man to believe that hee is predestinate to life and that Christ died for him is that faith which alone justifieth a Christian Whether of these opinions is the better or the worse or what is the difference between them let the parties dispute This I say that allowing the merits and satisfaction of Christ to the Elect for remission of sins and a title to everlasting life in no consideration but of their persons it is more reasonable to say that they can never become guilty of sin then that the remission of their sins and their right to life should depend upon the knowledge of their predestination revealed by Faith For nothing is true because it is believed but believed because it is true And therefore I say that both of these opinions are destructive to that foundation of faith which the Church of England teacheth when in the Office of Baptisme and the beginning of the Catechisme it requireth all that are baptized not only to profess the Faith of Christ but to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to fight with them till death for the keeping of Gods Commandments assuring them hereupon that they are regenerate and adopted Gods children by his Grace in Christ For hee that is saved by undertaking and persevering in this cannot bee saved by believing that hee is absolutely predestinate to life without it For I must say that it is one thing to bee absolutely predestinate to life another thing to bee predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere till death For hee that is predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere in the Covenant of Grace till death is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace in which hee is predestinate to persevere And whether a man can bee absolutely predestinate to presevere in it of his own free choise or not is that which remains in dispute among Divines which I suppose not here to bee either true or false But to say that a man is absolutely predestinate to life and to say that hee is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace which must bee the act of his own free choice is to say express contradictions And to say that a man is predestinate to life without consideration of the Covenant of Grace is to destroy the Covenant of Grace and the hope of salvation which is meerly imaginary if not grounded upon it Seeing then that the trial upon which these Commissioners proceed is their marks of predestination whether they bee true or false not supposing the Covenant of Grace the undertaking of it and persevering in it I say that you are no way secured by these Laws that the Triers themselves much less those whom they shall send you are not complices of this damnable Haeresie I must not forget to advise you that Dell one so far of this Haeresie that he is thought to have written the Book called the Doctrine of Baptismes against Baptisme it self is now and is acknowledged by these Commissioners Master of a Colledge in the University whereof several fellows have been notorious Preachers of this Haeresie who cannot bee acknowledged a member of the Church by any good Christian The like I allege in regard of the Sect of the Anabaptists In which point I must suppose two things First that the Christian Faith supposeth Original sin Secondly that without Baptisme there is no cure for it And this depends upon the premises that there is no absolute predestination without consideration of the Covenant of Grace which Baptisme executing cureth it For whatsoever our Lord meant when hee said unless ye bee born again of water it is manifest that though no man can become a true Christian without the operation of the Holy Ghost yet the habitual gift and indowment of the Holy Ghost dwelling in a man is not granted but in consideration of his entring into the said Covenant and that this gift is the only cure of Original sin There is then no necessity of shewing an express precept in Scripture that all Infants bee baptized or that the Church from the Apostles time did Baptize all while they were Infants If the Christian Faith suppose Original sin if no cure for that but by the Covenant of Grace if no execution of that Covenant but the Baptisme of the Church unless where the outward act is prevented by inevitable necessity after the inward desire thereof was sufficiently resolved and declared then is this necessity a constraining precept and hath been so reputed by the Church ever since the Apostles Which always hath taken order not that all should bee baptized Infants but that no Infant should die unbaptized For the diligent watch over all occasions that might carry Infants out of the world unbaptized observed by the Church from the beginning though neglected since demonstrateth no legal assurance of the salvation of such as should die unbaptized Whatsoever might bee presumed of Gods goodness over and above what hee declareth But as for those that shall become obliged and engaged to the Covenant of Grace by being consecrated to God through the act of the Church thereby obliging it self to shew them the truth of Christianity which obligeth all to whom it is shewed the necessity aforesaid together with the practise of the Church is a legal presumption of the cure of Original sin and the opening of Paradise which it only shutteth If therefore our Anabaptists do not believe Original sin they are Pelagian Haereticks If believing it they believe notwithstanding that it is cured by Predestination without the Covenant of Grace they fall into the Haeresie premised And voiding the Baptisme which they received of the Church they seem to renounce the Christianity which it inacteth but manifestly they render their own Baptisme void of effect towards God For they who rebaptize upon a ground that allows Salvation by Gods Predestination revealed by Faith without undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace cannot pretend to baptize into the Covenant of Grace that is into the profession of the true Faith and of fighting against sin until death under the same Seeing then that the necessity of Baptisme cannot bee denied but upon such a ground as voideth the Covenant of Grace and seeing the Triers are either Anabaptists themselves or complices in the same Commission with Anabaptists whereof there are divers in these Commissions it is evident that by these Laws you are no ways secured of having Anabaptists for your Pastors who are expressly Schismaticks forsaking the Church for that which the Church always did and by consequence of the premised reasons Haereticks As the Baptisme of those men whom they pretend to send you for Pastors is by this reason void of effect So the Eucharist which they may pretend to celebrate will bee void of the effect of a Sacrament toward you but not void of the crime of Sacrilege towards God The reasons are two The first because those who
succession of persons is of less consideration being subordinate to the succession of Faith and Laws as the means to the end And then I say that supposing a necessity of Ordaining because they who refused the Reformation would not Ordain to that purpose And supposing the Reformation to bee that which God requireth There is cause to presume that the intent which those that agree in it declare supplies by Gods goodness that nullitie which the want of Power to Ordain would otherwise infer For those mistakes of less consequence which humane weakness must needs commit in a work of such weight as it were malice in man to justifie so it may well bee thought mercy in God to excuse This presumption there is that the Churches thus constituted are true Churches And the Offices ministred by persons thus qualified effectual to convey the Grace of God to Christian people But wee suppose in our case that Presbyterian Ordinations tend no more to the exercise of true Christianity then of that which the Church of England hitherto professeth And wee see with our eyes that the authority that maketh them destroyeth it self by destroying the authority of their Bishops from whom it claimeth And therefore to imagine that an Assembly of Divines by being lawfully Ordained to the office of Priests or Deacons according to the Laws of the Church of England can by Commission from the Secular Power make Ordinations which the Laws under which they were Ordained forbid is to imagine that God can inable man to sin or that a Sovereign Power can authorize the Subject to rebell against it self And therefore though the qualities of persons to bee sent you for Pastors may bee otherwise limited by Acts which Parliaments may make yet these qualities not being derived from the authority of the Apostles founding the Church by any act of the Church but from Secular Power and Commission issued from it make them no more Ministers of the Church that are made by Assemblies of Divines and Presbyteries then those that are made by Commission of Triers and for ejecting scandalous Ministers That is both of them being by their creation Schismaticks and their profession not clearing them of misprision of Haeresie they can no more bee acknowledged by those that pretend to adhere to the Church of England then Belial by Christ or darkness by light Hereby then you may conclude how to receive those whom the Presbyterians may send you for Pastors by any change in the Secular Power For I charge not them that they do not believe the Church which they would bee themselves I acknowledge that they secure you from all Sects but themselves But in as much as they maintain Predestination to life onely in consideration of what Christ hath already done or suffered for the Elect in so much I say that they do not nor can Baptize into the Cross of Christ that is to say into the hope of Salvation in consideration of the Covenant of Baptisme For that which is absolutely due as salvation is due to the elect by the gift of Gods Predestination cannot bee burthened with any condition of Christianity afterwards Nor can hee who is once sure to bee saved without that condition which Baptism inacteth bee bound to fight against the flesh the world and the Devil for the keeping of Gods Commandments under the profession of the Christian Faith for the obtaining of that which hee is sure of before And therefore their Baptisme is no effectual Baptisme before God if Baptisme received in the Church of England bee such that is to say it is no Baptisme but by Equivocation of words in as much as the obligation of a mans Christianity is not declared or understood to take hold of him by virtue of it For seeing the hope of salvation which Christians have by their Baptisme is grounded upon the condition of their Christianity that Baptisme which promiseth salvation without providing for this condition is no Baptisme but by equivocation of words I say further that the change which they call Reformation visibly tends to introduce that monstrous imposture of two Sermons every Sabbath in stead of the daily and ordinary service of God together with the more solemn service of God upon Festivals and Lords days and other extraordinary occasions which the Church of England with the whole Church of God from the beginning hath maintained so far as there was means to maintain it I will not here insist upon the order of Bishops and their chief power in their Dioceses as of Divine Right that is instituted and introduced by the Apostles Let the Presbyterians think themselves privileged to erect Altar against Altar upon so desperate a Plea as now they insist upon that the Presbyteries are rather of divine right then the chief Power of Bishops in their Dioceses I insist now only that this Power of the Bishops was not against Gods Law which every man must grant me that acknowledges a Church in England from the Reformation till now In this case they who to introduce this Christianity and this publick exercise of it transgressing that authority to which they were called by the visible act of the Church of England take upon them to share that Power from which they had their authority among themselves and to execute it by consent among themselves in their several precincts cannot bee said to constitute a Church by virtue of any act of the Apostles or any authority derived from such act but by virtue of their own act as all Apostates and usurpers do That is to say that they do not constitute such a Church by being a member whereof a man may reasonably assure himself of salvation upon any principle of Christianity but such a Church as is indeed no Church unless it bee by equivocation of terms but a conventicle of Schismaticks with the misprision of the Haeresie aforesaid And therefore their Priesthood is no Priesthood their Eucharist is no Eucharist unless it bee by equivocation of words but Sacrilege against Gods Ordinance Besides that what is requisite to the consecration of the Eucharist or wherein it consists they seem to bee as secure of and as little to regard as the most ignorant of those Sects into which the once common name of Puritans stands divided at this time Neither is it in any Secular Power though never so unquestionable to cure these nullities and incapacities in the pretense upon which they take upon them to bee a Church Though for the present they are not so much as authorized to the world by any privilege or penalty enacted by any Secular Power but only protected by that which now possesseth Whereby the world may see that there is nothing but their own usurpation and the consent of those whom they have debauched to their Schisme for them to subsist by under the pretense of a Church And that they will by virtue of their Original bee as malignant to any Secular Power that shall not maintain and
JUST WEIGHTS AND MEASURES That is The present STATE of RELIGION Weighed in the BALANCE and Measured by the STANDARD of the SANCTUARY According to the Opinion of HERBERT THORNDIKE LONDON Printed by J. M. for J. Martin J. Allestry and T. Dicas and are to be sold at the sign of the Bell in St. Paul's Church-yard 1662. TO ALL Christian Readers I Have heard that in the time of our Late Troubles the Presbyterians were put to nonplus by the Fanatickes demanding of them a ground in the Scripture for a National Church I let pass that mistake of both parties which the term of National involveth For the state of the Question must needs concern that part of the Church which every respective Sovereignty containeth Now one Sovereignty may contain several Nations As there are two in this Kingdom of England But wee need not marvel that they could give no answer to a demand which their own Title allowed them no ground to answer Had they believed the Creed which they thrust out of the Church and that Article of it which professeth one Catholick Church they might have had an answer to it But such a one as would have destroyed the pretense of their Presbyteries For were the Unity of the Church which that Article professeth meerly Invisible with God by Communion in his Spirit the Usurpers of Sovereign Power might make Presbyteries Churches by as good a Title as that by which they make themselves Sovereigns But the Unity which that Article professeth is Visible with that Church which is or ought to bee always one and the same from our Lord and his Apostles by Communion in the Offices of Gods Service especially the Eucharist to distinguish it from Haeresies and Schismes whom the Title of Catholick visibly distinguisheth from the Church That Title the Presbyteries cannot pretend to because it is as visible that their authority is derived from the Long Parliament and their own consent as it is visible that the authority of the Whole Church is derived from our Lord and his Apostles For the Unity of the Church is not derived from Constantine but from our Lord and his Apostles and the Law imposed by them upon all Christians to maintain Communion among themselves upon those terms which the Common Christianity supposed in the said Communion may allow Whereby the Church is Visible by being Catholick It is manifest by what Title and therefore upon what terms Constantine first in the Empire and after him all Christian Powers in their respective Sovereignties doe make Religion a Law to their Subjects For being to bee baptized and made a member of the Church by the act of the Church If all Christians by their Baptisme do consecrate themselves to the service of God in his Church then must hee also by being baptized consecrate the Power of the Empire to the maintenance of that Christianity into which hee was baptized part whereof is the Unity of the Catholick Church And as the effect of this obligation is visible in bringing the World into the Church So is it a visible advantage for the Church that the profession thereof is a Law to Christian States by the rewards and penalties whereby it is inacted For when all are constrained to bee Christians according to the Laws of the Land so much the more will bee Christians according to the Laws of God and of his Church And as it is evident that without such Laws Unity in Religion will not prevail in the World which cannot prevail with the help of them No less manifest is it that without Unity Christianity will soon come to nothing He that considers the decay which a little time of disunion hath visibly made in the Christianity of this Kingdom is past cure by reasoning if he question this consequence This is that Principle which must justifie the Reformation which wee profess by maintaining the due bounds and terms and measure of it This is that which must reunite the parties which hitherto are at distance if wee will have them united to the purpose of saving souls out of satisfaction in the Laws which they are to execute not only to the purpose of publick peace for hope or fear of the rewards and penalties which they are inacted with This is that which must secure the Conscience of the Kingdom that those rewards and penalties will bee allowed as for the service of God at the great day of judgment And how much this concerns the present Case now that Religion is to bee re-established by the Law of the Land it is manifest enough Let the Presbyterians submit to the due terms upon which the Fanaticks may be acknowleged members of this Church as acknowleging the Covenant of Baptisme for the condition of holding the State of Gods Grace and the Recusants shall stand bound to own the Faith of this Church for the Faith of the Catholick Church Let the Laws of this Church bee Ruled by the Laws of the Catholick Church in those times which hee that owneth one Catholick Church from the beginning cannot disown and all shall appear bound to bee of this Church as visibly the same Church with that which was from the beginning For the Church is Visible by the Laws of it And therefore if the Laws bee the same the Church is visibly the same And all that are not of it shall bee evidently liable to such penalties as belong to them that disobey those Laws of their Country which the common Christianity requireth Let no man then marvel that being setled in this opinion upon all the consideration which our long distractions have allowed me time to take I am not afraid to publish this brief view of it referring my self for proof of the particulars to that which I have published heretofore Let it not seem strange that I deliver it some times with that resolution and assurance which seems to admit no contradiction to it For though the Faith of Gods Church bee always the same yet I profess of my self that the Laws of this Church are to bee Ruled by the Laws of the primitive Church with that allowance which the difference of the present time and that state of Christianity which it hath introduced from that which then was may require And by professing this I do really and not only for a formality submit my self to the authority of Superiors as well as to the judgment and censure of every Christian For how far the present times are capable of those Rules which all times are to go by that would bee one and the same Church with that which was from the beginning I take not upon me to judge as belonging to the account of Superiors Nay before I have done you shall see I compromise my Opinion it self and not only my own proceeding according or not contrary to it to the authority of Superiors and to better judgement And therefore let it be lawful to plead for the improving of the Laws of this Church so long
