that you have in some particular passages of this Book declared your self in a different manner than is here represented I answer My business is not to reconcile every contradiction in your Book that were imposible These Tenents which I have here given an account of are what you have deliberately determined setting your self on purpose thereunto and which is more repeated in your Preface at least the most considerable of them which tho' Printed in the head of the Volume yet is always composed last and a sure indication of the Sense of the Author I have observed your own rule in the like case by which you give your judgment of St. Jerom who had some little flights against Truth and his constant opinion as you have here for it and against yours pag. 278. I would fain know whether a Man's Judgment must be taken from occasional and incidental Passages or from designed and set Discourses which is as much as to ask Whether the lively representation of a Man by Picture may best be taken when in hast of other business he passeth by us giving only a glance of his Countenance or when he purposely and designedly sits in order to that end that his Countenance may be truly represented And I must hence conclude that you are as much for those particular points because giving a glance of your Countenance towards them as passing by as you have concluded St. Jerom to have been for the Divine Right of Episcopacy which you then certainly believed him not to be Thirdly I come now in the last place to consider what satisfaction you have made for these your Heterodox defamatory Tenents thus in opposition to the Doctrines Laws Discipline and Practice of our Church together with your vainer and ill-natur'd jealousies and fears that you have insinuated against our Bishops their Power and Office as hazardous to Kingdoms together with your defamations of our most eminent Doctors some of which first promoted our Reformation and sealed it with their Blood others zealously defended and maintained it against all manner of Dissenters The late account that you have given to my Lord of London of your Irenicum is a strong prejudice against you that you are still satisfied with that performance I am sure that acknowledgment and retractation which the reason and equity of things and the Laws of God and Man require at your hands is not to be met with there You are so far from it that you justifie what you have written concerning Episcopacy and by the greatest of humane authorities For you say If you have erred therein it was with a most excellent Prince and a true Friend to the Church of England whose sufferings could never make him warp from what his Conscience and Judgment directed King Charles the First And thus when you have slander'd all our Princes and Bishops since the Reformation to amend the matter you here make the unparallell'd King Charles the First and elsewhere all our present Bishops of your party What thanks the latter will give you I know not but scarce any good Man will forgive you the fixing so bold a Slander on the former Nor can your Friends of the Presbytery take it well at your hands that you should attempt to perswade the World they brought that Glorious Martyr to the Block for being a Presbyterian But the asserting the same thing over again you think to be proof enough against me especially if it be eek'd out with some ill Language I have had this account of Dr. Pocklington a noted Divine of our Church in the days of the blessed Martyr just now mentioned That when he was accused and censured for delivering in a Sermon probably that which he Preached before the Lord Bishop of Lincoln at his Lordship's Visitation at Ampthill in the County of Bedford Aug. 17. 1635. called Sunday no Sabbath some Tenents concerning the Lord's Day which were thought to be Heterodox or rather thought convenient that they should be declared so by a Faction which then prevailed by reason of their compliance with the Puritan Party his Penance was to make a Recantation which he began thus If Canto be to Sing Recanto is to Sing again and so went on with a defence of his Sermon If you designed your Epistle Dedicatory for the same purpose that he was enjoin'd to Preach a Second Sermon your performance is the same or a Singing the Second Part to the same Tune it being only a Self-justification And for the better seeting it off I am brought for the foil whom by the embellishments of your Wit and Oratory you abundantly represented as a Knave and a Fool Malicious and Ignorant and this is the whole subject of it But notwithstanding I have considered that the Epistle was written in a great Passion and indeed it is mostly a discharge of your Choler upon me and designing to be as favourable to you as I can I have set my self to a particular examination of your other Writings which were made publick since the date of your Irenicum to the time that my Book of Church-Power was put into the Press which was September 1683. when your thoughts may be supposed more calm and your Meditations less disturbed For if since you have made any notable retractations I am not in the least concerned in them But alas little of amends is to be found here either in some instances you have offered nothing like a satisfaction in others nothing plenary and as might be expected form a person of your Learning Dignities and Quality in the Church I do therefore thus farther charge you and produce your self for my alone evidence 1. That you have made no satisfaction for the Manuscript which you have Printed and thereby done so much injury to our Church in general in the days of King Edward VI. and Queen Elizabeth and to our most eminent Doctors in particular In all your works there occurs not one word that mentions it much less that either by confession sorrow or satisfaction makes any thing like an amends for it And tho' it may be disputed whether any one of these alone are sufficient yet where there is no one of them to be sure is no repentance Nay you are so far from any remorse or sense of the black guilt that is upon you for this great and groundless Scandal that you have to your utmost made it more publick and authoritative For it was by you delivered to Dr. Burnet as he owns in his Preface and Printed by your order in his Collection of Records with the Title of Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript and with the approbation of both Houses of Parliament and this was Eighteen Years after the first publication of it in your Irenicum a sufficient time for Second Thoughts and your continued fixed Judgment is thereby notoriously made known to all Men. And so this vagrant illegitimate Script without any date of its own as to time without any original to make it a Record all
