so far to lay it by your self as 1. To omit answering a great part of it especially which justifieth our Preaching and Assemblies yea I think you plead for them and my large Answer to the Charge of Schism you seem to approve which we accept and so that is no part of our Controversie § 5. 2. But you also avoid the Defence of the Corporation Declaration which is a matter of so great importance to all the Cities and Corporations of England as perhaps may prove more considerable than the silencing of a thousand of the best Preachers among us for Non-conformity But I blame you not for not doing more than you are able § 6. 3. But why did you avoid the Order of my Book 's Objections and also the answering of any chief intimated reasons while yet I did but intimate some few disclaiming argumentations why do you tell us that you take them as you remember them without the Book and satisfie your own conscience while you seem to answer the Book And what drew you to begin with Reordination which none of the Antient Non-Conformists are put upon But your disclaiming to defend the Oxford-Oath and your profession that some part of the Subscriptions and Declarations by the Law enjoyned to Ministers you never made your self doth bid us to believe you that it is to draw men to think mildly of conscientious Conformists that you write if not to judge Conformity lawful and a duty in case of silencing c. And I doubt not but you will so far prevail But when you tell us of a Noble man impeached of Treason that made it his business only to put by that charge you may remember that when the Great and Good Duke of Sommerset had so done and the shout was made for his being found not guilty he was yet though the King's Uncle and Protector beheaded as a Felon Such a justification doth little good And you say truly I am not to yield to the smallest Sin to save my Life § 7. I see not how this agreeth with what you say After that Mens weakness and ignorance may make it their duty of two perceived Sins proposed to them to take the safer side and that is to avoid the greater Answ. Doubtless it is a gross Contradiction to say It is a duty to choose or not avoid the least Sin For that is no Sin which a Man is not bound to avoid and undoubtedly when two Sins are proposed every Man is bound to avoid both though not as equal with equal Zeal And God never necessitateth Man to choose either or not to avoid both But if our own Badness disable us from avoiding both we must be most careful to avoid the greater I cannot pray without sinful dulness or imperfection of Faith But I must rather avoid a total Omission than imperfect performance for all the Faults are eminently in this No Sin is to be done on pretence of avoiding a greater Sin But sometime the avoiding of a great Sin may make another thing e.g. the omission of that which else would have been a Duty to be then no Sin that else would have been a Sin Negative Commands bind ad semper § 8. You say If the Non-conformist err it is on many accounts a safe Error because it is confessedly a refusal to Subscribe and Conform to a number of things in their own nature indifferent Rigid Conformists confess them to be but Trifles comparatively the Church might be without them and yet do well And Moderate Conformists confess them to be burdensom and the Church might be and do better without them or if they were left to each Man's choice and will Answ. But if we prove them far from indifferent Non-conformity will prove a necessary and great Duty However I doubt the Imposers will give you as little thanks for this description of the Case as they do us for Non-conformity Specially when you add that for this We are thought Seditious Factious Schismatical worthy to be Silenced Imprisoned Anathematized and used as Intolerable They will not love the Glass that sheweth them such a Face as you dislikingly describe Especially when you tell them that you Are satisfied that it is in it self a great and dreadful Sin to Silence the Non-conformists and do by them as hath been for these many Years And Blame those loose Conscienced Men who think that their Humours Opinions Lusts and proud and imperious Wills are fit to be the standard of Unity Uniformity and Edification to all the Churches This is but cold pleading for Conformity CHAP. II. § 1. YOu begin with Reordination And 1st I told you how the Church in all Ages hath commonly abhorred it The Canons called the Apostles depose both the Ordainer that doth it and the Ordained Gregory Magnus equalleth it with twice Baptism which perhaps you may think lawful too you are for it upon reason Toties quoties You tell us how loth we should be as to Condemn that which so many worthy Men held as were the old Conformists And may not I tell you that you should be more Cautelous how you contradict all Ages of the Church even to this Day § 2. Had you heard as great a Man as I have done declare that he could not take them for Ministers or take the Sacrament of them that had not Episcopal Ordination and had you heard my L. Chancellor Hide give such Reasons openly for Re-ordination as I did and had you seen the Writings of so Learned a Bishop as I have seen to prove such no Ministers as are Ordained but by Presbyters and heard such Men and so many Argue for it as I have done you could not have thought that the judgment of those that impose Reordination was or is that Men are true Ministers of Christ that are Ordained by Presbyters only So that your sense of the Imposition is feigned § 3. It is a known thing that the Church of England is not of your singular opinion for Reordination You may as well feign them to be for Rebaptizing They all renounce it with our Consent Therefore they that require Men to be Ordained by Bishops must needs hold that they had no true Ordination before or else they should be for that which they abhor So that it 's past doubt you talk of you know not what when you make this to be but the singular Opinion of one Mr. Dodwel disowned by all though much in his Book besides be by most disowned And it is not every later Bishop that made the Law or altered the Liturgy § 4. You say that Ordination once validly done by eminent Presbyters and grave substantial Ministers it doth to all intents and purposes make him a compleat Minister And elsewhere you maintain the Validity of Presbyters Ordination and say That it is a taking God's Name in vain when it is done without urgent Reasons I have moved to you that the present Imposers suppose the contrary and I think considering how much the
King and Parliament left to the judgment of the Convocation the present Settlement proveth what was the Convocations judgment who are the present Church of England's representative They that are against Reordaining and yet call men to be ordained certainly judge them unordained before And you are to take your Ordination and speak the words in the known sense of the Imposers or else you equivocate And what Reasons have you to deceive them At least it is notorious scandal to seem to do it in an ill sense And when you pretend that your Ministry else must be forsaken we say No It is but to save you from suffering for your Ministration as long as you can use it on suffering terms And you have not escaped suffering nor saved your Ministry by Conforming If you would rather suffer than not Preach to Non-Conformists when you had an allowed Church of Conformists should not we rather suffer than by our Reordination submit to that which is the Churches or Laws publick professing that we were no Ordained Ministers of Christ before when after that we have never the more liberty for our Ministry unless we conform to all the rest I remember three Worthy men re-ordained one fourteen and two seventeen years ago that had never the more liberty to Preach § 5. You say that Ordination by eminent and Senior Presbyters is Episcopal Ordination though not in the vulgar sense For a Bishop and Presbyter in the sense of Scripture are the same Ans. Remember this when you subscribe to the distinction of Order And I believe you cannot name two Bishops in England if one that had a Vote in Parliament and Convocation for making the imposing Laws that were of your mind Nor two that will now say that it is lawful to be twice ordained Presbyter And remember 1. That it is the Act of Uniformity that requireth this last Ordination 2. That the Bishop of London of Lincoln of Hereford came into their places since and were none of the Legislators § 6. You say If the Presbyters excel those Bishops Ordination by them is more excellent than by these Ans. And yet can you assert that they are distinct Orders when the Power of Ordaining is made the chief part of the Bishops Order I that am against you stick at this somewhat more than you when the Law and Canon make the Bishop of the Quorum And as I was ordained by a Bishop so I never joyned with Presbyters in ordaining any man nor did venture to lay hands on any in an Ordination CHAP. III. § 1. YOur second Section is of our Assent to the words in the Book of Ordination of the Notoreity of the Antiquity of the three distinct Orders And 1. You justifie it by telling us that difference of Holiness Wisdom Usefulness may be said to make different Orders But this is too lusory in a serious business Words of Art or Science are to be understood according to the use of the men of that Art or Science And the many old School Disputes and Controversal Writers tell us long ago how they understood the word Orders as Offices in Specie differing from Degrees in the same Species In your equivocal sense you say true that there are more than three Orders or threescore Yea in the usual sense of old they had seven Orders and yet they held Bishops and Presbyters to be but one of the seven as I shewed you out of Spelman in Aelfrick's Canons of this Church of England in the very times of Popery § 2. You say you make it not an Article of your Faith that this sense of Episcopacy is evident to all men that diligently read Scripture and Antient Writers But the question is Whether you Assent to it or more If not how can you say you do The Bishop of Hereford in Naked Truth hath given you some reasons of dissent and Bishop Usher and many such have done so before him § 3. Whether you hit their sense or not gather by what I said to your former Point of Re-ordaining CHAP. IV. § 1. YOu next choose to speak of our Assent and Consent to the Bishop's Oath to subject himself in obedience to the Arch-Bishop and to his Seat or Metropolitan Church and to his Successors And you tell us that all men are bound to subject themselves one to another This again is too gross equivocating Do you believe that this is the Species of subjection which is meant in the Book and Oath § 2. You better tell us that being Episcopus primae sedis he may be reverenced as the Fore-man of a Iury. But is this obeying him and his Church and Successors Is not this also Equivocation Do they swear Obedience to the Fore-man and his Successors § 3. Your best answer is It is enjoyned by Authority And if it were but obeying them in Civils or circa sacra in matters determinable by the King this answer had much in it Bâ—â— when it is intended to be in the exercise of the Word and Keys and Matters which Christ hath predetermined those Non-Conformists that are not for the Divine Right of Arch-Bishops cannot assent and consent to it And those of them that are for it do with you hold that there should be Parochial Bishops or to every Church and that those that you call Diocesans are indeed Arch-Bishops And they are not for Arch-Bishops over Arch-Bishops lest it lead you to a Pope as he was in the Empire at least § 4. And Successions so often prove unhappy that we like not setting up one Church over another to the end of the world when we cannot justifie it at all They that are contrary to the Carthage Fathers for a Bishop of Bishops would yet have him their Ruler but as an Arch-Bishop as General Officers in an Army over the Colonels but not that our Church shall be set over many others much less to swear to unknown Successors § 5. And I told you divers old Councils condemned Bishops swearing inferiours to them as the cause of many mischiefs and sad experience taught them to make that Canon CHAP. V. § 1. NExt you speak of the Oath or Covenant of Canonical Obedience And you 1. Doubt whether it be an Oath In the Act of Ordination it is but a Covenant But what they do now I know not but heretofore it was also imposed as an Oath You tell me of my Concessions I grant that â—o far as they exercise but such power as belongeth to Officers of the King we may obey him in covenanting to obey them But it is in the exercise of the Keys proper to Christ's special Officers that the Book meaneth which you assent to even in matters of sacred Guidance Excommunication and Absolution And you say nothing to satisfie 1. Those that are under obtruded and unlawful Bishops that come in so contrary to Christ's and the Old Churches Order as that the Old Canons decree them to be no Bishops 2. Nor to satisfie those that think