interest in one anothers body which cannot bee dissolved but by death Therefore it is celebrated with the Eucharist that they who mary with the resolution of Christians may bee enabled by the Spirit of God which the Sacrament promiseth to perform the same The charge of Superstition upon the Church of Rome is to The Superstitions of the Church of Rome bee justified by many particulars in tendring those things to God for his service wherein his service consisteth not In the first place the multiplying of Masses for the quick and for the dead without any pretense of the concurrence of a Congregation to the action much less of any Communion At this rate it matters not much in what language it is performed seeing there is no mans devotion required to assist the Priest in it The like is seen in the Vows of Pilgrimages and in the visiting of divers Churches for the gaining of Indulgences For had men nothing else in mind then that Service which is acceptable to God in all places why should they think themselves more acceptable to God for the travel which they undergo that they may perform it far from home whereby they forgo that opportunity for it which they know without bettering the mind which were it as it might bee would find means to better it self every where But there appears in it a carnal affection to the Memories of Saints out of a carnal affection to the things of thiâ— world wherein carnal men hope to bee assisted by the Saints in recompense of their voluntary devotions though Christianity allows them not the confidence to seek them at Gods hands The same is to bee said of an innumerable number of things that Monastical Orders observe nay of the overvaluing of the estate it self of continence or retirement from the world Which being no part of Christianity but a help and an opportunity for that wherein it consisteth satisfieth outside Christians with that which Pagans can do the outward work without that inward disposition which only Christianity formeth All these and many more observations which they set innocent Christians on work about must needs speak them superstitious notwithstanding that there is always in them a pretense of serving God according to Christianity For the more straw and chaff the less grain and where the intention of the mind is spent upon the shell of Christianity there can it not have strength to bring the kernel of it to ripeness The Ceremonies wherewith they overcharge the publick service of the Church are of the same nature For they that understand not the meaning of them and therefore distinguish them not from the Office which God accepteth must needs put that to the account of his service which is but the means to procure it But what shall wee say to them who think they oblige us The Superstitions of the Puritans when they allow the people to kneel to lift up their eyes and to hold up their hands at their Prayers Do they not think they oblige Almighty God in serving him without any other sign of reverence It is not possible that they should stand upon it to the disquiet of the Church if they did not Did they not take it for the service of God that the same Houses should bee Common and Holy Stables and Churches the same Vessels Chalices and drinking Cups the same Tables Altars and dining Bords it is not possible that they should trouble the Church about it as they do But it is plain enough that they serve him without reverence or devotion because they think so To these men all set times of fasting all the estate of continence all obedience to Superiors all works of Mortification and Penance stand suspected for Superstitious They would not think themselves far enough from the Papists if they should do the good works of Christians For fear of private Masses the Eucharist must bee celebrated thrice a year And wee must have the Opus operatum of a Sermon in exchange for the Opus operatum of a Mass But this is not reforming of Religion It is stocking up the Vineyard of the Church instead of Pruning it I need not say what is Reformation and at what point it stands The distance from the extreams makes the mean visible The truth is there will bee necessarily superstition in all Religions so long as the Church hath chaff and corn in it For they that are sensible of that obligation to God which they are not willing to discharge will always discharge themselves to God upon that which they are content to do for his service but which hee is not content with because it signifieth not the obedience of the inward man which hee requireth Not that there must needs bee Superstition in using things indifferent of themselves much less in using such as in reason may serve to advance attention and devotion in Gods Service But because as there may bee Superstition in using them So there is Superstition in thinking that by forbearing them a man does God service But to think Schisme acceptable to God rather then use them is without doubt as great superstition as any the Church of Rome teacheth Having shewed why the Church of Rome cannot bee charged Why the Pope cannot bee Antichrist with Idolatry I may from thence infer that the Pope cannot bee Antichrist I do not grant that either St. Paul in the second Chapter of his second Epistle to the Thessalonians or St. John in the Apocalypse speaks any thing of Antichrist But hee that exalts himself above all that is called God as St. Paul speaketh there must bee one that should make himself God according to the Idolatry of the Pagans And the fornication which the Whore of Babylon in the Apocalypse makes the Nations drunk with is necessarily the same Idolatry Therefore if the Pope teach no such Idolatry hee cannot prove Antichrist either by St. John or St. Paul The Fathers have thought that both of them prophesie of such a one as shall indeed bee a false Christ if ever there shall bee such a one Because hee shall impose a new Religion as from God upon all whom hee shall seduce But St. Johns Catholick Epistles where Antichrist is mentioned do not signifie that any such is to come And therefore wee are not tied to their opinion in the interpretation of a Prophesie which is no mater of Faith But though the Pope bee not Antichrist nor the Papists Idolaters How it is just to Reforme without the See of Rome yet I conceive I have shewed sufficient reason why this Kingdom and Church of England might and ought to Reform Religion without and against the consent of the Church of Rome supposing that which seems to bee manifest by all that hath followed that the Church of Rome would never have condescended to any such change And the Unity of the Church determining the measure and the bounds of Reformation they must needs be the same indeed as they
the Schisme which the Reformation hath made between us and the Church of Rome hath dissolved the obligation of being members of the Church If that change which is called Reformation preserve not such a Church as ought to bee acknowledged for a true member of the whole or Catholick Church it is no Reformation but the destruction of Christianity Now when these Laws inable Souldiers and Justices of the Peace as well as those that call themselves Ministers to make publick Preachers as well such as have received no Ordination from the Church as those that have It is manifest that all difference between Clergy and People is by them dissolved and made void And by consequence the Corporation of the Church which grounds and creates all the difference which hitherto by all Christians hath been received between these two qualities True it is that for the present as well those who have lawful authority to officiate the publick Service of God by Ordination from the Church are admitted to or maintained in their Benefices by these Laws as those that have none Though it bee well enough known that those who have such authority do pretend to act by virtue of it and not by this Law further then as by submitting to it they remove that force which hinders their right otherwise gotten to take effect But it is as true that supposing this Law to continue an age none such can remain And when none such remains then there shall bee no Church in England but by equivocation of words if the premises bee true And therefore those that acknowledge such as have no other authority but from this power for their Pastors cannot consequently profess to believe one Catholick Church nor hope for salvation by being members of it For supposing for the present though not granting that the power which makes these Laws is from God yet can it not bee pretended to bee from our Lord Christ and his Apostles And therefore this authority derived from it cannot bee derived from any act of theirs constituting the Church and enabling it to give this authority by acknowledging whereof Christians presume that they are members of the Church Now that you may see why the belief of Christs Church is an Article of our Creed I say further that you cannot acknowledg such men for your Pastors because you are not secured by these Laws that they are not Haereticks For seeing the Act of Establishment pretends only to hold forth the Christian Religion centained in the Scriptures and that all the Haerefies that are this day in the world do maintain themselves to profess the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures it is manifest that these Laws provide not that they shall not bee Haereticks which are sent you for Pastors Here I must not complain that whereas all that profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ though differing from the profession held forth are protected in the exercise of their Religion Popery and Praelacy are excepted though it cannot bee denied that both profess Faith in God by Jesus Christ Nor that those who hold the profession established by the Laws under which wee were born are refused that protection which is tendred Socinians enemies of the Trinity and Satisfaction of Christ who manifestly profess Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and Faith in God by Jesus Christ For my business is not to say what they that made these Laws should have done instead of making them but what you are to do now they are made But if it bee answered that those that make these Laws repose trust in them to whom they grant these Commissions that they will not take any to bee godly men that are Haereticks To this I say that will not serve your turn for several reasons For those that profess all that this law requires them to profess that is Faith in God through Jesus Christ and the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures cannot bee judged ungodly for whatsoever they profess besides by any power derived from this Law but an arbitrary power to bee exercised at the will of the Commissioners And how are you assured that no Haeretick shall obtain a certificate of three Neighbours and so answer their demands that they shall think him in Gods grace However you are not warranted to trust your salvation and the salvation of those that depend on you either upon the judgement of these Commissioners or of them that make the Laws If it be demanded why the Secular Power and the Commissioners thereof are not as well to bee trusted with the salvation of the people as those that may pretend authority from the Church the answer is ready That when you acknowledge a Pastor sent by the Church you neither trust his person nor the person of him that sends him but the Laws which the Church hath received from our Lord and his Apostles For limiting his profession and undertaking to exercise the function which hee receiveth according to them hee bâ—comes thereby qualified for his charge But hee who acknowledges no such Laws because hee acknowledges no Catholick Church destroys the trust you are to have in those whom you acknowledge your Pastors that they are not Haereticks And here I must not fail to give you notice that those Presbyterians and Independents who having departed from the Church of England upon pretense of erecting Presbyteries and Congregations do now make themselves Commissioners to execute these Laws which destroy both Presbyteries and Congregations have thereby destroyed the ground of all trust which the Church might have had in them for conduct in Christianity For what profession can it bee presumed that they will stand to when they stand not to that for which they have destroyed the Unity of this Church which is the reason why Haereticks and Schismaticks though they may bee re-admitted to the Communion of the Church upon repentance yet by the Rules of the Catholick Church cannot bee re-admitted to bee of the Clergy For these Apostasies make them uncapable of that trust which the Church must necessarily repose in the Clergy That you may see this is not for nothing I say further that that there is among us a damnable Haeresie of Antinomians or Enthusiasts formerly when Puritans were not divided from the Church of England known by the name of Grindletons and Etonists These do believe so to bee saved by the free Grace of God by which Christ died for the Elect that true faith is nothing but the revelation hereof and by consequence that all their sins past present and to come being remitted by this Grace to repent of sin or to contend against it is the renouncing of Gods free grace and saving faith Another opinion there is which I cannot say the Presbyteans hold or require to bee held but in regard their Confession of Faith and Catechisme disclaimes it not and therefore allows them that hold it to bee of their Faction may well bee said to maintain it That for a
hypocrisie or meer nonsense Others there are that do not think themselves obliged to the unity of Gods Church upon far different Principles There are of our Enthusiasts such as are themselves every one a Church to themselves and by themselves as being above Ordinances and the Communion of the Church provided only for proficients But all Independent Congregations make the same profession and are manifestly grounded upon the same For how can they imagine themselves members of one visible Church who profess that they cannot bee obliged to hold communion with any Congregation but their own And yet with favour the same consequence insuing upon so different pretenses there must bee some supposition common to both upon which both do ground themselves And it is easily visible what that is Both opinions must suppose that a man may bee heir to Christs Kingdom and indowed with Gods Spirit without being or before hee bee a member of Gods Church And the Independents indeed do manifestly profess that knowing themselves and others to bee Gods children and indowed with his Spirit they are in a capacity to joyn in Ecclesiastical Communion with those whom they know to bee such So they become members of a Church being Gods children before without considering how they shall bee members of the Whole Church The others are satisfied that by being members of a State which professeth Christianity they are also members of that one Holy Catholick and Apostolick Church which by our Creed wee profess to believe A ground which holdeth accidentally so long as that State constituteth a visible member of the Whole or the Catholick Church But not imaginable to serve the turn when States differ in point of Christianity and may every day appeal to force whether is the true Church and whether the false For is it not manifest that the professions of the Lutherans the Calvinists the Greeks the Abyssines are protected by Sovereign powers as well as the profession of the Church of Rome or the Church of England Is it not manifest that the Powers that profess them maintain them respectively to bee Gods truth Why then do wee dispute any longer which is the true Religion and which is the false if it bee enough for Christians to resolve all the doubt they can have concerning Religion into the command of their Sovereigne only professing Christianity Is it not manifest that Sovereigns do use to punish their Subjects that conform not to their Laws concerning Religion but follow that Religion which is in force under other Sovereignties Is it possible to imagine that Subjects can bee obliged by one and the same will of God to follow contrary Religions under several Sovereigns Or that Sovereigns can bee inabled by one and the same Law of God to punish their Subjects for serving God according to contrarie professions True it is Subjects that suffer in a good cause shall bee gainers thereby gaining Heaven by their losses of this world But what shall become of the Sovereigns that persecute them being in a good cause Or how shall not some of them bee persecuted in a good cause who are persecuted in contrary causes I know not whether this peremptory difficulty was the cause But I am sure recourse hath been had to a more desperate answer that every Subject is bound to profess the Religion of his Sovereign yea though it in join him to renounce Christ with his mouth remaining bound all the while to believe in him with his heart and that by this belief hee shall bee saved as a Christian Neither is this position tenable but upon this answer nor doth this answer import any less then the utter renouncing of Christianity I know that in the Records of the antient Church those who only professed to believe Christianity who were called Catecbumeni or Scholars to the Church are sometimes called by the name of Christians But I know withall that they were never counted in the state of Salvation till they had taken upon them the profession of Christianity by being adimtted to the Sacrament of Baptisme I know also that this Baptisme though it was not counted void when it was Ministred in due form yet it was never counted effectual to Salvation but when a man is baptized into the true Faith and that in the Unity of Gods Church For though the names of Haereticks and Schismaticks have been made only Bug-bears to fright children with in this time of our troubles yet so long as Christianity continues those that separate themselves from the Church upon pretenses concerning the substance of Faith shall bee properly counted Haereticks But if the cause concern not the substance of Christianity Schismaticks And therefore Christianity consisting not only in believing or purposing with the heart but also in professing with the mouth first sincerelie then the true Faith and lastly by being baptized hee that professeth himself free to renounce his Christianity as far as the mouth hath effectively renounced it because hee hath effectively drawn back that promise upon condition whereof hee was baptized of professing Christianity to the death And truly if every Christian State bee the Church of God within the territories thereof then cannot all Churches concur to make up that one Visible Church of God which our Creed professeth For there is nothing more evidently true then the saying of Plato that all States are naturally enemies one to another especially those that are borderers And this enmity in our daies consisteth visibly in those differences of Religion upon which the neighbour Sovereignties of Christendom are now at distance It is therefore no way imaginable how all Christian States should concur to make up that one visible Church whereinto by being baptized wee obtain the spiritual and eternal privileges of Christians But that it is the profession of the whole Rule of Christianity that makes any people or State a part of the Visible Church being governed by such rules in the exercise of Gods service as may make it the same Society with that which was once unquestionably Gods Church or part of it For otherwise how should the Visible Church continue one and the same from the first to the second coming of our Lord And here you have the second point of our differences For all our Sects under the title of Gods free grace do maintain that the promises of the Gospel and our right in them depends not upon the truth of mens Christianity As if God were not free enough of his Grace if hee should reserve himself a duty of being served as by Christians upon those whom he tenders life everlasting to upon such terms It is no new thing in England to hear of those who profess that God sees not nor can see any sin in his elect So that in their opinion there is no mortal sin but repentance because that must suppose that a man thought himself out of the state of grace by the sin whereof hee repents I think I am duly informed of a
