and afraid of sinning and seriously godly is but to be Hypocrites melancholy or mad And perhaps bend their Preaching the same way 6. When they are Heretical and not to be trusted in point of faith 7. And when they are so Factious and Schismatical as that their Preaching and Conference tendeth to render other good Christians odious and stir up men to hate persecute or separate from them and so to destroy true Love and Concord In any of these cases when the people or part of them are deprived of that Pastoral helps which their necessity requireth and God commandeth they may seek it where they can best have it LXIII In all these cases it is an unsatisfactory Answer to tell them that Religion is kept up in the land and that other persons or Parishes have what they want or that Order and Obedience must be preferred to their supply or that God can save them without a Pastor c. For so God can save the Heathen world without the Gospel Preached if he please And so you might perswade the Poor to famish rather than against Law to beg because if thousands of them dye of Famine yet other people are supplied and have plenty Or you might tell men that they must use no Physician though they dye for it if they have no tolerable one allowed them by the Magistrate because others have Physicians though they dye for want of them What if the Parish Priest could Baptize but one of many or not all Must the rest be content to be unbaptized If not why must they be content without all publick Preaching and Worshipping of God and the Lords Supper and personal helps of Pastors which they need Paul thanketh God that he Baptized none of the Corinthians save some few and saith that God sent him not to Baptize but to Preach the Gospel And can any man prove then That if the Parish Minister cannot or will not Baptize his Children he must get another to do it yea a prohibited Minister rather then they should be unbaptized and yet that if the Parish Church cannot receive him or the Pastor cannot or will not do the Office of a Pastor for him he must be without Preaching Worshipping God and Pastoral oversight LXIV Yet here we must declare 1. That in such necessity people must caeteris paribus first seek their supply in that way that is most for peace and most for publick good and least scandalous or dividing and that is most agreable to the Rulers will and honour 2. That for some short season in which his soul is not apparently hazarded as also in the tolerable loss of some measures of Pastoral help a man must submit his own personal advantage to publick interest and may hope that God will make it up As also when it tendeth to his probable greater advantage afterward by putting by some present storm But not statedly to be without Christs instituted ordinances and helps e. g. Parish Order is desireable and is the Rulers will If therefore supply can be had in a neighbour Parish for them that want it in their own and by an allowed Minister rather than a disallowed it should be chosen unless the disparity be so great as to weigh down the contrary inconveniences And if for a time any be constrained to another way they should do it but as an extroardinary necessity for the present time till they can be supplied in the allowed Parochial way and avoid as much as possibly they can all waies though lawful that encourage true Schisms 3. And we must profess that if any Preachers or people shall out of self conceitedness pretend necessity when there is none their pretence is no justification of their disorder or disobedience Magistrates may regulate us in the Circumstances of those duties which the Law of Nature or the Gospel do Command But if on such pretence of regulating Circumstances they will violate or contradict either the Law of Nature or the Gospel and destroy the duty it self or its end we are not bound in such cases to obey them but muâ—â— pariently suffer LXV 19. If the Church Laws do exclude those Christians that have right from the Communion of the Church and their Children from Baptism and do decree that they shall be excommunicate and then laid in Gaols it seemeth to us no Schism in those persons to have no such Communion with that Church which is denyed them by the Laws of the Church Nor yet to join themselves with another Church that will receive them And as we say of the Papists that they unjustly call those men Schismatâ—â—â— whom they first cast out themselves by unjust excommunication so may we of any others Especially when either for that which is a duty or for some small mistake which it is not in the persons power to rectifie no greater than most good Christians are guilty of the Church Law saith that he shall be excommunicate ipso facto by which he is cast out antecedently to any sentence or no place left for his pardon or forbearance by the favour of the Ordinary He that is so cast out is not the wilful Sparatist Nor is he bound to continue without Church Communion and Pastoral oversight LXVI 20. If those that live in a Parish where the Incumbent by utter Insufficiency Heresie Usurpation Malignity or Wickedness is such as men may not lawfully own or commit the Pastoral Conduct and care of their souls to shall desire the Pastoral care of the next Parish-Minister and communion in that Parish-Church and may not be admitted but all other Parish-Ministers are by Canon commanded to refuse them and to turn them home to their own Parish-Priests and Churches so that they must either commit their souls to such uncapable persons and own them as Christ's Ministers or have none at all we dare not charge those persons with Schism if they commit the care of their souls to worthy ordained men though not allowed but prohibited by the Magistrate For the reasons before given Yea if they know that Church-Laws forbid all other Parish-Priests to receive them we see not that they are first bound to offer themselves to such as profess obedience to those Laws Obj. 1. But some take a meer Reader for uncapable that cannot preach or one that cannot pray without Book or a young man that is not able to resolve doubts or cases of conscience but our Canon 57. saith that the Sacraments are equally effectual whether they be administred by a Preacher or no Preacher Ans 1. By an uncapable person we mean such as is utterly unable to perform the Pastoral duties which Christ hath commanded and mens souls greatly need which among others Dr. Hammond in his Annotat hath well described If bare Reading were sufficient Ability every Boy or Artificer were sufficient that can read Bare Reading will encourage no man to take any one for his Physician or Lawyer and soulconduct is a matter of greater importance and needeth
