favos Marcionitae Ecclesias saith Tertullian XLIV 12. If any persons shall pretend to have the power of Governing the Churches and Inferior Pastors as their Bishops who are obtruded on those Churches without the Election or consent of the people or Inferior Pastors and these Bishops shall by Lawes or mandates forbid such Assembling Preaching or Worship as otherwise would be Lawful and a duty It is no Schism to disobey such Laws or mandates as such Nor do such disobey their Pastors they being truly no Bishops of theirs till they do consent however in some cases the advantages of some imposed persons may make it an act of Prudence and so a duty to consent as is aforesaid It was no Schism for the people of Antioch Alexandria Cesarea Constantinople c to refuse Ecclesiastical obedience to the ill Bishops set over them by the Emperour to whom they did not consent But the Schism was theirs who complied with the imposed Usurpers Here it must be noted that Church history hath constrained all that understand it to confess both Papists Greeks and Protestants that the ordination of Bishops and Presbyters was in the power of the Bishops and the Election in the power of the people not only the first 300 years under heathen Emperours but for many hundred years after under Christian Emperours and Princes 2. That this was taken for their right given them by God To cite more proofs for this would expose us to the readers censure as unnecessary tediousness Many Papists largely prove it As doth David Blondel beyond exception de jure plebis in regimine Ecclesiastico with more 3. That yet we here plead not for the necessity of so much as the peoples election as it signifieth the first nomination of the person but only for the necessity of consent either explicitly or implicitly exprest If the senior Pastors have the first nomination or if it be the Magistrate or Patrons as with us we quarrel not against it if the flock do but consent Parents may Chuse Husbands and Wives for their Children but they are not such at all till mutual consent XLV 13. The consent of a few of the Church is not the consent of the Church Nor is it Schism for the Major part to differ from their choice or determinations as such In Government the will of the Sovereign is the publick will But in contracts and consent of a Community where Unity is the thing intended and voting the means the Major part is denominatively the society unless they have made others their trustees or delegates in Electing Consenting themselves to what they do such societies are not denominated from the Minor or a small part as contradistinct from the rest If a Diocess have a thousand or 600 or 300 Parish Pastors and a hundred thousand or a million of people or 50000 or 20000 as you will suppose and if only a dozen or twenty Presbyters and a thousand people or none chuse the Bishop this is not the Election or consent of the Diocesan Church Nor is it Schism for 20000 to go against the votes of 2000. XLVI 14. If Bishops that have no better a foundation of their relative power over that particular flock shall impose inferior Pastors or Presbyters on the Parish-Churches command the peoples acceptance obedience the people are not bound to accept and obey them by any authority that is in that command as such Nor is it Schism to disobey it no more than it is treason to reject the Usurper of a Kingdom XLVII 15. whilest such obtruded Parish Pastors have no consent of the flock explicite or implicite that Parish is no Parish Church in the proper Political Organized sense as we now speak of a Church as constituted by the Governing and Governed parts For that which wanteth an essential part wanteth the Essence And therefore it is no Schism to pronounce it no such Church and to deny it the Communion proper to such a Church Though yet as the word Church doth signifie an ungoverned Society in potentia proxima to receive Government they may be improperly called a Church as they are in a vacancy XLVIII 16. If they that make a Diocess the lowest proper Church which hath a Bishop and none under him and a Parish to be but a part of the Diocesan Church and no proper Church of it self as having no Episcopus Gregis shall accuse those as separating from the Church who separate not from the Bishop and keep to any Parish in the Diocess they contradict themselves Though such forsake many Presbyters and Parishes XLIX 17. If Princes or Prelates shall unjustly silence or depose so great a number of faithful Pastors or Preachers as shall leave people destitute of a necessary Preaching and Pastoral help it is no Schism but a great duty for such Ministers to preach and pastorally guide such people otherwise by the same reason one man might put down Christianity in an Empire at his pleasure or dissolve the Churches L. If it be said that it 's true if he put down all but not if he silence but a minor part We answer that the reason is the same to those to whom the Ministry is necessary if he put down Ministers to them The supply of the Churches e. g. in one City of a Kingdom is no supply to the other Cities And if a Parish have 10000 or 30000 or 50000 or 60000 souls it s no supply to all the rest if 3000 of these have the benefit of a Preacher and Pastor The same power which may deny a Pastor to ten parts of a Parish may deny him to the eleventh part that is to all So if competent Pastors be set over half the Parishes in a Kingdom and the other half hath incompetent men or if nine parts of a Kingdom were competently supplied and but the tenth part had not such to whom the people may lawfully commit the Pastoral Care of their souls it is no Schism but a duty for those that are destitute to get the best supply they can and it is no Schism but a duty for faithful Ministers though forbidden by superiours to perform their Office to such people that desire it Their General Ordination with the peoples Necessity and Consent added to God's General Commands to all his Ministers to be faithful and diligent are a sufficient obliging Call to such Ministration without the will of prohibiting Superiours yea against it For 1. Else it were at the will of a man whether souls shall be saved or damned for how shall they believe unless they hear and how shall they hear without a Preacher and whether Christ shall have a Church and God be publickly worshiped or not 2. Our Ordination consecrateth us to our Office during life And it is Sacriledge and Covenant-breaking with God to cast it off and alienate our selves 3. God hath described the Office and the Work in his Word and charged his servants to give the children their bread in due
such as the Counterminer will say that to fear such sin as I have here named by one that is not willing to be damned is Treason Rebellion Schism Faction Pride Obstinacy this will not pass with me for convincing Argument on which I may venture my salvation Jul Scaliger exercit tells us that in France our Bicott the Learned Schoolman was envied by another for his Auditors in Philosophy and his crafty adversary told the King that Bicott was a Peripatetick and Aristotle was against Monarchy There needed no more and Bicott was cast down As for them that think that to name the late Wars is a Confutation of Nonconformists as if they knew not that they were raised on both sides by Conformists Heylin in Lauds Life will tell them who I now only repeat Silence all that had a hand in those Wars except the Conformists and no more and I and thousands will give you thanks I plead not for my self The years are past in which I might have better served the Church had I been thought tolerable I am almost uncapable now of your kindness or of any great hurt that you can do me A torrent of reproaching scornful words may ease some mens minds and serve some mens ends but will not satisfie my conscience nor heal the Land I write not this as accusing Conformists or the Law-makers but as answering their loud and long accusations and demands If telling what I fear seem a telling what others are guilty of it is a consequent which I cannot avoid but to avoid it and such like have seventeen years been herein silent So far am I from desiring the weakening of the Church that I had not written this but to prevent it Though I with Saint Martin renounce communion with Ithacius and Idacius I go not so far as he in separating from the Synods of Bishops nor will I separate from any Christians further than they separate from Christ or expel me Church-Order I love Church Tyranny and Schism I love not I am for more Bishops and not for fewer If Parish-Oratories or Chapels were made parish-Parish-Churches at least in each Corporation antiently called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yea if the parish-Parish-Ministers might be Pastors Episcopigregis and not forced by strangers to excommunicate absolve and receive to communion against their knowledge and consciences nor to profess promise or practice sin against God nor omit their known Ministerial duty far be it from me to be against Conformity I doubt not but he that will preserve Religion here in its due advantages must endeavour to preserve the Soundness Concord and Honour of the Parish-Churches And as the truly wise and honest Judge Hale hath said to me It must be a new Act of Uniformity that must heal us if ever we be healed I am of the mind of old Mr. Dod who for the peoples sake thanked God that there were so many worthy Conformists and for Truth and Conscience sake thanked God that there were so many Nonconformists I love and honour the Reverend solid worthy Preachers which I hear in most Churches in London where I come and I endeavour to have all others honour them And though I am by the Canon ipso facto excommunicate they shall put me out from them before I will depart But for the Church and Kingdom and their Consciences sake I beg of the Clergy that before they any more render odious those whom they never heard and urge Rulers to execute the Laws against them that is to confine imprison excommunicate silence and undo them they would be sure what manner of spirit they are of and that this is acceptable to God and profitable to the Land or to themselves and that which the Churches Experience commendeth My honest friend whom I once perswaded from Anabaptistry writing against Separation saith that when he saw hereâ—a leg and there an arm in the way it was time for him to stop But in Church-history I have had a sadder sight even the carkasses of thousands streams of blood and turnults in the chief Cities and Churches of the world the Crowns of Emperours Kings the loss of the Eastern Empire the generation of the Papacie the reproach of Christianity and that by Clergie-Domination and Contention striving who should be Greatest and seem wisest Some say If we take in a few moderate men like you what the better are we Ans More than you dream of are far better than I I hope few are worse Bishop Morley bid Ab uno disce omnes Shall London have no clocks unless they will all strike at once shall none be tolerated but the perfect Are you such your selves Do you differ in nothing how then shall we have Communion with you when we differ in all the things here described Pardon me for saying I think that Mr. Tombs hath said more like truth for Anabaptistry the late Hungarian for Polygamy many for drunkenness stealing and lying in cases of necessity than ever I yet read for the lawfulness of all that I have here described And what is it that some men cannot copiously and confidently talk for And what wretched Reasons be they that have hindred Englands unity and peace And how fully hath Rom. 14. and 15. and our Common interest and notorious experience confuted them I have long wondered what powerful cause it is that with such men and so many could so long prevail against such evidence and light If you will not hear those will whom God will use to the healing of his Churches and blessed are the Peacemakers for though you call them otherwise they shall be called the Children of God I have prefixed the words of some as our admonition and I have written with this a fuller Treatise of the only true terms of the Concord of all Christian Churches and of the false terms which they never will unite in but are the causes of Schism I commitall with my self living and dying to him that is the Lord of the dead and living and will shortly judge us all in righteousness Come Lord Jesus and prepare us for thy Coming Amen THE CONTENTS 1. THE Reasons of this writing and the sense of the word CHURCH 2. The various opinions of such as we have to do with 3. What Churches we hold to be instituted of God and what not 4. What Princes and Pastors may do in such matters 5. What separation and what assembling or gathering Churches is unlawful and what lawful 6. Matters of fact to be known preparatory to our case 7. Matters required of us for Conformity first of â—ay-men 8. Secondly Matters imposed on Ministers And I. Of Assent Consent Approbation and Canonical subscription that nothing is contrary to the Word of God II. 9. The second Part of the Matter of Conformity Reordination III. 10. The third Part of the Matter of Conformity of swearing or Covenanting never to endeavour any alteration of Church Government VI. 11. The fourth part of the Matter to declare that neither