is to bee understood Not because it can bee within the compass of common reason to imagine that the same Ceremonies have continued from the time that the Church was persecuted into holes and caves of the Earth to this time in which the question is of setling Christianity by the Law of this Kingdom It were want of common understanding to think that the same could serve But because so few and so innocent as wee use cannot bee condemned without condemning not only Gods whole Church but also Gods antient people who will evidently bee found in the same cause One thing hath been cast forth in barre to all this which wee must not swallow whole unless wee mean to impose upon our selves It is the pretense of complying with the Reformed Churches For it is evident that there are four forms of Reformation extant One according to Luther another according to Calvine the third is that of the Church of England and in the last place though first for time because least known and protected by no Sovereign I name that the Union in Bohemia For wee are to know that the followers of John Husse having sent Deputies to the Council of Basil they accorded to reunite the Nation upon four Articles The chief whereof was the Communion in both kinds They that stood to the accord are to this day called thereupon Calixtini or sub utraque in Latine But another part of those that were at distance thinking themselves betrayed by their Deputies in that accord proceeded to settle themselves in a form of Religion and the service of God by that which they held the pure truth of God in all points that had been disputed The Emperour Ferdinand 1. King of Bohemia having subdued his subjects there that rose with the Protestants in Germany cast a good part of these out of the Country who finding shelter in Polonia and Prussia there planted and propagated their form till the troubles of our time when by the Emperours victory in Bohemia and the late troubles in Poland they seem to bee at a low ebbe though they impute it to the decay of their first discipline They that would reform the Church of England professing already that Reformation which it found best will they not first show us reason why wee are to leave Luther for Calvine For if they mean his form when they talk of conforming us to the reformed Churches because of the Scots Presbyteries they must have better arguments then either the learning or the Christianity of the Scottish Presbyterians will yield to perswade us They say those that framed the Reformation in England being bred under Melancthon among the Lutherans followed them much an end in the order and form which they prescribed But is that any reason for any change before it appear which is in the right I freely profess I find Melancthon the better learned and the more Christian spirit But the Church of England which in divers points differeth from both why should it bee thought to follow either for any reason but as either agrees with the Catholick Church And for that I prefer the Unity of Bohemia before both For they had the rule of Vincentius given them to take their measure by the consent of the Catholick Church and those things which have always and every where been professed and practised in it And had they done nothing but what is justifiable by that Rule I should not blame them for that which I blame in them most But where they agree not with Luther and Calvine wherein do they not agree with the Church of England In particular they sent all over the World to inform themselves of a visible succession of Bishops whose profession was such that they might derive the Ordination of Bishops for their Churches from their hands They took the superstitions of the Greeks to bee such that they could not own it from them In that think they were in the wrong For I doubt not the Greeks would have granted them Ordination only under the profession of the Catholick Church and that had been enough But thinking themselves in a strait of necessity they chose twelve by lots And hearing that the Waldenses lived in Austria under Bishops deriving their succession from the time of Constantine and therefore from the Apostles they sent them thither to bee Ordained protesting against their weakness in going to Mass for fear The protestation was admitted and the persons ordained Bishops Now I take not upon me to maintain the truth of that information concerning the succession of these Bishops whereupon they proceeded But they being reasonably perswaded of it and not knowing how to proceed otherwise through a mistake or an exigent which they could not overcome and setling themselves upon an innocent presumption why should the effect of these Ordinations seem questionable For under these Bishops they have subsisted from that day to this And with what conscience is it demanded for conformity to the Reformation that wee acknowledge them Priests who are ordained against Bishops If wee do not wee shall condemn those Reformed Churches which have no Bishops Is it the fashion that a man quit his cloke because his fellow hath none Or is it any thing else to renounce a good Title because they cannot plead it There was a good expedient in the antient Church to refer things to God which could not bee decided without a breach in the Church Let their zeal against the abuses of the Church of Rome bee counted pardonable with God which caused them to think the Order of Bishops a support of Antichrist when as the Papacy is visibly raised upon the rights of Bishops which it ingrosseth Let the difficulty of procuring Ordinations and having Bishops render them excusable to God Those that are ordained by Presbyters against Bishops on purpose to set up Altar against Altar how can wee count them ordained refusing the concurrence of the Church to their Ordinations They that would tye us to comply with the Reformation are first to show us that the Unity of Bohemia is no part of it And that their Reformation is not to bee preferred either before that of Luther or that of Calvine For can wee acknowledge the Ordinations of Presbyters against their Bishops and not condemn them that sought all over the World for Bishops to ordain them Bishops that the Bishops so ordained might ordain them Presbyters But not only in this prime point of our differences but also in the difference of the Clergy from the people in the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the mater of Justification and the Eucharist of Confirmation and Penance of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church and of divers Orders and institutions of less consequence their profession agreeth with the antient Church and the Church of England where it departeth from both Luther and Calvine In the mater of Penance though with much humility they tell the Lutherans roundly they have but one of the
involveth when Division falls out upon a point of Faith Now breach of charity in hindring the salvation of all that divide is abundantly enough to destroy salvation though more then enough if upon a point of Faith which is Haeresie to the Church But he that would consider first how much the excessive The Schisme of the Donatists in charging the Catholickes to bee Apostates charges on both sides contribute to the Division of the Church then how much the Division of the Church to the ruine of Christianity Let him compare our present divisions with the Schisme of the Donatists the case whereof is thus to bee stated It was pretended that Caecilianus was made Bishop of Carthage by Traytors and Apostates For those that were called Traditores for delivering the Scriptures and other Utensils of Gods service to their persecutors for present safety they accompted no less then Apostates for betraying the common Christianity And that upon this Accompt If Eleazar and the Maccabees had redeemed their lives by eating Swines Flesh their crime had not been the bare breach of that Precept It had been Apostâ—â—ie because done at the instance of him that pressed them to forsake the Law So the Crime of those that delivered such goods to Persecutors they justly took to bee the Crime of Apostafie as done at the instance of Persecutors that pressed all to depart from Christianity And when the rest of the Church did acknowledg Caecilianus and communicate with him as Bishop of Carthage then did they openly forsake the whole Church as guilty of the same Apostasie for communicating with Apostates and rejecting them because they rejected Apostates And had they not reason on their side if the Church of Africk under Caecilianus had been really Apostates Admitting the Visible Unity of the Church it is not to bee avoided For this Unity must bee founded upon supposition of Christianity If Christianity bee evidently renounced they who acknowledg manifest Apostates members of Gods one Church must bee accompted Apostates themselves by them that would indeed bee members of it But there was great difference between professed Apostasie and the crime of those who dissembling their Christianity to save their lives had been permitted to hold their degrees in the Church professing it as well as the best when the danger was past For though the Rule of the Church allowed not that they should hold their degrees in the Church yet it was found necessary to abate of the Rule that Unity for which the Rule was provided might bee preserved And being allowed to hold their degrees in the Church for that reason there was difference enough between them and Apostates All this supposing the matter of Fact That those who ordained Caecilianus were indeed such as had given up such goods Which if it were true never appeared to the Church to bee true Whereas they who began the Schisme by ordaining another Bishop of Carthage against him were divers ways convicted to bee such themselves But it is strange to consider how the Donatists abhorred the The sad consequences of this Schisme Catholicks meerly upon this supposition without any other occasion of difference either in Faith or in the Rites and Customs of the Church For it is the ground why they rebaptized all those whom they seduced from the Catholique Church as baptized by Apostates Whereas the Catholiques taking them for Schismaticks as they were sought only to win them upon such terms as the reconciling of Schismaticks to the Church requires But it is hard to relate the slanders the murthers the violences the mischiefes which this Division brought forth And that so far as I can understand till Christianity was utterly destroyed in Africk by the Mahumetans CHAP. III. They that hold by One Visible Church are to own the consequences of it Nothing to bee changed but upon that ground Wee cannot bee the same Church with that which was otherwise Though that which shall bee setled will find advocates Civil Lawes of Religion to bee changed till this Rule bee attained The beginning and rise of our differences The present state of them What terms of agreement with the Presbyterians wee ought to allow The Lawes of the Primitive Church the Standard of all change Our present Case is not the Case of our Forefathers The Acts of Henry VIII no Acts of our Forefathers in Religion Imperfection of Lawes in Religion no imputation to our Forefathers The pretense of tender Consciences is no Rule It serves Papists as well as Puritans ALL this while you see I take it not for granted that They that hold by One Visible Church are to own the consequences of iâ— it is one Visible Church which our Creed professeth But I say those who take it for granted and admit not the due consequence of it are they that weigh not by their own Weights nor mete by their own Measures but keep a Weight and a Weight a Measure and a Measure which must needs bee a thing accursed because they cannot both bee the Weights and Measures of the Sanctuary The order of Bishops and the right of the Church goods have both recovered their possessions by the Law of this Land In both these points the Law of this Land acknowledgeth the authority of the whole Church of Christ the evidence whereof is indisputable in both Titles They that are not content to go by the same Weight and Measure both with Papists and Puritans in all other matters they must answer God for weighing and measuring by their own Weights and Measures in other things weighing and measuring by his Weights and Measures in these The rest of our differences seem to consist in two points the Nothing to bee changed but upon that ground one concerning the Covenant of Grace and the dependences of it seems to be of great consequence to the substance of Christianity The other must comprehend all the noise that is made of Ceremonies and Formes of Praying and Power of Discipline and in fine all that is questioned concerning the Lawes of this Church These are Punctillios indeed one by one but all together they make a great sum And take them one by one it is considerable that the changing of any one is the changing of a Law of this Kingdom But if the change should bee made without providing for the substance of our Christianity in that which is notoriously questionable amongst us then must wee think of a new Answer to the Papists demand where was your Church before Luthers time And in all cases if the Lawes of our Church bee changed for peace sake without regard to that truth which made it Reformation to change the Lawes of the Church of Rome may it not become questionable whether the Church of England remain the Church of England or not For I am well assured that there is so much in question amongst us as if it were decided for the Puritans would cast the advantage on the Papists side And therefore
buried in silence do not weigh by their own Weights nor mete by their own Measures The pretense of Reformation under Edward VI. excuses much defect in the forme of proceeding by the mater which it introduced They might make use of that which had been done to another intent Wee are not to measure their Actions by the Actions of them which were guided by other reasons In fine to maintain other mens Actions is to make our selves Imperfection of Lawes in Religion no imputation to our Forefathers accessory to their sins in doing them The Church of Rome standing to that which they received from their Forefathers stand but to that corruption to which that State of Religion which the Apostles brought in hath degenerated by tract of time That our Forefathers should not at once see or seeing should not at once be able to restore all that was decayed is no Imputation to men not pretending infallibility Why they have not since proceeded to restore the rest I have shewed evident reason in the contrary Factions of Papists and Puritans and the effects of them which our times have seen They themselves profess an imperfection in not restoring of Penance a mater of such consequence that all the judgements of God which wee have suffered may justly bee imputed to it And therefore the necessity of this time requiring a change the introducing of that which never was for the contenting of men instead of restoring that which was and therefore ought to bee will bee the sin of the Nation the declaring of this will bee the discharge of him that is so perswaded As for the Plea of tender Consciences to him that considers The pretense of tender Consciences is no Rule our Case in which it is made it will easily appear to bee a Saddle for all horses A pair of Stirrups to bee lengthned or shortned to all statures For wee are tyed to this supposition The Law is to bee re-established according to which God must bee served by the Church of England for the future And to pretend tenderness of Conscience against the Law of the Church and Kingdom is to proclaim disobedience to all Lawes that are not made by them who allege it For why may not any Law meet with tender consciences if some do And tenderness of conscience is a thing invisible which no Law can take for granted on any side But supposing the Unity of the Church ordained by God to forbear those Lawes which it requireth because tenderness of conscience may bee alleged against them is to offend the whole rather then a part For the same might have been alleged against any Law of Gods Church So there could have been no such thing as a Visible Church if that plea could have served mens turns And why should not a Papist have a tender conscience as well It serves Papists as well as Puritans as a Puritan Why should not the one expect to bee free from the penalties which the Lawes assign to those that refuse them as well as the other to have right to the rewards which they assign to those that imbrace them both professing the same reason though the one only makes a noise with pleading it If it bee said that English Papists are not considerable in comparison with English Puritans It is to bee considered how great a part of Christendom is engaged in the cause of English Papists How small a part of the Reformation is engaged in the cause of English Puritans In the mean time it is the Papists that are under the penalties of the Lawes Which Puritans are scandalized that they may not make And certainly no man can truely have a tender conscience in this case but he who for his part labours that neither Papists may have cause to continue Papists nor Puritans to continue Puritans But the conscience of the Kingdom that is our hope of Gods blessing or our fear of his vengeance will bee concerned to the life in it CHAP. IV. Erastians can acknowledg no Visible Church founded by God Their opinion inableth Sovereigns to persecute Gods truth by Gods Law Persecuting the truth is the use of a Power which no Sovereign can have If any Sovereign may punish for the Religion which hee professeth then are Subjects bound to renounce Christ if the Sovereign command it No offense but charity in declaring the true ground of reconcilement or punishment Why it ought to bee declared The declaring of it no offense to Superiors THat which hath been said of Henry the VIII and his Acts Erastians can acknowledg no Visible Church founded by God sheweth That Acts of Parliament cannot bee the Measure of Religion though they should bee the Fense and the Bulwark of it Let me now upon this occasion conjure our Brethren the Presbyterians to lay to heart the unknown danger which this time threatneth the evident mischiefe which it produceth It was a complaint visibly just in the late Usurpers time that while one side was for this Religion another for that they that were for no Religion would prove the strongest side Presbyterians contest with their Prelates who shall give Law to the Church that is who shall bee the Church They are desirous to have authority in point of Fact without and against their Prelates which they will never make out any title to in point of right but from their Prelates They beleeve all the while that the Church is founded by God and all the rights upon which it is founded of Right And yet can find in their hearts to stand wrangling out the time while they grow the greatest party that would have no Church at all and by consequence no Christianity Wee call them Erastians because the disputes of our times have made it evident that if no Excommunication as he pretended then no Church Yet it is not to bee granted that he ever saw through the consequences of his own Position or would have held no Excommunication had he thought it would infer no Church I will not say the learned Selden saw not the consequence For why should I speak of the opinion of a man that was too wise to declare it I am sure he mistook the state of the Question when beginning to declare his opinion in the point of Excommunication for hee never argued for any part of his opinion till hee published his Books de Synedriis hee defined Excommunication to bee a censure inferring a civil penalty For it was evident that all his Adversaries deriving the power of Excommunication from the Apostles must deny any civil effect of Excommunication which they knew it could not have before Constantine This opinion is liable to an objection visible enough For if Their opinion inableth Sovereigns to persecute Gods truth by Gods Law it were true then all Subjects all private Christians would stand bound in conscience to profess that Religion which the Sovereign power enacteth by the Lawes which it giveth Which if it were so in