to set a Bishop in every Market Town or to take the use of the Keys from Laymen or to take down Archdeacons Officials Commissaries Surrogates c Whether all Reformation be out of the power of the King or not to be desired by the people 2. Whether that which is Lawful may not be done by the Law makers and be endeavoured by speech in Parliament or by petition by the people Especially if the King Command it 3. Whether men be not bound by a Vow to that which is Lawful much more to that Which is antecedently a duty 3. The Conformists are here disagreed among themselves some say that the Vow Bindeth not because it was unlawfully imposed But otherâ— better say that this proveth no more but that the Imposers could not bind me to take it by any authority of theirs And that if I had taken it in secret without imposition I had been bound by it Els no private Vow should bind Some say that it binds not because it was sinfully taken But others truly say that if Oaths bind not wherever men take them sinfully no wicked man should ever be bound by Oaths or Vows because they usually make them sinfully by an ill end and intention wrong motives or ill principles or manner Or at least a bad man might choose whether ever he will be obliged But all good casuists agree that if the matter be lawful the unlawful taking hinders not the obligation A man that is Baptized with ill motives or intentions is yet obliged by his Baptismal Vow Some say that it binds not because the matter it self is unlawful But it s granted that it bindeth to no unlawful matter Others therefore truly say that he that Voweth six things whereof three are sinful is not disobliged by the conjunction of these from the other three that are Lawful Els a Knave may keep himself disobliged as to all Vows by putting in some unlawful thing Some say that it binds not because we were antecedently bound to all that is good by other bonds and therefore not by this But others truly say that this is a most intollerable reason and would nullifie our Baptismal Vow and all our sacramental Vows renewed and all Covenants that ever man can make to God of any duty For Gods own Laws first bind us to every duty But for all that our own Vows Covenants and promises secondarily bind us also And a man may have many obligations to one duty Yea indeed the Covenanters ordinarily profess that they think not that a man should Vow any thing to God but what God first hath made his duty And they are against the Papists for making Religions and duties to themselves which God never made And therefore they profess that if some things in the Covenant were not their duty before they would not think that they are bound to it now And they profess that if they had never taken that Vow they had been bound to all that by it they are bound to And therefore condemning that Vow doth no whit secure the Government of the Church e. g. Lay Chancellours use of the Keys or the destruction of discipline from their Lawful endeavours to alter it And they profess that seeing the King hath power to command them Lawful things if they had Vowed any thing meerly Indifferent it would not have bound them against the Kings Commands Because it is not in subjects power by Vows to withdraw themselves from their obedience to authority Some say that the Proclamation of King Charles the first against the Covenant null'd the obligation But others truly say 1. That it could null no more than the Imposition to take it and not the obligation when it 's taken in necessary things 2. That this is nothing to all them that took it afterward and that when Charles II. had though injuriously been drawn to declare for it Some say that it binds not because men took it unwillingly But others truly say 1. that this would leave it in the power of a bad man to nullifie all Vows and contracts by saying that he did them unwillingly 2. That man hath fâ—ee will and cannot be compelled And a Vow of a thing Lawful to save ones life bindeth Men must rather die than lie 3. This would teach Subjects to say that they take all Oaths of Alegiance to the King unwillingly and therefore are not bound 4. It s true that no man that forceth another injuriously to a promise can claim to himself any right from that which was not free but procured by his own injurious violence or fraud But God wrongeth none and a Vow to God bindeth though procured by sinful force by men Some say that It was only a League and Covenant with men and not a Vow and therefore ceaseth câ—ssante occasione and by the consent of Parliamentâ— c. Ans There is no place for the belief of this objection to any that knoweth a Vow otherwise than by the name Indeed an Oath that is but an appeal to God that I will faithfully perform my Covenant with a man obligeth me not when that man hath discharged me from any obligation to him But this in question was primarily a promise or Covenant made to God which is a Vow and a League and Covenant of men with one another that they will perform it as