only in worse lands but in Ireland and in England as part of Lancashire the far greatest part of the Parishioners are Papists who renounce the Protestant Churches in some places XXXII Neither dwelling in the Parish nor the Law of the Land makes any Christian a member of that Parish Church without or before his own consent But proximity is part of his extrinsick aptitude and the law of man or command of his Prince may make it his duty to consent and thereby to become a member when greater Reasons mollify not that obligation XXXIII Parish Bounds and such other humane distributions for conveniency may be altered by men and they bind not against any of Christs own Laws and predeterminations nor when any changes turn them against the good ends for which they are made of which more afterward when we speak of separation XXXIIII And about these humane Church-Laws the general Case must be well considered how far they are obligatory to conscience and in what cases they cease to bind Sayrus Fragoso and other the most Learned and Moderate Casuists of the Papists ordinarily conclude that Humane Laws bind not when they are not for the Common good We had rather say that when they are notoriously against the Laws of Christ or against the Common good or are made by usurpation without authority thereto they bind not to formal obedience in that particular though sometime other reasons especially the honour of our Rulers may bind us to material obedience when the matter is indifferent and though still our subjection and loyalty must be maintained But of this before and more largely by one of us Christian directory Part. 4. Chap. 3. Tit. 3. c. The Council of Toletum 1355 decreed that their decrees shall bind none ad culpam but only ad poenam see Bin. Inoc. 6th Sect. XXXV Kings and Magistrates should see that their Kingdoms be well provided of publick Preachers and Catechists to convert Infidels and Impious men where there are such and to prepare such for Baptisme and Church priviledges and Communion as are not yet Baptized but are Catechumens And they may by due means compel the ignorant to hear and learn what Christianity is though not to become Christians for that is impossible nor to prosess that which is not true nor to take Church-Priviledges to which they have no right and of which at present they are uncapable But they may grant those rewards and civil Priviledges to Christians and Churches for their encouragement which they are not bound to give to others and which may make a moving difference without unrighteous constraint XXXVI Christ and his Apostles having as is aforesaid settled the Right of Ordination on the Senior Pastors or Bishops and the Right of Consenting in the People and this continued long even under Christian Emperours Princes or Patrons may not deprive either party of their Right but preserving such Rights they may 1. Offer meet Pastors to the Ordainers and Consenters to be accepted when there is just cause for their interposition 2. They may hinder both Ordainers and People from introducing intollerable men 3. They may when a Peoples Ignorance Faction or Wilfulness maketh them refuse all that are truly fit for them urge them to accept the best and may possess such of the Temples and Publick Maintenance and make it consequently to become the Peoples duty to consent as is aforesaid so also when they are divided XXXVII Princes ought to be Preservers of Peace and Charity among the Churches and to hinder Preachers from unrighteous and uncharitable reviling each other and their unpeaceable controversies and contentions XXXVIII Christ himself hath instituted the Baptismal Covenant to be the Title of Visible Members of his Church and the Symbol by which they shall be notified And he hath commanded all the baptized as Christians to Love each other as themselves and though weak in the faith to receive one another as Christ receiveth us but not to doubtful disputations and so far as they have obtained to walk by the same rule of Love and Peace and not to despise or judge each other for tolerable differences much less to hate revile or destroy each other and it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and the Apostles to lay no greater burden on the Churches even of the Ceremonies which God had once commanded but Necessary things Act. 15. 28. And these terms of Church-Union and Concord which Christ hath made no mortal man hath power to abrogate All things therefore of inferiour nature though Verities and Good must be no otherwise imposed by Rulers than as may stand with these universal Laws of Christ which are the true way to prevent Church-Schisms XXXIX Princes by their Laws or Pastors by consent where Princes leave it to them may so associate many particular Churches for orderly correspondencie and concord and appoint such times and places for Synods and such orders in them as are agreable to Gods aforesaid generall Laws of doing all in Love to Edification and in order And how far if Rulers should miss this generall Rule they are yet to be obeyed we have opened elsewhere XL. As we have there also said that Princes may make their own Officers to execute their Magistratical Power circa sacra which we acknowledge in our King in our Oath of Supremacy and if such be called Eclesiastical and their Courts and Laws so called also that ambiguous name doth not intimate them to be of the same species as Christs ordained Ecclesiastical Ministers or as his Churches and Laws are so now we add that if Princes shall authorize any particular Bishops or Pastors to excercise any such visiting conventing ordering moderating admonishing or governing power as it belongeth to the Prince to give not contrary to Christs Laws or the duties by him commanded and priviledges by him granted to particular Churches we judge that Subjects should obey all such even for conscience sake However our consideration of Christs decision of his disciples controversie who should be the greatest and our certain knowledge how necessary Love and Lowliness and how pernicious wrath and Lordly-Pride are in those that must win souls to Christ and imitate him in bearing not making the cross together with the sad history of the Churches distractions and corruption by Clergy-Pride and Worldliness lamented by Nazianzene Basil Hilary Pictavus Socrates Sozomen Isidore Pelusiot Bernard and multitudes more yea by some Popes themselves these and other reasons we say doe make us wish that the Clergy had never been trusted with the sword or any degree of forcing power or secular pomp yet if Princes judge otherwise we must obediently submit to all their Officers XLI It seemeth by the phrase of His Maiesties Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs 1660 in which after consultation with his Reverend Bishops the Pastoral way of Perswasion reproofs and admonitions are granted to the Presbyters that a distinction is intended between this Pastoral and the Prelatical Government And we
Covenant 1. By this Oath and this Declaration the Government and Trust of all the Cities and Corporations of England are constituted or qualified 2. Part of this Vow and Covenant is against Popery superstition and profaneness and all that is against sound doctrine and Godlyness that we will Repent of our sins unfeignedly and amend our lives c which the Nonconformists take to be Lawful and Necessary things 3. Thousands of people lived in the Kings Garrisons or Quarters and thousands were then unborn or Children who never took this Vow or Covenant nor ever heard or read it or know what is in it 4. The Parliament that imposed it on others took it voluntarily themselves as did many thousand more 5. Many thousands took it that never saw the faces of each other nor know in what sense or with what mind all others took it The sense being doubtful all took it not in on sense And many thought themselves not bound to take it in the imposers sence where the words might bear another And so its like thought the Royal party of the Nobility and Gentry who took it at their composition 6. It was a Vow to God as well as a Covenant with men as the words shew 7. The Controversie is not 1. Whether it was Lawfully Imposed 2. Or whether it was Lawfully Taken 3. Or whether it bind as a League 4. Nor whether it bind to any unlawful thing which all renounce But 5. Whether as a Vow made to God it bind to things necessary as against Schism Profaneness Popery to Repent c. to which men were before bound by other obligations Nor whether they that took it not be bound by it to repent c. but whether no one person in the three Kingdoms who took it be so bound And that since the Scots drew his Majesty to seem to own it which we judge they did unlawfully II. All Parents who will have their Children baptized must submit them to the sign of the Cross as it is after described And so must all that are to be baptized at age submit themselves to it III. All persons that have Children to be baptized must conform as followeth 1. They must procure three persons to be Godfathers and Godmother who must personally present the Child to be baptized and must promise and Vow to God in the Childs name the duties of the Covenant and must in the name of the Child say that he renounceth the Devil and all his works the vain pomp and glory of the world c and that he stedfastly believeth all the articles of faith that he will he baptized and that he will obediently keep Gods holy will and Commandments c. Not that they believe consent c but that he the Child doth believe desire c. And it is not a meer promise for the future I will believe and renounce c. but a profession for the present time I do believe stedfastly and I do renounce And in the Catechism it is said that Repentance whereby they forsake sin and faith whereby they stedfastly believe c are required of persons to be baptized and not only that have been baptized And yet that Infants that cannot do this are to be baptized because they promise them by their sureties and it is not said because they profess to do them at present by their sureties 2. The Child is baptized upon the undertaking of these persons as sponsors or Covenanters whose parts and duties are thus expressed To see that this Infant be taught so soon as he shall be able to learn what a solemn Vow promise and profession he hath here made by you and that he may know these things the better ye shall call upon him to hear sermons and chiefly ye shall provide that he may learn the Creed the Lords prayer and the ten Commandements in the vulgar tongue and all other things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his souls health and that this Child may be brought up to lead a Godly and a Christian life 3. The Conformists here are not agreed themselves what that subjective individual Faith renuâ—ciation and desire are which the Infant at present PROFESSETH by his sureties It is not that the Infant doth actually believe himself for the Catechism confesseth that he doth not Nor is there any probability that he doth unless by miracle unknown And if it be any ones faith else that the Infant then Professeth which is Imputatively his own it is not agreed whose faith that is or must be whether the Godfathers or the Churches and what Churches whether that Congregations or the Diocesan Churches or the National Churches or the Universal Church or whether it must be the Parents Adopters or Owners of the Child 4. Though the Godfathers be not by words to promise their Parts yet standing purposely there as undertakers of it and hearing the Minister expresly tell them what their PART and DUTY is their coming and standing in that relation is a plain signification of consent and rendereth them obliged Covenanters or Sponsors 5. These sponsors are not obliged to profess that the Child is theirs by Adoption or any propriety And so far is any such adopting or owning from their purposes that we never in all our lives knew any Godfather or Godmother as such not having before taken the Child as theirs on other reasons that ever became a sponsor with such a signified intent 6. In most Country Parishes that we have known a great part of the Communicants seem Ignorant themselves of what is to be undertaken for the baptized as we judge by our tryal where we have lived and the credible report of other Pastors And too many notoriously live themselves in a course of life contrary to what is to be undertaken for the Child 7. In all our lives we never knew one person that undertook this Office of Godfather or Godmother who beforehand gave the Parents any credible promise or signification that they had any purpose at all to perform what the Church Chargeth on them and they there undertake as their parts and duties 8. Nor did we ever know one in all our lives that as a Godfather or Godmother did perform it viz. To see themselves that the Child be taught his Câ—venant as soon as he is able to learn and to provide that he be taught all before recited his Creed c. and all things which a Christian ought to know and believe to his souls health and that he bâ—virâ—uoâ—sly brought up to lead a godly and a Christian life But they leave them to the Parents 9. No man can compel another to be Godfather or Godmother 10. All such undertakers that we have known have been of some of these following sorts 1. Either gâ—orant persons that knew not or careless that considered not what they did 2. Or persons that mistâ—â—k the sense of the Church and thought that they were but the representers of the Parents and that what