Administration of the Sacraments and no other IX And the Can. 27. saith No Minister when he celebrates the Communion shall wittingly administer the same to any but to such as kneel under pain of suspension Can the Church more plainly speak the sense of her Liturgy You say It is against Schismaticks Yes 1. That is the end and the words express the means 2. And it is expository calling those Schismaticks that scruple and refuse to kneel X. Those that say the Liturgy hath any thing contrary to the Scripture or that the Ceremonies are such as he may not use approve c. are excommunicate ipso facto And therefore as Schismaticks not to be admitted to the Sacrament till they repent of that their wicked Errour Can. 4 5 6 7. XI Can. 14. All Ministers shall observe the Orders Rites and Ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common-Prayer as well in reading the holy Scriptures and saying of Prayers as in administration of the Sacraments without either diminishing in regard of Preaching or in any other respect note that or adding any thing in the matter or form thereof XII Can. 29. No Parent shall be urged to be present nor be admitted to answer as God-father for his own Child nor any God-father or God-mother shall be suffered to make any other answer or speech than by the Book of Common-Prayer is prescribed in that behalf If yet the Church have not declared her sense of the Liturgy but that I may Baptize without Cross or God-fathers and give the Sacrament to them that sit rather than refuse them I can understand no mans words And what can constrain an unwilling person to understand XIII Yet I say again If I practice on any pretence of mercy according to your Rule the Judges will condemn me the Justices will send me to the common Gaol among Rogues to lie six months and will fine me twenty pound and forty pound a Sermon as I have tryed and the Bishops or their Courts will excommunicate me and prosecute me to lay me in Gaol as you have tryed who fly to escape it And are not these made Judges of the sense of the Law and will not all this convince us what it meaneth Because you have put three of the chief matters of my Non-conformity here together I have answered all together If you will prefer the judgment of the Bishops before all this I pray you do not pretend that some honest Bishop that had no hand in our Changes and Silencing saith to you in private but get it us under the hands of many of them if you can that because mercy is to be preferred before sacrifice we may Baptize without the Cross and God-fathers and may give the Sacrament to them that kneel not if they dissent through consciencious fear of living CHAP. XVII § 1. IN your sixteenth Section you profess your liking of sitting at the Lord's Supper rather than kneeling How then can you declare Assent Consent and Approbation to the Liturgy expounded by the Canons which in plain words and by sharp penalties on Dissenters so much preferreth kneeling before sitting § 2. Your preferring the preaching and hearing of the Word and Prayer and Praise as more excellent than the carnal you mean the outward part in the Lord's Supper is very far from Conformity to the common sense of the Bishops who ordered the Altaring of the Communion Tables and commended bowing towards them and suspended so many Ministers on such accounts even far from the sense of Arch-Bishop Laud expressed in his life by Dr. Heylin and of the whole Church of England expressed in the Canons of 1640. § 3. I answered before your conceit that the Liturgy alloweth you to give the Sacrament to them that kneel not and your distorting the Canon because the Title is against Schismaticks when they mean that those that kneel not shall be taken and excluded as Schismaticks and so excommunicated as I have proved and not that the word is distinguishing and limiting allowing you to admit those to sit that are not Schimaticks The Bishops will deride that Exposition They that heard us at the Savoy can tell you who that Dr. now a Dean was who craved leave to have disputed the Case against me and to have proved That it is an Act of mercy to those that scruple and refuse to receive the Sacrament kneeling to deny them the Communion of the Church therein CHAP. XVIII § 1. YOur seventeenth Section is for the Cross in Baptism I distinctly proved that the Church imposeth it As a Symbol of our Christian Profession and as a consecrating dedicating sign by which 1. God's part of the Covenant is signified even the Grace by him given and the duty by him imposed on us 2. And the Receiver's part is signified and by solemn Engagement there professed even his Faith in Christ crucified and his resolution and self-obliging Consent or Covenant to be the Lords as dedicated to him and to perform all the future duties of the Covenant And that this is the true description of a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace The word Sacrament larglier taken may signifie no more than man may institute But a Sacrament strictly taken as thus described I suppose man may not institute 1. Because Christ hath instituted two as an act of his Royal Prerogative And if any Institution be proper to his Kingly and Priestly Power it must be such No other can be named excluding this And if none be proper what is it for him to be Great and One Law-giver to his Church If Legislation the chief part of Supreme Government be common to him and Bishops why is not that Royally Common 2. And if Christ would have had any more Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace he would have somewhere expressed his Commands and Directions to his Ministers to make them But he that hath given them full Commands and Directions for Preaching Prayer Baptizing and his Supper and for their other duties for the Flocks hath not said a word to them of this either biding them make new Sacraments or telling them how many or directing them what or how to do it nor how to use them when made nor promising to bless them 3. To make more seemeth to accuse Christ's Law or Institution of Imperfection Subordinate actions do not so But to make Ordinances ejusdem generis with those which he made not as a meer man nor as a meer Minister but as Mediator or King of the Church doth seem to say That Christ left half his work undone Did he institute Baptism and his Supper as a meer Man or a meer Minister then à quatenus ad omne any Man or any Minister may do the like and make more Sacraments But if as King of the Church and as Saviour then none but our King of the Chuch and Saviour may do the like Christ hath instituted one day of each week to commemorate his Resurrection as God the Creator instituted a weekly
sincerely Penitent thy Sin is pardoned and thou hast right to Salvation and mayst come to the Lord's Table Ans. And doth not this imply that else he should not come And is such a Man Unconverted It is too irksome to rake up the rest of your Contradictions and examine your slight words of the Parable of the Tares But that rooting up the Tares forbidden is Excommunicating or denying Sacramental Communion to any Parishioner of your Description who will believe that knoweth 1. What Christ saith Mat. 18. 15. c. and Paul 1 Cor. 5. and 2 Thess. 3. Tit. 3. 10 11 c. 2. Or he that knoweth that the Universal Church of Christ in all Ages hath been of another mind and indeed went at last too far against it having no punishment for Christians but Suspension and Excommunication 3. And that the Christian World at this day is of another mind though the Helvetians are too remiss in the Principles and most in the Practice 4. And that the Canons of this Church requireth the Minister to deny the Sacrament to some such as you describe And in your former Book you pleaded this as for Conformity And are you changed already And shall any Wise Man follow such quick Changes 5. The Church of England forbids us to give the Sacrament to any that are not Confirmed and desire it not or are not ready But such are many of your Description 6. If the power of Excommunicating over a thousand or many hundred Churches be confined to the Bishop and the Chancellor or Officials and so all the Parish Ministers denied it and disabled all these Churches must be Prophaned and Confounded at the will of one Man or because he cannot do an Impossibility And the reasons why Christ would have his Church to be visibly Holy and a Communion of Saints and openly differenced from the notoriously ungodly are so many and so great that I will not here attempt the opening of them having often elsewhere done it QUEST IV. WHether the common sort of ungodly Christians are to be cast out of the Church by Penal Excommunications and used as Excommunicate ones You say I conceive not Ans. Would any one that pretended to confute our Errors no better open the case in question 1. In your sense they are Christians that never professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant but only took the Water in order to Conversion hereafter These are no visible Christians And I suppose by parity of Reason the Council of Nice which decreed the Rebaptizing of the Paulmists would have been for Rebaptizing these 2. Is the Ordinariness the satisfying Character who is not to be Excommunicated In one Country those are ordinary that are extraordinary in others In some places Arrians are ordinary in some Socinians in some Papists in some open Scorners of the Scripture Christianity and Religion In some ignorant Persons that know not the Essentials of Christianity nor will learn or let the Minister instruct them any where but in the Pulpit in many Parishes here not one of many their Neighbours say go to Church about once or twice a Year 1 Cor. 5. 13. Put away from among you that wicked Person ver 11. If any Man that is called a Brother be a Fornicator or Covetous or on Idolater or a Railer or a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one no not to eat Do not ye judg them that are within 2 Thess. 3. It is the idle and disorderly And these are ordinary in some places But we easily grant that Excommunications are not to be used Tyranically or when they do more hurt than good And if the Body of a Church turn e. g. Socinians or professedly ungodly and will not be Reformed the Excommunication which we plead for is but withdrawing from them and renouncing their Communion declaredly § 2. I have oft said that Perfidious Covenant-breakers who live in gross Sin and still tell the Minister they repent and will not be persuaded to leave their Sin e. g. Whoredom Drunkenness Stealing Perjury Blasphemy have so far forfeited the credit of their bare word that the Pastor should see their actual amendment before he Absolve them And now your Hand is in the World must be saved from this Doctrine too But because it is a common principle in Nature and in all Church Canons and the common judgment of Divines I will not stay to dispute it with you But when you are a Master of a Family if you think Family Discipline a Duty Experience will cure your credulity If your Servant or Son beat you or spit in your Face or Rob you once a Day or Week but for one Year together and say still after it I repent But what will not Men talk for QUEST V. WHether Mr. Baxter's Doctrine and Principles concerning particular Churches be sound and good And you confute them Ans. 1. Those that read them are in no danger by them And those that do may be confirmed by so slight a confutation as I said 2. As for my Book of Universal Concord of all Christian Churches I know that the Devil hateth it so much that I expect some far more subtile Assault than yours or else I shall think that the Devil wanteth wit or power more than is commonly believed But I am sorry that he hath drawn so good a Man to be his instrument § 1. My first mentioned Error is That a particular Church is a regular part of the Universal Church as a City is of a Kingdom The confutation is In this I conceive he is out A particular Church is to the Church Universal with a single Town consisting of a Magistrate Governing and People governed according to the general Rules and Principles of Society is to all the World Ans. The proof is I conceive he is out and an Assertion in other words of the same that is denied and so we are out both or neither 1. I used the Name and he the Definition It may be he thought that by City I had meant only such Towns as are so called in England But methinks he should know that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth all such Towns as he defineth and that it is the common definition of Civitas which he giveth us as all Politicks speak de Civitate It is therefore the same subject in the Similitude which we both speak of 2. The difference then must be between the words Kingdom and World I say A Church is such a part of the Universal as a City is of a Kingdom He saith no but as a City is of the World What a dangerous Error hath he detected But All the World is God's Kingdom And as it hath but one King so I thought I might liken it to a Kingdom that hath one King but a multitude of Corporations without stretching the Similitude to intend that This Kingdom is not a part of the World § 2. My second Error is He that will be a Member of a particular Church must