is notorious to any man that readeth it with common understanding II. The second thing questioned about that Vow and the main is whether every Minister must or may become the judge of all other mens Consciences and obligations in three Kingdoms even of many thousands whom they never saw nor heard of and that so far as to absolve or justifie them from all obligations by that Vow to endeavour any Church reformation 2. It is here supposed 1. That though men ought to take an Oath in the sence of a Lawful Governour so far as they know it yet that they are not bound beyond the plain meaning of the words to the sense of Usurpers Therefore they know not but the King and Lords c. might take the same words in another meaning than the obtruders did intend e. g to reform according to Gods Word and the example of the best reformed Churches might signifie to them an opposition to Presbytery 2 That if men mistake the sence of the Imposers they are bound to keep an Oath in the Lawful sence in which they took it And then how knoweth every Minister in what sense every man in the three Kingdoms took it And how is he able to say that no one man of them all is obliged by it to endeavour a lawful and necessary reformation 3. And as to the former Argument that men were forced to it many of the Old Parliament are yet living and many others that then forced others to it and were not forced to it themselves 4 And if the present Parliament-men could upon what compulsion soever Vow to reform e. g. scandalous Ministers Swearing
Ecclesiastical Laws as the Surplice the sign of the Cross at the sacred Font kneeling in receiving the Sacrament and such like which yet by some light prejudice he thought were superstitious and Popish The question is What obligation there is in this case I say 1. Such an Oath cannot be taken during such errour without grievous sin For he sinneth grievously that sinneth against his conscience though erroneous For when the Judgment of the Intellect is every ones nearest Rule of action the will if it follow not that judgment failing from its Rule must needs be carried into sin It 's a common saying He that doth against his conscience buildeth to Hell Verily he that sweareth what he thinketh unlawful would swear if it were indeed unlawful that becometh unlawful to him that is lawful to another as the Apostle judgeth Rom. 14. 14 2. I say such an Oath doth not bind Because an Oath cannot take away a former obligation nor induce another obligation contrary to it But that Oath which is taken against the dictate of conscience had a former obligation arising from that dictate For the dictate of conscience whether right or erroneous alwaies obligeth at least not to act against it But a following Oath cannot remove that obligation but is it self invalid and loseth its obliging force 3. But if the swearer after better taught do see and correct his errour the Oath which bound him not before beginneth then to bind him P. 77. Other Cases there are of things by Accident unlawful by reason of ill effects of the thing it self as it may be a hinderer of a greater good or a cause at least an occasion of evil The fourth Case is when the thing sworn seemeth unlawful as hindering the effect of some antecedent good as of a Vow or Promise made before As if one that had before-hand bound himself to some work of Piety or Charity after take an Oath that hindereth the fulfilling of the former Vow As if one that vowed to give half his gain weekly to the poor shall after swear to give it all to the war This case hath no difficulty I plainly answer such an Oath is neither lawful nor obligatory because that the former obligation whencesoever contracted whether by Covenant or by Vow or by bare Promise or by meer Office or Duty remaineth valid and puts a bar to every following contrary act Read Prael 4. § 11 12 13 14 15. what he saith for the obligation 1. Of spontaneous Oaths 2. Of Oaths caused by fraud 3. Or by fear extorted 4. Even of Oaths to Robbers P. 110. 3. He that taketh an Oath imposed by one that had no just authority but not otherwise vicious is bound to perform what he swore Read p. 175 c. what he saith at large against equivocation stretching reservations as opening the door to all lying and perjury and frustrating the end of Oaths P. 195. Of the latitude and extent of an Oath How far the senso is to be measured by the scope As when the Cause of the Oath was particular but the words are general e. g. The Popes Usurpation was the Cause of the Oath of the Kings Supremacy But the words of the Oath so assert the Kings Supremacy as exclude all others as well as the Pope from exercising supreme Power in this Kingdom Answ Such an Oath obligeth as to the words themselves in their utmost latitude The Reason is because the intention of the Law though made on a particular occasion is general to hinder all incommodities of the same kind for the future As Lawyers fetch not the sense of Laws from the Proem but from the body of the Statute so we must judge of the just interpretation of an Oath not by the promised recognition or other preface but by the body of the Oath it self P. 208. He is alwaies perjured that intendeth not what he promised but he is not alwaies perjured that performeth not what he promised The bond being dissolved P. 227. Vows made to God as a party cannot be relaxed by man though men may give away their own If you swear for the sake of another as to his honour obedience profit or other good the Oath bindeth not unless he for whom you swear take it as acceptable and firm P. 242. Concl. 