is not properly a punishment to the Infant but meerly a non-deliverance or a being left in the state of sin and wrath wherein he is by nature I still query Whether the aforecited assertion That it is certain by Gods word that Children which are baptized dying before they commit actual sin are undoubtedly saved be not contained under the Declaration It being the matter of a directing Rubrick and for use as I suppose Moreover this Rubrick seems evidently included in the injoyned Subscription and to be justified thereby as not contrary to the word of God Now the same things that are objected about the saving Regeration of all baptized Children may be objected in reference to this also Besides to affirm the certainty of this position by the word of God is much harder than to admit it as a probable truth only Whereas it is said that this position may be acknowledged as certainly true of children indefinitely without denying it to be true universally I answer That to understand it but of children indefinitely is to make it an insignificant and useless Assertion unworthy to be matter of a Rubrick as shewing no more but that it is certainly true that all baptized children are not damaned but some saved This is not rationally apprehended to be the meaning thereof According to the order prescribed in the Liturgy Children are devoted to God and brought into the Covenant of Grace and the Baptismal Vow by Godfathe s and Godmothers who have no propriety in them nor right of dedicating them to God or bringing them into his Covenant and the Parents who have right and by whom the Infants have title to this priviledg are excluded It is not mans Law that can authorize any to bring children into the bond of the Covenant with God And there is no Law of God that authorizeth any besides Parents Proparents or Proprietors so to do Tho the taking in of Sureties in conjunction with the Parents for a greater assurance of the Infants Christian Education may be commendable and useful if those Sureties did indeed concern themselves therein and not make it a matter of meer formality as generally it is made yet there can be no reason for such a rigid insisting upon Sureties the use of whom at the most is but expedient for greater caution about the Childs future education and in the mean time to overlook yea to exclude the Parents open and solemn dedication of the infant which is necessary That form of speaking to the Infant by the Sureties Dost thou renounce c. dost thou believe c. wilt thou be baptized c. wilt thou obediently keep c. and the taking of several answers as from him by the Sureties is not a form of words expressing ones being devoted or brought into Gods Covenant by another but of ones own professed present actual believing desiring and vowing If it be said This is spoken to the Sureties in the Childs name and 't is a declaring of what the child undertakes by his baptism I answer The child is not capable of doing any thing in the case and the child doth not and cannot undertake any thing by another as in his name To say the Infant doth these things passively and that he doth passively accept the Covenant is that which I do not understand I grant that baptized infants are under a vow of dedication to God but not a vow made by themselves but by those whom God hath authorized to dedicate them and by which they are bound as much as by a vow actually made by themselves when they are capable Of the CATECHISM EVery baptized person is taught thus to answer in my baptism wherein I was made a member of Christ the child of God and an inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven By the very receiving of baptism neither infants nor the adult are first put into a state of grace but those who by their own faith or by the faith of their Parents were before in the Covenant of Grace are by Baptism solemnly invested in that Grace Ones being in the Covenant of Grace is a prerequisite condition to the saving use of this Sacrament which is the soleâ—n dedication to God of one so qualified and his solemn investiture in the Grace of the Covenant But whether the said words be understood of the first consering of those benefits or of the solemn investiture therein nevertheless be it considered Whether it be fit to teach every Catechised person to believe That by his baptism he was made a pertaker of or solemnly invested in those high priviledges which only the children of true believers do receive by their Infant-baptism Be it also considered whether it tends not to cause many who are yet in the state of sin to believe that they are in the state of grace Of the Order of Confirmation ANY such baptized persons as are come to a competent age and can say in their Mother-tongue the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Ten Commandments and also can answer to other questions of the Catechism and to the Bishops interrogatory touching the renewing of the Vow made in their name at their Baptism and their consenting thee unto shall answer I do are according to the Rule of this Book sufficiently qualified for confirmation Be it considered Whether all this may not be said by a person in whom appears no credibility of a sincere yea or of an intelligent profession If it be said it is left to the Bishops discretion by these words of the Rubrick and if the bishop approve of them he shall confirm them nevertheless the Rule here set down doth express and require no more The Query is Whether I may consent to the use of a Rule insufficient for its end Confirmation is reserved to the Bishop alone yet it is ordinarily impossible for him to take due notice of all persons to be confirmed within his Diocess and consequently it cannot be duly administred to a multitude of persons that are to be brought to it Whereas it is alledged That this reservation was the usage of the ancient Church let it be considered that the primitive or more ancient bishops were bishops but of one particular Church and were capable of taking the oversight of every particular person of their flock and did personally perform the same But the present bishops being bishops of many hundred Churches have commonly more souls in their several Diocesses than an hundred bishops can personally watch over In the prayer immediately before the act of Confirmation it is said of all persons admitted to it That God hath vouchsafed to regenerate them by water and the Holy Ghost and hath given them the forgiveness of all their sins I enquire Whether this be warrantable and according to truth considering what is the corruption of human nature and what the inclinations and behaviour of most young ones are and what regeneration by the Holy Ghost doth import and how such as are far from any credible
