more unworthy a wise or humble Minister than this knowing that to be true which Seneca saith de Vita Beata Cap. 2. Vulgus veritatis pessimus Interpres The Common sort are the worst Interpreters of truth of all Men yea taking in what there presently followeth Vulgus autem tam Chlamydatum quam Coronam voco I mean saith he by the Vulgar some Robed or Gowned Persons as well as the Rabble and so we Ministers may be in danger to be of the Number and so we are indeed compared with our Governours Once more Seneca in the same Place against Courters of the Common People Argumentum Pessimi Turba est 'T is an Argument the thing is very bad which the Rout approves very much Did you never hear of the Expert Master of Musick who gave his Scholar a Box of the Ear when he took him playing to the Admiration of the Vulgar Presuming he must needs be out and play amiss or the Common Sort would never have liked him so well Which it were to be wished were not too often to be found in Popular Preachers who the worse they Preach the more they are applauded by such People whom Chaucer in his Squires Tale thus describes but too truely As People deemeth commonly Of things that been more Subtilly Then they can in their leudness Comprehend They deemen gladly to the badder end And such are the Judges we commonly choose to be directed by But I pass that and come to a worse reproach than the former by far an Argument of a very mean Understanding and low Spirit in the Accuser viz. That he was once a Papist and tho Converted still looking towards Rome an Imprudent and Unchristian Aspersion 'T is true as I am informed in his greener and younger Days he fell into the Snares of Rome And 't is no less true and more to the honour of our Religion that in his Maturer Judgment and Years returning to himself he returned to the Church of England also and preferring it above all other Faiths or Factions desires nothing more than an exact Observation of her Rules and Manner of divine Worship And this Last it seems so troubles you as it does a great many more such true Protestants which the selate times have produced or rather brought to light to the disgrace of all Reformation that you take Liberty to mock and rail him out of that Conscientious design suspecting the Invalidity of your Argumentations to that end For as we see it to be the crafty Practice of Pilferers and Thieves having stole any thing from their Neighbours the first thing they do is to pull off or deface the Mark that it may not be known to whom it belongs so Phanatically disposed Persons make it their business to tear away the Rites and Ceremonies belonging to and Characterizing the Worship of the Church of England from the Will-Worship of Sectaries that it may become their own without Controul But are such reproaches as you give to one converted to our Religion the best Entertainment and welcome you can afford out of the Penury of your Civility or true Piety Have you a mind to drive him back again and turn him out of Doors by your ill usage Or is this the Encouragement you can give to others to return to us I will here tell you a true story to this purpose which some Seamen with whom some Years since I was embarked told me upon their own knowledge which may suffice to advertize you of your absurdity in reviling Converts for having been in Errour A Moor or Turk was of the Ships Company who had renounced Mahometanisme and became a Christian An ill nurtur'd and malicious Fellow among them bearing him a spite would often be reviling him for his Religion calling him Mahometan and worse To whom the Man answered Ingenuously and Soberly What means this Man to check and reproach me so for having been a Mahometan I was so indeed but now I am as good a Christian as himself It happened about the same time that these things thus passed that there was an occasion for the English Railer to go up to the main top whence he was suddenly hurried away by a Blast of Wind as was supposed being never seen or heard of more Which they told me as an Instance of Gods Judgment upon a Reviler of a Penitent and I tell you But you say He looks towards Rome again How know you that Have you turned his Face that way in Abhorrence of your base Treatment I might so judge but that I am perswaded neither your Evil nor your good Word is of any account with him you should seem rather to be one of the Modernest true Protestants or as the late expression of a dying Man is Sincere Protestant who make all Popishly affected not approving their Prophanations of Gods Service and Seditious Zeal But I suppose you ground your Suspitions from what you here charge him with Irreverence at the Ministers Prayer and Sermon which in one of our Statutes say you whether he knows it or no is called Divine Service by Reading some Book of his own c. And I also am one of those that know not any Statute or Canon where the Sermon is called Divine Service And whatever may be said in large acceptation of Words I am sure it is not so in it's nature and proper use of Divine Worship And I am sure also the Prayer of the Minister in his Pulpit before Sermon is no part of the Service enjoyned but a Will-worship of Mens Private Invention more like to that of Nadab and Abihu than that of the established Worship which Sectaries have been wont so to traduce And if the Gentleman so carried himself at Church at such Private Exercises he offends less against the Constitutions of the Church than they who shew their Gifts rather than their Grace in using them whose Original and Design was to bring the Worship of God appointed by the Church into disgrace and contempt which accordingly Succeeded in late Years And if you plead a Custom as my self do against the Obligation of ministring constantly at the Communion-Table I may answer First this Custom hath not the like Grounds or Reason which it seemeth to me the forbearance of that hath Again Custom may make it Tolerable to do so but not Intolerable or Criminal to let it alone So that if any tender Conscience shall be offended at such strange Fire offer'd to God such a one may notwithstanding Custom modestly declare it's dislike by doing somewhat else not Scandalous in it self And therefore tho the Prayer be beholden to him that shall joyn with him in that Superstitious if as Mr. Cawdry and others of his Strain suppose Superstitio be Supra Statutum and incommanded Worship yet no man can Legally censure him that refuses to hear such Exorbitances And the same may be said of the Psalms Sung in Meeter and Tunes of Private Inventions I confess I have Read lately in the Writings of two Reverend and Learned Divines that it is a Vulgar Errour to say that those Singing Psalms want Lawful Authority But very desirous to know where and what that Authority is I found my self Frustrated and am so small an Antiquary in such abstruse things that I cannot help my self herein But have been sometimes of opinion that if any such Authority there