4. It is a grievous sin to impose an Oath unduly on another As 1. An Oath not stablished by Law or Custom c. 2. An Oath that is repugnant or in the sense that the words hold forth in the common use of speaking seemeth repugnant to any Oath by him formerly lawfully taken 3. They that constrain men to swear to a thing unlawful as against our duty to God or our Superiours or the Laws of the Kingdom or against good manners or that which is otherwise dishonest and may not be kept 4. He who imposeth an Oath of ambiguous sense or any way captious to ensnare the conscience life liberty or fortune of his neighbour 5. He that without necessity by fear compelleth or by Authority impelleth or by counsel example fraud or other artifice or reason induceth another to swear who he knoweth will swear against the judgment of his conscience I would all men in great power would remember how filthy a character Jeroboam branded his own conscience fame and name with that made Israel to sin and how greatly they provoke God's great wrath against themselves that abuse their power to other mens ruine which God gave them for edification and not for destruction P. 243. Concl. 5. An offered Oath is not to be taken with a reluctant or doubting conscience 1. Because what is not of faith is sin 2. Because we must swear in judgment which he doth not that sweareth against his consciences Judgment 3. Because this is done for some temporal commodity or to avoid some loss or obtain some gain or to get some mans favour or such like But how unworthy of a Christian is it to set God behind the World Heaven behind Earth the Soul behind the Body eternal joy behind temporal gain the hope of the life to come behind present ease inward peace behind outward 4. Because he that so sweareth evidently exposeth himself to the danger of Perjury a most heinous sin For he that for hope or fear of any temporal commodity or discommodity can be induced to swear that which he ought not it is scarce credible but he may by the like hope or fear be drawn from doing what he swore And PERJURY was by the very heathens accounted one of those most heinous sins which they believed would bring the wrath of the Gods not only on the guilty but on their posterity yea on whole nations much more is it to be feared of us who worship that one true God who hath solemnly professed that he will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain Lest while which way ever we look we see such a great and luxuriant crop of Oaths and
of Miracles since the Apostles hath assured us that his separation from communion with these Bishops though cruel to Hereticks so gross was confirmed by vision and by an Angel from Heaven and he forbidden their communion for the time to come We again mention this as not yet having heard any answer to it 11. Our own Canons forbid the people to communicate with Ministers for lesser faults as private Preaching Sacraments Fasts Conventicles or out of their own Parishes c. 12. Moses the Monk aforementioned is commended by Historians because he would not be ordained by Lucius not because erroneous but because he had persecuted others by the countenance of Valens the Emperour Though his persecution extended not to the silencing of thousands or hundreds or very many that we read of And as is aforesaid he chose to be ordained by banished men 13. Especially if men have no obligation to that insufficient heretical or ungodly Priest but humane because a Patron presented him or a Magistrate imposed him or because Parish-order which is a humane thing of meer convenience will else seem violated When as the avoiding of the danger of a false Pastor and the guilt of his sin which by owning him may be incurred and escaping the great loss of a faithful Pastor's guidance when we are conscious that we greatly need it are things of greater importance and of Moral and Evangelical Divine obligation In this case we cannot prove it Schism to avoid a wicked Priest The Bishops hold it a duty to avoid a Nonconformist that hath not their License But such a one as is foredescribed hath not Christ's License and is a Nonconformist to his Laws Again let it be noted 1. That even under the Jewish Law Magistrates were not the chusers of the Priests but God chose them by setling the Priesthood on one line 2. That Christ hath by his Spirit in the Apostles altered the Priesthood and the way of their calling and entrance under the Gospel 3. That the Church neer a thousand years was in possession of that way and many hundred of those years the possession was universal in all the Churches 4. That the chusing of Bishops or Priests by Magistrates or Lay-Patrons was none of that way which Christ appointed Therefore seeing it is not the chusing or making but the Governing of Bishops or Priests that is committed to Princes and Christ's Law is the first by which they must govern it seemeth to us that they cannot oblige the Subjects to take up with wicked Pastors when better are prohibited and are to be had LXVII 21. In those times and Countries where the allowed Bishops are corrupted by ignorance heresie ungodliness or faction and set themselves to bring in an unconscionable corrupt sort of Ministers into the Churches and will not ordain fit and conscionable men or by snares divide the Churches and cast out the most worthy and impose sinful conditions on all whom they will ordain it seemeth to us to be no Schism to seek ordination from other Bishops and in case of necessity at least to be ordained by such Presbyters as are either the sole or chief or equal Pastors in Parochial Churches especially in Cities and to perform the Office of Presbyters without such Bishops consent We here suppose such Bishops had themselves been duely elected and ordained yet 1. They have their power to edification and not to destruction 2. We are more obliged to Christ's interest and the Churches safety than to them God will have mercy rather than Sacrifice and preferreth mens salvation to ceremony or Church Laws 3. So the Oâ—â—â—odox forsook the Arrian and other wicked Bishops Malignity and