the Canons which forbid the Minister on Penalty to refuse any Child that hath God-Fathers not excepting Pagans Infidels Atheists or Apostates Why did you not answer that 2. A Right before God signifies either properly to be a Child that is under the promise of Pardon in the sense of 1 Cor. 7. 14. Else were your Children unclean but now they are holy And of such I am of your mind Or else it signifieth only one that the Minister hath Coram Deo a right to Baptize And so he hath as to any adult Atheist or Heathen or his Child if he deceitfully profess Christianity I suppose you speak in the first proper sense But if you think that the sense of the Rubrick you are mistaken No one knoweth better than Bishop Gunning and he will tell you otherwise viz. That God's merciful Covenant giveth us Right to bring any Child in the World to be Baptized for Salvation as it giveth any Man right to take in an exposed Orphan into his House And if the Sponsor were to become Proprietor and take the Child for his own as Abraham Circumcised the Children born in his House I would not dispute against it though I were in doubt But I have proved to you that the Liturgy or Canon oblige the Sponsor to no such thing nor are they to profess it and you your self suppose the contrary that the Parent is the First Covenanter This Rubrick then speaketh of any Child and you limit it to the Seed of the Faithful and so Equivocate At our Conference at the Savoy 1661. before the Bishops I put this true Case I have in my Parish a profest Infidel that derideth openly the Scripture and the Life to come but for fashion saith beforehand I will bring my Child to be Baptized and say as the Book requireth and refuse my Child if you dare The Reverend Bishop Sanderson was in the Chair and answered me none of them contradicting That if I Baptized him according to the Church of England that requireth God-Fathers I need not scruple it I askt him By whom that Child had right more than any other Heathen's Child Seeing 1. The God-Father is oft as bad as the Parents 2. And the God-Father taketh not the Child as a Proprietor for his own Bishop Morley answers That he knew some that did take them and Educate them as their own I answered 1. The Canon or Rubrick require it not 2. I never knew one Man yet that did it or that ever thought that as a Sponsor he was obliged so to do 3. If it were otherwise Poor Mens Children could get no God-Fathers and Rich Men would have none And what 's this then to the sense of the Article in question that speaks of all Baptized Children It being of the Baptized quâ tales and an indefinite in re necessaria You dare profess that of all and undoubtedly certain by the Word of God which you think is true but of those that have right before God And may not one profess any thing at that Rate Besides I that know why the old words were changed into these and by whom it was brought in urged and procured am fully satisfied of the sense of them that did it by experience Your Exposition of the Doctrine of Baptism here adjoyned is very sound and good As to your Catholicon which gets down all I may cause you to cast it up anon CHAP. X. § 1. YOur 9th Section about not coming to the Sacrament without a full trust in God's Mercy and a quiet Conscience tells us what the Imposure should have said when I only except against what they have said The Case is so gross I am apt to think they meant as you say especially when I consider that those must be Ruined that have not a quiet Conscience if they will not or dare not Communicate But if well meaning Men put me to assent to words of a contrary signification in the common use I had rather approve their good meanings than their imposed words through oversight so expressed CHAP. XI § 1. ABout the use of the Apocrypha you quite mistook the Question It was not chiefly whether you may use or read it but whether you may approve and consent to the Calendar and Rubrick which imposeth it to be read yea those Books of Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon c. If you say that you Consent not to the Calendar and Rubrick I ask 1. Is it not contained in the Book 2. Is it of no use when the use is named in the Preface Cannot we thus say any thing required and mean what we list by it Teach not the Papists to take the imposed Test and Oaths at such a rate as this § 2. You say It is not on Lords Days Answ. On the Week Days God must be Worshipped purely and according to his Will § 3. You say It 's more than you can prove that any thing is false Why did you not answer the two Instances which I gave out of the Bishop of Lincoln's excellent Manuscript And how much may you find in Dr. Io. Reynolds and many other Protestants against the Papists § 4. You say If any thing be Fabulous it may be read as an instructive Parable some cite Aesop ' s Fables Answ. But dare you consent to the reading and imposing of Aesop's Fables or any other to be read in stead of God's Word under the same name of Lessons so many days in the Publick Worship CHAP. XII YOur 11th Section saith no more but that you see nothing but one may Consent to the imposed reading of the Liturgy every day to save his Liberty Ans. 1. I gave you a reason against Covenanting so to use it every Day which you answer not And. 2. Why took you no notice that it is the Books Imposition of this which you must consent to and not only the Practice Is not the imposing Precept contained in the Book yea and is it of no use 3. And why do so few Conformists so use it CHAP. XIII § 1. IN your 12th Section you joyn several things 1. About denying Christian Burial to the Unbaptized Infants and the Excommunicate as not signifying their Damnation But if you take in the foresaid Rubrick Articles that pronounceth certain Salvation to them if Baptized you may see what is like to be the meaning of the Church here And also if you read how they use to expound their Anathema or Major Excommunication and on what account it is often made Doctor Heylin tells you That the necessity of Baptism was one of Bishop Laud's first Thesis's publickly maintained in Oxford You are now Excommucate your self but not with that Anathema which is of the hardest signification But this is little to my objected Case 2. But the doubt is about the words that in sense pronounce all others that are Buried in England saved And you would make us believe that the Rubrick which excepteth the Excommunicate and the other two sorts only meaneth
also the excepting of the Excommunicable or Notorious wicked Men. But by such stretches what words may not Protestant or Papist take by an Exposition of his own making If three sorts excepted limit you not from excepting more What can do it I have tried the sense of the most Leading Man in these Liturgick Changes that I know whether he would consent that the words should be further extended to except the Excommunicable or Notoriously Flagitious and he most contemptuously rejected it as if it would leave power to every Presbyter to Damn whom he would and to Excommunicate Men after Death without a Bishop 3. But you will prove your feigned Sense to be right because the Canon 68. saith If the party Deceased were denounced Excommunicate Majore Excommunicatione for some grievous and notorious Crime and no Man able to testifie of his Repentance the Prayers are not to be said at his Burial Ans. Could you have more evidently confuted your self The Church alloweth you yea requireth you to forbear the said Prayers 1. If it be a notorious Sinner 2. Excommunicated 3. And that Majore Excommunicatione 4. And there be no proof of his Repentance And hence you can infer That the Church meant it also of Notorious Sinners not Excommunicate What Alchimy is this Whereas the Church is herein specially careful that the Priest may not be the Judge What need the Major Excommunication be put in if it were not meant The Canon here declareth the Churches Sense more obligingly than any Bishop can do CHAP. XIV § 1. WHat you say of the whole substance of Confirmation referred to the Parish Pastor the Ceremony only reserved to the Bishop is all without Book and a meer mistake as the Bishops will soon tell you and common experience Had you heard what the Bishops at Worcester House before the King and Lords said against inserting into the King's Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs that one word Consent viz. the Minister's Consent to the confirming of those of his Flock and how it after came in you would not have talkt at this rate of our Consent CHAP. XV. § 1. YOur fourteenth Section is of the doubt Whether we may Declare our Consent that none should be admitted to the Communion till he be confirmed or desirous and ready to be confirmed To this 1. You say of your own head That Confirmation is not intended for them that have been already admitted to the Lord's Table without any proof though clean contrary to your Covenant of Conformity The words are That None are to be admitted till c. And you say That by None is meant None except all that have been so already admitted that is most of the Communicants by far in England and all that come out of France Holland Scotland c. What a great limitation hath this None None except almost all or most Boccaline tells us of a device at Rome to make a man's throat swallow a Pompion and then no doubt any Physician may procure the swallowing of a Pill § 2. But you are perswaded you shall not meet with one person that will not desire it rather than be put from the Sacrament Ans. 1. But it is not your own practice only that you must profess consent to but to the Use of the Rubrick as it is a Law to all others Do you think no other shall meet with such because you may not 2. Remember that the Confirmation in question is little kin to that which I and Mr. Hanmer have written for A very Learned Bishop told me lately that it is for the giving of the Holy Ghost by Imposition of hands And whatever you feign it is confined to the Order of Bishops Do you know what Dallaeus de Confirmat hath said against it And that all are against it as with us that are against Diocesan Prelacy I know few Non-Conformists in England that are for it or desire it When I pleaded for it in 1660. hoping to have reduced the English Confirmation to that which I described in my Treatise of Confirmation had you but heard how much the truly Learned judicious honest Dr. Wallis said against it who is a publick Professor in Oxford a Conformist and the King's Chaplain you would not think that you shall never meet with any that will not desire it c. 3. I think most of England are unconfirmed if they desire it what keepeth them from it 4. They may not desire it and yet not be kept from the Sacrament For he that receiveth it not of you or any Conformists may receive it of others And all the Conformists that ever I saw deliver the Sacrament give it to the unconfirmed and never ask them whether they desire it And yet you must covenant not to give it to any such as desire not Confirmation and Consent that this be imposed on all others § 3. But you say Such a remote possibility shall not keep you from Conformity That is You will Consent to the Use of this Rubrick which requireth that none in England give the Sacrament to any that desire not our Episcopal Confirmation which almost all the Non-Conformists desire not and most of England shew by their practice that they desire not because you conceit that you shall meet with none such your self who perhaps may never administer the Sacrament at least till you are absolved from your Excommunication And yet you are so honestly against Division that you will not separate from the Non-Conformists and their Assemblies though you suffer for it These things hang not well together CHAP. XVI § 1. YOur 15th Section is against my greatest Objection the manner of baptizing by God-fathers sole sponsion in the Liturgy Where you take your own Order and not mine to satisfie your self and put four questions and overlook the main or say as good as nothing to it My first question is Which way the Child cometh to have right to Baptism any more than all the Infidels Children in the world That is Whether the meer Sponsion of God-fathers who adopt not the Child nor take him for their own nor are at all required to do so do give or prove a Right to Baptism and consequently to undoubted Salvation or pardon in all the Infants of Apostates Sadduces Infidels Brutists Arrians Socinians Wicked men Atheists yea or of any other I told you how Conformists and other Divines here differ but you easily pass by the difficulty 2. And the next question is Whether the Church of England require any ground of title in the Infant besides the Sponsion of the fore-described God-fathers and God's general Promise And I have proved that they do not It is not the Parents Christianity or Faith that they require nor the Grandfathers nor any Pro-parents or Adopters or Proprietors Nor do they ask Whose Child it is but forbid us to refuse any that have God-fathers nor do they suffer the Parent to be one of the God-fathers but forbid him so much as to