so it is though indeed it bee otherwise The first is the plea of the Reformation against the Church of Rome The second the plea of the Church of Rome against them as to this point of Traditions And the issue is the same that is to bee tried between the Church of England and those that stand at this distance from it For the Unity of the Church being a part of the common Christianity the breach of it will bee chargeable upon that side which makes such a change as the rest have not reason to embrace If the pretense thereof bee either not evident or not sufficient the fault is in them If both in those who refuse to joyn in iâ— The Rules and Customs and Rites of the Church which are called Traditions are not commanded because good but are good because commanded And therefore even the Traditions of the Apostles being of this kind may cease to oblige by the change that may-succeed in the state of the Church for which they are provided Instances hereof recorded in the Scriptures have been produced They therefore that break from the Church upon any point The difference between Haeresic and Schisme of the Tradition of Faith which is before the Church as being requisite to make a man a member of the Church are properly called Haereticks For if they only disbeleeve in the heart they may bee counted Haereticks to God but that is nothing to the Church of which wee now speak But they that will not stand to the authority of the Church in maters subject to it are Schismaticks For those things to which the authority of the Church extendeth are the mater of Schisme Not that this difference is alwaies observed For many times the name of Haeresie extendeth to all Sects which mans choise not the will of God createth But because there is that difference visible in the mater of Christianity which many times appropriateth the common name of Haeresie to the most eminent that Separate upon mater of Faith These things are here premised to make way for the evidence which I tender for the Visible Unity of the Church from the consent of all Christians Hee that sticketh at any point of it may have recourse to the proofe which I have made in due place taking all therefore here for granted But I will advance another assumption tending â—o set the The dependence of Churches evidâ—nâ—eth the Unity of the Whole Church same evidence in better light by stating the form in which the whole Church from the Apostles hath alwaies been governed without repeating the proofes whereby it appeareth A Church then in the sense of all Christians before the Reformation is the Body of Christians contained in a City and the Territory of it For the Government of such a one the respective Authority of the Apostles conveyed by the overt act of their Ordination was visibly vested in a Bishop in a number of Presbyters for his advice and assistance and in Deacons attending upon them and upon the executing of their Orders I say the respective authority of the Apostles because as less Cities are subject to greater in Civil Government so have the Churches of less Cities alwaies depended upon Churches of greater Cities throughout Christendom Rome Alexâ—ndria Antiochia were from the beginning of Christianity visible heads of these great resorts in Church Government which the Council of Nâ—câ—â— made subject to them by Canon Law for the future The eminence of other Cities over their inferiour Churches appears in the Records of the Church as soon as there is any mention of them to make it appeaâ— In these Churches and in the Governors of them the whole Authority of the Apostles was vested For they constituted the Church In process of time the Government of the Roman Empire The form of this dependence throughout the Roman Empire was moulded anew under Constantine otherwise then it had been by Augustus But this new model was designed by Adrian It made the chief Cities of the chief quarters of the Empire the Residences of the chief Commanders of the Armies with civil Jurisdictions respective Which civil Jurisdictions Constanâ—ine left them when hee took from them their commands over the Armies Carthage for Africk Milane for Italy that part which was not under Rome Triers for Gaule Thessalonica for Illyricum Ephesus for Asia Caesarea Cappadociae for Pontus the pre-eminence of the Churches is as visible over the Churches of their inferiour Cities in the records of the Church as the pre-eminence of the Cities in the records of the Empire And according the course of all humane affairs must not this pre-â—minence of necessity bee further limited enlarged or abated in process of time whether by written Law or by silent custom For the effect hereof I present to your consideration the Canons of the Council of Sardica whick I take to bee the greatest advantage that ever lawfully and by regular means accrewed to the Church of Rome toward that greatness which since it hath irregularly obtained For it is visible that they were the means to extend the superiority thereof over Illyricum which continued till the Eastern Empire having the Church of Rome in jealousie laid that whole Jurisdiction under the Church of Constantinople The encrease of which Church upon the seating of the Empire at that City the ground which I allege for the superiority of all Churches as it hath been unjustly opposed by the Church of Rome so it is justly owned by those who protest against the Usurpation of it They that would except Britaine out of this Rule upon the No exception to bee made to it for the British Church act of the Welsh Bishops refusing Austine the Monke for their head should consider that St. Gregory setting him over the Saxon Church which hee had founded according to Rule transgressed the Rule in setting him over the Welsh Church For the Canon of the Apostles maintains every Nation to bee governed by their own Bishop Which the Welsh had reason then to insist upon because of the jealousie which appeared from the Saxons of their incroaching upon the Nation if their Bishop should bee owned for the head of the Welsh Church Setting this case aside the rest of that little remembrance that remains concerning the British Church testifies the like respect from it to the Church of Rome as appears from the Churches of Gaule Spain and Africk of which there is no cause to doubt that they first received their Christianity from the Church of Rome And if so they did then is there reason to conclude that they owed it the respect which was due to their Mother Church But that they either owed it or shewed it the respect of a Subject to the Sovereign which none is challenged none at all As for Illyricum which shewed the same respect after the Council of Sardica it cannot bee thought to have owed it before because it received not Christianity Episcopacy by this formâ—
Bishop Dioscorus by it at length these Churches are counted Jacobites from the name of one Jacobus Zanzalus or little Jacob of Syria who is said to have taught them the position of Eutyches condemned by that Council Whether so or whether a fond zeal for the reputation of Dioscorus hath served to divide that people from the Church upon a meer difference in terms the breach still continues and the Abyssines depending alwaies upon the Church of Alexandria are said to continue in it Since that what breach of intercourse and communion hath fallen out between the Greek and Latine Church or upon what cause and how far it continues I need not relate But there can bee no question that it disposed these Western parts to that breach which the Reformation hath made Within the Reformation I need not speak of the Division between the Calvinists on the one side and the Lutherans in the Empire the Arminians in the Law Countries on the other side I am only this to demadn did ever any of these parties declare that the Visible Unity which these breaches interrupt is not Gods Ordinance That one of the Parties is not always guilty to God for the mischief of Schisme That Christian charity is not highly concerned in violating that Communion which Christianity enacteth Until the dregs of our times I do not know that it was ever Disputed that Christians are not bound to bee members of one and the same Visible Church I have already said that the Reformation was not made by common consent I must now acknowledg futher that it proceeded not expresly upon the profession of one Visible Church though neither denying nor questioning the same No marvel then if in all things it bee not confined to the consequences of it And therefore no marvel that dissentions have fallen out in it No marvel that they who dare not look so clear a principle in the face can wrangle out the salvation of souls upon pety scruples which the admitting of it must needs presently disperse CHAP. VII Reformation to bee bounded by that wherein the Visible Church agreeth No change without regard to the Rules of the Catholick Church Regular authority in the Church of Rome the means of Vnity absolute of Schisme How wee are visibly one with the onely Church of God Reforming without the Church of Rome AS for the Church of England where Episcopacy stands Reformation to bee bounded by that wherein the Visible Church agreeth setled by the Law of the Land as well as by the Law of God and the right of goods consecrated to the Service of God by investing them upon his Church is maintained by the same Are we not to fear the curse of God if in all things of Religion wee mete not by the same Standard if wee weigh not by the same Weights Can wee pretend to weigh by the same Weights unless wee admit the whole Faith and all the Lawes of the Catholick Church Unless wee confine the Reformation to the restoring of that which hath been without introducing that which cannot appear to have been Men see new fanfies every day in the Scriptures which the same man sees not to morrow another man never sees The Profâ—ssion of Faith the Rules of Government the Rites of Gods service are the things that must make a Church a part or no part of the Whole Church For if the Church bee a Visible Body it must bee visible by the Lawes which it useth And if it bee to continue one and the same Body from the first to the second coming of our Lord the Lawes of it will necessarily change as the Lawes of all Bodies do but the authority whence they proceed must needs continue the same If corruption and abuse bee to bee Reformed and those in whom the authority visibly resteth agree not Restoring that which was you have the Authority of the Apostles and their successours for the reviving of their acts Introducing that which was not you go by the spirit of the Fanatickes the dictate whereof appears not in the Scriptures by the consent of the Church In fine mater of Faith is to the worlds end the same that the whole Church hath always from the beginning professed If you impose more the Church of Rome will have a better pretense then you can have namely a better claim to the authority of the Church For it is an imposture to induce any man to think that professing Christianity they can renounce the Scriptures The issue is and will bee whether you or the Church shall be judge Untill you distinguish between the present Church and the Whole Church not contesting the Faith of the present Church so far as it holds with the Whole But in mater of Church Law which for the reason that hath been said is necessarily changeable though the difference of times and the estate of things will not indure the restoring of Primitive Discipline yet shall it bee easie thereby to discern what is abated for Unities sake what is rejected because the Catholick Church and the Lawes of it are not owned And upon these terms it will bee easie to answer all demands No change without regard to the Rules of the Catholick Church not only here but at the great day of Judgement at which otherwise the account cannot bee clear They that would have it thought that the mischiefs which wee have seen have not been acted for nothing would have the Law of the Kingdom in mater of Religion changed to give them content without considering what cause wee give the Church of Rome to take us for Schismatickes balking the Whole Church that wee may bee reconciled to those that have broken from us For supposing for the present though not granting that all Papists are Idolaters and the Pope Antichrist The Unity of the Church is nevertheless as it hath been proved a part of Christian truth Nor can Papists bee Idolaters or the Pope Antichrist for beleeving any thing which the Whole Church beleeveth for commanding or for practicing that which the Whole Church hath commanded or practiced Nay not for that which the Whole Church of any age hath allowed part of the Church to practice For God forbid it should bee said which it were senseless to imagine that part of the Christian World should own part of it for Christians being indeed Idolaters and Partizans of Antichrist The Church must have been utterly lost in that case and the Reforming of it must not bee the mending of the old Church but the making of a new Church Yet is it not enough for these men to allege the antient Church in any particular They must weigh by their own Weights and mete by their own Standard if they will not fall under Gods curse They that stand not to the consent of the Church in all things answer themselves when they allege it Nay they may invite us to bee Schismatickes for their sakes in that for which they truly allege the antient
never appear I grant that there were miraculous Graces under the Apostles Apostolical Graces subject to Order which St. Paul directs the use of in ministring the prayers of the Church But that all Ministers had them they who require an ordinary Gift in all Ministers to that purpose cannot prove Much less that this ordinary Gift is to succeed those miraculous graces in all Ministers For even then St. Paul saith that the Spirits of the Prophets were to bee subject to the Prephets because God is not the God of confusion but of order And therefore charges all that pretended to such graces to acknowledg the Grace of an Apostle in him and to bee subject to the Orders which there hee gives out If the immediate inspirations of Gods Spirit were so dispensed that inferiors could presume nothing to the prejudice of Order against Superiors upon that pretense Much more now that Christianity is setled and the Unity of the Church a part of it are the Gifts of inferiors to bee ruled by the gifts of Superiors that Order in which Unity consisteth may bee preserved Of the Graces of the Spirit in St. Paul and the Original of Litanies St. Paul saith that the Spirit maketh intercession for the Saints with groans unutterable And St. Chrysostome saith thereupon that they who had these Miraculous Graces being imployed to minister the prayers of the Church did offer them to God with those deep sighs and groans which could hardly express what the Spirit suggested But addeth that the Deacon did the same in his time And this is visibly true by all that remains of the Liturgy in the Records of the Church It is evident that though the Bishop or Priest celebrating the Eucharist did offer the Common Prayers which I have described yet the Deacon also indited the same to the people from point to point as you have it to this day in our English Litanies the people answering from point to point Lord have mercy or some such acclamation as our Litanies do direct So far is the Catholique Church from the Maxime now pretended that the Priest alone is the mouth of the people in their prayers And the sighs and groans of that deep devotion which St. Paul saith the Spirit then moved and St. Chrysostome that the people answering the Deacon then expressed the form of our Litanies now containeth and expresseth And indeed those prayers which the Deacon indited are called Litanies in divers of the antient Liturgies Shewing that our Litanies are but a Transcript of them for the use of other occasions besides the Celebration of the Eucharist And Smectymnuus may remember how much they mistook Justine Martyr thinking hee had said that the Minister prayed thus according to his Gift Who saith indeed that hee prayed with all his might to wit with all the Devotion he could use Which devotion as it is not to bee found in their Pulpit Prayers pretending to apply the Gift to the present occasion so it visibly breathes in the Litanies through all occasions of Gods Church When miraculous Graces failed the prayers of the Church The Prayers of the Eucharist how prescribed by the Apostles were not to fail And the Apostles having delivered that which I have said to the Church whosoever was authorized to celebrate the Eucharist both must bee and easily might bee instructed how hee should discharge that Office There is so much agreement both for mater and manner in that which remains of it in the Records of the Church as to justifie those that affirm it to bee received by Tradition from the Apopostles Thus was the Forme prescribed from the beginning In time abuses might come For what Rule can there bee in humane business that shall not bee subject to abuse Therefore the African Canon which I spake of Orders that Bishops should confer the Forms which they used to wit through their Dioceses with their fellow Bishops Other Canons succeeding that the same Form should bee used throughout every Province In time the Church of Rome obtained that the Form thereof should bee received all over the West Wee see in the mean time what this pretense of Gifts tends Prayers of the Reformed Churches in the Pulpit but by a form to Even to shut the Eucharist out of doors or to confine it to thrice a year in case there bee company which case may bee so managed that a man need not bee tied to celebrate the Eucharist all his life time This is the satisfaction the Church hath for their withholding the Eucharist so many years from those that could not indure the ignorance malice and insolence of their Buckram Triers I grant that Calvins Reformation brings the Common Prayers from the Altar into the Pulpit And by that means confines the Communion to four times a year But are wee to follow Calvin in that wherein the whole Church of God is against Calvin Wherein the Rule of this Church and the Law of the Kingdom agrees with the whole Church against Calvin Was it the way to reform the abuse of private Masses to shut out the Communion excepting four times a year It must bee said that it was not the Reforming but the Deforming of the Church And the reforming thereof consists in restoring the Eucharist into the place that it ought to hold among the Offices of the Church So that the Communion thereof may bee most generally and continually frequented by Christians most prepared But Calvin dreamed of no Gifts all the while The Form of Common Prayer is as much prescribed according to Calvin as according to the Church of England though it bee read in the Pulpit It is the new Gospel of the Long Parliament that setup the The effect of the Long Parliament Prayers by the Spirit pretense of praying by the Spirit the Gift whereof is now claimed for every Ministers privilege in bar to Gods Church Though it bee manifest that the greatest part have no such gift so to minister the Offices of the Church as may bee to the discharge of the people the honour of God and of Christianity yet the Law of the Land must bee changed as supposing that which wee see is not The weaknesses and Imperfections the Falshoods the Blasphemies the Slanders the Sedition the Schisme that wee have known vented in such prayers oblige us to conclude that there is no such Gift in all Ministers At least not of Gods Spirit And therefore that wee must not forsake Gods Church changing the Form that is ruled by the Patern thereof and the Eucharist to boot for the Arbitrary prayers that every Ministers Gift shall vent in the Pulpit CHAP. XVII The Lords Day observed by the Authority of the Church Therefore other Festivals and times of Fasting are to bee observed How places and persons become qualified for Gods Service Preaching not convertible with Ministring the Sacraments Times places persons and things consecrated to Gods Service under the Gospel Ceremonies signifying by institution