it self Pag. 134. you seem at least too unwary in your Expression asserting That if the whole Nation in Parliament consent to the passing a Law for removal of Pastors and putting in of others this is sufficient for the satisfaction of that People to whom they are appointed as Pastors by virtue of that Power or for the making them true Pastors I yield that the right of Investiture is originally in the Secular hand and by consequence the right of deprivation upon the breach of those terms on which the Investiture is made Thus Abiathar was removed and Zadok put in his room But the question is supposing Zadok had not been of the Priestly Line Whether Solomon's placing him in the High-Priest's Chair did by virtue of his Kingly Power alone create him High-Priest and the People were thereupon bound to own and submit to his Ministry Or to bring an instance nearer home supposing an Act of Parliament appoint a certain Person to be Minister in such a Parish when he is really no Minister because without Ordination from a Bishop Whether by virtue of that Law he is made a true Minister and ought to be received as such by that People to whom by Act of Parliament he is sent No understanding Christian will own him as his Minister upon such terms We have a great instance of this nature in the Church of Scotland about Fourteen Years since The Secular Power commanded Dr. Burnet Archbishop of St. Andrews to admit into particular Churches and in the relation of Ministers certain Men that had no Episcopal Orders and by consequence were not of the Gospel Priesthood the most excellent and exemplary Prelate refused for this reason Because the Prince may promote to what temporal Possessions he please but he cannot promote to the Authority which is Spiritual as to the former he must be submitted to but not as to the latter And his Lordship was a great example of the last case for denying their Institution he was Suspended from his Bishoprick and sustained it with a due resignation tho' the Government upon second thoughts restored him with greater honour and estimation in which he died But as to the more immediate question and which occasioned this Section you ought to have urged That the consent of the People did not constitute a Minister neither was it any necessary qualification in order to it as Mr. Baxter and his Combination pretended But instead of doing this you reply That an Act of Parliament is sufficient to constitute him such which savours too much of the old Vessel I confess the consequents would be really evil in the Government both of Church and State if he be an Usurper in a Parish to whom the People do not consent the disorders thereby must become intolerable and the consequents would be as noxious on the other hand if the Parliament had the Power of qualifying for it For then the Ministry will be quite swallowed up in the State and every Usurper be his Religion what it will may alter the Priesthood or as in the days of Jeroboam make Priests of whom he please But thus it fares with your Arguments and it is their usual fault That they prove too much You take away Infallibility and the Ministry at once in other places and maintain here the Secular Power to the destruction of the Spiritual I 'll receive him in Seculars whom my Prince is pleased to set over me but none in Spirituals who hath not an Authority which the Secular hand cannot derive unto him 5. But that which crowns all is Pag. 300. when you scatter those mists which some pretend to have before their Eyes that they cannot clearly see what we mean by the Church of England and tell us it is so called because it was received by the common consent of the whole Nation in Parliament Surely if now we be not a Parliament Church we never were in the opinion of any nor ever shall be Should any Man ask me what the Church of England is I would tell him It is that due Succession of Authority Doctrine Worship and Discipline which are now made Law in the Kingdom of England but if that Law ceaseth to own and protest them I should not thereby think it to become less the Church of England For certain there was a Church of England when there was no Parliaments in England according to those who carry their aera or date to the highest pitch And we say There was the very Church of England that now is and neither Parliament nor Pope had appeared in our Coast Besides What if the Parliament of England pass a Bill of Abjuration against the present Church as they did the other day against the Crown of England The Rump Parliament did it Why then your definition of the Church of England is much at the same as Socrates defined a Man Homo est Animal bipes implume A Man is a living Creature with two Feet and without Feathers Diogenes's Jackdaw was as good a Man when he had pluckt his Feathers off The being of the Church of England does not depend upon any such outward advantages or upon the Votes of the People whether in Parliament or out of it We thankfully own the outward advantages she has had and now enjoys by Parliaments but we own withal her separate Being abstracted from them the Church of God here in England is antecedent to them all