Ministers may break them by admitting such Persons to the Sacrament as it excludeth For 1. You Covenant to Administer only according to the Liturgy 2. The Canon punisheth all Ministers that give it against the Prohibition 3. And the Rubrick excludeth your supposed power of Dispensation Can you believe your self that the meaning of the Liturgy and Canon is None shall be admitted that desire not God-Fathers except such as will not out of an Erring Conscience Are those then admitted that through Prophaneness desire not God-Fathers If so then you make the sense to be Those that have not God-Fathers shall not be admitted to that Sacrament except all that will not viz. Conscienciously or Prophanely If not then the sense must be You shall admit none to that Sacrament that have no God-Fathers through Parents Prophaneness but all that have none through scruple of Conscience And who cannot pretend such scruple And who will not pretend it when that will justifie them And how would the Bishops reproach such an Exposition which either maketh every Priest a judge of Mens Hearts whether their pretence be true or not or else admitteth all that will not have God-Fathers while the admission of any of them is expresly forbidden It is a stretching Exposition indeed which is against the whole form of the Office and the express words of the Churches Canon No Parent shall be God-Father to his own Child Try whether any two Bishops in England will allow you any such Exposition If such be allowed in this Case why not in all other like it And so the meaning of Law Canons and Rubrick be You shall do thus except when you have Moral Reason against it such as is Mercy which must be preferred Do you know how many have been Fined and sent to Goal for Preaching though they pleaded for it Mercy to Mens Souls Do you believe that it was the meaning of the Parliament and Bishops You shall keep no Conventicles nor omit the Liturgy or Ceremonies or Subscription c. unless when Mercy is to be preferred They that have Auditors that cannot bear the Liturgy when they omit it in mercy to the Flock I pray you get us an authentick signification of this Sense The words cited by you in the Preface to the Articles of 1604 are impertinent to our business It followeth not that you have leave to break the Laws when you think mercy requireth it because they are not equivalent to the Eternal Word of God nor bind conscience as of necessity in the nature of them considered in themselves and not in the Authority of the Commander Again I ask Shall any man escape punishement by such a plea of mercy Are not two thousand Ministers silenced and more that pleaded Mercy to themselves and others for the reason of their Non-conformity Did your Learned Pious Moderate Bishop excuse you for that plea Doth not the express words of the Law and Canon and Rubrick and the sentence and execution of all Judges to this day confute your exposition and exception You truly say It is a sin to make a false construction of the Law But if against the express words and scope and common judgment and execution you will presume to put your sense which is merciful because Charity thinketh no evil Any thing almost may be so said consented to and sworn I have spoken with a Papist that hath taken the Oath of Supremacy and wrote for it because it is to be supposed that it is only the spiritual power called Pastoral which the Pope claimeth over England or such give him and only the Power of the Sword which the King claimeth and denyeth to him and Foreigners And he citeth a fairer pretence for his exposition than you do here for yours And thus all may take up the Oath of Supremacy that hold but the Popes Spiritual Supremacy over us and all the world What words can be so bad that a man may not feign in Charity a good sense of § 9. You say the Liturgy alloweth private Baptism without the Cross and God-fathers Ans. 1. Thence I must gather that it doth not so allow publick Baptism no not on pretence of necessity and mercy else why had they not exprest their allowance of one as well as of the other 2. And even there it must be repeated after in the Congregation with God-fathers that believe and promise in the Name of the Child And in the house there is nothing named or required of the Parent but some one whoever is only to name the child § 10. In the Margin you say There is no express prohibition in all the Liturgy tying Ministers in no case to baptize without the Cross and to give the Sacrament to kneelers only and to baptize none without Sureties Ans. I am glad that your whole writing favoureth of that spirit of Love and Christian Peace and Forbearance as your dislike of these things signifieth And while we agree about the sense of God's Law we shall not break Charity for our differing of the sense of the Laws of man But seeing you put these great points of my Non-conformity here together I shall briefly repeat the reasons of my exposition against yours Words are to signifie the mind and the matter If the Book speak intelligibly so as to oblige us to one sense it 's nothing to our case whether the prohibition be express I. The Liturgy-Rubrick saith There shall be for every male-child to be baptized two God-fathers and one God-mother and for every female one God-father and two God-mothers II. The whole transaction beside prayer to God and the act of Baptizing is mainly speech to the God-fathers and demands of them and their answer by professing Abrenunciation Faith desire to be Baptized resolved Obedience They must name the Child They are exhorted to see that the Child be taught what a solemn Vow Promise and Profession he made by them c. and to be brought up to the Bishop to be confirmed III. In the Baptism of the Adult the God-fathers are called but Witnesses as not giving the person Title to Baptism But in the Baptism of Infants they do profess and covenant in the Child's name and he doth it by them as his very Title IV. The Catechism saith That Repentance and Faith are required of persons to be Baptized and as the old Book said They perform them by their Sureties so the new one saith They promise them by their Sureties and therefore are Baptized V. For the Cross the Liturgy saith Here the Priest shall make a Cross on the Child's fore-head And it referreth us to the Canon for the sense and reasons VI. The Communion-Rubrick saith He shall deliver it into their hands All meekly kneeling VII The last Rubrick saith It is ordained in this Office that the Communicants shall receive the same kneeling VIII The same Church by Can. 36. requireth every Minister to subscribe that he will use the Form in that Book prescribed in Publick Prayer and
is it And is this the Power of the Keys or Excommunication If you ask me How I would have all this remedied I have oft enough answered it and will not here repeat it Only I would have a Minister have some such freedom as a School-master or Philosopher hath in his School and not a meer slave or Agent of others to take in and use and exclude and say as strangers to the Flock command him against his conscience and knowledge of the Case till it be proved that it shall justifie him at judgment for all such actions to say The Law Bishop or Chancellor commanded me § 2. You tell us as by your many Years Experience that private repelling by Counsel and Persuasion may serve with most And 1. I wonder that you that had but a small Country Chappel and no Church at all where near Neighbours might easily be spoken with should talk of your Experience as an argument against that which is of notorious matter of Fact 1. Shew me where Law Canon or Rubrick giveth power to the Priest to refuse a Parishioner that saith I take you not for my Pastor nor to have any authority over me but as the Bishop's Curate to do what the Law bids you and I will not speak with you 2. Do you not now dwell in London where Parishes are so great that the Parson can do no such thing on one of a Multitude nor doth so much as know them And know you not that de facto there are Multitudes that will refuse and scorn to give you any account or hear you or come to you or admit you to any such discourse with them I had the most obedient tractable People to deal with that ever I knew And yet I had some that attempted by present violence to Murder me for Admonishing them and forbidding them the Sacrament and many that would give me no other account of themselves but demand of me to deliver them the Sacrament as the Canon and Liturgy order it whenever they appear at Church and require it Hundreds and Thousands will stoop to no other Terms in the great Parishes of England § 3. I confess if ever I had been thought tolerable under our Prelates and had thought my self able as I do not for the care of some of the smaller Parishes I should have most trusted to the New Liturgy for my power to keep away some of the grosly Ignorant as being not ready to be Confirmed because they know not the Catechism But now I perceive by you this were not like to serve my turn for you say It is only for those that never yet Communicated when as multitudes of the Aged are grosly ignorant of the Essentials that have long Communicated 2. And divers of these grosly ignorant Persons are Confirmed long ago Bishop Morton was one of the Learnedst and best Bishops that ever I knew And when I was fourteen or fifteen Years old I and my School-fellows and abundance of Boys and Girls when he came into the Country went as to some Spectacle and without any certificate or question to us or instruction of us we all kneeled in a long row in a Church-yard in the Path-way and as he went by he laid his Hands on every one and huddled over a short Collect of which I scarce understood one sentence that he said and I was never the wiser nor fitter for the Sacrament that I perceived § 4. But you say that The Order binds to a Repelling by publick Admonition and Church Power notifying to the Congregation such a Man's Crimes and Scandals as a Fornicator c. and warn him not to come to the Sacrament till he have made open confession of his Sins and reformed his Life Ans. What Order is it that binds us to this If you mean Christ's Order we must do it If you mean the Churches where shall we find it This is like the Rubrick new Article of Faith which will Silence us all who are not certain by God's Word that Baptized Infants without exception are undoubtedly saved and yet that Charity was wanting that should but once have cited the Text that maketh it undoubtedly certain A short labour for so great an End So when you might know how very far it would go to reconcile me to our Prelacy could I but prove what here you say yet you will not so much as tell me where to find it Nay if you that have studied the Law would but have told me how to escape when I am accused for doing it § 5. But your next is too apt to provoke Laughter viz. Suppose you honestly tell the Ordinary that the uncapable are too many to be presented lest Violence make them worse and Excommunicating them signifie nothing but endanger them to rise in Rebellion or Mutiny and turn you and us out of Place that reason is considerable or quite leave our Assemblies and turn Quakers Papists Infidels and precipitate Souls to Hell by Obstinacy and Viciousness But if you will leave it to me I will Christen their Children and keep them within the Church Is that Excommunicating them as Hearers and Learners and Candidates c. Do I not then honestly perform the Law Ans. Your honesty I shall commend And Christ's Law you may much perform But what Law of the Church is it that you thus perform What is the Law that giveth you any such power What Law forbids it you I have shewed Let the Rejected sue you and let the Judges tell you whether you have kept the Law The issue will answer you better than I can But you say It is the Intention of the Law that you perform Ans. You have proved me also and all of us Conformists before we were aware The end of the Law is to edifie and save Men and to prefer Mercy before Sacrifice But all this I do or endeavour in my Preaching Dwelling and Practice Ergo I am a Conformist and perform the Law But that did not keep me out of the common Gaol nor save my Library And must we be punished for Conforming Break the Law and Canon and say you did it in Mercy and kept it and try whether you will pass for a Conformist Did you not thus keep the end of the Law when you Preacht at Warrington and did your Excommunicators call it Conformity § 6. But you say All that are accused are not Excommunicate nor laid in Gaols it is to be hoped that the Ordinary will do them Iustice. Ans. 1. As they did you 2. They may escape the Gaol by flying their Country as you do But what shall they do with their Wives and Children 3. But we grant you all this If 500 in a great Parish should be accused by the Minister as uncapable of the Sacrament by gross Ignorance Infidelity Heresie or Crimes and as you say they be not Excommunicate when they come home acquit the Minister must give them the Sacrament the next time 4. But our question is not what
