply We have poposed to you what we think meetest in our last pages if you like your own better we pray you give us leave to think otherwise and to use what we propounded If the woman be such as is here mentioned she is to do her penance before she be Churched Reply That is if she be accused prosecuted and judged by the Bishop's Court to do penance first which happeneth not to one of a multitude and what shall the Minister do with all the rest All tends to take away the difference between the precious and the vile between those that fear God and that fear him not Offerings are required as well under the Gospel as the Law and amongst other times most fit it is that oblations should be when we come to give thanks for some special Blessing Psal 76. 10 11. Such is the deliverance in Child-bearing Reply Oblations should be free and not forced to some special use and not to ostentation This is needless since the Rubr. and Comm. require that no notorious person be admitted Reply We gladly accept so fair an interpretation as freeth the Book from self-contradiction and us from trouble but we think it would do no hurt but good to be more express The Concessions WE are willing that all the Epistles and Gospels be used according to the last Translation Reply We still beseech you that all the Psalms and other Scriptures in the Liturgy recited may for the same reason be used according to the last Translation That when any thing is read for an Epistle which is not in the Epistles the Superscription be for the Epistle Repl. We beseech you speak as the vulgar may understand you for the Epistle signifieth not plain enough to such that is indeed none of the Epistles That the Psalms be collated with the former Translation mentioned in Rubr. and Printed according to it Reply We understand not what Translation or Rubr. you mean That the words this day both in the Collects and Prefaces be used only upon the day itself and for the following dayes it be said as about this time Reply And yet there is no certainty Which was the day it self That a longer time be required for signification of the names of the Com. and the words of the Rubr. be changed into these at least some time the day before Reply Sometime the day before may be near or at night which will not allow any leisure at all to take notice of the proofs of peoples scandals or to help them in preparation That the power of keeping scandalous Sinners from the Communion may be expressed in the Rubr. according to the 26. and 27. Canons so the Minister be obliged to give an account of the same immediately after to the Ordinary Reply We were about returning you our very great thanks for granting us the benefit of the 26. Canon as that which exceedeth all the rest of your Concessious But we see you will not make us too much beholden to you and poor Christians that will not receive the Sacrament contrary to the example of Christ and his Apostles and the custom of the Catholick primitive Church and the Canons of general Councils must be also used as the notorious impenitent sinners But the Canon requireth us not to signifie the cause but upon complaint or being required by the ordinary That the whole Preface be prefixed to the Commandments Reply And why not the word Sabbath day be put for the seventh day in the end Must not such a falsification be amended That the second Exhortation be read some Sunday or Holy-day before the celebration of the Communion at the discretion of the Minister That the general Confession at the Communion be pronounced by one of the Ministers the people saying after him all kneeling humbly upon their knees That the manner of consecrating the Elements may be made more explicit and express and to that purpose those words be put into the Rub. then shall he put his hand upon the Bread break it then shall he put his hand unto the Cup. That if the Font be so placed as the Congregation cannot hear it may be referred to the Ordinary to place it more conveniently That those words yes they do perform them c. nay be altered thus because they promise them both by their Sureties c. That the words of the last Rubr before the Catechism may be thus altered that children being baptized have all things necessary for their salvation and dying before they commit any actual sins be undoubtedly saved though they be not Confirmed That to the Rubr. after Confirmation these words may be added Or be ready and desirous to be Confirmed That those words with my body I thee worship may be altered thus with my body I thee honour That those words til death us depart be thus altered till death us do part That the words sure and certain may be left out Reply For all the rest we thank you but have given our reasons against your sense expressed in Sect. 13. before and for satisfactoriness of the last And we must say in the conclusion That if these be all the abatements and amendments you will admit you sell your innocency and the Churche's peace for nothing FINIS Excep Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep 2. Exhor 3. Exhor Excep Rub. before the Confession Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Prayer before that which is at the Consecration Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub Excep Rub. Excep Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Except Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Excep Rub. Except Rub Except Except Excep Except Except Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Excep Rub. Next Rub. Excep Collect. Excep Rub. Lastrub Excep Rub. Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Excep Excep Rub. Excep Rub. Excep Ans Excep Rub. Excep The same Rubrick Excep Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect 5. Sect. 6. Prop. u. 1. Sect. 5. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 2. N. 3 4. Socrat. 1. 6. cap. 8. Theodor. 1. 2. c. 24. 2 Chron. 7. 1 4. Ezra 3. 11. N. 5. Sect. 1. N. 6. N. 7. S. 1. S. 2. 4. 3. §. 4. §. 5. N. 9. N. 10. N. 11. N. 1â— N. 17. N. 16. §. 1. â—◠§ §. 3. N. 17. §. 1. Exc. 1. §. 2. Exc. 2. §. 3. §. 7. Exc. 3. §. 5. Exc. 4. §. 6. Exc. 5. N. 18. §. 1. §. 2. Cor. 11. 2. See Hooker li. 3. Sect. 4. 3. 4. See Hookli 4 Sect. 1. S. 3. R. 1. §. 4. Rul 2. §. 5. R. l. 3. Heb. 13. 17. Rom. 13. §. 6. Rul 4. §. 7. Rul 5. §. 8. Answ 1. 1. Cor. 14. §. 9. â— 2. §. 10. A. 3. Hooker l. 5. Sect. 6. 8. S. Aug. Ep. 23. Sect 6. pag. 24. Sect. 7. pag 24. Tit. 3. 5. Sect 8. Sect 1. p. 2. 26. An. 3. Sect. A. 2. Cor. Sect. 4 pag. 27. Sect. 5. Sect. 6. Sect. 7. pa. 28. Sect. 1. Rub. 1. Sect. 2. Rubr. Sect. 3. Ex. 1 Sect. 5. p. 30. Rub. Sect. 6. Ex. 1. Sect. 7. Ex. 2. Sect. 8. Marriage the Ring Sect. 1. p. 31. Sect. 2. pâ— 32. Ex. 1. Sect. 3. Se. 4. Col. Se. 5. p. 33. Rubr. 18. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. p. 34 Exc. 1. Sect. 2. p. 2. Sect 3. p. 33. Sect. 1. p. 36. Exc. 1. Sect. 2. Exc. 2. Sect. 3. Exc. 3. Sect. 4. Exc. 4. Sect. 5. Exc. 5. Sect. 1. Sect. 2. Sect. 3. Sect. 4. Sect. 5. Sect 6. Sect. 7. Sect. 8. Sect. 9. Sect. 10. Sect. 11. Sect. 12. Sect. 13. Sect. 14. Sect. 15. Sect. 16. Sect. 17.