with judgement as well as with truth and righteousness Wee have this evidence for that which I say that the authorities of those Divines of this Church that have declared the sense of the Oath of Supremacy with publick allowance are now alleged by the Papists themselves to infer that the mater of it is lawful as capable of the sense which they declare Now the bounds of Reformation being visible by the Faith The extent of Secular Power in Reforming the Church and the Laws of the Catholique Church the extent of Secular power in Ecclesiastical maters and over Ecclesiastical persons and therefore in the reforming of them preserving Ecclesiastical power in persons that have it by the founding of the Church from God cannot remain invisible For in the first place there can bee no question That the Sovereign as a Sovereign is to maintain his own Rights by such means as hee finds meet against all Usurpations under pretense of the Church and the authority of it For the common Christianity assureth him that all such Usurpations are contrary to it And besides as a Christian Sovereign it is his Inheritance to bee a Member of the Church and a Protector of all his Subjects in the same right Therefore all Christian Sovereigns are born Advocates and Patrons of the Faith and of the Rights of the Whole Church And if by lapse of time they bee gone to decay if by any express Act they have been infringed it lyes in them to restore their Subjects and themselves to those Rights being brought into evidence by the authority and crâ—dit of the whole Church But seeing the determining of the mater of Ecclesiastical Law as well as of Controversies of Faith belongs to those that have authority in the Church by the foundation of it Of necessity the fitting of the present Laws of every Church to those which the whole Church hath been ruled by from the beginning as the difference which may appear in the State of those bodies to which they were given shall require will by vertue of Gods Law belong to those that have such authority by the Foundation of the Church And upon these terms the right of Secular power in Church maters is accumulative and not destructive to the Rights of the Church And upon these terms only the Sovereign is justifiable at the great Day of Judgment in things that may bee done amiss in reforming the Church CHAP. XXI The pretense of Infallibility makes the breach unreconcileable So doth the pretense of perspicuity in the Scripture The Trial must suppose the Catholick Church The Fanatickes further from the truth of Christianity then the Church of Rome The consequence of their principle worse then that of Infallibility The point of Truth in the middle between both How salvation is concerned in the mater of Free Will and Grace Salvation concerned in the Sacraments upon the same terms The abuses of the Church of Rome in the five Sacraments The Grace of Ordination The Reformation pretended no less abuse on the other side The point of Reformation in the mean between both The Superstitions of the Church of Rome The Superstitions of the Puritans Why the Pope cannot bee Antichrist How it is just to Reform without the See of Rome ANd upon Supposition of the premises for which I conceive The pretense of Infallibility makes the breach unreconcileable I have produced competent evidence I proceed to take the Balance in hand and to put the Extreams into the Scales that I may put it to the conscience of all that are resolved to prefer truth before Faction or prejudice where the point of Reformation lyes upon terms of right And how neer the publique Powers of this Kingdom are bound to come to it in this Case when an Uniformity in Religion is to bee setled by Law for the Church of England In the first place then the Infallibility of the present Church is to bee held â—or an Errour of pernicious consequence in the Church of Rome For it submits all the parts of Christianity to the passion and interest of persons that shall bee for the present in power to sway those maters wherein the whole Church is concerned It is a thing manifest in the world that though that which concerns all in point of Religion is to bee treated by all yet that which is treated by all is concluded always by the authority of a few So things passed when Councils were frequented The Freedom of Councils being interrupted and the present Church accepted for Infallible the See of Rome will of necessity bee the present Church And the passions and interests thereof will have as much power in maters of Religion as those passions and interests can allow and stand with What the effect thereof may bee I need not argue to those that profess the Reformation upon that account Only thus far they may seem excusable that there is no Act with force of Law tying all of that profession to maintain it Infallibility may bee claimed for the whole Church And that is true And it may bee claimed for the present Church which is false They that pretend to reduce us to the Church of Rome would spoil their own market if they should distinguish thus Therefore they plead Infallibility without distinguishing On the other side there is as much difference between the So doth the pretense of perspicuity in the Scripture sufficiency of the Scripture for the salvation of all and the clear evidence of all that is necessary to bee known for the salvation of all to all in the Scriptures The one is as true and the other as false as the Infallibility of the present Church is false and the Infallibility of the whole Church is true And to appeal to the Scriptures alone when the sense of them only is questionable is to declare that wee will submit to no other trial but our own sense As they who declare the present Church infallible can never depart from any thing which once it hath declared For it is manifest that they who appeal to the Scriptures The Trial must suppose the Catholick Church alone having before this appeal declared themselves in the points of difference between the Reformation and the Church of Rome do declare themselves tyed in conscience to stand to that sense of the Scripture upon which they ground their opinion in the maters of difference What means then can remain to bring that to a Trial which causes division upon these terms but to acknowledge one Catholick Church which our Creed professeth And by consequence to submit our sense of all Scripture that remains in question all difference in Doctrine all Laws of the Church to bee determined according to the sense and practice of the whole Church that is within the bounds of it For to proceed to divide the Church still into more and more parties and Communions till wee have lost the sense of any obligation to hold communion with
it though not so like a Christian as had hee been at the celebrating of the Eucharist The Communion Service might serve as it is for the second Assembly provided that it bee for the reasons premised at the Communion Table The Homily or Sermon after the Gospel comprising that Instruction or Exhortation which is necessary for all Christians would easily come within one quarter of an hour were Curates by the wisdom and diligence of their Ordinaries restrained from impertinencies and held to their duties The Common Prayers of the Church which are perfectly summed up in the Litanies if they were used at this Assembly also they would make the Service of God as compleat as the absence of the Eucharist would allow being the principal Office of it And this is no more then is required by the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeths Injunctions For as the Litanies being used after the Consecration as that Injunction requireth would bee the compleat Prayer of Oblation according to that which hath been said So when the Eucharist is not celebrated the Common Prayers of the Church for all necessities of all estates of Christs Church would bee as compleatly offered to God by the Litanies as they ought to bee offered when the Eucharist is not celebrated And this course would take away some appearances of inconvenience arising from the change of time and the difference which it hath produced in the use of those Services of which our Office consisteth which because common reason understands not therefore the people may check at And yet Superiours may not perhaps find sufficient cause to make any change for the removing of them The extream length of the Office as now it is used is to bee counted in the number of these Besides in that case there would bee no necessity of a Prayer before the Sermon which now bringeth this visible inconvenience that the Prayer for all states of Christs Church which is to follow next after the Sermon goeth before the Sermon also For that Prayer which the LV. Canon enjoyneth is to the very same effect with that which is to follow after the Sermon for the whole state of Christs Church As for other arbitrary prayers before or after Sermons wee are all witnesses what a Trumpet they were of the late Civil War what a means to prepare the minds of people to it And therefore if after so fresh experience the State shall suffer the Church to leave any room for them in the Order of Gods Service the State as well as the Church must bee felo de se in doing it And they that shall insist upon such demands do neither more nor less then ask leave to do the same again Indeed it is easie to foresee an appearance of inconvenience that An Objection in it answered might be objected if this course should bee put in practise For when the Eucharist is not celebrated the Litanies then must follow next after the Prayer for the whole state of Christs Church The substance whereof is the same that is repeated again in the Litanies as containing more briefly the sum of that which in them is branched out into more particulars The practise of the ancient Church furnishes the answer The XIX Canon of Laodicea ancienter without doubt then any form of Liturgy extant prescribes two Prayers to bee made just before the Consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Deacon bidding the people pray for the necessities of the Church which hee did name to them from point to point That this is the meaning of the Canon wee understand by all the Eastern Liturgies For there is none of them in which the same Prayer is not repeated again and again the Deacon inditing to the people the particulars which they are to pray for sometimes more briefly sometimes more at large And in one of them namely the Latine Copy of S. Basils Liturgy they are expresly called the first the second and the third Litanees Thus ancient is the Custome of bidding Prayer in the Church For S. Austine also for the Latine Church remembers it when hee says Cum Communis Oratio vâ—ce Diaconi indicitur When Common Prayer is bidden by the Deacons voice Epist CVI. And hereby it appeareth that it was then thought no inconvenience that those Common Prayers of the Church should bee repeated more then once For being the chief act of their Assemblies and the end for which the Eucharist was celebrated To wit that by the memory of Christs Sacrifice upon the Cross all the necessities of his Church might be rendred recommendable to God It is no marvel that they insisted upon them more then once And therefore if in this decay of Christianity the continual Celebration of the Eucharist cannot bee revived in the next place it remains that these Common Prayers bee maintained and frequented with as much devotion as in so wretched times as wee see can bee obtained I have said nothing of that which is commonly called Preaching or of any provision for it Because I say nothing of the First Service and of the use of it at other times besides Sunday and Holiday Mornings But it is easie for mee to say that there will bee as much opportunity for it in the afternoons as the abilities of the generality of Preachers can bee thought competent to imploy with that which shall bee fit to entertain the people I know the general opinion inclines to imploy that time with the Exposition of the Catechisme But the Doctrine of the Catechisme is the work of that time when mens wits are at the best And if the Exposition bee not prescribed as well as the Catechisme more inconvenience may soone bee found in that course then in the Pulpit CHAP. XXIII How the Law distinguishes Moral Precepts from Positive How the spiritual sense of the Decalogue concerns Christians The meaning of the First Commandment in this sense The extent of the Second Commandment Of the Third Commandment What the sanctifying of the Sabbath signifieth The meaning of the Fifth as to Christians The meaning of the five last according to Christianity NOw since this secondary Proposition leaves the Decalogue Hâ—w the Law distinguishes Moral Precâ—pts from Positive and Prayers of it in the place which now it holds in our Service I will not leave this point without expounding the Decalogue in that sense which the Principle upon which I maintain the agreement of the Old Testament with the New requires For upon that Exposition depends the true meaning and intent of that Prayer whereby the Church enjoyns the people to ask pardon of God for their transgressing of the several Precepts the mis-understanding whereof hath occasioned the Errour of the Sabbath which only England of all â—â—ristendome is disquieted with Most Divines do so reason of the Decalogue because the most of the Precepts thereof are Moral as if the difference between Ceremonial Judicial and Moral and much more between Moral and Positive were expresly
of these Order in Reading the Lessons in singing the Psalms in attending on the person of the Bishop and the Orders of their Superiorâ— in the ministry of Ecclesiastical Offices was most commonly but an exercise for the time The exercise of their humility their meekness and patience their sobriety and content in a mean condition living upon some small pittance which the stock of the Church was able to allow without prejudice to the poor was that which made them fit to bee advanced to higher degrees The study of the Scriptures was the imployment of the time that remained to spare from their attendance upon these Ministeries For as for other studies while Idolatry continued in credit in the World it was generally suspected for scandalous to study the learning which Idolaters had brought forth True it is many of them not being book-learned or otherwise content with so Religious a poverty and living sometimes by The conversation of the Clergy and the use of Church goods their hand-work that they might charge the Church the less as well as upon their pittances looked not after higher degrees Others imbracing a Religious life and having means for their support thought it a scandal to their profession to receive any thing from the Church knowing that what they spared must come to the poor And generally innumerable of all Orders especially Bishops and Priests taking upon them their Orders gave up their estates to charitable uses For it was scandalous for those that gave them not up to live otherwise then those that had nothing to maintain them but the allowance of the Church did live But to increase their estates out of Church goods was a thing which the Canons not only prohibited but made void For all Canons from the Canon of the Apostles to those at this day in force in the Church of Rome disable the Clergy to dispose of Church goods by last Will and Testament The authorizing of the Clergy to Marry brought in upon consideration of very great necessity must needs derogate from the obligation of this Rule in point of Conscience For it must needs infer a Right to provide for Wives and Children which the Church alloweth out of Church goods But it can by no means abrogate the same without altering the State of the Clergy professing retirement from the World beyond other Christians without extinguishing the Interest of the poor in the goods of the Church both of them subsisting by Gods Law and therefore by no means to bee extinguished And therefore it is requisite that the Maried Clergy content themselves with a sober maintenance and provision for themselves and the disposing of their Children in the World without converting the goods of the Church to raise them estates For it is utterly a mistake to think that Church goods were provided to the end that the Clergy might equal the port of their parallel Rankes in the Laity in expense It is much against the intent of the Canons that the Clergy should maintain familiarity with the Laity by correspondences in entertainments or other occasions of promiscuous conversation such as their Office bringeth not forth For that Hospitality which Parsonages and other Benefices are chargeable with is not the entertainment of their equals among the Laity but the providing for the distressed wayfarers or those that are from home upon such occasions as charity requireth to support besides the casual necessities of the poor either at home that would attend upon the service of God but that their honest labour will not bear them out in it or abroad that appear to bee in present distress whatsoever the occasion may bee that puts them to try the charity of Christians In fine there is nothing more contrary to the profession of the Clergy then too great indifference in conversing with the Laity of what rank soever For the authority which ought to bee in them for the advising exhorting instructing and reproving of all sorts of People whom their ranks may call them to converse with upon occasions which their Office either breedeth or alloweth stands upon this ground that voluntary familiarity engages them not any way to approve those actions which they should rather discountenance And this was the ground for the Rule of promoting the The ground for promotions to higher degrees Clergy to higher degrees and in fine to the Bishopricks of their respective Churches For it is true by the leave of the Bishop being dismissed they might hold their degree in another Church But the expectation of being promoted lay in the trial that they gave of themselves and in their merit from their own Church No man could pretend any thing to it in any other Church Regularly How much the translating of Bishops is against the Rule of the Primitive Church appears by Constantines commending Eusâ—bius of Caesarea for refusing the See of Antiocbia by the reproaches extant of the other Eusebius the supporter of Arius for removing from Berytus to Nicomedia True it is it was dispensed in upon great occasions But every privilege is an exception to a Law Always the service which every one did his Church was that which intitled him to the nomination of the Clergy to the suffrage or approbation of the people to the consent of the Suffragant Bishops and especially of the Metropolitane This was and will bee always the Catholick form of electing Bishops The interest of the Crown is well enough consistent with it providing a Negative for it that any man may bee refused whom the Crown shall not approve The dependence of the People upon their Bishops which the interest of Christianity necessarily requires cannot bee maintained otherwise The means to bring this education of the Clergy and by consequence the discipline grounded upon it out of use is The Universities may be serviceable to some part of this Discipline said to bee the erecting of Universities in these Western parts of Christendom For this was without question a far shorter way to the knowledge of the Scriptures the Canons and the Rites and Customs of the Church But it was the way also to loose that gravity that sobriety that abstinence and meekness upon which the credit of the Clergy with the people had been raised And by that time or rather long before corruption in the chief Guides of the Church must needs have rendred inferior degrees conformable It is not my meaning to insist upon the restoring of the antient Discipline which nothing but the wisdom of Gods Spirit and Tradition from the Apostles could have furnished the simplicity of the Primitive Christians with The Discipline of the Universities may bee serviceable to the Church may it be recovered from that licentiousness and disobedience which Anarchy hath privileged in youth I insist upon that which I have proposed already though no heed is given to it The general Rule of the Church to found Bishopricks in Cities was not every where observed in England Some Dioceses are so