Christians but not a Political Church which we now define If they are not joyned with a Pastor that hath all the foresaid Powers of Teaching Ruling by the Word and Keys and going before them in Worship and if they consent not to his relation as such they may make a School or an Oratory but not a proper particular Church simpliciter so called but only a Church secundum quid or as to some part for an Essential part is wanting But it is not the defect of Exercise that unchurcheth them while there is the Power and that consented to for Men cannot be Pastors or Churches against their wills Sect. V. 3. As all Christians grant that the Apostles had a general Commission to call Infidels to Christ and to plant Churches with their particular Pastors as aforesaid and to take care that their Pastor and they do the duties not compelling them by their Sword but by the Word so we are far from denying that yet some Ministers of Christ may and should seek the conversion of Infidels and plant Churches of the converted ordaining Pastors over them by their consent and taking due care by their grave advise that such Churches walk in the obedience of Christ as far as they can procure it And such Seniors which have so planted these Churches and Pastors by Gods blessing on their labours should be much reverenced by the Churches which they have planted and their just advise exhortations and admonitions should be heard by the People and the Pastors whom they ordained and all their juniors And though the Apostles have no successours in their extraordinaries yet that some should in this ordinary work succeed them we deny not because 1. We find that it is a work still necessary to be done 2. And others as well as Apostles did it in those times as Silas Luke Apollo Timothy Titus c. and since all such as have planted the Gospel among Infidels 3. Because Christ promised to be with them that did this work to the end of the world Mat. 28. 21. But whether such men be of a different office or order from the junior Pastors whether any true Presbyter that hath ability opportunity and invitation may not do the same work with Infidels and by his success and seniority may not so ordain Pastors over the Churches which he gathered and have an answerable right to reverence and regard from those that he so planteth and ordaineth are controversies which we presume not now to decide And we cannot prove that this maketh a distinct form of a Church no not in the Apostles time and case For we cannot prove that they distributed the Countrys into Provinces or Dioceses peculiar to each Apostle and had any Churches which they supposed to be peculiarly under this or that Apostles Government so as that any of the rest might not with Apostolical power have come resided preacht and governed in the same No Scripture tells us of such limits Provinces Nay the Scripture tells us that many of them were as Apostles at once in the same places As at Jerusalem oft Paul and John had Apostolical power at Ephesus Peter and Paul as is commonly held at Rome And its probable that as Christ sent forth his disciples by two and two so the Apostles went in company as Paul and Barnabas did so that such appropriate settlement of Provincial or Diocesan Churches we cannot see proved though such a Generall Ministry is easily proved and we doubt not but by consent they might have distributed their Provinces had they seen cause and that actually they did so distribute their labours as their work and ends required But if they had become proper Provincial Bishops over several Districts or Provinces it seemeth strange to us that no history telleth us which were the twelve or thirteen Provinces and how limited and that they continued not longer and that instead of three Patriarchs first and four after and five next we had not twelve or thirteen Apostles or Patriarchs seated over all the world with their known divisions And that men seek not now to reduce the Churches to this Primitive State rather than to the said Imperial Constitution and rather to subject us all to the Apostolical Seats than to five Patriarchs in the dominions of another Prince and now mostly subject to an Infidel Yea it is strange to us that the first Seat Rome should derive its pretended power from two Apostles as if our Church might have two Bishops and the second Alexandria from Saint Mark who was no Apostle and the third Antioch from the same Apostle that Rome did as if one Bishop might have two such Dioceses and the fourth Ierusalem from St. James commonly said to be no Apostle and the last which became the second or the first from no Apostle nor make any such pretence if thirteen Apostolick Provinces were then known But we easily acknowledge that as Apostles having planted many Churches staid a while in each when they had setled it and some time visited it again so they are by some historians called the first Bishops of those Churches being indeed the transient Governours of them In which sense one Church might at once have two or many Bishops and one Bishop many Churches and he be Bishop of one Church this week who was Bishop of another where he came the next Sect. VI. Christian Community prepared to be a Polity and a Christian family and a Christian Kingdom we doubt not may all prove their Divine Right And if any will call these Churches let us agree of the definition and we will not strive about the name Sect. VII We know not of any proof that ever was produced that many Churches of the first Rank must of duty make one fixed greater compound Church by Association whether Classical Diocesan Provincial Patriarchal or National and that God hath instituted any such Form And we find the greatest defenders of Prelacy affirming that Classes Provincial Patriarchal and National Churches are but humane institutions of which more anon Sect. VIII We find no proof that ever God determined the Churches should necessarily be individuated by Parish-bounds or limits of ground and that men in the same limits might not have divers Bishops and be of divers particular Churches Sect. IX We never saw any satisfactory proof that ever Christ or his Apostles did institute any particular Church taken in a Political sense as organized and not meerly for a Community without a Bishop or Pastor who had the power of Teaching them Ruling them by the Word and Power of the Church-Keys and leading them in publick Worship Sect. X. Nor did we ever see it proved that any one Church of this first Rank which was not an Association of Churches consisted in Scripture-times of many much less many score or hundred such fixed Churches or Congregations Or that any one Bishop of the first Rank that was not an Apostle or a Bishop of Bishops of whom we now speak
must with very great concern profess that if the Churches of the lowest sort Parochial be but indeed made true Churches such as Christ by his Apostles instituted and not only Parts of a Diocesan Church as if that were the lowest raâ—k And if these particular Churches have but Pastors that have the power of the Keys in those Churches and all that the scripture maketh essential to the Officâ—r which was then set over eveâ—y such particular Church And if the Discipline instituted by Christ himself be but made possible and seasible in such Parochiall Churches yea if we that were trusted by our calling with the mysteries of God may not be forced our selves to administer the Sacraments against our own knowledge consciences and against our consciences and knowledge of mens cases to pronounce men absolved or excommunicate upon other mens decrees or to pronounce the notoriously wicked to be saved and to deny worthy Christians the seal of Christs Covenant nor their infants their visible Christianity by baptism we say might we but have this much we should be so far from using the Controversie about the Divine Kight of Episcâ—pacy as a distinct Order from Presbyters to any schism or injury to the Church that we should thankfâ—lly contribute our best endeavours to the concord safety peace and prosperity thereof And might we but also be freed from Swearing Subscribing Declaring and Covenanting unnecessary things which we take not to be true against our consciences and from some few unnecessary Practices which we cannot justifie we should joyfully serve the Church in our publick Ministry though it were in poverty and rags But of so great a mercy experience hath made our hopes from men to be very small And the reason of the thing maketh our hopes as small of the happiness of the Church of England till God shall unite us on these necessary terms SECT VI. 3. What Separation and what Gathering of Assemblies or Churches is unlawful and what lawful I. THough some mens abuse of the word Schism and calling mens duty to God by that name hath proved a great temptation to many to take it but for a word of Passion or of no certain or odious signification even as the Papists abuse of the word Heresie and Heretick hath been to others yet the evill of true Shism and the odium that God layeth on it in the Scripture should move all Christians to fear the thing and use the name with the disgrace that it truely importeth without misapplication and to avoid all guilt of so great a sin II. There are several sorts and degrees of Schism which greatly differ from each other Its one thing to divide from a Church and another to cause divisions or factions in it It s one thing to divide our selves from it and another to cause others to divide It s one thing to draw men away by words and another to drive them away by laws or execution by unjust excommunication or by violent persecution It s one thing to tempt away or drive away a single person or a few and another thing to draw or drive away multitudes It s one thing to separate from the Universal-Church and another from a particular Church or a few only It s one thing to separate from the species of particular Churches and another from some individuals only It s one thing to separate from the Churches of Christs institution and another to separate only from those of mens institution It s one thing to separate from such as men make lawfully and another from such only as they make without authority and sinfully And here separating from one whose sinful constitution is traiterous against Christs prerogative as the Papal Universal Usurpation much differeth from separating from one whose constitution though sinful is of no such perniciousness It is one thing to deny total Communion and another to separate but secundum quid for some act or part And that is either a great and necessary part or some small or indifferent thing or ceremony It is one thing to separate Locally by bodily absence and another mentally by Schismaticall principles It is one thing to separate from a Church as accusing it to be no Church of Christ and another to separate from it only as a true Church but so Corrupted as not to be Communicated with It s one thing to judge its Communion absolutely unlawful and another only to forsake it for a better which is preferred It s one thing to depart willfully and another to be unwillingly cast out It s one thing to depart rashly and in hast and another to depart after due patience when reformation appeareth hopeless It is one thing to remove upon religious reasons and another upon Civil or Domestical or Corporal It is easy for a confounded head to pass over all such distinctions and with unjust and confounding censures to reproach others as Schismaticks in the dark before he knoweth what schism is being guilty of Schism in his very accusations But sober Christians must be discerners and know that confusion is an Enemy to truth and love and justice III. I The Union of the Church Universal is in the seven things mentioned by Paul Eph. 4. 3. 4 5. 6. viz. One Body One Spirit of faith and Love One Hope of Glory One Lord One faith or Creed One Baptismal Covenant One God and Father of all He that separateth from this Church directly is an Apostate Uisibly if from its Essential profession and invisibly if only from the inward sincerity of faith consent and Love This is damning separation And if he separate but from some one Essentiall article of faith or duty it is that which is most usually and strictly called Heresie of which we are now to speak no further IV. 2. To make Factions Parties Contentions and Mutinies in a true Church of Christ or in any Community of Christians yea or but in families in the Universal Church is a great sin in all that are the true culpable Causes of it and are not only the involuntary occasions by unavoidable accidents V. 3. To separate from all the particular Churches in the world as if they were no true Political Churches of Christ as those called Seekers do who say that the Ministry Scripture and Churches are lost in the wilderness is a very heinous sin though such as do so renounce not their Baptism or the Church Universal VI. 4. To separate from most or many Churches by so unchurching them is far worse than to separate from few or one it being a greater wrong to Christ and men VII 5. To separate from one upon a reason that is known to be common to all or most or many is virtually to separate from all or most or many VIII 6 To separate from a true Church accusing it to be no true Church is a greater injury and sin caeteris paribuâ— than to separate from it only on an unjust accusation or culpability consistent with a true
2d so many went one way who under Martian went another way even in point of Heresie When Mavia the Saracen Queen chose Moses a Monk to be her Bishop as the condition of her peace with the Roman Empire Moses would not be ordained by Lucius not because he was an Arrian but because he was a persecutor and hurtful to other men for Religion and so he would be ordained Priest by some that were banished to a certain Mountain Socr. l. 4. c. 29. When the Emperour was gone from Antioch where in person he went to disperse their Meetings and yet they held on the people thrust out Lucius whom he had set up and set up Peter again whom the Emperour had banished But such instances are too many to be recited Yea under Orthodox Princes the people would cleave to their injured Pastors though against the Emperours will as they of Miliane did to Ambrose and the Joannites to Chrysostom who even long after his death separated from the Bishop and kept up their separate Meetings against the will of Prince and Prelates till milder Bishops instead of persecuting them restored Chrysostom's bones and name to honour and reconciled them It will still be objected as before that most of these instances were but the peoples rejection of Arrians But again we answer 1. In other instances they usually chose their Pastors and cleaved to them though prohibited 2. These Arrians were such as subscribed the Ariminum Creed which was so ambiguously compiled that abundance that renounced Arius did think that for obedience and peace they might put a fair sense on the words and so subscribe them And we meet with persons in our times that think words imposed on them by Superiours may and must endure stretching to a sense as far from their usual acceptation as the foresaid words were stretched by the Ariminum Subscribers 3. They that never accused and convicted the refused Bishops of Arrianism yet adhered to their former Bishops 4. It seemeth then that the people are left Judges as to the guiding of their own practice what Bishops to refuse as heterodox and whom to own as Orthodox And indeed the saying of Cyprian is well known that The people have the greatest power both to chuse a worthy Priest and to refuse or forsake the unworthy 6. All Protestants believe that it is no Schism in France or other Papist Countries to chuse Pastors and meet for the Worship of God though forbidden by the Civil and Ecclesiastick Governors of the place Obj. That is because that the Princes are Papists Ans A Papist King is to be obeyed in lawful things what Protestant denieth that Obj. But it is because that the Churches and Worship in those Countries is such as it is not lawful to be present at Ans 1. This Objection granteth that when the commanded Assemblies or Worship are such as it is not lawful to be present at 1. The people are discerning Judges 2. And may lawfully meet else where under Pastors of their own choice 2. But let the Question be not whether we may be present in their Churches but whether we may set