be as those Reverend Persons intimate but instance not in that it must rather belong to another Ancienter and in my Judgment more Pious and Elaborate as to Art and Sense tho no less uncouth in Language Translation in Verse which I have by me and seems to be the Work either of one Man or divers concurring to the same thing and not Patch'd up by several Authors as the Common Singing Psalms are possibly that Ancienter I speak of may be the same which the Author of the Troubles of Eranckford Speaks of who tells us After the Death of Queen Mary the Exiled prepare themselves to depart for England from Geneva save such as stayed to finish the Translation of the Bible and Psalms both in Meeter and Prose Which yet whether they were ever allowed by Authority Istill remain Ignorant And thus I have passed some General Animadversions on the Censurers of Mr. Hart's Book Not intending to call in Question their particular Examinations from which I might have drawn somewhat pertinent to mine own Method of the same Subject But I choose rather to let it pass rudely according to the first and only Draught by me Whereby I suppose that if Mediocrity or Moderation be such a Vertue as it is cryed up for I may in this particular claim that Praise and obstain the Approbation of these Commenders of it Submitting what I say not altogether to them but most of all to such as are over me in the Lord from whose Determination I shall hardly swerve FINIS
THE CASE OF MINISTRING AT THE Communion-Table When there is no EUCHARIST STATED And Discussed upon occasion of a Treatise Entitled Parish Churches turn'd into Conventicles c. TOGETHER With some Preliminary Reflections made upon two Papers in Answer to that Treatise LONDON Printed by Ralph Holt for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St. Paul's Church-Yard 1683. THE CASE OF MINISTRING AT THE Communion-Table When there is no EUCHARIST STATED And Discussed upon occasion of a Treatise Entitled Parish Churches turn'd into Conventicles c. In a Letter to I. B. Worthy Sir TO your Second Letter received last Thursday with the inclosed Dissertation I cannot but yield the Debt of an Answer somewhat sooner because I perceive you expect it so fully tho I could scarce at any time set about such a Task as you set me more incommodiously as being wasted with such a Grievous Catarrh Hoarsness and Soreness that as I was constrained on that Thursday to break off my constant Attendance at Church this Lent and keep close within Doors so next day to confine my self to my Chamber and procure help for the following Lords day But beginning through Gods goodness to be better at ease I would not deferr to give you mine opinion of the Book And that in the first place of the sour Title which I confess offended me as I suppose it will others lying under the same Guilt with me which he makes very Notorious and of that nature whereby the nature of the Church of England is shaken and her Reputation deeply wounded not so deservedly nor justly as is insinuated or rather openly charged as I suppose will in some measure appear in the Sequel of my unpolished Discourse and very hasty as you may gather from the short time and long Letter But lest it should be imagined that I offend in the like sharpness or prejudice against the Author I do here premise this sincere profession That I do discern a great deal of Ingeniousness Acuteness Nervousness and Weight in the Discourse And that being as may be drawn from some Passages given to the Study of the Law of this Nation he should shew such an unusual Zeal for the Power and established Orders of the Church which I would to God were with no less Conscience observed by the Clergy it self this not excepted which he contends for so vigorously And that I flatter not him nor dissemble with you may be attested in part by your self who know I restored the Usance of Ministration at the Communion-Table or rather introduced it where it was not heard of in the Memory of Man and so continued it for 7 years when for causes some not touched by him and some endeavoured to be refuted by this Author I desisted I would not therefore be looked on at any hand at present as going about to confute what he delivers but upon your request deliver mine own Thoughts somewhat diverse not contrary to his and that in these in Propositions First I do fully Grant and firmly believe that it is most agreeable to the mind of the Church of England that the Office called the second Service be performed at the Communion-Table Circumstances remaining the same as when it was first so instituted For seeing Circumstances do vary the case egregiously the intention of the Author of such Orders is to be judged from the Motives and Ends inducing to such Constitutions which ceasing or changing the Intention of the Ordainers may be said to cease and change likewise and consequently the Obligation to observe the first Institutions according to the rigour of the Letter Examples or Instances whereof I shall afterwards give you In the mean time I must here note how wide the Author of that reproachful Title to his Papers is to wit Parish Churches turned into Conventicles from making the Omission of Ministration at the Lords Table Conventicling or Phanatical For what I beseech Mr. H. is Conventicling or Phanaticism which I make Synonymous however some that call themselves the Sober Dissenters would fain deny this Doth it consist in simple Omission of some part of the Service absolutely and not rather in these two things principally and in my opinion Essentially First to have a contrary judgement and affection against the Established Lyturgy and as far as safely and successfully they may strennuously to oppose the same And if a man be far from any of these Distempers of mind and actions yet neglects somewhat enjoyned for that we may suppose at present which we shall Question hereafter rather than opposes is there no favour to be shown him but he must be condemned for a Phanatick and his Ministration for Conventicling Or are the Parish Priests Phanatical who observe not Holydays and the Service of Wednesdays and Frydays Or rather are they not according to this Gentlemans Rule worse than Conventiclers as I think before God they are who come not to Church nor go to Conventicles but on Publick Days of Worship profanely stay at home Surely as perverseness and obstinacy in errour are by the Learned judged the formal part of an Heretick So likewise is it of a Schismatick or Schismatizer the Material part being the errour it self of no small importance And this is the second Reason distinguishing Omssion at most of a Circumstance in Publick Worship from Conventicling For see and judge indifferently the whole worship of Conventiclers Is it not in Matter and in Form both and also in all Circumstances as much different from the Church-worship as they well can to bear up the Name of Christian Doth it not wholly proceed from their own