in Whitsun week The two Collects for St. Johns and Innocents the Collects for the first day in Lent for the fourth Sunday after Easter for Trinity Sunday for the sixth and twelfth sunday after Trinity for St. Lukes day and Michaelmas day We desire that these Collects may be further considered and debated as having in them divers things that we judge fit to be altered The Order for the Administration of the Lords Supper SO many as intend to be partakers of the holy Communion shall signifie their Name to the Curate over night or else in the morning before the beginning of morning Prayer The time here assigned for notice to be given to the Minister is not sufficient And if any of these be an open and notorious evil liver the Curate having knowledge thereof shall call him and advertize him in any wise not to presume to come to the Lords Table We desire the Ministers power both to admit and keep from the Lords Table may be according to his Majesties Declaration of the 25. Octob. 1660. in these words The Minister shall admit none to the Lords Supper till they have made a credible profession of their faith and promised obedience to the will of God according as is expressed in the consideration of the Rubrick before the Catechisme and that all possible diligence be used as is for the instruction and reformation of seandalous offendors whom the Minister shall not suffer to partake of the Lords table untill they have openly declared themselves to have truly repented and amended their former naughty lives as is partly expressed in the Rubrick and more fully in the Cannons Then shall the Priest rehearse distinctly all the ten Commandments and the people kneeling shall after every Commandment ask God mercy for transgressing the same We desire First that the Preface prefixed by God himself to the ten Commandments may be restored Secondly that the fourth Commandment may be read as in Exodus 20. Deut. 5. He blessed the Sabbath day Thirdly that neither Minister nor People may be enjoyned to kneel more at the reading of this then of any other parts of Scripture The rather because many ignorant persons are thereby induced to use the ten Commandments as a prayer Fourthly that instead of those short prayers of the people intermixed with the several Commandments the Minister after the reading of all may conclude with a suitable Prayer After the Creed if there be no sermon she ll follow one of the Homilies already set forth or hereafter to be set forth by common authority We desire that the preaching of the Word may be strictly injoyned and not left so indifferent at the administration of the Sacrament as also that Ministers may not be bound to those things which are as yet but future and not in being After the Sermon Homily or Exhortation the Curate shall declare c. and earnestly exhort them to remember the poor saying one or more of these sentences following Two of the sentences here cited are Apocryphal and four of them more proper to draw out their peoples bounty to their Minister then their charity to the poor Then shall the Church-wardens or some other by them appointed gather the Devetion of the people Collection for the poor may be better made at or a little before the departing of the Communicants We be come together at this time to feed at the Lords Supper to the which in Gods behalf I bid you all that be here present and beseech you for the Lord Jesus Christs sake that you will not refuse to come If it be intended that these Exhortations should be read at the Communion they seem to us unreasonable The way and means thereto is first to examine our lives conversations and if ye shall perceive your offences to be such as be not only against God but also against our neighbours then you shall reconcile your selves unto them and be ready to make restitution and satisfaction And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion but with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet conscience We fear this may discourage many from comming to the Sacrament who lye under a doubting and troubled conscience Then shall this general confession be made in the name of all those that are minded to receive the holy Communion either by one of them or by one of the Ministers or by the Priest himself We desire it may be made by the Minister only Then shall the Priest or the Bishop being present stand up and turning himself to the people say thus The Ministers turning himself to the people is most convenient throughout the whole ministration Before the Prefaces on Christmas day and seven daies after Because thou didst give Jesus Christ thine only Son to be born as this day for us c. First we cannot peremptorily fix the Nativity of our Saviour to this or that particular day Secondly it seems incongruous to affirm the birth of Christ and the descending of the holy Ghost to be on this day for seven or eight daies together Upon Whitsunday and six daies after According to whose most true promise the Holy ghost came down this day from Heaven grant us that our sinfull bodies may be made clean by his body and our soul washed by his most precious blood We desire that whereas these words seem to give a greater efficacy to the blood then to the Body of Christ may be altered thus That our sinful souls and bodies may be cleansed through his precious body and blood Prayer at the consecration Hear us O merciful father c. who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave it to his Disciples saying take eat c. We conceive that the manner of consecrating of the Elements is not here explicite and distinct enough And the Ministers breaking of the bread is not so much as mentioned Then shall the Minister first receive the Communion in both kinds c. and after deliver it to the people in their hands kneeling and when he delivereth the bread he shall say The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life and take and eat this in remembrance c. We desire that at the distribution of the Bread Wine to the Communicants we may use the words of our Saviour as near as may be and that the Minister be not required to deliver the bread wine into every particular Communicants hand and to repeat the words to eachone in the singular number but that it may suffice to speak them to divers joyntly according to our Saviours example We also desire that kneeling at the Sacrament it not being the gesture which the Apostles used though Christ