the Ordinary will do but what the Law and Canon bind him and you to do CHAP. XXI § 1. YOu entitle the next Section of the Chancellor and his Office and reading Excommunications and the Order and Discipline in the Church of England And 1. You tell us of them that would have Unordained Ruling Elders in every Parish But 1. If that be ill how will it justifie Lay-Chancellors 2. Cannot many with the Pastor better govern one Parish than one Chancellor can many Scores or Hundreds 3. Some give Lay-Elders only a part of the Magistrates work and some only to be Delegates for the People to do but what they may do who cannot be oft present and to be occasional Arbitrators and some that give them any use of the Keys take them not for Lay-men but Ministers separated to that Ecclesiastical Office § 2. You tell us of thirteen parts of Discipline among us To which I said enough before 1. No Atheists Infidels or Pagans then must be refused Baptism if communicating God-Fathers how bad soever present him who never take him for their own and we doubt can neither give or prove his Title And that we are disabled to keep the unworthy from the Communion I have proved and the Excellent Learned Pious Parish Priests of London tell you by Practice 2. Few Communicants are Confirmed and Sacramental Capacity is not required to Confirmation And if it be not used or worse by Bishops who only have the power what satisfaction is that to the Parish Priest and Church 3. There is no sufficient means to Convict and keep away scandalous Sinners 4. The Sinner hath power to forbid you private Admonition by refusing to speak with you or come near you 5. What is Family Power to the Church We thank you for nothing But were not Parents formerly disabled from keeping Children and Servants from spending much of the Lord's Day in Dancing c. And doth not the Canon yet disable them from bringing them to hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church when they have none at Home 6. The Lawyers that I speak with take all for meer Falshood that you say of the Priests power of publick admonition of sinners by name not censured by the Ordinary You say Where is it forbidden I ask you Where is the Priest authorized to do it If not the Man will have his Action against him and Ruine him and the Bishop may suspend him for Usurpation And 2. Of all the worthy Parish Incumbents in London who did you ever hear once do it I never one heard one do it nor heard of one that did it in my life except a Non-conformist or a hot Parson point at a Puritan in the Church for some Non-conformity in a Circumstance Reverse then your charge of Hypocrisie if you find it must fall on all the worthy London Incumbents For they all speak for Discipline though not for more 7. If there be half as many bad Ministers as the Country saith there is it 's a small honour to the Church to reproach the Fathers that admit them as sinning against Church Law and Conscience and a small relief to Peoples Souls to tell that some Body had power to have provided better But the People had no such power to save themselves from a bad one though the Church for 700 if not more Years took him to be no Bishop but an Usurper that came not in by the consent of the Flock and election of the Clergy of which more elsewhere 8. Do or can Bishops by Visitations know the People and their Cases of a thousand or many hundred Parishes so as to hear and judge them Would they not have ten thousand scandalous Sinners sometime to try and exhort to Repentance in one or few Days 9. and 10. We are glad that the old prohibitions of Afternoon Sermons and Lectures are not yet revived But how few Parishes have such Lectures comparatively and how few have Catechizing And they that have none may not go to another If you think that it will save the Peoples Souls that the Priest might have instructed them if he could and would and that the Bishop should have made him do it I dissent 11. I have seen no Visitation Articles of late but in the old ones of 1634 1635 36 37 38 39. the Church-wardens were to swear to persecute Men for so many things which they thought their Duty as the foresaid going from a Non-preaching Minister keeping private Fasts and such like that many Men that feared an Oath and Persecution suffered because they durst not be Church-wardens 12. I confess more manners of Church-censures are in use among us than we desire The Canons will tell them to you Else so many hundred Non-Conformists formerly and lately had not been forbid to Preach nor all forbid to admit Non-conforming Christians to Communion nor had they been ipso facto excommunicate though Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis say so much to make odious all excommunicating ipso facto who they say first devised the name of a Doctrinal Penitence And Bishop Ier. Taylor saith so much against it And I confess that there is the Magistrate's sword to back all this by which about two thousand of us were silenced and you fly out of your Country from the Writ de excommunicato capiendo § 3. My belief of your unfeigned honesty makes one at last pity you and wonder when you add What more would you have what it was that could tempt you to contract the guilt of defending things of such publick and sad an Aspect and prospect against such light and after such experience of the effects and in such a time 1. Do you believe in your conscience that the Bishop of York Norwich Lincoln London or the rest with a Chancellor and his Officials and Arch-Deacons can possibly exercise that Discipline or the hundredth part of it which Christ hath appointed were they never so honest 2. Do you believe that a Lay-Chancellor who you confess hath not the power of the Keys doth or can well execute them 3. Do you not know how little of the Parish-Government against scandals is exercised by the Bishop and how almost is done by this Chancellor and Officials 4. Do you not know how unlike their Courts are to fit a sinner for absolution by true Repetance 5. Did you ever in your life know a sinner brought to a repentance seemingly unfeigned by them 6. Did you ever hear such worthy men of greatest honesty and Learning as Dr. Lloyd Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Mr. Sharp c. name any in the Pulpit or Church by way of publick admonition and invitation to repentance who was not first censured by the Ordinary 7. Do you think none of them would do it if they thought it a duty and the lawful and safe way of Discipline 8. Do you think their Parishes have no scores or hundreds of Brutists Atheists Drunkards Fornicators or other scandalous sinners 9. Do you think they can possibly
know any thing of their peoples gross Ignorance Infidelity Atheism yea or Scandal who can know so few of the persons much less can the Bishop 10. Do you think that it is exercise enough of this Discipline when about 5000 in a year only communicate to leave 20000 or 30000 more as members of the Church in that Parish that use not to communicate or else may come when they will extraordinarily to save them from the Law though utterly unknown to the Minister And so proportionably in Parishes half as big And how is it possible this can be amended rebus sic stantibus And would not so many good men amend it were it possible Oh draw not the guilt of so many and such things on your self without cause Were it as small a thing as the Israelites High Places if you cannot amend it do not become the open defender of it Iudas himself at last accused the Pharisees and High Priests and justified Christ. I do not think he would have written a Confutation of Christ's reproofs recited in Matt. 15. and 23 c. How can you pray for a Reformation of that which you think needeth none And hath the Church and Cause of holy Discipline lost so much of your prayers too If you say to God as you do to us What more would we have I am glad that God hath a firmer people that will pray for more § 4. You say As to the Chancellor and his Office it is less matter by whom Excommunication be done so it be honestly and soundly done He is a Christian he is a man of Knowledge and Learning he is authorized by the Laws of the Kingdom his Office is incorporate into the Government of the Nation Though he may not bind and loose as a Pastor he may as a Christian authorized by the King See Matth. 18. 15 c. Ans. This is a great business 1. Why said you before that the Power of the Keys belongs to the Pastors c But you meant not only to them 2. Is it the same sort of Excommunication and Absolution which belongs to the Pastor and to a Lay-man If not you say nothing to our business For our Laws Canons and Church pretend here no difference I confess that there are three acts of separation which the Magistrate may do 1. He may command Bishops and Pastors to do their Office faithfully in excommunicating notorious impenitent criminals 2. When they are excommunicated he may forbid them intruding into the Church 3. He may judge the flagitious to be stigmatized or be taken as out-lawed and forbid men to be familiar with them But the Power of the Church is a power of judging what individual persons are fit or unfit for Baptism the Eucharist Church Entrance and Church Communion is the Church is the Porch of Heaven and as a preparation to the final judgment And it is not another sort but this sort which the Lay-Chancellor pretendeth to exercise in the Bishop's name I have been thought by some to give my self too much to Magistrates in Church-matters But I am far from your mind for the reasons following 1. It is notorious that in Scripture Christ hath instituted a special Office to use these Keys and do this work which he would not have done had he left it common to any others 2. The Power of the Keys is so much of the essential comprehensive title of that Office as that it is nullified when it is made common 3. If this part may be done by the Lay-men or Magistrate no man can give a reason why any of the rest may not even not only to be the stated Teachers of the Church and their Guides in Worship but also Baptizing and administring the Lord's Supper As it is more to be the Law-makers than the Cryers and the Judge than the Marshal so it is more to decree who shall have the Sacraments than barely to deliver it them which the Deacon may do And so we shall have not only Lay-Baptizers but Lay-Preachers Lay-Administers of the Lord's Supper or by contradiction Lay-Priests 4. You plead for Conformity and may easily know that the Church of England abhorreth this Opinion 5. When King Henry the Eighth was called Head of the Church to avoid the Papists calumnies Queen Elizabeth and King Iames have published their disclaiming of that power of Word and Sacraments called that of the Keys and if my Ears deceived me not I have heard our present King profess the same 6. The judgment and practice of the Churches of all Ages and places since Christ is against you I think Helvetia it self not excepted And should this be nothing to you who call on us to reverence the Old Conformists 7. The reason of the Institution fully satisfies me It was not meet so great a trust should be placed in unfit men As in case of Ordination it must be men that are able to try the persons as to skill and life that must be trusted with so weighty a business and also such that can have leisure to attend it and therefore as an Office are empowered for it and separated to it lest it miscarry so as to Baptism Absolution Excommunication it must be done by men 1. That are capable of full acquaintance with the person witnesses and cause 2. And that can try and judge of it 3. And especially of the persons Faith and Repentance for it is on these that the sentence must pass No Baptism without Faith No Excommunication without obstinate Impenitence No Absolution without Repentance 4. It must be by men fit to exhort them to Faith and Repentance and confute their Errours and pray for them that God would give them Faith and Repentance 5. And it is so great a part of the world and all the Church of Christ that this or much of this must be done for that reason shewed it needful that it be made the work of a great and special Office And if so then those men that do it 1. Must be tryed as Ordained Ministers be 2. And Ordained to the Office of doing it 3. And profess to do it as such Officers 4. And not lacerate that Office and change it by taking a part of it and leaving the rest And so they must be no Lay-men I could with that you had studied and consulted better before with such more than Erastian singularity you had pleaded for so dangerous a thing as Church-Levelling or so much overthrow of the necessary sacred Office and set your self against the judgment and practice of the Christian Church But all men have their hour of temptation and all do not overcome § 5. You say The Excommunication is of no force till published by the Parish-Minister who hath power if he please to make it his Text and declare the nature use and ends c. Ans. 1. I had rather have a better Text. 2. It is of force if another publish it 3. It 's part of the true Charge of the Minister himself