give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our Brother out of the miseries of this sinful World Also that when we shall depart this Life we may rest in him as our Hope is this our Brother doth are to be used at the interment of all persons whatsoever but such as dye unbaptized or excommunicate or have laid violent hands on themselves But multitudes that are not here accepted dye in notorious sin and give no credible evidence of their repentance Tho we be not infallibly certain that such notorious sinners and in all appearance impenitent to the last are damned yet it may be questioned whether there be ground of hope for their being saved and whether they may be owned as Brethren that rest in Christ and whom God of his great mercy hath taken to himself and on whose behalf we ought to give thanks to God that he hath taken them out of the miseries of this life It may also be questioned Whether it be of safe or dangerous tendency for the Church in her publick Leturgy solemnly to declare all this at their interment Tho the words in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal Life be to be understood of the Resurrection in general and not of the Resurrection of the deceased party yet the very committing of his Body to the ground in sure and certain Hope of the Resurrection to eternal Life in general doth imply some degree of grounded hope of his part in that Resurrection or else the said words seem to be used impertinently Whereas it is said There is some degree of Hope where we cannot determine the contrary I answer that this which is called a degree of Hope is a meer negative or nothing and signifies no more than that we are not infallibly sure of mens final Impenitence and Damnation This is not properly any degree of Hope nor doth it include any Judgment made of the party it being a meer negative And here no Judgment of Charity is included because here is no ground thereof supposed It doth not satisfie to say That the Church supposeth all who dye in her Communion to be hopeful because this supposeth and requireth the due exercise of discipline in the Church Now we see that discipline is not so exercised but that multitudes in whom no credible or hopeful evidence of repentance doth appear dye in her Communion And this omission of discipline is constant general and uncontrolled It is granted that dying-impenitents do not go immediately into the power of the Devil but first into the hands of the great God to be disposed of by him according to the conditions of the gospel-Gospel-Covenant which flow from a grant of mercy Nevertheless we know that the Law of Grace and Mercy finally abused and violated doth contain a Denunciation of the greatest Wrath and Vengeance And it seems very improper to say of one whom God hath taken into his own hands to adjudg to everlasting punishment for the final violation and contempt of the Covenant of Grace That God hath taken him to his mercy or unto himself of his great Mercy because he judgeth and condemneth him for violating the Law of Mercy Besides what mortal man certainly knows whether the Judgment and Execution immediately after Death be not the same thing Some geneneral Observations upon the Book of Common-Prayer ACcording to the Tenor of this Book every person in the external Communion of the Church is set forth as godly or regenerate when multitudes in the said Communion are palpably unregenerate and ungodly This appears by several important passages already noted touching every person baptized confirmed interred c. and by these further Instances In the order of Matrimony for every Married couple this form is to be said O Lord save thy Servant and thy Handmaid who put their trust in thee and the like for every Sick person that is visited by the Priest and for every Woman that is Churched It is likewise recommended as convenient that the new married Persons should receive the Holy Communion at the time of their Marriage or at the first opportunity after their Marriage which seems to suppose that all persons who may lawfully be married are fit to receive the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood The Objection here made is not against the applying of the aforesaid or the like form of words or the vouchsafing of the aforesaid Priviledge of the Holy Sacrament to those that give any credible evidence of their faith and repentance but that it is done to all indifferently whatsoever their state towards God appears to be Indeed the Church may be called Holy as the Apostles writing to the Churches give them the stile of Saints and those that are sanctified and holy Brethren and the like But the query is Wherther they would or we may account every Parishioner who is not excommunicate in this present way of Church-Government to be penitent and believing and holy and wether we may use towards every particular Parishioner such forms of words as import their unfeigned faith notwithstanding a manifest appearance of impenitence and ungodliness If the omission of things most necessary in some main parts of the Liturgy be a just ground of not declaring an unfeigned assent and consent to the forms as there prescribed I may urge that in the general Confession there is no mention of Original sin As for those words the devices and desires of our own hearts they denote actual sins of the heart And that clause There is no health in us betokens there is no Salvation or Deliverance in our selves Or if it were designed in this place to fignify Original sin it is a very obscure expression thereof This Omission is the more liable to exception if it be upon these Principles and Suppositions that all who are in the external Communion of the Church are regenerate that all baptized Persons yea or all baptized in Infancy whether they be the Children of the promise or not are delivered from the guilt of Original sin Or that no reliques of Original sin which are truly and properly sin remain in the regenerate It may be likewise urged that in the said Confession there is no sufficient expressing of actual sins in particular and that the Morning and Evening-prayer mostly consists of meer generals without such particular Confession of sins and Petition for spiritual Graces as is requisite to be made on the behalf of the whole Congregation There may be indeed particular Confessions and Petitions proper for particular Persons which are not here intended But there are others of common concernment and necessity to all Christians And my query is Whether this sort may be statedly omitted in a publick Liturgy Of the form of ordering Bishops Priests and Deacons IN the Preface it is said That it is evident to all men diligently reading the holy Scriptures and ancient Authors That from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in