humane Brain An intolerable crime with them when they whom they have made their Adversaries cannot alledge direct and express Scriptures for all they say or do in Gods Worship I am of St. Hilary's mind of old That not the love of Walls sacred alters the Worship but the Doctrine and Worship rather changes and unhalloweth the Place And when the Imaginations of private men are graced with the Fabrick of a Lawful Church the Church is disgraced into a Meeting-Room or Conventicling place But where a Circumstance and that of Place is only changed I am quite of another opinion unless this be done out of Opposition For what if we should suppose a Minister should be so absurd as to change the time of the second Service and keep his due place of the Communion-Table reading it after Dinner This would be worse than the former but still it would not be Conventicling unless all Irregular Worship makes a Conventicle which if so it may make it Popery too and with better Reason such as the Phanaticks never dreamt on or dared never to utter For Papists divide not their Service into several Places but keep their Station where they began using some variety of Gesticulations But I have spoken more under this Head than I intended and therefore break from hence to The second Proposition intended and that is That it doth not appear that
the Church of England hath given any direct Precept for reading that part of the Communion Service at the Lord's Table which is to end without Actual Consecration This I am to make good by two Ways First by probable Circumstances begetting this Persuasion Secondly by Examining the Pregnancy and Validity supposed in the Reasons to the contrary mentioned and urged by Mr. H. My first Part I shall endeavour to make good by fetching somewhat farther my Conjectures For I suppose 1. that the constant profession of our Church in following the Scripture as a true Rule of Doctrine and Worship and that as interpreted by the most Ancient Sound and Holy Church of Christ met here with no Obstruction or Exception little or no cause being given her to swerve from her professed Rule of Charity and Conformity Now as I have if my memory fail me not intimated unto you in Personal Discourse I do not find that any where in Ancient Churches nor at this day out of England in Reformed or Unreformed in Eastern or Western Churches that the Office of the Church was so divided as that one part of it should be said in one Part or Quarter of the Church and another in another Part but where it began there it ended It may seem therefore a more necessary than curious Inquiry to learn whence our Church took up that Custome so strange every where else For tho after greater Concourses of Christians for their greater benefit drew down the Office of the Church from the Eastern Part and Quire into the Body of the Church for better Distribution of the Service among the Multitude yet still the Office designed for the day was entirely compleated in one Place Neither can it be said that our Desk-Service or common daily Service is a distinct Service from that of the Communion Service which some alledge others making a threefold Service by vertue of the Litany added to the rest upon Special days which I think can scarce be made good yet if all this were true which I shall rather yield than here dispute still we shall want an ancient Precedent to warrant this division of our Service into sundry Places For as for that Ancient Distinction of the Missa into that of the Fideles and the Catechumeni whereof that consisted in the Celebration of the Lords Supper and the Communicating therein This was called Sicca because there were only certain Prayers preliminary and common to all designed for Baptisme as well as Baptized without Consecration and therefore was also sometimes call'd Nautica because it might be used at Sea on Ship-board where they judged it not safe to consecrate yet as I was saying in one and the same Place when joyntly used they were performed This Distinction mentioned coming nearest to the Resembling and Justification of our stop of the Communion Service where there is no Consecration at the end of the Prayer for the Holy Catholick Church is much asserted by Bartholomaeus Nervius in his defence of Cassander page 890 891 of Cassanders works And is acknowledged by Chemnitius Exam. Trident. pag. 363. Part. And more largely by Cassander himself out of Waldensis Socrates and Durantus in the 34 Ch. of his Liturgies Which I chuse to speak of here as well to justifie the like Practice in our Church as also to shew that such Distinction in the Office can be no sufficient ground to just ifie distinct Places of Worship And therefore we are to fetch the causes from some other ground than this And I am of opinion that such search will be lost Labour out of our own Church And that in our own Church will be found a Singular Oeconomia as St. Chrysost would call it and Condescension to gain in the Spring of our Reformation by all means some For in truth I am not so well read in or so well remember the Antiquities of our Church as to be able to say when the Desk or Reading Pew in the Body of the Church came first to be appointed tho I remember some no modern Articles of Bishops Visitations enquiring after them as appointed But when ever they were first appointed I presume to say That they were intended not for Prayers at all but for Reading the Scriptures and Homilies to the people in the English Tongue which they had not the happiness a little before at all to enjoy But the whole Service of the Church was as in Ancient Churches all at the Altar as they call it the People then having not forgotten to gather together before the Priest and humble themselves as formerly in times of Popery For they had not drunk in the Popular Superstition of following Teachers scaring them as Children with Bugbears of Superstition in places And when the ordinary daily Service was brought into the Desk as most commodious at the time of celebrating the Lords Supper which was adjudged then requisite to be continued all Holydays and Sundays the Communion Service was continued as formerly at the Altars as at first or the Table in the stead and place of the Altar And I do really believe but cannot demonstrate that until the first Book of Edward 6. enjoyned all the Reformed Service was as formerly at the Altar But in that first Book I find no Rubrick directing the Service in the Body of the Church or Chancel But in the 2 Book of Edward 6. this Rubrick is premised The Morning and Evening Prayer shall be used in such places of the Church Chappel or Chancel and the Minister shall so turn him as the People may best hear c. Here is mention made of the most commodious Posture at one Place for the People to hear But no mention at all of divers places either in the first Service or in the second where is order taken more especially for proper Habits at the time of celebration of the Communion