reduce the severity of the antient Canons which the Church of Rome it self hath abated to secret Penance And yet supposing the premises it will bee necessary to follow them in such a form as the World at present may bear Not referring the measure of trial to bee required for the verifying of a mans conversion to the discretion of a Curate or a Parish but referring it to the Bishop and to those whom hee shall discharge his burthen upon in the Cathedral Church in those Colleges which I have proposed or in the Diocese And yet it seems necessary to refer the witnessing of the effect to the Curate and to the Parish For what can bee more reasonable then to presume of a good effect when they that see a mans daily conversation attest it As for the measure it will bee a great work for the Synods of the Provinces to agree upon such a form as the Legislative Power of the Kingdom may find cause to authorize and put in force Which were it effected it would not seem unreasonable to trust particular Ministers with the cure of secret sins having a Rule before their eyes to direct their proceeding I say it would seem reasonable supposing the premises supposing the Clergy lived in that respect to their Superiors in that exercise of their Deacons degree in that sobriety furnishing discretion in valuing mens actions which their people may have ground to trust their souls with For at the present the blessed Reformation having so far perswaded the People that the Minister hath nothing to do but to preach till they bee sure of their salvation who will marvel that they regard not those who detest such impostures Nor would this bee less benefit to the publick Peace and the quiet of Superiors even the Sovereign Who must bee content to have their actions scanned in the Pulpit till there bee a course whereby their people may bee conducted in those things which the Pulpit cannot nor ought to decide The Scottish Presbyters have made us understand how well they understand the bounds of Ecclesiastical Power how much they desire to attempt upon the Secular as well in the Pulpit as in the Consistory And where this great Ordinance for the cure of sin and the salvation of souls is not duly maintained just is it with God to make the neglect of it the seed of publick troubles The maintenance whereof would contribute as much to the publick Peace as to the salvation of souls CHAP. XXV Gods mercies and judgements require the perfecting of the Reformation which wee profess The restoring of the Ecclesiastical Laws is not the restoring of the Church Yet are wee not therefore chargeable with Schisme by the Church of Rome What Schisme destroys the Salvation of what persons by instances in the most notable Schismes Difficulty of Salvation on both sides the Reformation remaining unperfect An instance hereof in the Cure of souls departing by the Order in force A Supplication for a full Debate of all maters in difference The ground of Resolution one Catholick Church the first and chief point of the Debate The consequence of it in Vniting the Reformed Churches An instance in the having of Images in Churches An Objection for the Church of Rome answered That which excuseth the Reformed Churches excuseth not our Schismaticks Gods mercies and judgments require the perfecting of the Reformation which wee profess IT will not become a good Christian to think much that these things are called upon at this time before this Church bee restored to the benefit of the Laws which the Order thereof is to bee established and inforced It will not become any such to say That the same complaint might have been made while the Church of England was the Church of England and before the late breaches in it And therefore might bee spared when all ought to thanke God that wee may bee as wee were For the incomparable mercy that God hath shewed in restoring the Laws with the Crown and the Church with both would leave a mark of ingratitude upon him whosoever having nothing to say against the truth nothing against the great weight and high consequence of the premises should not think it worth the pains for all Estates of the Church and Kingdom to endeavour the redressing of them Especially the profession of Reformation obliging all that think Christians bound to stand to that which they profess not to rest in that which our predecessors had obtained by the first attempt of it For notwithstanding the great difficulties which the extream factions of Papists and Puritans in Church and State had cast in the way of all right endeavours to perfect the Reformation begun according to the true ground and measure of it Wee see what a severe account it hath pleased God to take of all Estates in the Kingdom for laying aside the thought of perfecting that which in so high a point as that of Penance they had acknowledged to bee defective I do not intend to say that the Sacrileges committed under Henry VIII had no hand in this account For there is no such mark to glorifie Gods providence with as when it is visible that the punishment springs out of the sin Nor is there any mean more visible towards the advancing of that confusion which wee have seen then the applying of the endowment of Churches to common uses being found at the dissolution by the irregular Power of the Papacy in the hands of Monasteries But of that guilt the Crown and Kingdom seems to stand in a good measure discharged by restoring that part which the Church stood invested of by the same title as wee see they have done to the due property in such a rate as the publick peace might indure As for private persons that stand invested of the like goods by the like Title there is reason to hope that their account redoundeth not to the account of the Kingdom in the sight of God notwithstanding that the Law alloweth them to use their own conscience in owning or disowning their Title For where the Unity of the Church seemeth to bee concerned it hath been always the practice of the Church to forbear the use of the Keys and to admit those to the Communion whose actions it intendeth not to warrant leaving them to answer God for the same knowing that the Church warranteth them not The Church of Rome in Q. Maries days followed this patern reconciling this Kingdom to the Communion thereof without restitution of that wrong which it claimed to bee done under Henry VIII But if the Kingdom bee liable to an account for the sin of particular persons in detaining Church goods and by that means hindring the salvation of Christian people Shall wee not think that the neglect of perfecting the Reformation begun though obstructed by the difficulty which I have alleged is and ought to bee taken for the ground of that reckoning which God hath made with us And therefore that wee are not
to lay aside the thought of it so long as there appears any means of proceeding to it Now it seemeth manifest to common reason that there can bee no such opportunity for improving the Laws of the Kingdom by which Religion is to bee established as while the minds of men after the breaches which wee have seen remain unsetled to any Order in Church maters For before the breach there is appearance enough that all means of doing this were studiously obstructed by the Puritan party in Parliament And it will appear if it bee well considered that this is it that made it popular having always just cause of complaint which can never bee wanting in any Civil Laws And therefore not in those Civil Laws whereby Religion is setled but always pretending an unjust way of redressing the same But there is a greater reason for us to think that the Church The restoring of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Land is not the restoring of the Church of England will not bee restored by the restoring of those Civil Laws of the Land which gave force to the Order of it After those manifest and notorious breaches which wee have seen in it For it is visible that it is the Secular power only that is acknowledged by those that return from their Schisme and conform themselves to the Ecclesiastical Laws which it inforceth in consideration of the temporal reward or punishment which they are inacted with It is now found to bee the sin of Superiors when such things are imposed upon tender consciences as they are offended at Not the sin of them who conform themselves to that which is enjoyned And all that hath been pretended for a change in the Laws seems now to bee made a meer Office of Charity to the Kingdom That it might not sin in imposing upon tender consciences that which they were offended at who are safe enough from sinning all the while that they submit to it In like manner they who to bee capable of Benefices get to bee Ordained anew because the Ordination was void which they had from those who had nothing to do to give it do profess openly enough that they do it not because they thought their void Orders defective but to obtain the privileges which the Law of the Land annexeth to that Ordination which it protecteth At which rate the Oath of Canonical Obedience it self will tye them in conscience only to themselves That is to avoid those temporal penalties which the Law punisheth disobeying the Ordinary with In the mean time the Fanaticks are owned by them upon all occasions And not only the Schisme of the Congregations is passed over for a weakness of tender consciences but that damnable error of assurance of salvation without assurance of Christianity the fry that hath spawned all the Congregations of Enthusiasts and Fanaticks must go for a frailty of the Godly in professing the true consequence of common Principles And seeing all severity of Penalties which may restrain the License of such Conventicles must needs insinuate an invitation of returning to Communion with the Church for those who would avoid them It is much to bee considered that they who shall return without disowning their Schisme which is of it self always notorious Or the perverse doctrines which have been notoriously owned for the ground of it do manifestly bring with them their profession into the Church For returning only that they may avoid the temporal Penalties which it inferreth they are at liberty in point of reputation as well as of conscience to practice the Maxime which Michiavel teacheth to make themselves of that party which they intend to overthrow as not having engaged with the Church upon profession of conscience It is not for nothing that the Rules of the Church from the beginning have made them Haereticks and Schismaticks as to the Church that communicate with Haereticks and Schismaticks It is not for nothing that they admit them not to return without disowning their Schismes or their Haeresies It is not for nothing that they admit not the Clergy that have been involved in them in their own Orders But render them incapable of that trust for the future The reason for all is the same The profession of the mouth intitleth to the visible privilege of the Church in communion with it the sincerity thereof in the heart to the invisible privilege of Christianity with God And though there bee great reason to hope that communion with the Church and the daily use of it may bee a mean to restore the heart into a right relish of that which the distance that hath been causeth men to distaste beyond measure yet is there nothing but the solemnity of profession to render such a change visible And therefore it will not serve to justifie the common cause till time render the effect notorious In the mean time the reason of the distance which wee hold Yet are wee not therefore chargeable with Schism by the Church of Rome with the Church of Rome remains the same and therefore the measure of it The abuses which created the necessity for parts of the Church to Reforme themselves without the Whole remain the same Only wee are left without hope of amendment seeing the Council of Trent received without it So no terms of reconcilement but those of conquest which how should this Church and Kingdom bee obliged to accept of to the betraying of all the souls which must needs perish by those abuses And therefore allowing the due value of that sin which Schisme signifieth in the party that causeth it wee shall not need to fear the charge of it though both parties are visibly in the state of it For the Unity of the Church being next in consideration and weight to the substance of Christianity which the being of the Church presupposeth The Faith which only justifieth is seen in making good that profession which intitleth us to bee members of the Church But that Charity whereby that Faith is brought into effect is seen in the first place in maintaining the Unity thereof Which a private Christian maintaineth onely by continuing a member of it So a Christian as a Christian fails of his salvation by failing of that which a Christian professeth as a Christian But a Christian as a member of the Church fails of his salvation by failing of that which a Christian professeth as a member of the Church namely by forsaking the Unity of the Church But a man cannot seem to forsake the Unity of the Church by pursuing the integrity of that Christianity upon which it is founded If the corruption thereof bee so great as may seem to render the communion thereof ineffectual to the salvation of them that use it it will bee Charity to joyn for the restoring of it to so good an effect though a breach succeed by the misunderstanding of those who refuse to joyn for that purpose Though divers mistakes bee committed in a work of so great
have not received the Order of Priesthood shall pretend to celebrate it For the Scripture interpreted by the un-interrupted practice of the Church allows no man under the Order of a Priest to celebrate the Eucharist Not as if those who call themselves Ministers did commit this Sacrilege in consecrating the Eucharist For though the name of Ministers signifies no more then Deacons and that it is truly Sacrilege for Deacons to celebrate the Eucharist Yet they whom they call Ministers if Ordained were Ordained Priests with power to celebrate the Eucharist For they call them Ministers to impose upon the World an opinion which they cannot prove by the Scripture That they are the only Ministers of the Word and Sacraments The second because they know not nor acknowledge the Consecration that is requisite to the celebration and being of this Sacrament by the same Scriptures understood according to the un-interrupted custome and practice of the Church For the whole Church of God allowing the elements consecrated to bee the Body and Bloud of Christ mystically or in the Sacrament alloweth this change to bee made by the consecration before which they were only Bread and Wine Not as if after the Consecration they were not so but because they are then become that which they were not afore to wit the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud or the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually and mystically that is in the Sacrament This Consecration being exactly maintained by the Church of England they that presume to celebrate the Eucharist without acknowledging the same and pretending to destroy the Law by which it is exercised must bee presumed not to acknowledge the necessity thereof to the being of this Sacrament And therefore they and their complices in the Communion thereof to bee guilty of the Body and Bloud of Christ as not distinguishing a sign of mans institution from a Sacrament of Gods appointment and Ordinance As for the Office of Preaching and Praying which they pretend to in behalf of the Church I will mark you out two monstrous Impostures in all the Sects of this time The first is this ground of the now pretended Reformation of Religion in England That the Church is not to assemble for the Service of God but when there is Preaching This seems to stand upon a very gross mistake of those passages of the Apostles writings which declare the necessary means of salvation to consist in hearing the Gospel preached As if they were meant of Sermons in the Pulpit which are onely made to those that are already Christians not of publishing the Gospel to those that knew it not afore convincing them that it is true and instructing them wherein it consists Or as if those that are already Christians wanted any thing necessary to salvation supposing them to persevere in the Christianity which they have professed Not as if their Christianity did not oblige them to hear Sermons when the authority of the Church assures them to bee without offense But because the Offices of publick Prayers and the Praises of God especially in celebrating the blessed Eucharist are the end of all that instruction in Christianity which Christians receive from the Church and therefore all Preaching subordinate to the same as the means to the End And because they may bee daily so frequented without offense and to the increase of the reverence due to Christianity as the experience of our time shows that Preaching cannot bee The second is that the first day of the week called Sunday is the Sabbath by force of the fourth Commandment A mistake so gross that it may well serve for an instance what Faction can do with men that are sober otherwise That God by commanding the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week to wit that day on which hee ended the Creation of the world and for that very reason commanding it should bee thought to command Christians to keep the first day of the week on which hee began the Creation and our Lord Christ arose from the dead That is that the same words of the same Commandment in writing should oblige Jews to rest on the Saturday which oblige Christians to rest on the Sunday is a thing which when this fit of frenzie shall bee past us will scarse bee believed that ever any man would believe True it is this first day hath been observed in and ever since the Apostles time but not by virtue of that Law which their Office was to declare expired and out of date but by the Act of their own authority whereby they gave Laws to Christs Church Let us now only compare the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of Prayer and the Praises of God established by the Order of the Church of England together with the more solemn service of Lords days and Festivals with a bare Sermon upon Sundays ushered in and out with a Prayer of every mans own conceit setting aside the Haeresie and false Doctrine the Faction and Schism the Blasphemy and Slander the ridiculous Follies which this Sermon and Prayer may and which wee have known them contain I say comparing these together the Reformation pretended is and ought to bee accounted the abomination of desolation in comparison of that Order which it destroyeth And therefore upon this account alone those who not being invested with that ordinary Power by which the Church is inabled to correct abuses in the Church shall usurp the Power of the Church to introduce this disorder are thereby Schismaticks themselves and those that acknowledge them for their Pastors complices of Schismaticks It will bee said that these Laws will bee amended as it was many times said awhile since that the Parliament would settle a Ministery To this I say that those who shall bee sent you by virtue of these Laws have every way as good authority as any the Power that made these Laws joyned with a Parliament can give to them that are not otherwise qualified by the authority of the Church That is that this Power and the power of a Parliament together though advising with Divines can do no more then this Power with advise of those Divines which it useth hath done Because both are Secular and able to make men their Ministers to maintain the Interest of that Government which their Power constituteth but not Ministers of the Church to maintain the Interest of that Faith and Service of God which it is trusted with If it bee said that in most parts of the Reformation those from whom the Ministery is propagated had not received by their Ordination Power to ordain others For answer I suppose That the abuses crept into the Church were so great that particular Churches that is part of the whole might and ought to reform themselves without consent or concurrence of the whole I suppose that though there bee in the Church a succession of persons indued with authority in behalf of it as well as of Faith and of Rules or Laws Yet the