wickedness is poison in the Clergy as well as Heresie and Schism So as is aforesaid Moses and Martin disowned the bad Bishops that were neer them so the Protestants disowned the Papist Bishops And Bugenhagius Pomeranus a Presbyter reformed and ordained Bishops in Denmark Bishop Vsher himself told one of us that being asked by his Sovereign whether he found that ever Presbyters ordained Presbyters he answered I can shew your Majesty more even where Presbyters made Bishops citing the Alexandrian custom out of Jerom to Evagrius The Judgment of English Bishops and Divines for the validity of such Ordination by Presbyters and of the Ordination in the Reformed Churches abroad some of us have proved heretofore at large 4. Christ having made a Law which conferreth the Pastoral Power on him that is made a due Receiver as the King's Charter doth the Power of the Lord Mayor on him that is duly chosen to it it followeth that no more is absolutely necessary to such reception of that Power but that the person be duly qualified and have consent and opportunity and the best investiture which the time and place will afford Of which Voetius de desperata causa Papatus and one of us in a Dispute of Ordination have long ago said that which we suppose will never be well answered 5. And Grotius de Imperio summ Potest circa Sacra an excellent Book hath shewed that he that is the sole Pastor of a Church is in effect a Bishop And indeed Dr. Hammond as is said in his Disser and Annotations asserteth de sacto that in Scriptures one Bishop without any Presbyter under him was setled in each Church so that every Pastor of a particular Church then was a Bishop as far as can be proved And if that was the Apostolical institution that every Church have a Bishop and that there was no sole Pastor at least but Bishops then he that is ordained the Pastor at least sole or chief of a particular Church is ordained a Bishop The reason is because his Office and Power followeth the Law and Charter of Christ that made it and not of the investing Ministerial Ordainer if he would alter it or pronounce it otherwise LXVI 22. Not to obey Lay-Chancellours where they govern the Church by the power of the Keys decreeing Excommunications and Absolutions and performing the work of Exploration and Admonition belonging to Bishops in order thereto we take to be no Schism nor to refuse subscribing or swearing to such a Government LXVII 23. Not sacrilegiously to desert the sacred Ministry when vowed and consecrated thereto is no Schism LXVIII 24. Where such sins are made the Condition of Ministration by men in power as that all the whole Ministry of a Kingdom are bound in conscience to deny consent and conformity thereto it is the duty of all the Ministry in primo instante to forbear their Ministerial Office or none for the reason is the same to all For example If ten or twenty untrue or unrighteous forbidden things must be subscribed declared covenanted or sworn or as many sins practised yea were it but one no doubt but the whole Ministry is bound to deny Conformity to any one such thing Now if all these must forbear or lay down their Office because forbidden by men to exercise it then it is
London are not the seventh part of the whole including all the outer Parishes And of the 97 there were very few Churches left unburned and there are but few that are yet built up and instead of many there are small Tabernacles and instead of others nothing And the outer Parishes are mostly so great as that the Temples will hold but a small part of the people It is conjectured by the Inhabitants that in Martins Parish are about threescore thousand souls and in Stepney and Giles's Cripplegate each about fifty thousand and in Giles's in the Fields between 20000 and 30000 and in Clements Danes Margarets Westminster Andrews Holborn Sepulchres and the Churches in Southwark at Aldgate White-Chappel Shoreditch and divers others there are in some six times the number that can hear in the Temples in some more and in others not much less And in most Churches the Preachers voice will not extend to above two thousand if more can come in So that take one with another and it is conjectured that it is not above the seventh or eight part of the Inhabitants that can come to hear in the outer Parishes And if the other six or seven parts should seek for room in the emptier Churches of other Parished within the walls it cannot be supposed that above one part of these six or seven would find room So that all set together there is supposed to be place but for about the fifth or fourth part at most of all the people within and without the walls And London is to be denominated rather from three four or five parts than from One of these And we all agree that the famousest and happiest City for Religion in the world should not be left to turn Infidels Pagans Atheists or to be kept from all publick Worship of God And it must be considered that the great Parishes where one of twenty cannot hear are far off from the Churches that have room and that such persons cannot easily know before-hand what Churches have room and where to seek it And that those that have most need have least desire and when they cannot be taught near home will rather stay at home or in the streets or Ale houses than go far to seek room in the Alleys of other Churches And it 's known that by this means Papists have got opportunity of seducing multitudes and many get them to baptize their children And whereas it is said that some may go one day and some another it is answered 1. That if they did go half the families by turns still the greater part would be shut out 2. It is all that are bound by God constantly to hear and worship him 3. And those that most value it will still croud in and keep out the rest and will not bargain away their own duties and