and will trusting another with it discharge him 4. We fear being guilty of the Lay-man's Usurpation and the Church-Confusion 5. But worst of all it is people fearing God that the Canon excommunicateth ipso facto and that the Chancellor is to excommunicate Had it been my duty to pronounce you excommunicate because the Chancellor decreed it 6. Where you say If I know the sentence to be void unjust and illegal I am not to publish it Ans. Well set together But if you know it to be unjust and yet legal according to the Canon you must publish it or be a Non-Conformist and may be suspended And are all the Canons Decrees just CHAP. XXII YOU speak next of the Surplice of which I gave you no occasion But we that know that the true meaning of the Liturgy is that all must use it that shall be suffered to officiate 1. Will not believe you if you tell us the contrary hereafter and lay it only on the Canon and think it nothing that you are obliged to consent to and aprove 2. Nor will I yet believe that you will undertake to justifie the ejecting and silencing of all that dare not use the Surplice Or if you will you cannot The 14th and 15th of the Romans cannot be confuted nor the many proofs that I have given that it reacheth our case in my late Book for the Church's Concord And why talk you of the Surplice and omit the main Question Whether we may consent to the Liturgy Preface and Rubrick which impose it as they do You durst not consent to silence two thousand or one that dare not use it CHAP. XXIII § 1. YOur next Section is of the false Rule for finding Easter-Day To this you say If really there be an Error I assent not to it Ans. Nor I Nor will I say I do when I do not And to what purpose then do you write for Conformity when one Lye must not be told to save our Liberty § 2. But you say It is not an Error in Divinity Ans. What then May I Lye about any other things § 3. But you say Some yet continue to affirm it is no Error Ans. And what will not some Men affirm You see how hard it is for a Non-conformist to be justified with some Men when all the Almanacks in England cannot do it in such a point I am too weak to deal with Men that will not take such evidence as this You say That it is questionable whether this be any part of the Book to be assented to Ans. You had some fair pretence to deny the act of Uniformity to be a part though the Contents say it is but if this be questionable you may question as the School-Men so long till you leave us little unquestionable This would increase my Resolution against Conformity when we cannot be sure what it is that we must Assent and Consent to and what not How can you tell us which is or not of the Book if this be not § 4. You say For the time past none will lay it to the charge of the Conformists and for the time to come it will be abated those that shall Subscribe and Conform Ans. How oft have I told you that I am laying nothing to the Charge of others but excusing our selves But I cannot justifie them that will do they know not what Especially it is sad that when such a Convocation which is the Representative Church of England shall all consent to draw up such things to be imposed on a Kingdom and so great a Parliament require assent to it on the Penalties enacted and executed on so many they should have no more honourable a defence than you make for them § 5. And who it is that hath the power to abate us that which the Law so severely requireth we do not yet know unless it be the King whose Mind you know not It is the Bishop that you mean But I doubt the Lawyers that have so lately questioned the Kings Power of Dispensation will contradict you that give that to the Bishop which they deny the King CHAP. XXIV § 1. THe next Section is about our Assenting to Consenting to and approving the many Disorders and Defects in the Liturgy You confess there are such and name many of them And the sum of your Answer is That you Assent and Consent to use the formes though disordered and defective and the Assent and Consent is no otherwise to be understood Ans. Soon said but where 's the proof 1. The words are All things contained in and prescribed by the Book Is the mode and disorder none of the All If I should say I Approve Assent and Consent to something but not all or the Matter but not the Order and Manner doth this answer the common sense of the universal words What if the Book did say the Lord's Prayer or Ten Commandments backward or Baptized in the Name of the Holy Ghost the Son and the Father or began as it ends c. may I declare that I Consent to and approve all things contained in it and prescribed by it § 2. As to your limitation of the sense to the word Use I have told you that the Parliament rejected it and that it is a groundless Fiction and that it makes your Cause no whit the better were it granted CHAP. XXV § 1. THe next is Whether we may assent to the Preface for justifying all that was in the Book before You say that It was not the intent of the Book to bind any Man to approve the Errors of Translators and Printers nor to use the Forms in the Liturgy so as to contradict one another Ans. 1. Printers Errors indeed are not the Convocations nor the Books as made by them Did I instance in any of them But if Translators Errors also be excepted our difficulty of understanding the Imposition still increaseth Then it seems as to the Psalms Epistles and Gospels we Assent and Consent only to the Original Text and so much as we judge well Translated I thought it the Book by ill Translation had grosly contradicted or depraved the Scripture it had been one of the worst sort of Errors I told you where it directly contradicteth the Text. What Heresie may not be brought in by a false Translation We thank God for the worst as a great Mercy to the Church and by them that will not receive a better in the Psalms we are thus commanded to justifie even that which was worst lest they should be thought to have needed any amendment And you make your self their Expositor without their Authority and tell us that the intent of the Book is not to bind us to approve the Errors of Translators And I believe you as the Book is distinguished from the Authors and so hath no intent at all But if the Translaton hath done as Heylin saith the King's Printer did that put Thou shalt commit Adultery for Thou shalt not and I were commanded
that if the same were done here we may enter into a solemn Covenant never to endeavour to reform it No were it but the high places in Iudaea 2. Submitting is either by Obedience or meer Patience Under Papists and Turks Men must submit by Patience But if you say We hold that we must obey all that they command our practice tells you It is not true But the question is Whether there be no one thing but what we may covenant never to endeavour to alter and subscribe that no Parliament Man or any other in England is bound by that Oath which they took to endeavour it The Law forbids me to say They are and therefore I say it not But if you say They are not Dare you undertake to answer for them You say Their Office binds them to no evil That is None of the things fore-mentioned are evil Which you said were so Again you say All the while Excommunications and Church Censures are soundly done it 's the the less matter by whom they are done Ans. 1. Do not say so to the King about Kingly Government Nor to the Judges if an intruder invade the Tribunal 2. Make the Bishops believe this if you can of any that should usurp their Office 3. Make the Parish Priests believe it if you can who are so angry with us for helping them at a distance though we invade not Places 4. Make any sober Ministers believe if you can that if the Word be well Preacht and Sacraments soundly Administred it is no matter who doth it 5. Make any Master of a Family or Husband believe it as to their Offices that it 's no matter who doth it so it be soundly done If the Wife do believe it 's two to one the Husband will not § 4. Again you say By the Government of Church and State whatsoever is absolutely sinful is forbidden the Laws declare it Null c. Ans. This is before answered You say Silencing and Excommunicating the Non-conformists here are sinful Instead of this impertinent talk go try your Oratory on the Judges and Bishops if you can persuade them that the Law forbids them all to fine Imprison or Silence us or Excommunicate us Why did you not use this pretty Argument for your self 2. And do not Papists and Turks say that No Law against God is in force And doth their Government therefore contain no evil Or will you tell them that swear to amend it that it 's well enough already You tell us what to say to the Bishops and Judges for our selves But if by this Medium I would prove that I am conformable to the Law and they are the Non-conformists that punish me because they break the Law of God I doubt they would Laugh at me first and send me to Gaol next § 5. But in answer to Where read we in Scripture of the Chancellor's Office You repeat again If soundly done no Man may reprove them I will not repeat my Answer But I add If so No Man may reprove the Boys if they soundly Whip their Master when he deserveth it nor a Cobler that will send Offenders to Prison as the Lord Mayor doth Nor a Justice yea or a Tinker that will step up in the Chancery or King's-Bench to do Justice § 6. But though I will not Laugh at your Writing I should hardly forbear if I heard you do what page 95 you say you would do viz. If a Bishop or Arch-Bishop or Chancellor live where you are Pastor and be a Member of your Congregation you must needs look on your self as obliged by the Laws and Canons of the Church and State by the Word of God and by the Rules of the Common-prayer-Book publickly to admonish him if he grosly misdemean himself and do a scandalous crime and if he shall not by open confession give satisfaction to the Church bar him from the Sacrament and declare him Disorderly and Contumacious and that if he do not repent he shall perish and warn the People to beware of such evil Courses and to have no more to do with him than they needs must And this I maintain to be part of the Discipline and Government of the Church of England Ans. I would I could see this bout I doubt he will have something to do with you Your Chancellor had the wit to begin with you first I pray you forget not this Case when you go to the Bishop for his sense of the Liturgy and tell us his answer when you come Home I must profess this is an edifying Passage As when I read in Saltmarsh that Christ repented and believed for us it let in more Light against Libertinism than I had before So doth this Passage raise up some useful doubts in me about our Churches which I thought not on till now Q. 1. Whether are the Bishops that dwell in the London Parishes or others Members of the Parish Church where they dwell Q. 2. If they are not Whether dwelling in the Parish make a Christian a Member of the Parish Church Q. 3. If not what is it that makes a Member and how are the Pastors special Flock truly known to him from others Q. 4. If they be Members to whom shall we present the Bishop for not coming to Church or for his Crimes Is it to himself Q. 5. Whether is the Bishop or the Parish Priest there the higher Power or Governor and which must obey Q. 6. Doth the Canon that forbids Men to go from their own Parish Churches extend to the Bishop Q. 7. How is the Bishop one of the Parson's Flock and the Parson one of the Bishop's Flock both at once Q. 8. Whether the Bishop that is Excommunicated by the Parson out of the Parish Church be cast out of the Universal or other Churches may have Communion with him or not Q. 9. What if the Parson Excommunicate the Bishop and the Bishop the Parson both at once what a Case are they in And which shall stand one or both and how far Q. 10. How will the Parson practice his Conformity who consenteth when he putteth any one from the Sacrament to certifie the Ordinary within fourteen Days will he prosecute the Bishop to himself or to his Chancellor Q. 11. Doth not this Instance prove Mr. Cheyney to be a mistaking Expositor of the Church-Government the Bishops themselves being Judges and would not one days practice of any such thing convince him by Experience that the Church of England now take not Parish Parsons for Parish Bishops Q. 12. Is he in the right page 96. that this Course would make Bishops and Arch-Bishops and Chancellors stand in awe of the Priests why then did you not thus awe your Bishop and Chancellor CHAP. XXIX YOur 28th Section hath nothing in it that requireth many words for Answer That Oaths and Laws must be charitably expounded no one denieth so they be truly expounded In this we stand to Bishop Sanderson's Rules which are far better stated than any