authorize them as ever they were to that which they have destroyed to introduce this shadow of a Church If it bee objected that your Estates will bee liable to penalties that may bee enacted against those that withdraw from the exercise of the Religion publickly held forth To this I have no answer but that wee are to obey God rather then man to prefer the next world before this and to bear Christs Cross if wee expect his kingdom Only thus much I must observe that these Laws proceed from a profession that it is not lawful to force mens Consciences in matter of Religion by penalties And therefore though the Praelatical party are not protected in the exercise of their Religion yet cannot they bee punished for it but by denying that which is declared upon the publick Faith Besides acknowledging the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and professing-faith in God by Jesus Christ they are as much qualified for protection as those that are protected by the Act of Establishment And not to allow the exercise of that Religion the profession whereof is not disallowed seems to bee to forbid men to bee Christians who are not forbidden to bee such Christians and to expose them to popular tumult contrary to the publick peace whom no Law punishes If the Papists continue nevertheless liable to former penalties perhaps it is because they are reputed Idolaters But because these laws and the profession from whenâ— they proceed may change I must confess you cannot follow my advise but that your estate may become questionable Neither would I give it could I assure you of the kingdom of heaven otherwise If you demand what means I can shew you to exercise your Religion withdrawing from the means which these Acts provide I answer that there are hitherto every where of the Clergie that adhere to the Church who will find it their duty to see your infants Christned your children Catechised the Eucharist communicated to all that shall withdraw from Churches forcibly possessed by them whom you own not for Pastors And if they cannot continually minister to you so dispersed the ordinary Offices of Gods Service you have the Service of God according to the Order of the Church you have the Scriptures to read for part of it you have store of Sermons manifestly allowed by the Church to read you have Prayers prescribed for all your own necessities and the necessities of the Church To serve God with these in private with such as depend upon you and are of the same judgement with you leaving out what belongs to the Priests Office to say I do to the best of my judgement believe an acceptable sacrifice to God which you cannot offer at the Church in such case And though I censure not my brethren of the Clergie that think fit to complie with the power which wee are under in holding or coming by their Benefices I suppose in respect to their flocks rather then to their fruits yet if they believe themselves and their flocks to bee members of the Church of England they must needs believe those flocks that acknowledge such Pastors to bee members of no Church and therefore acknowledge you and own your departure and declare themselves to their own flocks and instruct them to do the like when the like case falls out And so the refusing to hear the voice of strangers will unite us to make a flock under those whom wee acknowledge our lawful Pastors I have found my self pressed to Print Copies hereof for mine own use thereby to declare thus much of my judgement to you and to the rest of my friends because the consequence of owning such men for your Pastors will bee to make us members of several Churches Which must disable me to do any office of a Clergie man towards you unless it bee the prosecuting of this by shewing you further reasons to justifie what I say here and to reduce you to it Though it shall alwaies bee my studie faithfully to serve my friends in all Offices of civility And I hope they will consider what appearance there is that any thing should move me to make my self liable to so much harm as the publick declaring of this opinion will make me liable to but the discharge of my conscience to God and them as the case shall require me to discharge it The due Way of composing the differences on Foot preserving the Church According to the Opinion of HERBERT THORNDIKE I Have found my self obliged by that horrible confusion in Religion which the late War had introduced to declare the utmost of mine opinion concerning the whole point of Religion upon which the Western Church stands divided into so many parties And now finding no cause to repent me of doing it can find no cause why I should not declare the consequence of it in setling of that which remains of our differences For middle waies to so good an end are now acceptable meerly as middle waies and tending to drive a bargain without pretending that they ought to bee admitted How much more an expedient pretending necessity from reasons extant in publick and not contradicted The chief ground that I suppose here because I have proved it at large is the meaning of that Article of our Creed which professeth one Catholick Church For either it signifies nothing or it signifies that God hath founded one Visible Church that is that he hath obliged all Churches and all Christians of whom all Churches consist to hold visible communion with the Whole Church in the visible offices of Gods publick service And therefore I am satisfied that the differences upon which wee are divided cannot bee justly setled upon any terms which any part of the Whole Church shall have just cause to refuse as inconsistent with the unity of the Whole Church For in that case wee must needs become Schismaticks by setling our selves upon such Laws under which any Church may refuse to communicate with us because it is bound to communicate with the Whole Church True it is that the foundation of the Church upon these terms will presuppose the intire profession of Christianity whether concerning Faith or Manners For otherwise how should those Offices in which all the Church is to communicate bee counted the service of God according to Christianity And this profession is the condition upon the undergoing whereof all men by being baptized and made Christians are also admitted to communion with the Church as members of it But nothing can make it visible to the common reason of all men what communion they are to resort unto for their Salvation but the visible Communion of all parts of the Church which having been maintained for divers ages of the Church is now visibly interrupted by the Reformation and before by the breach between the Greek and Latin Church And therefore though it bee visible to reason rightly informed what communion a man is to imbrace for his Salvation yet it is not now
visible to the common reason of all men that seek it If this bee true then no power of the Church can extend so far as to make any thing a part of the common Christianity which was not so from the beginning but it must needs extend so far as to limit and determine all maters in difference so as the preservation of Unity may require And therefore the Unity of all parts supposing the profession of Christianity whole and intire we shall justly bee chargeable with the crime of Haeresie if wee admit them to our communion who openly disclaim the Faith of the whole Church or any part of it For those are justly counted Haereticks as to the Church by the Canons of the Church that communicate with those who profess Haeresie though no Haereticks as to God not believing it themselves But the Unity of all parts being subordinate and of inferiour consideration to the Unity of the Whole wee shall justly bee chargeable with the crime of Schisme if wee seek Unity within our selves by abrogating the Laws of the Whole as not obliged to hold communion with it I confess I am convicted that as things stand wee are not to expect any reason from the Church of Rome and those who hold communion with it in restoring the unity of the Church upon such Laws as shall render the means of Salvation visible to all that use them as they ought And this and only this I hold to bee the due ground upon which wee are inabled to provide an establishment of Unity in Religion among our selves as heretofore a Reformation in Religion for our selves without concurrence of the Whole But if wee should think our selves at large to conclude our selves without respect to the Faith and Laws of the whole Church wee may easily bring upon our selves a just imputation of Haereticks for communicating with Haereticks but a juster of Schismaticks if wee abrogate the Laws of the whole Church to obtain Unity among our selves as declaring thereby that we are not content to hold Unity with the Whole unless a part may give Law to the Whole So far am I from that madness which hath had a hand in all our miseries of thinking the right measure of Reformation to stand in going as far as it is possible from the Church of Rome For were it evidenced as it neither is nor ever will bee evidenced that the Pope is Antichrist and all Papists by their profession Idolaters yet must wee either rase the Article of one Catholick Church out of our Creed or confess that the Pope can neither bee Antichrist nor the Papists Idolaters for or by any thing which is common to them with the Whole Church I know some will think it strange that the Pope should excommunicate us on Maundy-Thursdays that wee should swear in the Oath of Supremacy that no forreign Prelate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority Ecclesiastical in this Kingdom and yet wee bee subject to do such Acts for which the Church of Rome may justly renounce communion with us But the word ought in that Oath is Indicative and not Potential not deberet but debet For it were a contradiction for the Church of England to pray for the Catholick Church and the unity thereof and yet renounce the Jurisdiction of the whole Church and the General Council thereof over it self King James of excellent memory acknowledgeth the Pope to bee Patriarch of the West that is Head of the general Council of the Western Churches And the right R. Father in God Thomas L. B. of Winchester under Q. Elizabeth in his answer to the Seminaries Apology being demanded why wee own him not so in effect answereth bluntly but truly because hee is not content with the right of a Patriarch For should hee disclaim the pretense of dissolving the bond of Allegiance should hee retire to the privilege of a Patriarch in seeing the Canons executed the Schisme would lie at our door if wee should refuse it Now if they curse us while wee pray for the Unity of the whole Church is it not the case of the Catholicks with the Donatists For these rebaptized them whom those had baptized whited over the inside of their Churches when they became possessed of them scraped over their Altars being Tables of wood in detestation of them as Apostates and persecutors while the Catholicks called them brethren and acknowledged them rightly baptized and received them that were converted from that Schism in their respective Orders The Unity of the Church is of such consequence to the salvation of all Christians that no excess on one side can cause the other to increase the distance but they shall bee answerable for the souls that perish by the means of it And therefore not departing from the opinion which I have declared concerning the terms upon which all parties ought to reconcile themselves until I shall have reason showed me why I should do it I shall now go no further then the maters that are actually questioned among us not extending my discourse to points that may perhaps more justly become questionable then some of those which have come into dispute Professing in the beginning that I believe they may and ought to bee setled by a Law of the Kingdom obliging all parties beside Recusant But that the mater of that Law ought to bee limited by the consent and Authority of the Church respective to this Kingdom And withall that I think it ought to be held and shall for mine own part hold it an act meerly ambulatery and provisional for the time For though there is no hope of reconcilement with the Church of Rome as things are yet is there infinite reason for all sides to abate of their particular pretensions for the recovering of so incomparable a benefit as the Unity of the Whole If ever it shall please God to make the parties appear disposed to it Now the errors which wee are to shut out if wee will recover the Unity of a Visible Church that is of Gods Whole Church are two in my judgement First though some things have been disputed in other parts from whence the same consequence may bee inferred yet England is the place and ours the times which first openly and downright have maintained that there is no such thing as a Church in the nature of one visible Communion founded by God But it is maintained by several parties among us upon several grounds For some do not or will not understand that there can bee any Ecclesiastical power founded by that act of God which foundeth Christianity where there is Secular Power founded also by those acts of God whereby hee authorizeth and inforceth all just Sovereignties Though all times all parts all Nations of Christendom since Constantine profess to maintain the Church in that power in which they found it acknowledged by Christians when hee first undertook to maintain that Christianity which hee professed all this must bee taken either for meer
they bee members of Gods Church That is setting aside their Baptism and the Covenant which is solemnly inacted by it between God and each soul And though I do refer my self to the wisdom of Superiors in what form this reconciliation bee solemnized yet I must express my opinion thus far that there can bee none so fit as that which the wisdom of the Catholick Church from the beginning hath alwaies frequented By granting them the blessing of the Church with Imposition of hands renouncing for their part their several Sects and Errors That is by the praiers of the Church for the Spirit of God to rest upon them who have barred their baptism from giving it by opposing the peace of the Church which now they retire unto For how shall the Unity of the Church bee secured but by declaring them who violate the same accursed of God Nor let it bee thought that our Sectaries of their own accord retiring themselves unto the Communion of this Church it will bee requisite for the Church to admit them without taking notice of any thing that hath passed For neither is it to bee presumed that they who have made their own wills their Law for so many years will so much as profess conformitie to the Rule of the Church And if they did profess it there is no reason to think that they should stand to it having a dispensation dormant of the Spirit to stand to their profession as the interest of their faction shall require So their coming to Church would bee only an advantage for them to infect others And how should that Communion bee counted a Church which intertains Haereticks as Haereticks and Schismaticks as Schismaticks that is without renouncing positions destructive to the Faith without obliging themselves for the future to hold Unity with the Church Certainly there is no just answer for this if the Church of Rome should object it for the reason why they refuse to hold communion with us Certainly St. Augustine when hee was charged by the Donatists that the Church received their Apostates without rebaptizing them and in their respective Orders could have had no answer if he had not had this That the Church received them not as Donatists but as converted from being Donatists they not refusing to profess so much Certainly it may bee and perhaps is justifiable for the Secular Power to grant them the exercise of their Religion in private places of their own providing under such moderate penalties as the disobeying of the Laws of a mans Country might require For persecution to death for that cause the whole Reformation condemneth in the Church of Rome And I conceive there is no reason for that which will not condemn persecution to banishment But this would require the like moderation to bee extended to Recusants of the Church of Rome True it is in mine opinion those Papists that think themselves tied by the Bull of Pius V. against Queen Elizabeth or that they may bee tied by the like Acts of his Successors against hers are justly liable to the utmost of penalties as professed enemies to their Country But besides that it is manifest that all Papists are not of that opinion which the said Bull presupposeth The State may easier be secured of Papists against all such power in the Pope then of our Sectaries against that dispensation to their Allegiance which the pretense of Gods Spirit may import when they please And whereas it is manifest that many Papists hold against those equivocations and reservations which destroy all confidence of the Sovereign in his Subjects allegiance How shall a State bee secured against that infamous falsehood of the late Usurper in any man that pretends Gods Spirit upon his terms which I mentioned afore Besides the Recusants being for the most part of the good Families of the Nation will take it for a part of their Nobility freely to profess themselves in their Religion if they understand themselves whereas the Sectaries being people of mean qualitie for the most part cannot bee presumed to stand upon their reputation so much So if they cannot bee tolerated in the exercise of their Religion it must bee provided upon what terms they may bee received by the Church And by that which hath been said it may appear what my opinion will require of the Presbyterians for the condition of reconciling our selves into one Church again Namely in the first place their submission to the Act or Decree or Order according to which the Sectaries ought to bee tied to renounce the damnable positions which they have notoriously set on foot For if they should refuse this what reason could bee alleged why they should bee counted Strangers to that infection which they will not exclude As for the other Article of the Creed concerning one Visible Church it is evident that they cannot belong to that Church supposing the Premises For it is evident that there was a time when the whole Church was governed by Bishops and that not against Gods Law for then there had remained no Church And therefore for them to break the Unity of the Church upon pretense of governing this Church by Presbyters is to break Unity unless a part may give Law to the whole which who so do are for so doing Schismaticks And the Church of Rome would have due cause to cast us off for Schismaticks if wee should admit this pretense But this is a point the knowledg whereof cannot belong to the substance of Christianity for the reason alleged before And therefore I do not think the Church tied to exact the express profession of it or the disclaiming of the error that is opposite to it On the other side the Church maintaining the Ordinations of Presbyters alone to bee meer nullities in themselves can never own their Ordinations without renouncing the Catholick Church yet may it consent in the persons upon their consent to the order which shall bee established for the future And indeed what can they challenge by the meer consent of certain Presbyters which the Ministers of Congregations may not pretend to by the consent of their respective Congregations And yet I suppose both parties are agreed not to own them in that Power which the celebration of the Eucharist importeth Let any man that is capable to judge of such maters think upon the madness of the Lancashire Presbyterians without prejudice Of whom I am duly informed that they caused those who were ordained only Deacons in the Church of England to do the office of Presbyters which they had no title to in celebrating the Eucharist And tell me what reason there can bee excluding the Ordinations of the Congregations to admit the usurpations of the Presbyterians As for the form and solemnity in which the consent of the Church to their Ordinations shall bee celebrateed therein I refer my self to the wisdom of Superiors Thinking it would bee a great impertinence in the Presbyterians if finding a necessity of submitting