up other Churches when we are necessarily kept from those established by Publick Power and it will go far 7. When the Form of Worship and Concord called the Interim was by Charles the 5th imposed on the German Protestants being drawn up by Julius Pflug Sidonius and Islebius Agricola men pretending to moderation as not imposing the Mass c. the Protestants judged it lawful to gather Assemblies and keep up Churches contrary to such an Edict of the Emperour One half of them held on their former way till banishment or other violence hindred them Melancthon and the others that thought the things commanded not utterly unlawful conformed only to prevent the utter desolation of the Churches but not in conscionable obedience to the Emperours Edict as if it had been any Schism to do otherwise if they could have been endured As may be seen in Melancthon's own words in his Epistles and elsewhere 8. The most of Protestants at this day hold that it is no Schism to keep up Churches of their several Parties against their Princes will and prohibition Those called Arminians in Belgia so think Episcopius writeth at large that if Ministers be forbid to Preach and People to Assemble in their case they must go on though they suffer death for it saving that prudence may direct them sometime to avoid a present storm The Churches under the Duke of Brandenburgh are generally contrary to his judgment in Religion And should the Princes of Saxony Brunswick Hassia c. or the Kings of Sweden or Denmark turn Calvinists their Clergy would be far from thinking it their duty to cease their Assemblies of the Lutheran Profession and Worship Bishop Andrews is so far from tying all Ministers to the Kings will that he saith cohibeat Regem Diaconus si cum indignus sit idque palam constet accedat tamen ad Sacramentum i. e. Let even a Deacon restrain the King if he come to the Sacrament being unworthy and that be openly manifest Bishop Bilson of subjection p. 399. saith The Election of Bishops in those daies belonged to the people and not to the Prince and though Valens by plain force placed Lucius there yet might the people Lawfully reject him as no Bishop and cleave to Peter their right Pastor Mark that he layeth it not on his Error but on his entrance without the peoples Election and that they might reject him as no Bishop We see here the full concurrence of such English Bishops as were the most Learned and zealous defenders of Episcopacy and loyalty The same Bishop ibid. p. 236. Saith more plainly Princes have no right to call or confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them Liberty for their Preaching and security for their persons and if Princes refuse so to do Gods labourers must go forward with that which is commanded them from Heaven Not by disturbing Princes from their Thrones nor invading their Realms as your father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly submitting themselves to the powers on Earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict This is the summ of all that we here intend so pag. 313. he saith we grant that they must rather hazard their lives than baptize Princes which beleive not or distribute the Lords mysteries to them that repent not but give willful and open signification of impiety c. So Beda Hist Eccl l. 2. c. 5. Tells us that Melitus Bishop of London with Justus was banished by the heirs of King Sabbaâ—eth because he would not give them the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which they would have had before they were baptized Yet all this is no justification of causeless disobedience to Magistrates that circumstantiate sacred things according to their Office nor will it justifie any Schismatical societies Vespae habent
season and adjured them before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his Kingdom to preach the Word be instant in season out of season c. 4. The indispensible Law of Nature obligeth every man according to his Place and Calling his Ability and his Opportunities to do his best to propagate Christ's Gospel and to save mens souls as much and more than to seed mens bodies and save their lives But our Calling is to do it as Ministers of Christ thereto devoted And we did not receive this Calling to be altered or forborn at the will of man but to be performed according to the Word of God Men being not the Makers of the Office nor of God's Law under which we execute it nor the Donors or Limiters of the Power but only 1. The Electors of the Persons that shall receive it 2. And the Investers of them in it by Ministerial delivery 3. And the Governours of us in the exercise of it according to God's Laws by which they may punish us for male administration but cannot dissolve the Laws obligation to those that are indeed commanded by it LI. Obj. 2. If there be able Preachers in one part of the Parishes and the other part have such as deliver all that is necessary to salvation intelligibly it is unlawful to Preach against the will of the Prince or Prelates in such a Country Ans We deny this unproved assertion 1. Indeed it will follow that such persons are justly condemned by God if they repent not though they had but a Reader 2. And that they should be thankful for so much and gladly accept it in such Churches when they can have no better But not 1. that it is in the power of any man justly to forbid them better when God provideth it 2. Nor that they must obey such a prohibition as such Though prudence may discern forbearance to be a duty by accident when the hurt would be greater than the good There is no doctrine objectively of absolute necessity to salvation but the doctrine of the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the Creed Lords prayer and Decalogue But there is much Doctrinal and active Means necessary to make men Understand Believe Love and Practise this necessary Covenant doctrine And the doctrine or articles of faith will save none that do not Understand Believe Love and Practise it and that sincerely preferring the things revealed before all the pleasures riches and honours of this World A Parrot shall not be a Saint for saying the Creed LII These following matters of fact are presupposed to the answer of this objection and in them all sober Protestants are as we suppose agreed 1. That this aforesaid sincerity of Faith Repâ—ntance Hâ—pe Love and Obedience is made by God of necessâ—â—y to salvation 2. That as it will not profit a man to win all the World and lose his soul so neither will doctrinal formality or obedience to superiours that hinder sound Preachers recompence him for the loss of his soul And that God would not have mens Government maintained by mens damnation nor will the ungodly be the best members of Church or Kingdoms Order is a means to save men and not damn them some few Heathens offer to Devils a sacrifice of mans flesh and blood But if a man should offer to God the Lover Saviour and Sanctifyer of souls a Sacrifice of the souls of thousands and say All these are to be kept in Ignorance and ungodlyness and so to be damned to please God who will have them obey their superiours at that rate this were a dishonour to God of unexpressible iniquity and errour Christ that hath taught men to seek first his Kingdom and to take up the Cross and to forsake Father and Mother and Life and all to serve him in the saving of their souls and had planted inseparably self love into our natures surely did not mean so Contraâ—â—ly as that we must forsake Christ Heaven and Salvation to obey men 3. That certain experience putteth us past doubt that ignorance sensuality worldliness profaneness are far more common and a holy heavenly mind and life and all serious Christianity and obedience far very far more rare in those Kingdoms and Parishes which have no plain convincing serious lively and exemplary Preachers than in those that have although they be baptized and have the Creed Lords prayer and Decalogue in their Liturgie And yet here are all things of absolute objective necessity to salvation What a case the Moscovites are in that have only Liturgies and Homilies read we mentioned before And how sad the case is among the Greeks Armenians Abassins and most Papists for want of better Preachers Bishop Usher could say of the Irish that more perished by not knowing what we are on both sides agreed in than by their Popish Errours And what a case the Scottish Highlanders too many of the Welsh and most Parishes in England were in as to serious piety which had heretofore but Readers or Preachers that did less than read a Homilie experience constraineth us to know as also what difference there is yet to be seen as to serious faith and godliness between the fruits of a clear serious holy diligent Preacher and of raw youths that say over a pedantik lifeless speech and out of the pulpit little differ in speech or life from Carnal Worldlings or formal Hypocrites Though we know that all that profess to be seriously Religious are not so yet none are so that do not profess it as they have opportunity As we are not able to deny this experience of the different fruits of different Teaching when all have the Creed Nor dare deny the necessity of serious faith repentance and holiness to salvation lest we renounce the Gospel nor yet that no men much less most men or many thousands may as an act of obedience to man refuse those helps which God provideth them and without which few Comparatively are truely converted from a Carnal life and saved so therefore we dare not think or say that humane Lawes or orders are arguments of sufficient weight to move them hereunto LIII Obj. 3. But the hurt of the peoples chusing Teachers and Assemblies without or against the Rulers will is greater than the hurt that cometh by the want of better Teachers Ans 1. The peoples choice doth hurt by accident in those Countries where the Rulers put down necessary helps and where the people are Erroneous Heretical and Unruly and so where the people would choose unsufferable men supposing still that no Church is constituted without mutual consent of the Pastor and the flock and that the Rulers alter not or violate not Christs Laws by which he hath appointed the ordering of Assemblies Therefore it is the Rulers Office to hinder the people from doing mischief without hindering them from their duty and from doing well To Govern them in their work and not
differ from them because they prefer some other Teacher before them and say somewhat against their opinions or ways do condemn themselves while they cry down Schismaticks and seem not to know what manner of spirit they are of The Wisdom from above is first pure and then peaceable and gentle and easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and hypocrisie and the fruit of righteousness is sowen in peace by peace-makers But if there be envying and strife it is infernal wisdom earthly sensual and devilish introducing confusion and every evil work whether it be found in Factions Contentions Antichurches and Hereticks or in those that can bear with no Dissenters nor receive them that are weak in the faith but make things unnecessary and their own conceits and wills the measure of mens liberties and their censures He that would pursue all as Rebels in a Kingdom who interpret not every Law alike would more divide the Kingdom than all mens different expositions now do LVII We do with sorrow confess that the discords of the people about chusing their Bishops hath been a great scandal to Infidels and a great dishonour to the Church and hath caused many lamentable Schisms not only under Christian Emperours but Heathen But it hath been greatest about the greatest Prelates especially the Bishops of Rome Alexandria Constantinople Aâ—â—ioch c. since Dâ—masus got that seat by Conquest in the Church a multitude of Schisms have fallen out even when Princes challenged the choice A long time two at once sometimes three and once five or six Popes living that were and had been Popes The Schism of the Donatists was so caused by Bishop set up against Bishop so was that of the Iâ—anites at Constantinople and of Dioscorus at Alexandria and many more But it must be noted 1. That the Electing Bishops-Priests and Magistrates have occasioned these Schisms as much if not far more than the Electing people have done 2. That yet Princes for many hundred years after Constantines time did not think it meet to prevent such Schisms by depriving the People or Presbyters of their Electing-power much less of Consent 3. That the Cure must not be by altering Christ's institution and the Churches practice continued 600 if not 800 years and with most or many to this day nor by overthrowing the very Constitution of Churches and the Law of Nature it self nor by introducing a greater evil as it would be to teach all people to receive all and only such Pastors as Princes every where shall set over them and all Ministers of Christ to cease their Office when men forbid it them LVIII Obj. 4. But if Ministers themselves must be judges whether a Magistrate do justly silence them then none will take themselves to be silenced justly and so all Hereticks will Preach on It is the Rulers that must judge Ans 1. when we hear and read how the Papists deceive the ignorant by repeating the question who must be the judge it grieveth us to find some Protestants so unskilful in answering it when the answer is so easy that when opened we hope few â—â—ber Protestants differ in it Judgement is Publik or Private Publik Judgement is either Antecedent by a Lawgiver judging what shall be commanded and made the subjects duty or consequent by a Judge so strictly called Judging of Titles and Crimes in order to punishment according to law Private Judgement is either by Arbitrators or private Censurers or by every mans Conscience discerning and judging what is his duty and what is sin 1. The Sovereign of the World is the only Judge by Legislation what shall be the duty of all mankind by the Law which he maketh to bind high and low which none may alter or suspend 2. And he is the only fountain of Power to his Creatures 3. And he is the only final absolute infallible judge 2. The Sovereigns of Kingdoms and Common wealths and masters in their families are judges antecedently what shall be their Subjects duty by their Laws subservient to Gods And they and their Officers receiving power from them are the Judges Consequently by Decision who