and the English sort of God-Fathers you may refuse to say the words of Prayer which imply his Salvation over the Dead who were Excommunicable though not Excommunicated You may understand the Article which professeth the certainty of Baptized Infants salvation of those only that are the Children of faithful Parents or Pro-parents you may say you Assent to all in the Book and mean not all but some part and that not as true but as usable You may profess Consent to use it all and yet not mean to use the Calendar or Rubricks or to Administer the Sacraments otherwise than as aforesaid You may Say or Subscribe or Swear that it is on any pretence whatsoever unlawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King and mean only such as are lawfully Commissioned You may subscribe that no one in England that sware it is bound by the solemn Vow and Oath to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State and mean only that he must not endeavour it by Sedition or Rebellion And so on to the end But other Bishops will say the clean contrary viz. That the Bishop is the only Pastor and the Parish Priest hath none of the power here named and so of all the rest And what Uniformity then will there be Know you not how they write against such different Administrations as destructive and intolerable 7. And know you not that a Bishop hath no power against the Canons The Canons are their own Laws and Judgment and bind them And when the Canon saith e. g. He shall be suspended that giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or that the Non-conformists are ipso facto Excommunicate c. Hath the Bishop authority to say the contrary 8. And you know that I wrote not to accuse you or any Man for Conforming but to tell them that judge us worthy to be Silenced and Ruined what our Non-conformity is And what use then is your own Latitude to me or such as I though I went your own way For I have askt and heard the Opinion of divers Bishops already and they have said clean contrary to you I have heard him that first forbad me Preaching in his Diocess say that The Liturgy forbiddeth delivering the Sacrament to any that Kneel not I can shew it you under his Hand that the Priest must not be Judge when to omit the forementioned words at the burial of the Dead nor tolerated in such Liberty as you presume on I have been told by a Bishop That seeing Christ died for all the Children of any Parents in the World have right to Baptism and any Man hath as good right to present to it an Infidel's Child as to take in an exposed Infidel's Child to his House in Charity I told you that Bishop Sanderson publickly before the Bishops Nemine contradicente told me That I need not question Baptizing any Infidel's Child if God-Fathers presented him according to the Order of the Church of England Are we not then concluded against Conformity by the Bishop's judgment by your own Rule And must not you be a Non-conformist in the Diocess of any such Bishop as these 9. And by your Rule a Man must be a Conformist in one Bishop's Diocess and a Non-conformist in another's and change his mode of Religion as he Travelleth or doth change his Dwelling I imagine that by your Rule I might partly Conform in the Diocess of London or Lincoln Hereford or Carlisle but I should be as Non-conformable as I am in the Diocess of Winchester Ely York Norwich and any other as far as I yet know I conclude that your Catholicon may purge your self from all Non-conformity but it is utterly unprofitable to me Facile credimus quod volumus I have had as much reason as you to be willing to find Conformity lawful if it be so I have lost many thousand Pounds more by Non-conformity than you have got by Conformity But I have no such Byas on my Will as should set all my Wit on work to find or buy a Rope for my Conscience And I find nothing better that you offer me herein § 4. When you have told us Where no God-Fathers can be had we must Christen without and such like You say And this is the common sense put upon the Law by the Law-makers themselves that is by the Bishops Ans. What reason did you think we have in such an Historical Assertion to believe your bare word In what Synod did they declare it Why did you neither name the Bishops nor the Time or Place or Witness by which it might be proved the common sense But could you think this should convince me that know it to be false § 5. You tell us pag. 119. If it were a part of Assent and Consent that Ordination by good and substantial Presbyters were null it would be a hard point indeed to Unchurch Churches and Unbaptize the Baptized and plead the cause of Satan the Pope and all Malignants of the Ministry in the Name of Christ. Ans. Excuse us then for not Conforming I before gave you this Proof that it is the sense of the Law-makers or Bishops They that abhor Reordination or twice ordaining to the Priesthood and yet require those to be ordained by Bishops who were before ordained by Presbyters must be judged to hold the said Ordination by Presbyters to be null But c. Ergo. § 6. 1. You say No Man that I know of takes the Silenced Ministers and those ordained by Presbyters only for no Ministers at all unless one Mr. Dodwel a high-flown Man whom Conformists themselves do utterly dissent from in this Ans. Your ignorance is no good reason for my Conformity If you know of no more I do Read Mr. Thâ—rndike of Forbearance of Penalties Ask Bishop Gunning his judgment c. If your acquaintance be so small you should not write of that which you know not § 7. 2. But you say All both Rulers and People Conformists themselves do own them for Ministers otherwise they would take some course for the Rebaptizing of all Baptized by them Ans. Did you ever read the Conference at Hampton Court Did you dream that all these take Laymens Baptizing for null Or do you conclude that all think what you think § 8. 3. You prove it from the toleration of the Foreigners Churches in London Ans. How will you prove that they judge all true Ministers whom they Tolerate § 9. 4. You say the Acts against Conventicles and the Five Mile Act prove it 5. The King's Proclamation for Indulgence proveth it 6. The Fines and Imprisonments for Conventicles prove it 7. The allowing four Persons to meet in private proveth it 8. The common sense of Bishops Divines and People of the Church of England prove it Ans. You may next say That any thing that you see or hear proveth it It 's liker these prove the contrary than this By this Men may see how little satisfaction we may expect
from your arguing You greatly wrong the King Parliament and Bishops if you think they take all for Ministers Men Women or Children whose meeting they tolerate You leave out the Argument from the Act of Uniformity which punisheth all by a hundred Pound a time that Administer the Sacrament being not ordained by a Bishop Doth that prove them Ministers too § 10. You say As to the Peoples Conformity I know no one thing required of them to Conform to but what they may do with a good Conscience Ans. Why then did you pass by the answering of my Book concerning their part Particularly about the Corporation-Declaration Should they be in the right that think all the Cities and Corporations in England to be under that which I am loth to name and that Plagues Flames and Poverty are God's Revenge Oh! what a thing would it be for a Servant of Christ to say to them in Print O England repent not CHAP. XXXI § 1. YOur Conclusion is also a bundle of Mistakes and Impertinencies 1. It is more than three or four points that the new Conformity addeth to the old 2. If the number or goodness of the old Conformists did prove their Cause good many things would have a far stronger Proof of that kind from the ancient Churches which yet you judge to be unlawful and in other Countries the same Argument will be turned against you 3. Such Men as you call The main Body of the best Divines were very few in comparison of the Ignorant bad Clergy 4. It is not true that Mr. Knewstubs was a Conformist nor Dr. Reynolds neither unless I be one The Petition of the Non-conformists to King Iames was called Millenary because it had a thousand Hands in a little compass 5. That some then did and now do scruple more than others is impertinent to our Business and it were a wonder if it were not so till Men are arrived at scrupling nothing 6. The 36th Canon was the chief point of the old Non-conformity and will receive no justification by the worth of any Subscribers I doubt not but Bernard Gerson c. were holy Men that subscribed far worse 7. Sponsors of an ill sort are never the better because there was a better sort of old nor because these were before the new Liturgy 8. Page 125. You could wish Ministers would make the Parents to be present chief Undertakers that is to be Non-conformists called Conformists The rest needeth but the repetition of what is said before which would rather tire than edifie the Reader CHAP. XXXII SInce the writing of my Answer to your Book you were with me and when I gave you two or three Objections which I published not you gave me no Reply to them but went from me and Printed an Answer to them in a Supplement Seeing your judgment is most for that way I crave your patience while I use the way you choose I confess my judgment is that you have unavoidably made me a great Temptation to you For if you be not a Man of great Humility you will 1. Be offended to find all your Labour proved to be hurtful and your Reasoning vain and you will think that the disgracing of them by a just Confutation falleth on your self 2. And you will be tempted to turn your thoughts too partially to justifie what once you have so publickly said and so to run further into the Extream But my persuasion of your great sincerity maketh me hope that you will overcome the temptation which you have chosen I. I thought that the word Use of all did much aggravate and not extenuate the burden of the Declaration as added to Assent But to them that thought otherwise I thought that when both Lords and Commons at a Conference upon Reasons given had rejected that Exposition which confineth the sense of the words to Use it had been a more satisfactory notice of the Law-givers sense than either your private Conceit or any Bishops Exposition could be But you tell us That this Conference was no Law or repeal of the Law Ans. Impertinent It is an Exposition of the meaning of the Law-makers only that we are enquiring of and not the repealing or making of a Law It is the Law-makers part to be the publick obliging Interpreters of the Law to the whole Kingdom We are enquiring in point of Conscience how we must understand them And you will not believe them it seems unless they make a new Law to tell you the sense of the old one II. Every one may know that it 's usual for the Means to have somewhat in it for the End besides the intending of the End it self and that usually Laws and Canons command many Means for one End And therefore to make your full and constant usage of Conformity to be the End and the Assenting and Consenting to all things in the Book to be the Means even in that form of words are no contradiction And it 's usual to be stricter in prescribing forms of Words for Oaths Covenants or Confessions than in the other integral parts of a Law And it is a great wrong to a Parliament of England to say either that in such a form imposed on the Learned and Consciencious Tribe they knew not how to speak intelligibly according to the common use of words or that they were so mischievously Malignant as seventeen or eighteen Years to refuse to open their sense for the healing of so distracted and endangered a Church and Nation if they meant not as their words do signifie according to common use It 's no vanity to say I have known the Men Bishops and Commons better than you have done and heard more of them and their Debates than you have done and I am satisfied in my Conscience to conclude that they meant plainly as they speak and no better Even that no Man's promise to use the Liturgy shall be taken for trusty and satisfactory that will not declare that he Assenteth and Consenteth to all things contained in it and prescribed by it And this plainly Ex animo without uncouth Exposition Equivocations or Jesuitical mental Reservations § 2. I have not wit enough to find out sense in your Quibble that If the later words the Form do import more than the former for the Use then there is something added and altered which possibly may inconsist and be contradiction Ans. Is not all prescript of Means an addition to the Precept De fine Doth the prescript of the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance impose no more than to be Loyal Yes It requireth a particular test of Loyalty Doth the Command of subscribing the thirty nine Articles contain no more but to be Orthodox Yes It enjoineth us by this means to profess those particulars in which our Orthodoxness consisteth § 3. Assent when thus distinguished purposely from Consent signifieth Assenting to some Truth and Consent respecteth the Good So that when you make Assent to be but the same as Consent to Use