benefits for other mens sakes Nor can Parishes come to agree upon such a bargain VI. Experience assureth us that men are not usually brought to knowledge repentance faith and holiness by the Gospel ex opere operato or as by a charm but as an apt morall cause And that the Preaching of judicious convincing serious affectionate Ministers hath incomparably more success than the affected language or dull reading speeches of injudicious novices or wordly formalists or hypocrites God usually worketh according to the morall aptitude of the means though not alwaies VII It cannot be denyed but that the number of raw cold dry yea and scandâ—lous Ministers in many Counties of this Kingdom is too great And the more ignorant and bad the people are the abler Ministers and more diligent do they need And those people who feel what profiteth their Souls will not take up with cold uneffectual teaching if they can have better VIII He that hath no Preacher but a Reader in his parish is by the Church Laws forbidden to refuse his Ministry and all such are forbidden frequent going to other parishes communicating in them what want soever they have at home IX The Nonconformists that do but affirm any thing in the Liturgy Ceremonies Articles Government c. to be unlawful and such as they may not subscribe to are by the Church Laws excommunicate ipso facto And all that dare not take the Sacrament kneeling are to be denyed the Communion of the Church And all that dare not submit their Children to be baptized by the foredescribed undertaking of Godfathers and to receive the Cross as a dedicating badg of Christianity must not have their Children Christened And all that dare not commit their souls to the Pastoral Guidance of ignorant readers or other men whom they think by their unskilfulness unsoundness aversness to a holy life strangers to intimate cases of conscience or notorious negligence and sloth or non-residence to be unmeet for them to trust themselves to in so great a matter in which their salvation is so much concerned and so dare not take the Sacrament from such as their Pastors all these are forbidden Communion with any other Parish Churches by the Canon and all Ministers forbidden to receive them And if they dare not say that they are willing to be coâ—firmed in the English mode they must no where be admitted to communion And being excommunicate must not be buryed according to the Church-Office when they are dead so that they are cast out of the Church before they Congregate in other Assemblies X. In this case the Nonconformists are not agreed what to do One part and the far greatest say 1. We will forbear affirming the unlawfulness of any of the foresaid impositions till we are called to speak out And because the case of these times calls us often to it we will do it as privately and modestly as we can 2. And though we are excommunicated ipso facto yet we are not bound our selves to execute their sentence but may stay in Communion till they prove the fact and do the execution on us themselves by refusing us And this we take to be the most peaceable way But others say That though in some cases for peace this way may be taken yet ordinarily we are not bound to seek and expect Communion with that Church which hath already thus excommunicated us especially when all the Ministry subscribe and declare their Conformity to the Church orders and swear Canonical obedience to the Ordinaries and are themselves to be suspended if they give us the Communion We must not say they strive against their Laws nor seek that Ministers should be perjured false to their promises and professions to admit us to Communion against their Laws Nor can any Church that first excommunicateth us call us Schismaticks for not communicating with them unless they prove that we give them just cause to excommunicate us Here it is supposed that the Reader understandeth that to be excommunicated ipso facto is sine sententia without any need of a Judges sentence to be actually excommunicate upon our fact done so that the bare proof and notice of
the fact is enough to warrant the execution Though a Judge may also pass a sentence if he see cause vid. Calv. Lexic Jurid And others commonly There are some others that go further and think it unlawful to have Communion with the Parish Churches because they thus excommunicate us first without more cause and because they take the Pastors to be scandalous by the foresaid Oaths Declarations and subscriptions and those that have not the peoples consent to be no true Pastors But these are herein disowned by the most and very few Ministers are of their mind that we know of though many of the people much incline to it especially they that live where the Priests are ignorant scandalous slothful or malignant because Paâ—l saith Wâ—â—h sâ—câ— no not to eat But others tell them that 1. It is not the Parish-Ministers that made the excommunicating Laws 2. And if they sin themselves it is ignorantly 3. And we have not a call and opportunity to hear and judge them XI Even those called Independents hold if Mr. Ph. Nyes Manuscript to that end may tell us their minds that it is lawful to hear the publick Parish Ministers because the Magistrate may set Teachers over the People and require them to hear them Though they hold that the People should choose their Pastors and that the Sacraments should be administred and received freely and not by force Yea such Anabaptists as Mr. Tombes as is visible in his Book hold that Communion with the Parish-Church is lawful in the Word Prayer and Lords Supper XII We commonly hold that men unjastly excommunicated are not thereby disobliged from publick worshiping of God and living under Pastoral oversight and Church discipline nor are bound to endanger their own salvation by neglecting such duties and losing such helps and