but nothing else implying but one Place as yet Now when the Places become distinct by erecting a Reading Pew I am of opinion that it was then and after permitted to Officiate then in the Second Service as we call it in the Desk till the Canon of Consecration which the Ancients would call the Canon of the Mass began For in such Junctures and Cases I believe it was the command of the Church there only to minister And from hence I gather a Solution of the Riddle and of the Objections made for the Direct Precept of our Church for Ministring the whole Office of the Communion at the Lords Table The Difficulties and Arguments for the Indispensable Obligation to it are founded upon the certain Command which I grant ought Religiously to be obeyed that command certainly appearing Command Direct none is pretended but Indirect and Implicite is endeavoured to be proved by Mr. H. and others from a two-fold Rubrick the one requiring that the Minister stand at the North end of the Table which he cannot do unless he be there This is very true But can he not be there
unless he be commanded to be there Or may he not be commanded to be there when he actually is to celebrate and so have Rules appointed how to order his Actions and Station through the whole but this must oblige to that place when the celebration doth not follow nor is intended Again it is argued from a Rubrick saying Then shall the Priest return to the Lords Table And this say they necessarily implies that he was there before I grant it But the question is not concerning his being there upon some occasions and having been there upon such occasions as namely preparing for a Communion before Sermon he must return thither again having ended his Sermon This teaches how he must demean himself when he is there but does not prove that indispensably he must be there at all times when so much and no more is said as reacheth to the proper Office of consecration That this is no Querk or groundless Evasion will competently appear from the Rubrick immediately going before which is this Then shall follow the Sermon or one of the Homilies already set forth by Authoirty Let them tell me now whether this be not a direct Precept of our Church Let them likewise tell whether this be an absolute command or Conditional only That is whether the Minister having proceeded so far in that Service is absolutely bound to Preach or read an Homily which I know none will positively affirm or only obliged when there is a Sermon or Homily here to have it Which I doubt not but will generally be granted to be the very truth From hence then in proportionable manner I inferr that returning to the Lords Table is necessarily imposed upon the Minister when his Ministration required that he should be there and conditionally not when it did not require him And if it be yet urged that he is always required this is to beg the question which could not be gained by Argument And to fall into this circle he must needs be there because he must return thither and he must return thither because he was there And thus have I done with my first proof of my Proposition viz. That the primary intention of our Church was imitating ancient Churches that the entire Service should be said in one place and consequently that she never intended one part of the Communion Service should be Executed in the Desk and another at the Lords Table but that remitting of its principal design in suffering the first Service as now it is called to be in the Desk it is Probable that she yielded that so much of the second might be there used as related not necessarily to Consecration And so of the two main Reasons arguing a necessity of the Missa Sicca to be out of the Desk A Second Reason I make to be from not the Casual but the Purposed Uncertainty of the Forementioned Rubricks diversly understood by divers Men. That there is no such Convincing clearness in them as is pretended I shew from a passage I learned from one of Arch-Bishop Juxons's Chaplains upon the sight of the last Reformation made of our Liturgie under this King Who observing the Rubricks to Stand in that doubtful manner as before in the New Edition where no Precept is given to minister out of the Time of the Lords Supper and yet order taken how he that ministers shall stand and return was much offended with the Bishop of London Dr. Sheldon for not taking care of Rendring things more plain but which way he desired more Perspicuity I cannot tell that this whether by determining for constant Ministration at the Communion-Table even where and when no Communion was I cannot say or whether not A Third Reason I take from the Apparent and Indubitable Tenet of the Church of England which is That all Sacred and Publick Worship of God be Intelligibly performed before the Common People and more especially the Scriptures then Rehearsed This I could shew if need Required from the judgment of some of our Gravest and Learned'st Divines delivered to me upon this occasion Instancing to them in this Inconvenience of the People not being able to hear and much less to understand that which a man of Competent Voice Saith at the Altar keeping their Seats in the Church which hath more than one Alley or I le You know mine hath three Alleys and when I constantly used Ministration in the Chancel which you know is none of the least I have been assured by some most affected to the Church-Service that they could hear nothing of what I said in the Chancel And yet I am confident there are more Voices weaker and lower than mine was than lowder Now what Apology can be made for such unknown Tongue to them that hear it not which may not be made for a Tongue absolutely unknown which is heard I know none I know in the Greek Liturgies often occur in their Rubricks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. Lowly and Lowdly But their Low Voice is there only appointed when they speak not to the People but apply themselves directly and especially to God as in actual Consecration And the Author of the Compilatio Chronologica at the Year 484. amongst the German Historians hath these words Tres Causae ob quas sub silentio pronunciat Canon Missae 1 Quia Deo loquitur 2 Taedium crearet Populo Sacerdoti 3. Ne vilescant Verba The like causes may you find in Biel Lect. 15. or the Mass and yet more fully in Vicecomes Vol. 3. Lib. 3. Cap. 23. which notwithstanding the Church of England never purposely hideth from the People any part of the Service tho by accident all may not be capable of what is said openly But looks upon it as a Corruption befalling the Worship of God in Tract of time Ancienter Days allowing Explicite and Audible Pronunciation of those things which after-Ages made too Mystical to be made Common As you may find well Proved by Spalatensis Reipub. Ecclesiast Lib. 5. Ch. 6. Num. 11. And Photius Nomocanon Tit. 3. Cap. 1. proves the same out of the 5 Canon of Laodicea and 5 Basil and the Code And therefore much more doth our Church require such Audible Ministrations Which if she does how she can require such a Ministration as should neither be understood nor so much as heard Judge you Two things I am very Sensible may be here Retorted one whereof is mentioned by Mr. H. First That it may so fall out that a Man cannot be heard in the Desk and so another manner of care ought to be taken against this Inconvenience as well as that I answer This is Possible and doth divers times happen But when the Church hath taken all Ordinary care to prevent an Inconvenience and yet cannot there is no more to be Expected from her but such rare Inconveniences must be suffered to prevent Multiplicity of Remedies which like the Frequentation of Physick to obviate every little