Vow falsly But the harder it is for him to know his own Mind the more excusable he is And a false entrance is not a Sin that is unpardonable nor is the Sinner uncurable but may be converted in the Church though he came in unlawfully § 6. While preposterously you tell us who you think hath right to Baptism and the Lord's Supper you pass over the Fundamental Controversie as if you knew it not which is What Baptism and the Lord's Supper are This is it that we are mostly disagreed about End this and end all I suppose you take Baptism to be the first Sacrament and that less is not necessary to the Lord's Supper than to it And I presume to tell you that Christ never ordained nor the Church ever used any other Baptism of the Adult than 1. That which delivered the present Remission of Sin and right to Life to the just receiver of Baptism 2. and that which contained on the part of the Receiver his present profession of saving Faith and Repentance that is his true consent to the Covenant § 7. The Scripture telleth us that Baptism saveth as containing the answer of a good Conscience to God And that as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ and have professed that they are buried with him by Baptism into his Death and raised with him to newness of Life c. § 8. God in great Mercy hath delivered down to us from the Apostles the form of Baptism by a fuller Tradition than the words of the Scripture or any things else of our Religion are delivered All Ages and Churches to this Day have retained the same form as to all the Essential parts The very words of the Baptizer and the Baptized the Credo Abrenuncio c professed full shew that all used this one Baptism which was a professed Vow and Covenanting with God and renouncing of the Flesh the World and the Devil for present delivered pardon and right to Christ and Life See the long List in Gataker against Davenant of the Ancients that took all the Baptized for justified In a word If you make another Species of Baptism which hath lower Conditions and Gifts only than these I am past doubt 1. That you introduce a new sort of Christianity 2. That you hereby would change the very Essence of the Church and wofully corrupt it A worse thing than to impose new Ceremonies 3. That by denying the truth of so universal concurrent Tradition as the form of Baptism hath you will shake Mens Faith by weakning the Credit of that Tradition by which we have received the Bible It being a harder matter to keep all the words of such a Book than the Form of Baptism used on every Christian in the World 4. That you will too grosly reproach all the Christian Churches as if they had in all Ages and Places been ignorant what Christening and Christianity is and had used a false Baptism till of late 5. You will contradict the Church of England which you Conform to and all the Churches now in the World which in their form of Baptizing and their Catechisms and Confessions tell us of no Baptism but what is a present Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as consenters to his Covenant giving up our selves to him in the foresaid Relations for present Pardon c. See Dr. Hammona's Pract. Cat. of the Baptismal Vow And is all this fit Work for two or three singular Men To deny the said History is to be grosly Ignorant or Immodest § 9. And now I am ashamed to trouble you and the Reader with the opening of all your Impertinencies and Contradictions of That Man will not be persuaded to consent to the Baptismal Covenant and to be a Christian indeed doth yet sigh and grown and pray for that which he would not have and that the Impenitent must penitently use this means for Penitence and because whosoever will must come and take the Water of Life therefore they that will not take it must take the Sacrament And that the outward Act which is false Vowing themselves to God and saying They consent to the Covenant when they do not is the means of Grace appointed for their Conversion in which they do well and are accepted And that Non-consenters may fly to Christ as a merciful Physician to save Souls and cast themselves at his Feet Repenting Praying and crying for Mercy which they would not have and yet if they come with particular ill intentions away with them Confute what I have written to the contrary if you would convince me or any Man that hath read my Five Disputations QUEST III. WHether a Minister may put from the Sacrament those of his Parish who be Christned People and come to Church and joyn in the Publick Worship and tender themselves to receive being under no sentence of Excommunication You say He may not Ans. § 1. 1. What 's this to the Primitive Churches that were not Parishes Or to the Countries that yet are not settled into Parish Churches Or to such Churches as are but tolerated among Papists Parishes 2. And all that is here mentioned the Papists did for the first ten Years of Queen Elizabeth 3. And remember that we have in our Parishes many that are open Atheists Infidels Sadduces Persecutors Scorners of the Scripture and Religion open boasting impenitent Whore-mongers Blasphemers Drunkards c. and many that openly deny the Ministry and Sacraments and yet to avoid Penalty and for Custom will do all that is here named though they deride it And that all these are to be received though also you suppose that they never so much as professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant you take on you to prove 1. Because it is the Will of Christ. Oh! Brother dread such additions to Christ's Words And how is that proved Why None but Dogs and Swine must be denied holy things Ans. 1. Where found you that None else 2. How prove you that none of these are Dogs or Swine 3. Yea are not all they swinish despisers of Grace who will not be persuaded to consent that God shall be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him in these Relations § 2. Yet Page 30. the Case is this If the People being Christened do make a credible profession of true Christianity or a profession of true Christianity which we cannot prove to be false at least by a violent Presumption we must accept their Profession and admit them Ans. This is mine as cited and the plain truth But 1. Did you think that a credible profession of true Christianity is not a credible profession of Conversion Are not true Christians saved What else are Men to be Converted to 2. Do all such as are afore described make such a credible profession of true Christianity § 3. You tell us that the Standard that Christ hath set is that If now thou be
set a faithful Minister in the Parish he becomes as to Office and Right a Pastor a Guide a Minister and Teacher to their Souls If they receive him not they are Rebels and Traytors against Christ and are no longer Christian People save as an Adulterous Wife c. Ans. Alas where can we say a Man will stop when he is once tumbling down the Hill 1. Why did you think your bare word should serve for this That it is Jesus Christ that made this the Office of the Magistrate 2. Is it all Magistrates or some only that have this Power and Jesus Christ chooseth us Pastors by If but some what the better are we for your Discourse if you tell us not how to know them And 3. Will you not then put the People upon a harder and more perilous Task to judge of all Magistrates fitness for this Trust than it would be to judge of their Pastor 4. If it be all then Heathens and Turks must choose Christians their Pastors If you say It is all Christian Magistrates then the Protestants in France are Rebels and not Christians for refusing Papists Priests If it be not Papists who are they Must all receive Lutherans or Socinians or Anabaptists or such like Pastors that live under Imposing Princes of those minds 5. Why do you limit it to faithful Ministers who must judge of their Faithfulness and Qualifications If the Magistrate Papists Socinians Prophane Magistrates or Heretical will judge as they are If the People we are wheeled about to that which is resisted And then When is it that they must judge before they receive him or after If before then must they have trial of him or take all for Faithful that are ordained by a Bishop or that Being Strangers they know no harm by him or all the Patrons present If so we come to the forementioned Misery If they must receive them first and try them after and depart from them when they shew themselves unfaithful then the People must either depose their Pastors or separate And most that separate from the Parish Churches do it as thinking the Ministers unfaithful And is this your Cure of Church-divisions And if never Preaching be a proof of the Unqualified the Canon forbids us to go from such And in some Countrys there are none within reach to go to from them And if there be the Canon suspendeth them if they receive one to their Communion that goeth from a Non-preaching Minister 6. Did any one Church on Earth receive a Pastor by the Magistrates imposition for the first 300 Years Or had not the Churches then rightly called Pastors 7. Did not the Orthodox Churches commonly refuse Bishops which Valens and such Erroneous Emperors set over them 8. Were not Parish Ministers chosen by the Bishops and People and not by Magistrates for 1400 Years in all known Churches in the World It was but the Patriarchs at first that were imposed on the People by the Emperors and afterwards when the Henrys contended with the Pope it was not for choice of Priests but for the Investiture of Bishops and Abhots only and in this they left the choice to the People and Clergie and pleaded but for Investiture per baculum annulum so that for ought I know Magistrates never imposed Priests on Parish Churches till the Reformation And since then besides Helvetia and Belgia it is but few that do it And even in England it is not done by Magistracy but by Patrons presenting and Diocesan Prelates Instituting So that if this be Christ's Way of making Pastors to particular Churches there were no true Pastors or Churches for 300 Years and perhaps none or next none for 1400 Years in Parishes And if this Doctrine be true the Catholick Christians in many Princes Reigns that rejected imposed Bishops if that were as bad as rejecting Parish Priests were Rebels and Traytors against Christ and no Christians And whether he so Stigmatize not the Universal Church for want of such Reception of Priests in almost all Ages I wish him to consider And whether that be like to be a better way of Concord which he and few such in the end of the World devise to the condemning of the Churches of all the former Ages that never had any such Concord 9. Hereby also he leaveth the Tolerated Churches in France Germany and all the Greek Churches and Copties and Syrians c. that are under adverse Princes to be without Pastors sent in the way of Christ's Appointment And yet vouchsafeth not to name one Text where Christ ever Appointed it 10. And when he maketh all in a Parish to be the Pastors Flock or Charge that are Christians he condemneth those Canons that ordained that if Any Bishop convert not the Hereticks in his City they shall be his Flock who doth convert them and all that have had two Churches in one Parish Or else he maketh Parish Priests to be Pluralists and if there be many Chappels and Churches in his Parish he is the Pastor to them all And yet he never tells us whether the Chappel Priest be also Pastor of the rest of the Parish And if so whether each be to Govern distinctly or one subordinately as Governed by the other Or whether both must agree each being but part of the Governing power 11. The same Man saith That multitudes of Parishioners are Rebels Traytors and no Christians c. and yet that we must give them all the Sacrament if demanded For multitudes demand the Sacrament to satisfie Law and Custom who declare that they take not the Priest for their Pastor nor as Authorized by Christ and multitudes that know not what Christianity or a Sacrament is and will not speak with the Minister about it 12. Did not he say before that the Man cannot be their Pastor without his own and the Peoples consent And yet the Magistrate may make me a Pastor to the Parish What Whether I will or not Am I also a Rebel Traytor and no Christian if I refuse What if the Parish have 60000 or 40000 Souls and I am not able to do a Pastor's Office for 500 What if I think it is a Sin to be obtruded on dissenting unwilling People And if my Dissent do not Unchristen me why doth the People's Unchristen them The Lord pity us we need no Enemies but our selves to seduce us and destroy nor any to make the most odious Schisms than the decryers of Schism What Schismatick doth condemn so many Christians and Churches as this Censure I can scarce except Mr. Dodwel whom in his last Book he called an odd disowned Man § 13. He tells us after of the Pastor's Duty to teach Publickly and from House to House And yet it 's no Church but when Assembled and he hath equal charge of all Christians though Papists in the Parish § 14. He saith No thing cuts off from a Church particular but what cuts off from Christ Christianity and the Church Universal Ans. 1. What if