priviledges and therefore must be of such Churches as they can if they cannot be of such as they would or as are allowed by the Magistrate XIII It is not in the power of our selves to escape such excommunications For we are not able to change our own understandings so far as to hold every thing before named to be lawful Some of us are able to say that we have with a willingness to see the truth studied the case of the old Conformity above forty years and the case of the New-conformity now above seventeen years and read almost all that hath been written for them which we thought might add to our information and prayed earnestly that God would not suffer us to erre and the longer we study it the more we are confirmed In this case we suffer publick and private obloquy and reproach and not only these seventeen years the loss of all Ministerial Maintenance but the danger of 40 l. a Sermon and imprisonment in common Gaols and the ruine of our estates and health And in reason it s as easie to think that they that hold their opinion on such terms are like to be as impartial in their studies as they whose way leadeth to preferment wealth and honour of which we were capable of a part We say therefore again that to Consâ—â—m or prevent the Canons Excommunication ipso facto is not in our power And they that say God will not condemn men for that which they were not able to avoid or help should not do otherwise themselves XIV When the 1800 or 2000 Ministers were silenced the far greatest part of them forbore all publick Preaching and only taught some few in private at such hours as hindered not the publick Assemblies and many of them lived as private men XV. To this day it is so with many of the Nonconformists Those that live where they find small need of their Preaching or else have no call or opportunity and cannot remove their dwellings do hold no Assemblies but as other men content themselves to be Auditors Those that live where are godly and peaceable Ministers in Publick who yet need help do lead the people constantly to the Parish-Churches and teach them themselves at other hours and help them from house to house This is ordinary in the Countries and even in London with many Ministers that hold no Assemblies yea many that were ejected out of City Parish-Churches XVI Those called Independents do keep up such Churches as they had gathered before when none of our present oaths declarations subscriptions or practices were imposed on them which is not therefore to be taken as new XVII As to the rest it was the great and terrible Plague in 1665. which made this change in their Assembling and Ministration When the publick Ministers forsook the City and the rich left the poor to misery and death and people lookt every day for their last when they that heard a Sermon one day were buried the next when death had awakened the people to Repentance and a regard of their everlasting state divers Nonconformable Ministers resolved to stay with them They begg'd money out of the Countries for the poor and relieved them They got into the empty Pulpits and preached to them And when Preachers and Hearers lookt every day for their last it is easie to conceive that there was serious Preaching and serious Hearing By this many that died were helpt in their preparations and through God's great mercies multitudes that survived repented and became the serious seekers of a better world The men that did this were mostly unmarried and could easilier venture their own lives than such as had families and some of them that had families yet trusted God and most did scape We know but of one pious Germane Minister that died of the Plague in the City and one of another Disease if not through want and two that fled from it in the Country And when God had blest these mens faithful labours with the conversion of many souls especially Apprentices and young people the experience so engaged their mutual affections that the Ministers resolved that they would live and die in such service as God had so blessed and preserved them in and their hearers resolved that they would not forsake their Teachers And thus the dreadful Plague began that which so much now offendeth men as a dangerous Schism XVIII And when some men out of excessive caution were ready to think that when that Plague was ceased having killed about an hundred thousand the Ministers should lay by that publick work and retire again into secret corners God confuted them by his next dreadful judgement burning down the City the next year 1666 So that there were neither Churches to go to nor Ministers in the Parishes to Preach nor rich men to maintain them And could any soul that hated not Christ and mens salvation have wished the Nonconformists then to desert the miserable people When they newly came from under the terrour of such a dreadful Plague and when success and Gods protection had so greatly encouraged them and when presently they were deprived of their worldly treasure and had not houses or