one of Moment and not every one of Moment but such as is stoutly and boldly defended makes an Heretick and Nonconformist in Ceremonials It is farther objected That to approve the Multitudes forwardness and Pretence of tender Consciences against Authority is to endanger the whole State of the Church I grant it to be most true that nothing can be more Pernicious to Ecclesiastical Order Unity or Charity than Charity pretended to Private and Ignorant men's Consciences against the wiser and Weightier Determinations of our Governours Especially we considering First that no Just Cause is given for to offend Conscience and Secondly that we must take their own bare word that their Consciences are really offended as is pretended and that not rather some other wicked Passions and Peevish Envious Ambitious Humour to be valued and give Laws to their betters wearing the Clothes of Conscience puts them upon such Perverse Disputings and Refractoriness To prevent which it seems to concern Governours to judge fully of the End and Use as well as Form of Laws and especially of the Form it self and accordingly to interpret and enjoyn what doth appear to be Legal and Canonical without suffering Custom insensibly but in Tract of time so strongly to encroach upon them that both their Authority and the things Commanded should become doubtful And that Variation and Exemption from Rule may proceed rather from their Particular Dispensation than the choice or Liberty of him that is Singular Now what those Cases are which may require an Equitable or Favourable sense rather than Literal or Rigorous some may presume to assign and I for my Part could alledge not only the unprofitableness in great Part not absolute for I make no doubt but considerable Benefit doth redound to the Deaf and not actually hearing being present dutifully at the Ministration of Gods Officer in Publick Prayers of such as are at Church at the time of the Communion Service at the Altar But mine own Infirmity which you know hath of late Years appeared too Notorious But I hold it more prudent to refer things of this nature to be judged and resolved in a Synod which God in his due time send for the Reformation of such Errours Obliquities and Defects as have and must necessarily creep into a Church without more Frequent General and Publick Review of the Rules of Discipline than hath of late Years been allowed And so I conclude professing all readiness to such Resolutions above mine own Understanding not exceeding my Bodily Power also Preliminary Reflections to the Ensuing Treatise occasioned by two Papers of the same Subject IN the beginning of March last receiving from a very good Friend and Reverend Brother I may more truely say Brethren a Printed Treatise entitled Parish Churches turned into Conventicles c. Wherein the Author endeavoured to shew that the Ministration of the Church of England not performed at the Communion-Table which he supposed to be commanded by the Church rendred the whole Conventicling and being desired to give mine Opinion of the same I tho under great Indispositions at that time applyed my self to declare my Judgement thereof in manner following which I returned to them that same Week not intending to have it made Publick But in July following receiving from the same hands two Papers more the one called Parish Churches no Conventicles c. in a Letter to his Friend N. D. and the other whose Title was Moderation a Vertue Or a Vindication of the Principles and Practises of the Moderate Divines and Laity of the Church of England c. in which an Appendix was specially added against the foresaid Treatise of Churches turn'd into Conventicles of which also I was desired to give my Sense I perceiving both the Replyers commended Moderation so much thought they nor any of their Perswasion could take it much amiss if I stepped in between the two Extremes viz. the Gentleman and his two Adversaries And to this Purpose I must declare my self to be much Scandaliz'd with the Title of the Gentleman's Book but upon later Information that himself upon better thoughts was not very well pleased with it I rested better satisfied and so should others too if it be so How far I approved the Work my following Discourse will shew On the other side when I discovered so much Gall and Bitterness on his Adversaries Part especially by O. V. I could not well brook the Treatment they gave him even supposing he erred and they had hit the Mark. But especially I observed how both were weakly hurried down the Torrent of Vulgar Acceptation and Sense of Moderation which doubtless they ought better a great deal to have understood before they built upon such a Slippery Sandy Foundation the whole Fabrick of their Tottering Discourses For to me this seems to be the great occasion of Divisions and Schisms that every man fancies to himself a Mean and Moderation comparing himself with himself And because he can instance in some on both hands that differ from him and therefore must needs be extream he applauds himself as having hit the Golden Mean Defining Moderation as he in Aulus Gellius did Man For being demanded what was Man answered wisely Socrates is a Man and himself was a Man So these men being demanded what is true Moderation in effect answer It is to do as they do and to be able to shew that both sides of them do otherwise than they Whereas upon due Examination according to the Rule of Moderation either of such Extreams as they call them are more Moderate than what they magnifie for such And to such Moderation as this Preduce Mr. Baxter's Unlearned as well as Vain and Vile Distinction of Occasional Communion As if constant Communion were not Occasional also And his Occasional Communion with the Church of England a little to turn the edge of the Arguments proving him to be such were not constant Schismaticalness notwithstanding this Plausible Shuffle If Occasional Communion be the thing they approve why do they not Communicate with the Church but when they have no occasion to go to a Conventicle and perhaps play the Minister there By which Occasional going to Mass and more constantly to a Canventicle may be called Moderation too And if some men of the Church of England leave the Communion-Service quite out while others use it in the Desk they may be termed men of Moderation too As he that lays claim to an whole Estate tho most unjustly is a moderate Man if he acquiesces with one Field or two for Peace sake when not a Foot is by Law due unto him And doth not the present Moderation come to this as if the Enemies of our Church should say thus as they truly may We have by innumerable false and wicked Slanders cast upon the Government and Governours and Service of the Church of England disaffected many People from them all And having so done we seasonably and successfully took Arms and beat them all down and confounded