shall be punished as Criminal and who not and who shall be protected in his propriety or estate by the sword of Iustice 3. The true Bishops or Pastors of the Church are Guides to the people according to Christs Laws in the matters of their Office and decisive Iudges who shall be taken in or put out of Communion in the respective Churches 4. Every mans Conscience is that Private discerning Judge of his own Duty and sin Of Arbitrators or Censurers we need not speak This all of us are agreed in And the question who shall Judge is still urged by some as if they thought that some man or men must needs in all cases of Religion be taken for such Absolute Judges that what ever they Judge all subjects must obey it And on this pernicious supposition is built the Popes pretended Infallibility because they think that religion is fallible that is Gods Law if the judge that is an ignorant man or men be fallible But all Protestants at least are agreed that all men are Gods subjects and that all humane Power of Legislation Judgement and execution is limited and that no man may judge against God or his Laws And that men should know Gods Laws and justifie them and judge by them and condemn all that is against them But no man hath power to condemn or contradict Gods Law it self No man hath power to judge that there is no God no Life to come no Christ or that one word of God is false or to forbid one thing which God commandeth or command one thing which God forbiddeth no man hath power to judge that souls shall be deprived of such needful Teaching and Sacraments and publick worshiping of God as God hath provided and commanded them to use Nor to forbid Christs faithful Ministers causelesly to Preach his word and worship him in the Churches and administer his Sacraments Nor causelesly to silence or punish them for so doing Therefore in this case our consciences would not be bound though still we profess that Gods Law bindeth us not to rebel or take up arms against their injuries but patiently to bear them and pray for our persecutors LIX Obj. You say that Rulers may not causelesly silence or punish such But still they are judges whether there be cause Ans They are so For it is about their proper work But they are Judges subject to God to whom they shall answer it if they disobey him And the subjects are pâ—ivate discerning Judges whether the Laws of men contradict Gods Laws so far as concerneth their obeying or not obeying them We must still repeat that the esse is before the scire and the Being of the case and Truth before the judging of it either the Preacher deserveth Silencing or not before you come to judge the case If he ought to be silent
the Rulers ought â—o judge so and do well If not but he be innocent or one that ought not to be forbidden his Office no man hath power from God to judge contrary and causelesly to forbid him And his conscience is not formerly bound by that prohibition Though he must still keep his Loyalty and subjection and his care of the publick peace and welfare LX. We conclude again that seeing we meet with none that will say that Rulers may Judge that we shall not worship God or that the Gospel shall not be preached or that men must obediently forsake Christ or go to Hell Nor with any Christian that will say that without faith and holiness we may be saved we dread the consequence of such arguing as taketh this up as the last defence that those people that visibly live in Sensuality Drunkenness Fornication Coveteousness Pride Ungodlyness or Gross Ignorance are indeed in a safe condition for salvation and therefore that Preaching which should bring them to repentance is not necessary But that its safer to continue Ignorant and ungodly than to joyn with the Religious for fear of Schism For we cannot deny that they that have no other Medium to defend their Assertion that the lifeless unskilful Ministry of Novices which maketh very few seriously Religious doth more good than the contrary which hath contrary success if it be by men forbidden do too plainly perswade us from our Christianity it self that is from the chiefest evidence of its truth and glory For if there were no better Christians in the world than such unholy persons before described and if Christ had not a holy peculiar people of heavenly minds and lives and zealous of good works we could never prove or believe him to be the Christ that came to save his people from their sins He is not the Physician whom we can trust that doth not cure men And if they will resolve the case into the question of fact whether such different Ministers have usually different success and serious Christianity be not much more rare under Reading Novices and unexperienced lifeless men than under skilful serious godly Pastors we are unable to doubt of it against all experience LXI Obj. 5. But if every man that is proud and heretical may set up as a Preacher when he will and when any people will chuse him Religion will be corrupted and the Church confounded Answ True therefore that must not be 1. There are some previous qualifications so essentially necessary to the Ministry that without them no man is owned as his Minister by Christ nor should be by men 2. The Ordainers are to be Judges whether men have these qualifications 3. The people are discerning Judges which qualified ordained man or to be ordained is meet for them so far as it is necessary to their mutual Consent 4. If a Heretick or other intollerable person must set up a Preacher or if any turn Heretick the Orthodox Churches are after due admonition to renounce him as unacceptable of their communion that he may be shamed and avoided 5. If yet he continue obstinate and do more harm than good the Magistrate is Ruler and must restrain him and deny him leave so to Preach in his Dominions so he do it not by penalties unsuitable to the offence Dis franchising discountenancing and shame do usually more against Heresies than cruelties But Necessary Faithful Teachers may not on these pretences be cast out LXII 18. If the People conscious of their great Necessity of Pastoral over-sight and help and of Christ's command to use it do live in a Parish or Countrey where they cannot have it from those that the Magistrate alloweth either because they cannot perform it for them or because they will not it is no Schism for such to seek and use it from worthy though prohibited men We before spake of the Schisms of Teachers and now of Hearers In this case men may justly thus argue Our Necessity requireth Pastoral oversight and Christ commandeth us to use it when we may have it But from this publick Minister we cannot have it Therefore we must seek it where we can That most men have need of Pastoral oversight is certain else Christ would not have instituted it for them And every man should be conscious of his own need That Christ hath commanded us the use of it is certain 1. In all those Texts which command the Pastors their general and particular duties to the People to Preach and be instant in season and out to reprove rebuke exhort to comfort the feeble minded to visit the sick to convince the erroneous to administer the Sacraments to pray and worship God publickly with them c. 2. In all those Texts that command the People to hear submit to obey and imitate such Guides and use such Ordinances In several cases the People may possibly be deprived of this at home as from the allowed Minister 1. When publick Pastors are at so great a distance from them as that such Pastors cannot come to them nor they and their families go so far without such inconvenience and trouble as will frustrate the end of their endeavours As in France where the Protestants must go twenty miles or ten to a Church which the weak children and aged cannot do nor the rest of the family without such cost and pains and loss of time as will deprive them of the benefit Obj. But yet the Protestants there do not set up unlicensed Churches Ans That is not as an act of formal obedience as if they took it to be unlawful because prohibited but in prudence because the persecution should they do it would frustrate their attempt In such cases the old Christians met in secret 2. Where Parishes are so great that the allowed Pastors cannot Preach to half or a fourth or tenth part of the people and cannot visit half the sick and Baptize and administer the Lords Supper as is necessary And have not time if the ignorant and doubting and troubled persons should come to them for Counsel resolution or comfort to speak duely to one of twenty of them In a Parish of 50000 or 30000 or 20000 or 15000 or 10000 soules how few is it that one or two Ministers can perform all the Offices to publick and private which the Gospel requireth Pastors to perform 3. Where the allowed Pastors are so slothful or proud that they will not condescend to these Offices of Personal help to many thousands especially of the poor 4. Where they are young raw men or ignorant of such matters unable to counsel people as their necessities require in order to their salvation and perhaps to do it tolerably in a publick Sermon 5. Where they are so prophane and malignant that if poor people come to them with cases of conscience or for counsel what they must do to be saved they will but deride them as scrupulous and precise and make them believe that to be solicitous about salvation
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
in the power of a Prince to cast out Christianity when he pleaseth and to deny God all Publick Worship and we must ask leave of Rulers that Christ may be Christ and souls may be saved as if the Keys of Heaven and Hell were theirs None that we write for Protestants or Papists will assert this But if All must not lay down their Ministry why must a thousand or two thousand do it rather than all the rest We suppose it will be said that if a thousand should refuse Conformity all might continue their forbidden Ministry but if two thousand only of ten thousand should deny Conformity these two thousand must lay down because the rest are a competent supply to the Churches Answ But these be but unproved words 1. How shall we be sure that other mens sinning will absolve the two thousand innocent from their duty If in the first Instant it be confessedly the equal duty of all how will the weakness and sin of one part change the obligation of all the rest 2. If the Churches be somehow supplied by mens sin will it follow that truth and righteousness in sounder blameless men will not mend their supply but must be cast out by others sin 3. And where can the wit of man ever set bounds to such power of sinners It will here be granted us that if the most in France conform to Popery it will not disoblige all others from the exercise of their Ministry And who then can say what those untruths and sins are which a weak and erring Ministry may be guilty of which shall serve to disoblige the rest No man here can set us any certain measure 4. Would it have an honest sound if it should be said to the people The greater part of the Ministers by sin yea gross deliberate sin unrepented of have procured the liberty of their Ministry and they are enow for you and therefore you must hear none of those that refused so to sin and are cast out e. g. suppose it were the subscribing of the Covenant against Pâ—elaey that were made the Condition of our Preaching here by Law Or subscribing to the Divine Right of unordained Elders and their power in Presbyterian-Classes If most of the Ministers take that Covenant doth that prove that all the rest if forbidden to Preach must be silent This were an easie way to introduce any Errour by forbidding any but the defenders of it to Preach If Julian might not thus have put down the Gospel nor Valens have put down the Homoousians as they called the Orthodox nor the Papists so put down the Protestants why may Calvinists or Lutherans so put down one another As if I were bound to be a Minister only till other men will sin Obj. But suppose that the sin be on the silenced Ministers part and the other be in the truth Ans 1. Then the silenced Ministers are not guiltless of the Schism 2. But if it be so if their errour be in a small and difficult matter not deserving silencing as theirs Rom. 15. about meats and daies c it may be far greater Schism in the silencers then in them Obj. But suppose it a doubtful case and one party take consenting to be a sin and the other part and the greater take it to be none If you may preach on because you think that you are in the right then no Heretick should be silenced Ans This was answered before 1. If men will still thus confound the scire and the esse or put the scire before the esse they may go on in errour and no reason can silence them The thing is realy first true or false before it is known or thought so to be If it be true then he that thinketh it false is the delinquent If it be a sin it is not mens taking it for no sin that will make it so nor disoblige the orthodox from their Ministry But if it be no sin that is Commanded the Nonconsenters are in the fault And if it be a Heresie which they stand for may be sâ—lenced And yet we will not deny but if the generality of the Ministry obtain their liberty by some small tollerable sin or errour and the sounder part be few and unnecessary in that Country â—rudence obligeth them to go to some other place that needeth them and never to excercise their Ministry where in true reason it is like to do more hurt than good LXIX 25. Where under any of the foresaid unjust prohibitions the silenced Ministers and people shall gather no distinct Churches but only Auditories or Chappels as parts of the Parish Churches and that only where there is through the bigness of the Parish or distance from the Parish Church or paucity or insufficiency or unfaithfulness of Parish Priests a true necessity not unchurching or separating from the Parish Church but owning it and holding Communion with it and promoting the reputation of the true Parish Minister and Communion and perswading others to the like we cannot see that this is any Schism but rather their practise who fire and divide mens minds by envious clamours against the innocent and proudly calling others Schismaticks LXX 26. We have greatly lamented the true Schismatical disposition of some religiously affected persons who make their singularities or little differences the occasions of unchristening unchurching or degrading those that are wiser than themselves and running away from one another on pretence of discipline and avoiding sin But yet we hold that gentle forbearing tolerable differences even in distinct Churches guilty of Schism so they be kept from unpeaceable reviling of others is a meeter way to avoid the mischiefs than with prison sword or fire to exasperate them It is noted that Nestorius the Heretick was the first sharp persecutor of the Novatians But most of the better Bishops tolerated them as did the Emperours And two prudent gentle Bishops of Constantinople Atticus and Proclus reduced the Joannites and lenified other divided Parties which the flercer men had made and kept up by their violence SECT VII Some Matters of Fact preparatory to the true Application of what is before laid down WE must crave that justice of the Reader as to note that hither to we have spoken but of the Doctrinal part about Schism not applying it to England or any others Nor shall we now any otherwise apply it than to lay down some little part of the Matters of Fact which the Nonconformists are considering to help others to apply it without mistake as they shall see cause We intend not in this the determination of the points in matter of right nor do we here tell men unless on the by in the stating of some few questions what it is that we account good or evil much less do we here give the proofs or reasons of our Cause That is the thing for which we greatly desire the allowance of our Superiours But must not unnecessarily presume to do it lest we displease them