One while I was willing to think That this Book was wrote by you at a time when the general design was on Foot for enlarging the Privileges of Parliaments or rather of the House of Commons by the Men of Shaftsbury and you might think your self engaged to cast in something and if so you add that which is very considerable making the Being of the Church of England to depend upon their owning and acceptance of it The Kingdom must have Parliaments once a Year at least only for this for otherwise we may have no Church once a Year But then again this seems not to be the reason because I find you to have been of the same Judgment some years before and you reckon up this among the Encroachments and Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome and spoil thereby a good cause viz. That Acts of Parliament were no certain indications of the Judgment of the Church or the generality of the People in that time Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical c. pag. 448. I must therefore conclude that you were somewhat discomposed neither is this the only unwary expression you have let fall within the distance of one or two Pages For you there mix the Pastors and People together as of the same Church diffusive You say farther That to assert in every Church a constitutive regent part as essential to it is the same as the Pope's universal Pastorship And again That the Acts of the Convocation are to be allow'd and enacted by the King and the three States of the Kingdom Flatly against the King's Prerogative in making Church-Laws by the Convocation alone As also your term National Church is as incongruous as any National Congregational Classical are Relatives and give life to one another 6. It doth not appear why you Reprinted that scandalous Manuscript which so immediately opposeth all Church-Power in the utmost latitude of it and by the Authority of so many of our most eminent Reformers Nay farther with an artifice to conceal Archbishop Cranmer's Retraction unless it be to give all the seeming Authority you could to the Doctrines there asserted There is not one Note in the Margent by which it appears that you had then altered your first conceptions of it as Printed in the Irenicum Nay you have own'd and justified it in part in your Epistle to my Lord of London or if there be any alteration made it is least there might be occasion to suspect that Cranmer had deserted you 3. And in the last place you have made no satisfaction at all to the Church of God for that Irenicum Doctrine which equals the Presbyter with the Bishop There is not any thing like amends for it in all your writings that I have met with It is true you often speak of Episcopacy as the most ancient Government derivable from the Apostles But you have not any where asserted it in the number of those Institutions and Practices Apostolical which are perpetual and immutable And until you say this all you can say besides is to no purpose The Bishop is notwithstanding at the mercy of your Prince or your Presbyters when their prudence sees fit to degrade and depose him There is no more Obligation to continue the distinct order of Bishops than that order of Widows in the Epistle to Timothy And thus Sir I have shew'd that you have not made due satisfaction for those errors in your Irenicum concerning the Power of the Church in general and the constitution of our Church in particular of which I accused you in my Letter dated May 1. 1682. I have also shew'd more at large the grounds of my Accusation I beg only this Favour of you That if you think fit to return an Answer you will do it in a Scholar-like way i. e. by Argument and Matter of Fact not Raylings and Nick-names it is really below your quality in the Church to Act Andrew Marvel It was thought by J. O. to be a thing below him And therefore we know on whom he set that Buffoon when his case was much at one with yours and he wanted argument Besides tho' Dr. Burnet was pleased to assign me the Province yet I am not at leasure to catch Flies But if you keep to these terms I shall certainly make a reply and you will thereby oblige Novemb. 6. 1685. Reverend Sir Your Humble Servant SIMON LOWTH FINIS
to their Matter and Argument but never repute a nick-name or cramp Epithete a Confutation of their Adversary And again I less admire your inconsiderateness in that you accuse so eminent an Order of Divines of rudeness in their disputations at the same time when you implead me as guilty of the same misdemeanor in respect of your self and aggravate it against me as the greatest crime Besides you seem mostly peccant herein having been so peculiarly beholden to the Schoolmen for your palmarium argumentum or capital Argument as you call it for the mixt and communicative power of Bishops and Presbyters for they were the first that set that design on foot and their Arguments still support it to which you adhere to this day Do you not boast and value your self upon that one adventure It appears by the Epistle Dedicatory that you do where you tell us That the design of it was to gain upon Dissenters from our Church and it did not want success that way both here and in a neighbour Kingdom I thought our Church and the Pope of Rome had never gain'd Proselytes one and the same way All that can with any shew be pleaded for you is you look'd upon Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas the Master of the Sentences and the Angelical Doctor to be Country Vicars or to be no Deans and upon your self as under no obligation of gratitude or common civility towards them for that only reason and hence concluded that you had a right to theirs equally as to my Arguments and so much the more because you can put them into better words your stile is less barbarous or has more embellishments And if you hope this way to recommend your self as a pattern to posterity tho' my Charity obliges me to wish them better presidents to copy after I shall not envy