them but an overruling Power and Providence causing us to let go our hold and vomit up that sweet Morsel we had once swallowed we now address our selves to the Church of England that they would Fairly and Peaceably and Charitably give all again for the asking for and if not all at once by Degrees First granting one thing then another and then a third and so on our Arguments and Reasons being always as valid for what remains as for what shall be yielded to us and we continuing as unquiet and restless until we be possessed of all as we were before any thing was granted to us and this Motive being always obliging Peace and Unity which we promise to keep with them of the Church of England when they shall in this manner become of our Religion O Singular Charity and Divine Moderation I must confess our Author of Moderation a Vertue makes an offer Pag. 23 24. as if he would unriddle this Abstruse Notion and tell us what is Moderation But finding as it should seem the task too hard and dangerous and so hot that it would burn his Fingers and cause him to let go his Pen Writing for it after a flourishing promise he falls quite off from the true Question and Difficulty and leaves it to shift and plead for it self and betakes himself to the Commendation of the great vertue or habit of a Temperate or Moderate Mind and Disposition Which is very fine and laudable but nothing at all to his purpose which was to declare unto us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mediocrity of the thing as the Philosopher speaks He should have told us which was the true Mean in Religion which was the Moderate Worship of God between two vicious Extreams but this he either considered not or more wisely than faithfully avoided For I doubt not whatever he doth but a Papist a Quaker a Presbyterian a Jew a Mahometan may be a very Moderate and well Temper'd Man of mind and Modest but what is this to our choice of our Religion from the Equity of the same and Moderateness And yet this Moderator himself was but little acquainted with this Vertue he commends as may appear by his taking into such rude and ridiculous Consideration a Sermon laying forth the iniquity of Pretenders to such Moderation as he fancies But that I meddle not with as quite from my purpose Yet is it not so Impertinent as his extremities in wringing the Nose of all Canons and Rubricks of the Church which he stomachs with so much and strange violence of interpretation that he forces blood from them According to which Practice we shall never be able to understand one another any longer than we talk together nor then neither our Backs being a little turned and such canvassing used But we supposing that the Constitutions and Canons of the Church tho as in such Cases it must necessarily happen some few may admit of various Constructions were much more clear and intelligible before and without his Scholy than with it we earnestly demand of these Reformers of Reformation and Moderators of Mederation before they so apertly presume to modellize the Church according to their Scantling to give us the true Notion of Moderation in more General Terms than hitherto that we may know better how to accommodate our selves to their Expectations And Secondly that they would set about the work to purpose and prove by good Rules and Authority not their own the worst and weakest of all men that the Church of England as now constituted in all it's Habiliments Rites and Ceremonies is not the most Moderate Church can be produced or instanced in by them Nay I will venture to add one Challenge more If we cannot make it appear upon better Ground that more might be added than any of them shall bring that more should be taken away than is then we will lose our Cause and they shall Triumph with Cause who have hitherto without Cause This we would not have said but that we are perswaded we can do it and that upon this our unquiet and querulous Brethren would cease their Complaints and rest satisfied with the present State of things lest a worse thing happen unto them For tho I approve not that saying which Mr. Baxter notes as most dangerous to them and Notorious nor can I tell but by his Reports ever any such thing was said of Dissenters That if they would not be quiet they should have more things to trouble them Yet I say this according to all indifferent Rules of Judgment it is altogether as reasonable that the Ceremonies of the Church should be more Numerous as they can make it that those we have should be abolished or fewer Lastly we demand of these men if they cannot give us the true and genuine Definition of Moderation they would at least draw up such a Scheme of Religion as shall be accounted by their own Adherents moderate and not extream I confess I have met with a late Pamphlet which seems to aim at such an end bearing this Title The Woe of Scandal shewing the evil of imposing things on mens Consciences Acknowledged to be indifferent This Title imports a closer State of Matters than others but how he manages his Cause I cannot say having not read two Leaves if Pages in it And in truth I saw no Reason why I should had I but little else to do considering how his clearer State of matters is a perverting the whole Controversie This being the truer State of our Differences viz. The Woe of Scandal belonging to all such as refuse to submit to all such things as are acknowledged to be indifferent Lawful Authority and Judges of such matters requiring them But leaving that I return to Moderation a Vertue who in his Appendix against Mr. Hart or T. A. as he calls him would fortifie his loose Sense of Moderation Page 78 79. by a number of eminent and Learned Divines of the Church of England some of them but others professed Enemies thereof until Lucre and Ambition opened their Eyes to dissemble their Nonconformity and who these are I leave the Reader to judge as is very easie and therefore unfit to sway in this matter Others I acknowledge were truly of the Church and yet commended highly Moderation But what kind of Moderation The Vertue not the new Model And that is not at all to his purpose but against the bitter Spirits and strange groundless Animosities of Dissenters who had they their Wills would tear Kings from their Thrones as very lately they have endeavoured and Bishops from their Sees for to put down Ceremonies and think their own Blood and the Blood of others well shed to accomplish these ends as Mr. Jenkins for one hath said Lastly I grant that some Learned and Good men of our Church were much disposed to a Remission of some things Established But I pray upon what Grounds Any taken from the things themselves appointed very rarely do we meet with