they promised it was not thâ—y but the Parents that were bound to perform 3. Or Nonconformists in this point who purposed before hand to be but the Parents Râ—pâ—esentatives and that the promise and obligation should all be devolved from them on the Parents though they knew the Church meant otherwise and that they were not bound to the Churches sense and therefore their standing to hear this is your part was no consent to take it for their part And none of all these do answer the Churches sense in their undertaking And if we are commonly baptized and made Christians in a way of false Vowing or Covenanting of such persons or of â—â—lusâ—â—y Equâ—vocation it is not well 11. We know not where Parents can procure any to undertake this Office as the Church imposeth it that credâ—â—ly signifie themselves able and willing to performâ—â— we could not do it our selves were we never so desirous Perhaps some Rich men might hire others to take their Children into their Care and Education as must be promised but who would do so for the poor yea for all the poor of England And the Nonconformists are not satisfied that it is lawful to engage any in a perfidious covenanting before God when before-hand they have no credible signification of any purpose to perform it Nay when the Parent resolveth to educate his own Child and not to trust him to the Provision or care of others 12. The Minister Covenanting to use the form in the Book of Common Prayer prescribed in administration of the Sacraments and no other Can. 36. No Parent may speak a word in the name of his own Child nor to enter him there into the Covenant of God nor profess that he offereth him to Baptism by virtue of and in confidence in the promise I will be thy God and the God of thy seed in their Generations Nor to promise himself what the Godfathers are to promise The words also of the Can. 29. are these No Parent shall be urged to be PRESENT nor be admitted to answer as Godfather for his own Child Nor any Godfather or Godmother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common Prayer is prescribed in that behalf 13. It is the Godfathers work also by the Liturgy to take care that the Child be brought to the Bishop to be confirmed by him in the manner of the Church of England as soon as he can say the Creed Lords Prayer and ten Commandments and be further instructed in the Church Catechism which Godfathers use not at all to perform nor do the Parents use to expect it Nor doth one Child of a multitude understand what the Baptismal Covenant is of many a year after they have learned to say the said Catechism 14. That the Godfathers stand not there as the Representers of the Parents is evident according to the sense of the Church because the Parent himself is not suffered to do it or speak one covenanting word nor must be urged to be present nor are they to speak in the Parents name in any of their undertakings Nor is there the least intimation that the Church taketh the Sponsor for the Parents Representative 15. The Parents are to be admonished not to defer the Baptism of their Children longer than the first or second Sunday unless upon a great and reasonable cause to be approved by the Curate whether they can get understanding credible Godfathers or not These are the Matters of Fact Here note 1. That there is no Controversie between the Conformists and Nonconformists whether Christians Infants should be baptized 2. Nor whether a Conformists baptizing be valid 3. Nor whether the Parents presence be absolutely necessary and another may not speak in his name 4. Nor whether Adopters or any Proprieters may not covenant for the Child 5. Nor whether the old Sponsors be lawful who 1. Witnessed the credibility of the Parent 2. And undertook the Christian Education of the Child if the Parents should either die or apostatize The Nonconformists are against no such Sponsors though they think that their Children have right to Baptism without such 6. Nor do they deny that Baptism in the Parish Churches is valid and lawful as to the Parents and Godfathers if they do but agree on the Nonconformists way that the Sponsors shall but represent the Parents and that they be not bound by the contrary judgment of the Authors of the Liturgy to the contrary But the questions are 1. Whether a Christians Child whose Parents have no way forfeited their credit have not right to Baptism without other Godfathers 2. Whether the Parent should not solemnly enter his own Child into the Covenant of God as well as in times of Circumcision And whether any Parent should be forbidden it viz. to appear and speak as the Representer of the Child or Undertaker for him and Promiser of his Education 3. Whether that Child must profess by another that He Himself Believeth Renounceth Repenteth and Desireth Baptism And it be not rather to be prosessed that he is the seed of a Believing Penitent Parent whose Will is as his Will and is under God's Promise I will he thy God and the God of thy seed 4. Whether a Christian Parent may consent to the persidious undertaking of any Godfathers who give him not the least reason to believe that they intend that provision for the Children which they undertake Or else may let his Child be unbaptized till he can get such a credible Undertaker which is never like to be with most or many 5. Whether the Children of Heathens or Infidels or Atheists have right to Baptism upon the presentation of any Godfather who never adopteth them or taketh them for his own nor giveth any credible notice that he really intendeth to educate those Children as pro forma he seemeth to undertake Or whether such Children are truly said to believe because the Godfather or Minister or Congregation or Diocess or Nation or Catholick Church believe III. The Nonconformists are not of one mind about receiving the Lords Supper Kneeling Many judge it Lawful though neither necessary nor most eligible were they free some judge it also most eligible And some judge it as things stand unlawful Their reasons are 1. In doubtful cases duty lieth on the surest side But this to them is a doubtful case on one side and to imitate Christs institution by such sitting as men use to do at meat is certainly Lawful 2. Because they think this Kneeling violateth the reasons of the second Commandment being used where by whole Countries of Papists round about us and many among us it signifieth Bread-Worship or Idolatry by the same Action at the same season used For they suppose that the second Commandment forbiddeth Images as being External Corporal Idolatry and Symbolizing scandalously with Idolators though the mind intend the worshiping of the true God alone And such they think this kneeling is and that it encourageth the
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-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
driven not only from Preaching but such Parish-Communion were tempted to hard thoughts of such affairs as if it came from the Papists who would have equalled and mass'd us up with themselves XXVII Shortly after this the Kings Clemency saw cause to make an alteration and to give us his gracious indulgence by his Licenses for places and persons Upon this Ministers boldly set up Chappels under the Parish Churches and in all the time of this their Liberty when there were witnesses enough if they had offended we remember not that any were ever convict of any word of seditious or unsound doctrine or any unpeaceable attempts But while they had this leave to Preach themselves they thought best to take it at the same convenient hours that the Parish Churches meet at Other times being so inconvenient as that families cannot observe them without hurt And they could not Preach and hear in the Parish-Churches at once XXVIII All this while though they had the Kings authority for their Assemblies some Clergy men ceased not to accuse them of Schism shewing that it is the want of something else rather than the Kings authority on which they ground their accusation XXIX Some Nonconformists have these 17 years forborn to baptize or administer the Lords Supper or to be Pastors of any Churches but only Preached occasionally where the Parishes were so great that one of ten or twenty had no room in the Church and where some of many years had heard no publick worship of God And they have published to the people that they assembled them not to separate from the Parish Churches or their worship but for their meer necessity perswading none to come to hear them but such as cannot come into the Parish Churches to hear Yet are they accused for drawing men from the Church XXX These Ministers in these places have been prosecuted more severely than the rest by imprisonments fines and guards against their meetings which induced others to Preach in the City where there seemed less need because they found quietness no where else and because some out of the remoter needy Parishes might come thither to them XXXI Though they have lost all Ministerial maintenance and are lyable to pay 20 l. the first Sermon and 40 l. the rest and 20 l. for the ground for all that they Preach besides six months imprisonment in the common goals and poverty disableth City and Countrey to maintain them and some with Wives and Children have long lived on little besides brown Rye Bread and Water and others that can live of their own expend all in the charges of the places and adjuncts where they Preach for nothing and some never took any pay from the first these 17 years but patiently serve God and wast their strength under mens obloquy and reproach yet are there not wanting persons of the Clergy who represent their greatest and dearest services as their greatest sins and accuse them as enemies of the Churches peace and the leaders of Schism and in pulpit and print provoke authority to execute the Laws more severely on them Though the execution hath cost some excellent men their lives already and they may know that no execution short of death or utter disablement will make the most conscionable forsake their duty and sacrilegiously desert the Office to which they were dedicated and ordained As the late case of the Hungarian Ministers declareth And such courses never ended in the honour of those of the Clergy that procured them Yea some as going to the bar of God have undertaken to prove that it is through pride and covetousness that we conform not And because some Churches called Independent withdraw not their maintenance from their Pastors and some few others have maintenance of their own or friends that will not see them want they would make strangers believe that the common sort of Nonconformists whose families live in sufferings and wants are gainers by their Nonconformity Though themselves that have the most and richest on their side would be loth to take up with such maintenance and often Preach how sad a case the Church would be in if Ministers were left to the peoples charity While they live in fulness thus they envy their poor brethren who that they may finish their course would be glad of leave to labour for nothing and live on alms taking Gods favour for their reward XXXII And to compleat all some blush not to accuse them as the bringers in of Popery by desiring Liberty as if Preaching the Gospel did not do more to keep out Popery than the ignorance of untaught people As if our earnest requests eighteen years ago that we might not be mass'd up with the Papists nor a door opened to them by our divisions and sufferings were all forgotten As if the Nonconformists were neerer Popery than they that would have the Pope to be Principium Unitatis to the Universal Church As if their Printed Morning Lectures against Popery and many other Writings did not sufficiently shew their distance from it As if the Papists desired the Liberty rather than the silencing of the Nonconformists or desired any thing more than that so many hundred adversaries to Popery and all the Protestants of England who adhere to them might be cast out and brought as low as themselves and put into the same condition that they might stand or fall together Nay what if on such necessity they should accept of favour from any Papists that would save them If one Party would bring men to such a pass that they must be hanged imprisoned ruined or worse unless the favour of the Papists deliver them and the other Party had rather be saved by Papists than be hanged or ruined by Protestants which of these were more to be suspected of Popery especially if the same men that give us the Alarm that Popery is coming in undertook the sole teaching of those by whom they suspect its entrance and yet would not abate a needless Oath or covenant or ceremony to keep it out or strengthen the Protestants by the Union for which we have so long patiently begg'd and waited XXXIII The most of our acquaintance take it for their duty to do their best to keep up the reputation of the publick Conformable Ministry that it may further Love and Concord and the success of their labours with the people and they profess to take their own Assemblies but as Chapels and not as distinct much less as separated Churches And those of them who do administer the Sacraments and do that which is like the Separatists way yet do it nor on their principles but pro tempore till God shall give them opportunity to serve him in the established way if ever it may be hoped for it being reformed or well ordered Parish-Churches under the Government and countenance of the Christian Magistrates which are most agreeable to their desires XXXIV When we go into the Parish-Churches we find those that have able godly