a one doth not lie or dissemble 2. Whether a baptized person as such have no right to our special love which we owe to those that we hope are true Believers and sanctified but only to our common love and kindness which belongeth to those also that are the heirs of Hell Some friends that are gone from extream to extream and in remembrance of their ancient Schisms can look but one way with impartial sense and that have made their repentance the passage to a greater errour and sin should better bethink them them what they do They did well to stand still in the way of Schism when they saw here a leg and there a hand and there an arm in their way and who but a mad-man indeed would not But if they have impartially read Church-history and the works of such Fathers as give us historical notices and ever since Constantine made a Bishoprick a bait to a proud and worldly mind even such as Nazianzen Basil Chrysostom Isidore Pelusiota Hilary Pictav and the over-orthodox disputations of Cyril and the Epistles of Theodoret rejoycing at his death and abundance of such like had they seen in the way of Church-pride and tyranny not here a leg and there an arm but here a hundred carkasses and there a thousand here two thousand godly faithful Preachers silenced and many thousand dry Vines planted in their rooms and there whole Kingdoms interdicted and their Churches shut up here Churches and Kingdoms turned into confusions about a word or about the interest of Prolates striving which should be the Chief and have their will and rule the rest and there hundred thousands murdered in the name of Christ for obeying him and bloody wars managed by the Clergy against Christian Emperours and Kings stabbed one after another and most of the Christian world Roman Greek Moscovites Armenians Abassines degenerated into doleful ignorance and dead formality under the Government of great High-Priests and millions of the vulgar bred up in ignorance and senslesness of spiritual and eternal things this should stop them at least from serving the master of such designs as much as a leg or an arm in the way 3. At least we would intreat them to hate that mistake which will pretend to do all this for charity unity and the Churches good and to believe that it is no sign of charity 1. To believe that charity should not be exercised in judging that men professing saving faith do speak the truth and have the faith that they profess 2. Nor to teach all Christs Church that a baptized Church member as such is to be lookt on but as a man in a state of damnation and no man is bound to love him as a true Christian with a special love 3. And that to prove that a man is not to be taken for a true Christian but to be admitted into Church Communion as one that shall have a greater damnation than heathens without a further renovation is a great act of Charity Contrary to the uncharitable narrowness of others These are too great recesses from Anabaptistry but not from real Schism § 3. As for those that will not take the intelligent serious profession of true Faith and Covenant-Consent for a credible sign of the sincerity of the Professor till they can sufficiently disprove it but will be the arbitrary Judges of mens hearts either as pretended heart-searchers or by self-devised or uncertain signs not taking up with this Profession we are no Patrons of such mens presumption and uncharitableness § 4. There are various degrees of Credibility in mens professions some give us so much as is next to certainty some but small hopes But yet till we can disprove them we are to take their professions as credible in some degree And if they prove false it is they that will have the loss § 5. II. The second case about Church Covenants deserveth no longer a discussion He that will put any article unnecessary into any such Covenant sinfully corrupteth the order of the Church As if he would bind the people to be Church Governours or never to depart from that particular Church but by the consent of the Pastor or the flock or any such like And he mistaketh that will make a more explicite contract to be more necessary than it is But it seemeth strange to us that any understanding Christian should deny that consent is absolutely necessary to the being of an adult member both of the universal and each particular Church respectively What bindeth a man to consent is another question but if he be any member of the Church till he profess consent we know not what a Christian or Church member is An explicite covenant is necessary to our relation to the Universal Church for it must be solemnized sacramentally That we express it by writings or words is not of necessity to our membership of a particular Church But consent is necessary And mutual consent expressed satisfactorily is a contract or Covenant If the Pastor say all th◠at consent hold up your hand or stand up or stay here while the rest depart c. these are significations of consent And if it be notified that all that appear at the solemn Assemblies and attend the Pastors Ministry shall be taken for Consenters their presence and attendance is a profession of Consent indeed and so a covenanting But though the most explicit be not necessary ad esse no man can give a reason why it should not be best ad bene esse seeing the most intelligent and plain dealing in the great things of God are most suitable to the work and fittest to attain the end why should we not deal openly and above board § 6. It is certain that to be a Christian maketh no man a member of any mans particular flock or charge And it is certain that none can be such without consent And it is certain that the Pastor is not to take every Atheist Jew Infidel Papist Heretick c. in his Parish for a member of the Universal or of that particular Church Therefore he must know whom to take for such And it is certain that the consent must be mutual so far is the Pastor from being a slave and bound to every mans desires that he is entrusted with the Church Keys himself § 7. A worthy person on this subject maketh these six things sufficient to such Church relation 1. That they be baptized Christians 2. Neighbours bound to mutual love 3. And apt to Neighbourly duty 4. That providence make us such Neighbours 5. Scripture Churches took their name from cohabitation 6. The command of authority that so it shall be Fresh suit pag. 260. Ans By making these six the sufficient proof of Parish Churches our friend unhappily would consequently unchurch them all For if this were all certainly they were none at all For all these which he maketh more than they are are but the dispositio materiae antecedent to any reception of the form 1.