any such Or from the Persons or Parties aggrieved with them This was most usual But first they should have considered that the Relaxation demanded was as grievous to others as the imposition to them Next this was only during the fair Face and carriage of many good Natur'd and in General well affected to Religion but cheated into a Prejudice against the Forms of the Church by Pious frauds But when the Imposthume broke out into such a foul Ulcer as made them and their close design stink in the Nostrils of all understanding and honest men not too far drawn into their Net they chang'd their Minds and bent their Doctrine and Discourse rather against the Immoderate Passions of the Mind than the Immoderate Worship as ours was and is still slanderously called This I speak not without as great and good Authority as any ingenious man can desire and that is of Sr. Francis Walsingham Secretary to Queen Elazabeth and one that was once till Experience better taught him a real tho moderate Favourer of the dissenting Party in those days And thus writes he of them in his Letter to Mounsieur Critoy which you have in the Close of the 2 d. part of Dr. Burnet's History of the Reformation in these words Pag. 420. For the other Party which have been Offensive to the State tho in another Degree which named themselves Reformers and We commonly called Puritans this hath been the Proceedings towards them A great while when they inveighed against such abuses in the Church as Pluralities Non-residence and the like their Liberty and Zeal was not condemned only their Violence was sometimes censured When they refused the use of some Ceremonies and Rites as Superstitious they were tolerated with much Connivence and Gentleness Yea when they called in Question the Superiority of Bishops and pretended to a Democracy in the Church yet their Propositions were considered and contrary Writings debated and discussed Yet all this while it was perceived that their Course was dangerous and very Popular As because Papistry was odions therefore it was ever in their Mouths that they ought to purge the Church from the Reliques of Papistry A thing acceptable to the People who love ever to run from one Extream to another Here you may first observe that the Church of England in it's Reformation stands between two Extreams and I think that is to be Moderate And next you may see by late effects what is the end of the many Specious and Pious Pretences of these Moderators and gather what it is ever like to be Who are wont not being able not to cut the main Timbers of our Constitutions apieces at a blow but Chip by Chip Which they call Mercifulness and Moderation as that which may be spared till all be spoiled And I could instance in some of these his Witnesses of Moderation who have taken their Lesson out of Socinus and cant with the Arminians about Liberty and forbearance themselves being in no Capacity to domineer as the Arminians did once being uppermost But now good Men brought under Original Sin and the received Doctrine of it is but an unnecessary Doctrine or rather false Doctrine but Liberty of Prophecying true And the Mystery of the Trinity must not oblige but as a thing which may or may not be received And Holy Jesus the Holy Jesus over and over again must stand instead of such usual Appellations whereby he should be known to be God and Man And all this I take to proceed from the Moderate but Phanatical Dogme found in the Cases of Conscience of that Great Man viz. That nothing must be imposed but what the Scripture requires And this Grounded on the Reason of Calvin and his late Admirers lest otherwise our Governours should multiply Impositions without measure Upon which Ground we may Null the Power of our Natural and Civil Parents who certainly may exceed due Bounds in their Commands and therefore the safest way would be to deprive them of all And thus under Colour of Liberty and Moderate Government shall we see Anarchy both in Church and State untill the Intolerableness of that constrain to accept of another perhaps much more Tyrannical tho managed by many Men being ashamed to return to that which they cast off for less Causes than they have to quit themselves of that they have Imprudently brought upon themselves But no more of that Subject something being due to this Authors Act and Project of distorting misconstruing confounding and in effect Nulling all Canons and Rubricks lying in his way for tender Consciences sake that so the Rules and Practices of the Church being made aequilibrious and indifferent or perhaps of no Obligation at all Liberty for such Consciences may be allowed and the feat succeed more softly but no less surely than by open Defiances and Ruptures But ought he not here also to have told us what is a Tender Conscience and who they are that claim Benefit from such Pretences For how little good that Plea can do any Fanatically disposed will appear from these Reasons First that we of the Church of England pretend as strongly and more reasonably to Tenderness of Conscience upon parting with such Rites and Ceremonies as they can do in opposing or avoiding them Shall we therefore take a Thorn out of their Toe and put it in our own If they say we acknowledge them to be indifferent and so such as may be omitted for Peace sake we say they likewise must and do hold the same indifferency in Nature as we do and therefore ought no less to accept of them for Peace and Unity sake Yea more obliged are they to this than we to the other Authority lawful turning the Scales on our side Secondly we directly deny that the Party can be said to be tender Conscienced when as such monstrous Acts and Effects of them not as single Private men but as Prosecutors and Advancers of their Faction all along from the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign to this present day and most of all and latest of all have appeared to prove the contrary And the Sins that are theirs as United are they we are to judge them by and not those of Persons only So that Thirdly if they have tender Consciences we cannot possible know that they have such tho they tell us never so often and loudly that they are the Men above others that are so qualified And therefore this not appearing is as not being to us And consequently can be no Rule or motive to induce us upon such blind Grounds to leave our Station Fourthly if they had tender Consciences and we knew it it could be no good nor wise Act in us who as is said have as great and just a claim to that Pretence as they for us to relieve them to our own mischief And thus have I done with the Moderator Writing against them who are no Friends to his Grindallizers and Trimmers as it seems the words are now adays which I