prophesied to be Christian Nations never were distinct Christian Kingdoms but parts of the Empire nor had a National Church or Head being but parts of such a Church Nay when Rome got the National Primacy it had not such a Priestly Governing Soveraignty as the Jews High-Priest had § 25. Though there was no Christian King for three hundred years unless he of Edessa or Lucius of England of whom we have little certainty but it 's like that both were subjects to others yet if a Supream Church-Power had been necessary the Apostles would have before erected it which they never did For even Rome pretendeth to be by them made the Ruler of the whole world and not a meer National Head which Constantinople claimed but not as of Apostolical institution § 27. The question whether the Jews had they believed should have continued their High-Priest and Church Policy is vain as to our purpose 1. It being certain to Christ that they would be dissolved by unbelief And 2. he having setled another way and changed theirs 3. And if their Priesthood and Law except as it typified spiritual things had stood yet it would not have bound the Gentile Christians in other Nations § 28. When Emperours became Christians they did not set up the Jewish Policy nor thought themselves bound to it no nor any setled Priestly Supremacy for National Government For Councils were called but on rare accidents by the Emperours themselves and to decide particular cases about Heresies And the Pope had but the first voice in such Councils § 29. But if every Nation must have the Jewish Policy then the whole Empire must then have one High Priest and then the Pope hath a fair pretence to his claim of a Divine Institution as the Church Soveraign of the whole Empire which it 's like was then seven parts in eight of the whole Christian world at least unless Abassia were then generally Christians as now But then his power would change with the Empire and fall when it falleth § 30. III. But if the question be only whether a National Priestly Soveraignty be lawful or whether God's general Rules for Concord Order Edification do bind the Churches prudentially to erect such a form To this they sayas followeth 1. We will first lay hold on certainties and not prefer uncertainties before them We are sure that such a power of Apostles and Pastors as is before mentioned was established and that the junior Pastors were as Sons to the seniors ordained by them Whether the power of Ordaining and Governing Ministers was by Apostolical Establishment appropriated to men of a superiour degree in the sacred Ministry seemeth to us very dark 2. We are past doubt that all particular Churches by Apostolical order had Bishops and that a Church was as Hierom saith Plebs Episcopo adunata and as Ignatius the Unity of every Church was notified by this that to every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop at that time and as Cyprian Ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia 3. And we are satisfied that every Presbyter is Episcopus Gregis whoever claim to be Episcopi Episcoporum which the Carthage Council in Cyprian renounced 4. And we are satisfied that no Church-superiours have authority to destroy the particular Church form Ministry Doctrine Worship or Discipline which were setled by the Holy Ghost in the Apostles And that the priviledges and duties of these single particular Churches being plainest and surest in Scripture they must be continued whatever Canons or Commands of any superiour Priests should be against them 5. Nor can they force any man to sin 6. Nor have any Priests a forcing power by the sword or violence but only the power of the Word and Keys that is of taking in or putting out of the Church where they have power and binding men over on just cause to the judgment of God The power that they have is from Christ and for him and not against him and for the Churches edisication and not destruction and what is pretended contrary to this is none They cannot dispense with the Laws of God but preach and execute them 7. And these things being thus secured though in our doubts we dare not swear or subscribe that National Patriarchal Provincial or Metropolitical Powers are of God's institution yet we resolve to live in all Christian peaceableness and submission when such are over us § 31. And we must profess that when we find how anciently and commonly one Presbyter in each Church was peculiarly called the Bishop without whom there was no ordinary ordinations and against whom in matters of his power none was to resist and also how generally the Churches in the Roman Empire conformed themselves to an imitation of the civil power as to their limits in all the official part being all subject to the Emperour who set up no Ecclesiastical Peer we are not so singular or void of reverence to those Churches as not by such notices to be much the more inclined to the aforesaid submission and peaceableness under such a power nor are we so bold or rash as to reproach it or condemn the Churches and excellent persons that have practised it §32 Nay we have already said that securing the state worship doctrine and true discipline of the inferiour particular Parish Churches there are some of us that much incline to think that Archbishops that is Bishops that have some oversight of many Churches with their Pastors are Lawful successours of the Apostles in the ordinary part of their work And such of us have long ago said that the Episcopal Government of the Bohemian Waldenses described by Commenius and Lascitius is most agreable to our judgment of any that we know excercised Therefore that which we humbly offered for our concord in England at His Majesties Restauration was Archbishop Ushers form of the Primitive Church Government not attempting any diminution of the Power wealth or honour of the Diocesanes or Archbishops but only a restauration of the Presbyters to their proper Office-work and some tolerable discipline to the particular Parish Churches §33 But we must ever much difference so much of Church order and Government as God himself hath instituted and is purely divine and unchangeable from those accidentals which men ordain though according to Gods general Rules For these are often various and mutable and are means to the former and never to be used against them And of these accidentals of Government we say as they that say no such form is fixed by God Concord order decency and edification are alwaies necessary But oft times it may be indifferent whether concord order and decency be expressed by this accidental way or that And that which is most congruous for order decency edification and concord in one Countrey Church or time may be incongruous in another Therefore if the question be but how far the giving one Bishop or Pastor power over others or making disparity of Cities in conformity to
the state be prudently to be chosen we only say so that Gods establishment be not violated whatever we might think best we presume not herein to give Laws to the Lawgivers nor to obtrude our Counsel uncalled on our superiours much less seditiously to oppose their Lawful institutions § 34. But to those that think that Gods foresaid General Laws of order concord edification do make such a policy ordinarily necessary in the Churches as imitateth the Jews or the civil form of Government we humbly offer to their consideration 1. If so then it would have been the matter of an Vniversal Law with its due exceptions And then Christ the only Vniversal Lawgiver would have made it For if he have not made all necessary Vniversal Laws his Laws are imperfect And then there should be some other Vniversal Lawgiver to supply that defect But there is no other upon earth whether Pope or Council 2. It is contrary to the nature of undetermined circumstances to be alwaies the same and so to be fit matter of such Vniversal or fixed Laws The cases will vary and then so will the duty 3. There will be great diversity of the interest and ingeny of the Judges of the case in several Countries and ages And therefore though some think the said imitation of the civil state alwaies best vet others will not § 35. But if such a settlement were certainly best let it be remembred 1. That the Jews had not under the chief High-Priest one in every City or Tribe like Diocesane Bishops 2. That their Synagogues had discipline within themselves ever where there was but a Village of ten persons there was a Presbyter that had the power of judging offenders § 36. What man doth prudently set up man may prudently alter as there is cause Greg. Nazianzen earnestly wisheth that there were no difference of Place or seats among the Pastors of the Church And therefore he neither thought their Government of each other to be of Divine right nor of prudential necessity or use Else he would have been against it And the whole Greek Church did and still doth take the seats of preeminence to be but of mans appointment or else they would never have changed them and set Constantinople so high as they did And the Council of Calcedon expresly determineth that Rome was by the fathers made the chief seat because it was the seat of the Emperour which was mutable § 37. The Councils in those daies were about Popes or Patriarchs and could depose them And yet it is most evident to any man considerately reading such history that all the Councils called before Christian Emperours gave them more power and conjoyned their authority did meet only for acts of Agreement and not of Regiment over each other Many such synods are mentioned by Eusebius And the Right Reverend Arch-bishop Usher declared his judgment so in general that Councils had but an agreeing power and not a Regent power over the particular Bishops Yet these two things must be supposed 1. That the Pastors in a synod are still Rectors of their slocks and their Canons to them may be more authoritative than a single Pastors words 2. That Gods Law bindeth us to keep love and concord and the Agreements of Councils may determine of the matter in alterable points and so even absent and present Bishops may concordiae gratiâ be obliged by Gods Law to keep such canons as are made for concord and so they may be the matter of our duty But seeing the Church for 300 years judged Councils to have no proper Governing power over particular Pastors and Bishops or Patriarchs singly had ever less power than Councils it followeth that then a Churches Government of disparity and supraordinate Bishops like the civil or like the Jews was not then taken to be of divine right nor then of any right at all § 38. And as to the doubt whether it began after 300 years to be a prudential duty or at least most desirable when we hear what is said on both sides we think it not easie to judge either how much in such a case Christ hath left to humane prudence nor which way the scales of prudence herein will ordinarily turn On one side it is said 1. That it is absurd that there should be no appeals for injured persons to a superiour power 2. And that the dissensions of the Church else will be remediless and all will be broken into heresies and sects 3. And that Apostolical men of a higher rank than meer Presbyters will else have no convenient opportunity to excercise their Governing power if it be not tyed to fixed seats § 39. On the other side they plead 1. That it is safer for the Church to have Religion in the power of many Bishops or Pastors than that one High Priest or Patriarch should have power to corrupt it or silence the faithful preachers or persecute the people when ever he proveth a bad man Yea they say it must be rare if he be not bad seeing it is certain that the most proud and worldly men which are the worst will be the most earnest seekers of rich and honourable places and he that seeketh will usually find 2. They say Christ directly forbad this to his Apostles Luk. 22. That which they strove for was it that he forbad them But that which they strove for was who should be the chief or greatest and not who should tyrannize 3. They say that all Church history assureth us that there have been more Schisms and scandalous contentions about the great superiour Bishopricks far than any of the rest It is a doleful thing to read the history of the Churches of Alexandria Antioch Constantinople and Rome Gregory Nazianzen giveth it as the reason why the contention at Cesarea was so lamentable because it was so high an Archbishoprick The whole Christian world hath been scandalized torn and distracted by the strife of Bishops of and for the highest seats Their famous General Councils which we justly honour for their function and that which they did well were shamefully militant even the first and most honoured Council at Nice was with great difficulty kept in Peace by the personal presence wisdom and authority of Constantine preaching peace to the preachers of peace burning their libels of mutual accusation silencing their contentious wranglings and constreining them to accord Nazianzens descriptions of the ignorance and insolence and naughtiness of the Clergy Orat 1. and of the shameful state of the Bishops Orat. 32. must make the readers heart to grieve The people he describeth as contentious at Constantinople yet as endued with the Love of God though their zeal wanted knowledge pag 528. But the Courtiers as whether true to the Emperours he knew not but for the greatest part perfidious to God And the Bishops as fitting on adverse thrones and feeding adverse opposite flocks drawn by them into factions like the clefts that Earthquakes make and the pestilent
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.