profess to leave the world to follow Christ must needs bee meer mater of Counsel because no man is commanded to undertake that estate but invited to it for the securing of his Salvation who knows hee may be saved without it Whereby it appears that this estate imports a profession of abstinence from the pride the revenge the lusts and pleasures of the world as well as from the riches of it as well of the humility the patience the continence the meekness and obedience of our Lord as of the mean estate in which hee lived But that for the means to compass this end it imports first a profession of renouncing the rank estate which every man holds in the world and of dedicating himself to the service of the Church and that imployment which tends to the common good of Christians If it should bee inferred from hence that the state of the Clergy importing the forsaking of the World at this extraornary Rate must therefore import the profession of single life as some of the Church of Rome would have it The answer is that it will not follow And the instance is peremptory That the Apostles themselves who thus left the world did not profess it And if by undertaking the Clergy a man was not obliged to renounce his goods As appears by those Canons which inable the Clergy to dispose of them at death much less doth that estate import a profession of single life being more difficult to perform then to live as a Clergy man upon the Church goods For it is possible for them who have wives to live as if they had them not according to S. Paul No otherwise then it is possible for them who have the dispensing of Church goods to use them as if they used them not The reason of single life for the Clergy is firmly grounded by the Fathers and Canons of the Church upon the precept of S. Paul forbidding man and wife to part unless for a time to attend upon Prayer For Priests and Deacons being continually to attend upon occasions of celebrating the Eucharist which ought continually to be frequented if others bee to abstain from the use of Marriage for a time for that purpose then they always And this is the reason that prevailed so far even in the primitive times that the instances which are produced to the contrary during those times seem to argue no more then dispensation in a Rule which had the force of a Law when an exception took not place That is when those that were thought necessary for the service of the Church thought not fit to tye themselves to live single But this profession was evidently the ground for that discipline which was used all over the Church in breeding youth from tender years to such a strict course of life as only use and custom is able to render agreeable to mans nature And to this education and discipline all the authority and credit of the Clergy over the people is to bee imputed the dissolution whereof is the true occasion of the miseries which wee have seen For did the people think themselves tyed to depend upon the Clergy for their instructions to admit their admonitions and reproofs in mater of Religion that is did the discipline and education of the Clergy maintain them in that authority with the people it is not possible that the pride which hath been seen in setting up new Religions and giving new Laws to the Church should take place But this authority is not to bee preserved without retirement from the world that is from conversation with the People of what ranke or degree soever whether upon pretense of profit or pleasure And therefore being once lost by the debauches of the Clergy before the Reformation it is not to be restored without restoring the ground of it the said education and discipline nor by consequence the Reformation to bee counted compleat otherwise Supposing always the Reformation to bee the restoring of that Church which hath bee not the building of that which hath not been The same education and discipline is by the express Canons of the Church the ground of that title upon which promotion is due to the Clergy in their respective Churches For what is more against the Rules of the Church then to take such men for Priests and Bishops of such Churches as men know not how they behaved themselves in lower degrees Those that talk of the Interest of the People in Ecclesiastical promotions without supposing this ground do allege nothing but their own dreams to bring their own dreams to pass Having this premised I must needs say I see no manner of inconvenience in that which the Presbyterians pretend for the cheif cause of their distance that is the concurrence of Presbyters with their Bishops in Ordinations and the Jurisdiction of the Church provided it bee setled in that form which being grounded upon the Rule of the Catholick Church may tend to restore and advance the common Christianity Now I take the Rule of the Church to bee as evidently this as the common Christianity is evident that every City with the Territory thereof bee the feat and content of a Church For though it hath been used with so much difference in several parts and times of the Church that those Countries which some whiles and some where might have been cast into fourscore Churches have other whiles and elsewhere been cast into four yet these are but exceptions to a Rule which the Law saith do not destroy but confirm it For in maters concerning the Whole the Unity of the Whole may as well bee preserved by the concurrence of four as of fourscore The Churches that is according to this Rule the Dioceses of England have been constituted and distinguished upon occasion of the Sovereignties in which and by consent whereof the Christianity of the Nation was first planted Hee that considers with half an eye shall easily see how the conversion of Kent of the East and South and West Saxons of the East Angles and Mercians and lastly of Northumberland produced the foundation of English Churches For of the British foundations in the West parts of the Island from the two Forths to the Lands end the same account is to bee kept the Dominion of the Britains being for some time divided into several Sovereignties Hee that is convicted of this truth which no man can bee convicted of but hee that considereth the case But who so considereth the case must needs stand convict of it will easily grant me that when the Monarchy prevailed and England came to bee divided into Counties the General Rule of the Church would have required another course to have been observed For had the Head Town of every County been made the Seat of a Church containing that County no man that surveys the division of the Roman Empire into Churches made without the secular Power as before Constantine will deny That the division so made would have been more
alas should men confine themselves to that which the generality of their audience might edifie by in their Christianity the Trade would bee obstructed For let mee freely say the undoubted truth of the common Christianity which no Sermons ought to exceed because they pretend the edification of the generality of Christians is contained in so narrow a compass that no eloquence much less the eloquence of all that must come into the Pulpit can change the seasoning and serving of it so as to make it agreeable to mens palats without fetching in mater impertinent if not destructive to the common Christianity And the same is for more peremptory reason to bee said of arbitrary Prayers For the very posture of him that pretendeth to prefer the devotions of Gods people to the Altar which is above strongly impresseth upon the hearts of simple Christians an opinion that thereby they discharge to God the duty which hee requires at their hands Which if the mater of those Prayers be such as the common Christianity requires they may do indeed But if it be possible that Rebellion Slander Nonsense and Blasphemy may bee the mater of them as well as Christianity then is it not Religion but Superstition which such devotions exercise Nor can that Kingdom stand excused to God which shall gratifie that licentiousness whereof they see the effect before their eyes All reason of Christianity concurres with the practise of the whole Church to witness that the interest of Christianity requires the service of God to bee maintained and exercised daily yea hourly were it possible not only by particular Christians but by Assemblies of Christians so far as the business of the World will give leave and as there is means to maintain mens attendance upon it There may come abuse in the order the form the mater of that which is tendred to God for his Service But in stead of reforming those abuses to take away the means the Rule the obligation of such meetings is meer Sacrilege in destroying under pretense of Reforming Gods Church And though I charge no such design upon those who maintain the obligation of the Sabbath to consist in two Sermons yet I do maintain it is manifest to common reason that the form which that opinion introduceth necessarily tends to that effect Strange it is that a Nation capable of sense in an age improved by learning should bee intangled with the superstition of so vain an imagination that God by the same fourth Commandment should oblige both Jews to keep the Saturday and Christians the Sunday Especially no man daring to maintain that both were or are tyed to the same measure of resting And therefore though rather then cross the stream of such a superstition For let no man think that all superstition can bee shut out of Gods Church there may bee reason to live conformable to the Rules which such superstition produceth Yet provided that the Ecclesiastical Laws of England agreeing with the Laws of the Whole Church bee not abated so as to stick an evident mark of Schisme upon the Church of England For the Law that is recommending the celebration of the Eucharist upon all Sundays and Festivals but commanding the Service to bee used as well on Festivals and Fasting days as upon Sundays besides the week days at the publick Assemblies of respective Congregations To change this Order for two Sermons on the Sunday alone what is it but to renounce the whole Church for the love of those that have divided from the Church of England upon causes common to it with the whole Church They that would have the Reformation of the Church to bee indeed that which the Law of the Land calleth it should first provide a course to bee established for Law by which all Christian souls who have equal interest in the commonsalvation might serve God in publick all Sundays and Festivals For seeing there was a course in Law before the Reformation for all servants as well as others to bee at Mass all Sundays and Festivals And the Church was inabled to require account of it at their hands It will not bee Reformation to abrogate the abuses of the Mass till a course bee taken that all Christians may frequent that which shall appear to bee indeed the service of God instead of the Mass Let no Preachers flatter themselves with an opinion that they shall ever make Christians so perfectly Jews as to perswade them to dress no meat on the Sundays If Servants must stay at home to dress meat on Sundays and for other occasions they must stay at home besides that will not the way to repair that breach bee to injoyn several Assemblies in all Parish Churches upon all Sunday mornings that several Persons of several Estates and qualities may have opportunity to attend the publick service of God at several hours of the same Sundays and Holy-days For though I understand very well that this would impose upon the Church that is upon my brethren of the Clergy a greater burthen than an afternoons meal of a Sermon which all men know is furnished of the cold meat of the forenoon yet it is necessary that the World should bee cleared of this imposture that reigneth that two Sermons every Sunday is the due way of keeping the Sabbath among Christians or of advancing Gods publick service I will not here dispute that the Lent-Fast was instituted by the Apostles But this I maintain to bee evident that the Fast afore the Resurrection of Christ is and was as antient as the Feast of his Resurrection and that more antient then the keeping of all Lords days in the year being meerly the reflection of that one all the weeks of the year Nor will any man that knows what hee says ever question that the inlarging of it to forty days is a just Law voluntarily undertaken by the Whole Church not to bee condemned without the like mark of Schisme For since the World is come into the Church is there not manifest reason that more time should bee taken for the expiating of more sins which are the sins of more people to prepare as well the Elder to renew their Christianity by communicating at Easter as the younger to bee confirmed and come first to the Communion at Easter now they are baptized Infants Which in former ages was the time of their first coming to Baptism As for the Wednesdays and Fridays if wee shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless our Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees And if it bee evident as evident it is that the Scribes and Pharisees prescribed Mundays and Thursdays for days of less solemn Assemblies then the Sabbath How shall wee enter into the Kingdom of Heaven if in despite of the whole Church which hath hitherto used Wednesdays and Fridays in lieu of Mundays and Thursdays used by the Synagogues wee void the Law of England by which they are in force Of the Ceremonies the same
Keyes viz. that of loosing but bind not as pronouncing absolution without injoyning of Penance The discipline of Geneva they magnifie indeed as they find it described by Bodine in his method of Histories But they distinguish not whether they mean the civil discipline which the Laws of that State inforce or that which the Power of the Keys exercised there according to Calvine doth constitute For the Civil Law of a Christian State especially no bigger then that of Geneva may settle such a discipline over the outward man as may restrain from the outward act of sin without mortifying the inward man to the inward love of God The late Usurpers Army wee have seen well disciplined against the ordinary vices of the Camp Who appearing now to have been then enemies to their Country are thereby discovered not to have followed the reward of Christiens but of Souldiers And the Laws of Christian States by the means of Christianity which they maintain may reach to the mortifying of sin and the quickning of righteousness at the heart But of themselves being Civil Laws and proposing no further reward or punishment then that good which a mans Country signifies they reach no further then the outward man for the better or for the worse Nor is it of any greater consequence to Christianity that the outward act of sin or virtue is repressed or incouraged by the rewards and penalties of Civil Laws But when the discipline of the Church takes place hee who forfeiteth his Christianity by gross sin that is notorious forfeiteth also Communion with the Church and recovereth it not till the presumption bee no less notorious that hee hath recovered his Christianity Now Communion with the Church is the consequence of our Baptisme which intitleth us to life everlasting Therefore it is not duly forfeited without forfeiting the effect of Baptisme our right to life everlasting So our right to heaven depending upon the Communion of the Church the discipline of the Church must needs reach the inward man as effectually as any outward application can reach the heart which is invisible For the presumption is grounded upon visible works of Penance the effects of that invisible disposition without which they could not bee constantly brought forth Whether or no this discipline bee visible at Geneva I will not pronounce This I undertake that comparing the Doctrine of Calvine with their Orders they need not set a value upon the Power of the Keys exercised according to his Doctrine in comparison of the same exercised according to their own Orders So that supposing not granting that the Laws of the Church of England being the Laws of the primitive Catholick Church are to bee changed for conformity with the Reformed Churches it followeth not therefore that they are to bee changed for those of the Churches reformed according to Calvine Certainly the receiving of the Communion kneeling having been one of the Orders of their Reformation from the beginning and so stifly insisted upon by them in Poland they that pretend to change the Law of England in that point for conformity with the Reformation think they have not men but beasts to deal with The Church of England in the Commination against sinners hath declared a great zeal for the renewing of that antient discipline of Penance which was in force in the primitive Church And certainly the Church of England is not the Church of England but in Name till the power of Excommunication bee restored unto it which there was not nor ever can bee sufficient cause to take from any Church But the discipline of Penance though depending upon the Power of Excommunication is as much to bee preferred bâ—â—ore it as it is more desirable to bring men to the Church then to shut them out of it If prejudice and faction have not more to do in the pretenses of this time then the truth of Christianity and zeal to advance it it is a point that cannot bee neglected in any deliberation of Reforming the Church I cannot render a more visible reason why so godly a zeal in those that first prescribed our Reformation to the restoring of Penance hath not been improved by their successors then the partialities which sprung up in it like tares in the wheat and have now prevailed to choke even the power of Excommunication wherein the being of a Church consisteth And though many sinnes of this Nation may bee alleged for the cause why God hath taken this sharp revenge upon us yet can no reason bee so proper why hee should permit the hedge of the Church to bee cast down for all Sects to devour and tread his Vinâ—yard under foot by suffering the power of Excommunication to bee taken from it as the neglect of improving it in and to the discipline of Penance True it is not only all capital but all infamous crimes whereof men are convicted by Law are thereby notorious and require this discipline no less then those which the Law of this Land punisheth not otherwise then by Penance And if the Church did make a difference among those that dye by publick Justice owning only those who approve their desire to undergo regular Penance in case they might survive then were this discipline visible no visible crime escaping it For all capitall and infamous crimes that are not actually punished with death must by that reason remain unreconciled to the Church though free of the Law till Penance bee done And seeing crimes that are not known cannot bee cured upon easier terms then those that are would not the judgement of the Law authorizing the Church in the cure of known sins move even them that believe their Christianity no further then it is authorized by Law to submit invisible sinnes to the same cure For what is it but the slighting of this cure that makes mens sinnes fester and rankle inwardly and break out into greater and greater excesses And therefore to debate of Ceremonies and words in the service and May-poles and Sabbath days journeyes not considering the Power of the Keyes upon which the Church is founded and the restoring of the same is to neglect a consumption at the heart pretending only to cure the hair or the nails Now if any of our Sects insist upon a pretense that deserves to bee insisted upon far bee it from us to cast off the consideration of it because they have unduely separated from the Church for it Our Anabaptists it is known infist upon two points The baptizing of Infants and that by sprinkling not by dipping In both they have neglected St. Peters Doctrine That Baptisme saveth us not the laying aside of the filth of our flesh but the answer of a good conscience to God For were the profession of Christianity celebrated by the Sacrâ—â—â—nt of Baptisme believed to bee that which saveth us men would not go to baptize them as not baptized who by their profession which they acknowledge by seeking the Communion of the Church are under that bond which intitleth them to the Salvation of Christians Nor can there bee any greater presumption then the voiding of Baptisme so celebrated that they expect Salvation upon other terms But in making void Baptisme ministred by sprinkling alone without dipping they neglect St. Peter again when hee maketh the Baptisme that saveth not to consist in cleansing the flesh but in a due profession of Christianity signifying this to bee the principal that onely the accessory Ceremony which it is solemnized with And therefore they are to acknowledge this difference by acknowledging Baptisme so ministred to bee good and valid not void But this being acknowledged well may they insist that it is unduely ministred For it is evident that neitheâ— the Scripture nor the practise of the whole Church can by any means allow the sprinkling of water for Baptisme though the pouring on of water in case of necessity bee allowed Nor doth the Law of the Church of England allow any more then pouring water upon a Child that is weak commanding therefore dipping otherwise And therefore this Law being much weakned by the tenderness of Mothers and Friends supposing all Infants weak which the Law supposeth not and by undue zeal for Forreign Fashions ought to bee revived and brought into use by all Ordinaries that there may remain no colour for such an offense And therefore reparation is to bee made for the sacrilege of the late Wars in destroying the Fonts of Baptisme in Churches and bringing in Christening out of Basins by force I cannot say that I have touched all that is fit to bee touched But I hope I have said nothing but that which followeth upon the ground which I have justified That which is proposed and is not so justified seems to demand the consent of those who propose it as able to hold the Church divided if they bee not contented But that calls to mind a reason on the other side that men use to get a stomack with eating in such cases The due measure is not the satisfying of mens appetites but the improvement of our common Christianity FINIS Faults Escaped thus Amended Pag. 7. line 2. mistakes Point mistakes p. 40. l. 32. none read now p. 49. l. 16. Church p. Church p. 60. l. 36. Lawes r. Land p. 79. l. 14. of the Judgement r. of Judgement p. 84. l. 34. Trihes r. Tribes p. 90. l. 10. Praedestinarians r. Praedestinatians l. 12. West p. West p. 108. l. 33. Bishop Priest and Deacon p. Bishop Priest and Deacon p. 112. l. 14. Service p. Service p. 134. l. 12. all these r. those p. 143. l. 34. he performing r. the p. p. 145. l. 15. Hierachy r. Hierarchy p. 157. l. 24. prescribled r. prescribed l. 29 30. the the Power r. the P. p. 158. l. 6. Memoral r. Memorial p. 173. l. 37. Order r. Orders p. 179. l. 29. leave r. bear p. 189. l. 31. which r. with p. 201. l. 25. Church p. Church