knew not before I learnt so much from his Title Page And might have well doubted whether this lover of Moderation that is he knows not what be Resident upon his Cure as he there also professes to avoid the Suspition of the Leader of a Conventicle But in truth he doth not attain this end there being so many ways of Equivocation invented now adaies to seem what men are not and not to seem what they are that 't is not incredible that his Cure may be a gathered Church tho I knowing nothing of that affirm no more than I know But now I apply my self more particularly to O. V. and his Letter to his Friend N. D. both true Sons of the Church of England as they Write themselves But I think they should have added to that Character this Supplement For ought they know For there is great Suspicion that O. V. hath taken some of his Instructions from the Conference of Worcester-House as Printed and Published by the Dissenters where this Sentence of Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History Lib. 5. 23. is made great use of to the same end that is as little purpose as here viz. Those of the same Faith differ as to Custom from one another Can this reach Mr. Hart's Case think we Or so much as prove any such Moderation of Rites and Ceremonies our Church requires This the Conferrers and surely this our Present Vindicator imagined deceived by them in all Probability But they are all much mistaken For Socrates meant nothing less than to countenance or so much as to say that any Church in the Christian World in those or Ancienter Days did ever allow any of their Subordinate Members to differ from the Rules of their Respective Churches or to differ from them in Rites and Ceremonies and least of all in such things which were prescribed them in the Service of God But this is the plain and certain Case between the Church of England and the Dissenters and their Advocates pleading for Moderation and Liberty in things standing determined by their Superiours But Socrates tells us how several Churches of several Nations and Provinces under Coordinate Governours did use their known Liberty in forming the external part of Gods Publick Worship somewhat diversly And doth the Church of England or any of it's Defenders speak write or act otherwise This were indeed blame-worthy but no such thing appears and therefore Mr. Hales of Eaton famous for his Learning might have shewn his Judgement as well as his Reading if he had made no such use of such Instances as these and taught others so to do To this stumble in the very Threshold I might add another Errour charged upon Mr. Hart in the Title Page which pretends Mr. Hart defames the Church of England contrary to the 11th Canon of those 1603. But I find no such Defamation chargeable upon Mr. Hart nor proved by him as is attempted Page 3. The Canon even as quoted by him speaks thus To affirm and maintain that there are within this Realm other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations of the Kings born Subjects than such as by the Laws of this Land are held and allowed which may rightly challenge to themselves the Name of true and Lawful Churches This is all with him but scarce sense without that which follows in the Canon Let him be Excommunicated c. Now the matter is how to bring to this any thing that Mr. Hart says in any place of his Book The most and worst that he hath in all his Book is the Title Parish Churches turned into Conventicles c. Does this at all contradict the Canon mentioned which flatly denies all Assemblies in opposition to our Church to be any true Churches The Canon does not so much as say that the Church of England is the true Church therefore he that should say it is no true Church doth not defame it upon the account of that Canon tho upon others he doth But I cannot think it was ever in Mr. Hart's mind to deny the Church of England to be a true Church but to affirm that such Parish Churches as did deviate from such Prescriptions as he conceived all were obliged to in that particular did Symbolize with Conventicles in which acceptation his meaning is more just and sincere than to be confuted either by your or my Labours And this probably you found by Experience and therefore you more wisely than justly relinquish the true State of the Case and all along fall upon his Person and Qualifications with greatest Scurrilities and Reproaches becoming rather the Son of a Conventicle than a Son of the Church of England which manner of Confutation I have chosen chiefly to except against First you acknowledge him to be a Gentleman you had in my opinion done much more advisedly and peradventure more successfully if you had shewn your self to have been such too by Civil Usage and especially if you be of the Clergy which I neither know nor have enquired after to your Civility you should have added a Degree of Modesty more It may be remembred how above Forty Years ago a Bishop's unadvisedly casting out a word which was drawn to imply a Contempt of Gentlemen it gave such Alarm to many Gentlemen and so Incensed them against that Order if not the Clergy in General that it contributed not a little to their Sufferings It had been Prudence therefore to have been more sparing of your Spittle in that respect And so Secondly as a Barister and Lawyer a Friend and Well-willer to the Church would have omitted the many Taunts and Revilings you have cast upon him as such Do you not consider how much it becomes the Clergy to mitigate the Prejudices that Order are too Subject to against the Church and how powerful they are to strengthen or weaken the Interest of the Church and it's Prosperity Another man not inferiour to you would have found occasion of Gratitude and Praise from whence you raise your reproaches viz. that with honest and sincere mind and good Ingenuity he zealously undertook the Asserting of the Rights and Rites of the Church Wherein if he failed as I my self am of opinion he did tho I cannot say that either I or you have Demonstrated so much it was a laudable intention tending to it's Vindication from private Interpreters of it's Laws and Corrupters too as he judged His severity in drawing such Conclusions from such a supposed Sense gave me occasion to imagine he might be a Lawyer whose property it is to condemn a whole Deed for a Rasure committed in it he conceiving that this omission of the due Performance of the second Service was of that nature But do you think it requisite or tolerable that every ordinary Minister should so modifie his Worship as the Presbyterians in their Books speak or so use their Discretion as in truth rather to follow the Discretion of the Multitude and Common People than their own or the Churches There is not any thing