devise and chuse that which is incongruous or less congruous much more in regard of mans propensity to Superstition and bold presumption about Religious Ordinances And de facto we find that God hath not so left the matter but taken care to appoint the Worship which he expects from men in all Ages as best knowing what is best pleasing to himself And in reason it must needs be that he hath sufficiently provided for his honour in the Worship that he hath Instituted as much as concerns or belongs to the reason and end of those kinds which he hath instituted And thereupon it is found in reason to be a presuming of our own against the Divine Wisdom either to change an Ordinance which God hath instituted for another ordinance of our own devising of the same reason and to the same intent or to add to the Divine Ordinances by way of supplement Humane Ordinances of the same reason and intent with the Divine and that either as necessary to Divine Service or only as profitable and de bene esse For so to do is plainly to derogate from the Divine Ordinances Therefore it must be concluded that there are certain Ordinances of Divine Worship which may not be left to mans discretion either to change them or to make additions to them of others of the same reason and intent either as necessary or profitable and in that regard supplemental and perfective The express Text of Scripture proves this that some additions are forbidden Deut. 4.2 Deut. 12.32 The prohibition is not meerly of adding to the Rule but of doing more than the Rule requires as the precept is not of preserving the Rule but observing what is commanded in it It is indeed against mingling the heathenish observations with Divine Institutions And it is not to be imagined that it is only a prohibition of the forgery of Divine Oracles § 4. What of divine worship may not be devised or instituted by man NOW it is to be considered what kind of Religious observations God hath reserved to his own determination and forbidden to be devised or instituted by man And these are first Such as are of the same reason with those Ordinances which God hath instituted to be observed by the universal Church to the Worlds end as to make an addition of another weekly day to the same holy intents for which the Lords day is set apart to institute any Ordinance that is of the same reason with the Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace In vain do some say That it is impossible for man to make a Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace and consequently no ordinance devised of man ought to be excepted against as such For altho God only can institute a lawful and valid Sacrament of the Covenant yet man may presume to institute an ordinance that is of the same nature reason and intent with the Sacrament of divine institution tho it be unlawful and of no validity even as other divine worship may be invented by man which is not right nor effectual As touching the efficacy and profitableness of an ordinance here distinguish between an aptitude to profit in case of Gods approba ion and an actual profitableness No doubt but many things not institutâ—d of God have an aptitude to be useful but it follows not that they will be useful if ordained by men For the actual usefulness comes not from the aptitude of the thing but from Gods institution but that which is contrary to the will of God is not blessed to supernatural ends yea that which is not sanctified of God thereunto is not so bless d. Tho God can be obliged by a seal only of his own annexing to his Covenant yet it is too possible for mâ—n to pâ—â—sume so far as to institute that whereby they fancy God as sealing and â—onveying to them his grace and indeed that which can mean no less Morâ—ovâ—r in a Sacrament of the Covenant as grace on Gods part is seâ—led so self-dedication on mans part Anâ—â—n ordinance of mans devising that seals self-dedication to God upon the terms of the Covenant of Grace is at least the Moity of a Sacrament 2. No new integral part of divine worship without which the worship of God is supposed not intire but deficient in part may be invented of man For it were to invent a new part of the Christian Religion and to augment it beyond the state thereof as setled by the Author and Founder of it Here note that the accidental parts of Religion being varied or augmented or diminished make no variation addition or diminution in the Religion no more than alteration in clothes makes an alteration in the man 3. No ordinance that is of universal and perpetual use to the Church of God if it be at all of use so that it may in no place in no age be omitted may be devised of man For the devising of such an ordinance supposeth a defect in the divine ordinances of universal and perpetual use to be made up by adding other ordinances by way of supplement And it is but a presuming that those other are requisite when they are not Also if the universal Lawgiver hath reserved any thing to his own power it can be no less than the making of such Laws or Ordinances as are of universal and perpetual use And surely that he hath reserved something to himself few among us will gainsay Howbeit an arbitrary and temporary use of a Religious observance by particular men for such ends as equally concern all Christians may not be unlawful upon this account because therein Christs Legislative power is not encroached upon it being not made a Law to the Church but only a private arbitrary observation § 5. What things of or belonging to Divine Worship may be devised or instituted by man THE things set down under the former head as forbidden are such new ordinances of Worship as are co-ordinate with the divine ordinances and are in proper sense additions pretending or in themselves expressing the same nature reason end and use that the divine ordinances have and consequently importing an insufficiency in them But there are such institutions of men in subordination to the divine institutions as serve for the more convenient modifying and ordering of the same And they are not proper Additions because they are not of the same nature and use and these are unlawful All such modes of a duty as are necessary in genere and not determined in specie as when there must be a practice one way or other but whether this way or that way is not determined of God are left free to humane determination This humane determination must be regulated by the general Rules of Gods word of which there be these two chief first That all determinations be made for edification and not for destruction 2ly That all things be done decently and in order These two Rules we find expresly in Scripture and they are also of the Law