therefore that both extreams here are false 1. That men can be adult members of a particular Church that consent not or taken for such that no way signifie their consent and that it is not useful ad bene esse that this consent be intelligent and express and that the Offices consented to be truly understood 2. That a written or verbal covenant is of absolute necessity or that men should tie themselves to any thing doubtful or unnecessary but only to the relation and duties of members as of the universal so of that particular Church Both these extreams we do renounce Mr. Zachary Cawdry a Conformist hath shewed in a particular Treatise for Church covenanting how far he is from the mind of those Objectors for he would have the people engaged by covenant to their Bishops and Priests § 14. To conclude though we renounce fanatick Enthusiasts yet serious consideration maketh some of us think that too little notice is taken of the HOLY GHOST setting Pastors over the flocks which the Scripture mentioneth And though none on pretence of the Spirit must reject order or ordination nor make themselves the sole Judges of their own sufficiency yet 1. The due qualification of men with wisdom faith love and heavenly zeal and ability is the most excellent part of our Calling to the Ministry 2. Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius without necessary fitness no man is a true Pastor having not dispositionem recâ—ptivam And without eminent fitness few are eminently serviceable 3. Experience assureth us that though the Office hath supernumeraries yet of worthy men God never yet raised up supernumeraries but the scarcity is lamentably great 4. All therefore that are duly qualified and have opportunity should be chosen ordained accepted and accept the Call if not offer themselves iu case they cannot otherwise enter 5. The Ordainer doth but ministerially invest him with the power whom the Spirit of God hath qualified for it by the inward Call 6. In case the Ordainers by envy or malignity or faction refuse such where there is true Necessity and Opportunity we conceive that mutual consent of the people and themselves may suffice to the orderly admittance into the Office much more if the Magistrate also consent Of which see Voetius de desparata Causa Papatus and a Dispute of Ordination by R. B. Three Venerable Monitors TO NONCONFORMISTS I. An Epistle of an African Council in Cyprian 68. p. 200. to Faelix a Presbyter and the Laity at Legio and Asturica And to Laelius the Deacon and the Laity at Emerita concerning their Bishops Basilides and Martial who were Libellaticks WHen we were met together most beloved Brethren we read your Letters which for or â—â— the integrity of your faith and the fear of God you wrote to us by our Bishops Falix and Sabinâ—â—s signifying that Basilides and Martial being blotted or dâ—filâ—a with Libels of Idolatry and guilty of heinous crimes ought not to exercise the Office of Bishops and administer the Priesthood of God And you desired us to write back to you hereof and that your necessary sollicitude might be eased either by the comfort or the help of our judgment or sentence But to this your desire not so much our Connsels as Gods Precepts give an answer in or by which it is long ago or already by the heavenly voice commanded and By the Law of God prescribed who and what sort of men must serve at the Altar and celebrate the Divine Sacrifices For in Exodus God speaketh to Moses and warneth him saying Let the Priests who draw neer to the Lord God be sanctified lest God forsake them and when they come neer to minister at the Altar of the Holy let them not bring themselves into sin lest they die And in Leviticus God commandeth and saith Let not the man that hath a blemish or vice draw neer to offer gifts to God 2. Which things being already spoken and manifest to us it is necessary that our obedience attend to God's commands Neither may mans indulgence accept the person or grant any thing to any one in such things where God's prescription intercedeth and giveth a Law For we must not forget what God by the Propet Esaias saith to the Jews reproving them and angry with them that contemning the commands of God they followed the doctrines of men This people saith he honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far separated from me and in vain do they worship me teaching the commands and doctrines of men which the Lord also in the Gospel repeateth and saith Ye reject the command of God that you may establish your own tradition Having these things before our eyes and carefully and religiously considering them in the Ordinations of Priests we ought to chuse no Bishops but men unspotted and entire who holily and worthily offering the Sacrisices to God may be heard in the prayers which they make for the safety of the people of God seeing it is written that God heareth not a sinner but if any man worship God and do his will him he heareth 3. For which reason with full diligence and sincere tryal those men must be chosen to the Priesthood whom it is manifest God doth hear And let not the Lay people slatter themselves as if they could be free from the Couragion of the crime when they communicate with a sinful Priest and give their consent to the unjust and unlawful Episcopacy of their Governour seeing by the Prophet Hosâ—â— God's censure threatneth and saith Their Sacrifices are as the bread of sorrow all that eat of it shall be defiledâ—â— Teaching and shewing that all they do sin who are defiled by the sacrifice of a prophene and unjust Priest which we find also manifested in Numbers where Corah Dathan and Abiram challenged to themselves against Aaron the license of sacrificing The Lord there by Moses commandeth that the people be separated from them lest being joyning to the offenders they be guilty of their crimes Be separated saith he from the Tents of those obdurate men and touch nothing which is theirs lest ve perish with them in their sins 4. Wherefore the Lay people obeying the Lords commands and fearing God must separate themselves a peccatore praeposito from a sinful Prelate or Pastor and must not mix themselves at the sacrifices of a sacrilegious Priest because they chiefly have the power either to chuse Priests that are worthy or to refuse those that are unworthy Which very thing we see descendeth from Divine Authority that the Priest the Lay-people being present be chosen under the Eyes of All and by the publick judgment and testimony be approved worthy and meet As in Numbers the Lord commanded Moses saying Take Aaron thy Brother and Eleazer his Son and set them before all the Congregation on the Mount and take off Aarons stole and put it on Eleazer his Son and let Aaron die there God commandeth that the Priest be made before all
Perjury even already white to the Harvest God the most righteous judge should quickly put in the sickle utterly to cut down so perfidious and profane a nation We have long felt that our most merciful Father is angry and that the infinite patience of God is turned into fury being infinitely wronged and if I may so say overcome It is not easy to say for which sins this chiefly is when all sins are very great But verily he that will seriously think since God hath begun to scourge us by a neerer rod how we have not grieved for these grievous sins of swearing and perjury yea how greatly on one side is increased the unbridled and unpunished licence of swearing and blaspheming and on the other side the soul hypocrisie of forswearing on pretence of religion it can scarce be but that of Jeremy will come into his mind Because of Oaths the land mourneth These things being to neer Fathers and Brethren we that are here and all others that wish well to the publick peace of the Kingdom and Church and the private peace of their own hearts and consciences must be intreated that they first carefully beware of the name of God and the crime of violated fidelity and wholly avoid unnecessary Oaths and constantly refuse those that are unduely imposed or offered by others and fulfill those faithfully that are duly and rightly taken by our selves and then that as much as we are able we strenuously restrain the liberty of sinning in others and that we pray to our most Good and Great God continually that being taught by his scourge and admonished and humbled under his mighty hand we fly to his mercy acknowledge his justice implore his grace for the pardon of our sins the amendment of our lives and the safety of our souls by and for the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Spirit the Three one-Omnipotent God be Kingdom Power and Glory for ever Amen It 's like Dr. Sanderson had some special eye to the Scots Covenant but doubtless he made not any new or singular Doctrine for that end which will not hold true in all cases by him described Mr. Rich. Hollingworth in a late Plea for the Church of England vehemently urging the execution of the Laws against Nonconformists saith Page 71. 1. Thereby by Perjury the conscience of the Minister is debauched and he thereby made very unfit to give those instructions and wholsom counsel to the people that otherwise he might do For all wilful sins especially such a Notorious one as Perjury hardens a mans mind and divests him till repented of of all the necessary and useful influences and assistances of Gods good spirit and maketh him careless as of his own so of the souls of others And a man so easily ensnared by such a sin is easily induced by any temptation to a neglect of those duties which his Office calls for and a remiss performance of those Ordinances which were designed and commanded on purpose to reform and instruct the people And page 73. They must be accountable at the last day not only for their own sin but for that very sin of Perjury which the vicious Priest is guilty of For he that inviteth a man to a sin is reckoned as if he had committed the sin himself What then would become of me if I undertook to justifie the Perjury of multitudes yea if also I did by Press and Preaching earnestly press Magistrates to execute the Laws upon many hundreds of Christs Ministers because they dare not venture on that which they fear on such reasons as are here rendred to be a participation of many thousand Perjuries nor on the heinous sacriledge of deserting their sacred function and encouraging neer two thousand silenced Ministers to do the like by my example besides many other feared sins If I were the man that for this did plead and beg that they might be laid in Gaols with rogues and pay fourty pound a sermon and be banished five miles from all Corporations c. and all this as necessary to the Church and as for God fathering it all on him who is the God of Truth and Love and pretending that there is no need of their Ministry because that I and such as I do better perform all that office against ignorance ungodliness and popery without them c. How could I expect regard when I preached against the sins of others Or with what face could I do it When my sin shall be opened to me must I not with Origen after his fall instead of preaching shut the book and weep remembring Psal 50. 16 17. and the dreadful third Commandment and tremble when I thought of death and judgment For a Judas in Christs family sinneth at a dearer rate than strangers and will quickly find his gain too hot to hold and those that hired him to be woful Comforters who will turn him off with a see thou to that Obj. Fewer words might serve Ans Nondum satis dicitur dum non satis discitur Nec paucis dicendum est quod paucis non discendum est While I long wondered that I could not see what satisfied both all the Learned Convocation and the Parliament for the truth of the Rule in the Liturgy to find out Easter-day for ever which is contrary to our Almanacks and we must all be silenced and ruined for Preaching unless we profess that we Assent to it I met with no Conformist that gave me any other satisfaction than to refer me to Dr. Pells Book And meeting him happily I craved his information and the grave learned honest Doctor was so far from making me a Conformist that he professed the passage now is indefensible I was lately assaulted with this as the strongest Argument for Conformity Deliberate lying is no sin but a duty when it doth no harm but a necessary good As by a Physician to save his patient or to save a mans life much more to save souls by preaching Ans This case requireth a longer answer than I have here room for Briefly 1. God best knoweth who is wisest and meetest to Govern the world for the good of all and he forbids it 2. This principle believed would make all men untrusty to each other while every man would think he had reason to lie when his interest required it and untrustiness overthroweth all humane polities societies and converse and so would do a thousand fold more harm to Kings Subjects and all than the saving of a mans life would compensate 3. It s hypocrisie to sin my self that I may preach against sin in others 4. The Church of God is against this doctrine fathers And the best casuists have copiously confuted it though some Jesuites are more lax and use to serve their interest by it 5. At least me thinks that where Jesnites lying is cryed down men should not judge my fearing a lie a crime that rendreth me intolerable in the Ministry and my