your acquisitions I assure you the bar you have put that I may not be the like pattern is no ways ingrateful to me All that I aim at is to appear to posterity an honest Man in my profession your giant Objection will then be on my side And admit my stile to be as rude and barbarous as your Eloquence can represent it to be the advantage will be the greater thereby to that truth which tho' so rudely composed the greatest Orators have offer'd so little against And this point once gain'd I value no more the repute of a Grammarian or Elegant Composer than the Grammarian in Aelian valued Helena's Picture that was drawn by Zeuxes the Painter who discern'd no one feature in it being a Gramarian no Limner as the reason is given And yet if we consider a little farther another reason may be given for this your Master-Objection You were an early Disciple of David Blondel's and the rest of that Tribe who assaulted the Epistles of the most Holy and Primitive Martyr St. Ignatius at the same rate And among those many Arguments from whence he concluded them to be spurious wherein you have particularly concurr'd with him in your Irenicum and I wish it were all the rubbish he bequeathed to you there are some à dictione petita from his unusual and uncouth stile which he defames and renders contemptible being unmindful of that of St. Jerome Scio inter Christianos verborum vitia non solere reprehendi as the late most Learned Bishop of Chester reproves him for it from the authority of that excellent Father in his Vindiciae Ignatianae And Blondell is so insolent and puffed up with a conceit of his success herein against the Apostolical Martyr that in his Praefatio ad Apologiam pro sententia Hieronymi pag. 52. he sets upon Franciscus de Clara in the same way and concludes himself to have baffled his Apology for Bishops only by giving an account of his solecisms in Grammar and other barbarities of which I have here given a taste * En Barbarismos viz. Satis testium sunt Zelotes In recto regiam petierunt Majestatem Veriverbium sonat Ecclesiae gubernium Primitas Practica Ecclesiae Maxima id est axioma Verbulum Dubiolum vocat quod postea pro grandi objectione habet Nihil sanxierunt Epilogat Amonibiles c. Though I cannot tell whether something else might not be at the bottom For de Clara writes himself Minoritarum which sounds like a Vicar I have sometimes met with more solid and grave Divines or at least that believ'd themselves such who call their Adversaries Grammarians thereby implying the contempt they had of their persons as altogether unqualified for those performances in Divinity in which they had engaged themselves As I remember either Blondell or Salmasius or both thus revile Dr. Hammond But for certain Salmasius is thus upbraided by John Milton who thought himself somebody in his Pro populo Anglicano defensio as also our most learned Bishop Montacute by Labbee in his Dissertatio Historica de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis But your greatness or Typus Theologicus takes a contrary method becomes Splenetick and swells and insults over me with this term of disgrace No Grammarian and because I have less regarded words and embellishments since matter of Fact and Argument are the only object of my search and enquiry to which you have not made one exception But my matter is accused as unintelligible to which I 'll return the Answer Mr. Thorndike gave for himself upon the same occasion in the Preface to his Epilogue The obscurity of my matter I am not sorry for if writing in English because here the occasion commenceth the reasons if the consequence of it in some matters seem obscure I conceive it ought to teach the world That the People are made parties to those Disputes whereof they are not able to be judges and I am willing to bear the blame of obscure if that lesson may be learned by the People My crime is more heightned yet in that I am not only rude with my Brethren but with two Archbishops and a Bishop viz. Whitgift Bancroft and Bilson whom I remarque for writing inconsiderately I am sorry that a Man of your Dignity and reputed Learning in the Church should be brought so low as to stand in need of such a palpable Cavil or groundless Accusation as this is your case surely is the same with that of a great person you elsewhere mention who when he had undertaken to manage an ill cause before a publick audience and one of his Friends asked him what he meant by it replied Trouble not your self our own side will believe me Only such a presumption could put you upon this particular indictment of me In plea to which I will only tell the naked story and leave the Reader to judge of your candid dealings with me Robert Parker one that ought not to be named by an honest Man but with a mark of infamy accused these eminent Bishops for placing the Church Authority in the Prince I vindicated them as well as I could and as I thought satisfactorily All that
Keys delivered unto them and thereby were invested in their Persons with the Ministerial Authority yet upon the same terms it must be farther proved That it was Christ's Intention that the same power should continue in their Successors or it makes no more to the purpose for a settled Ministery than it does for a fixed Episcopacy and this same Argument which overthrows a Superiority of Church-men over one another for want of an Express of Christs intention to continue it always overthrows also the Ministry it self both having the same bottom and alike promises This the Independant and Socinian saw and consider'd full well and upon your own grounds reject them both together with the two Sacraments because there are no express Texts declaring their Perpetuity But this is agreeable enough with the Rector of Sutton who as he makes all Gospel-Laws for Church-Government an Escheat to Westminster-Hall so is he to be supposed to receive none as perpetually obliging except those that are made and conveyed in the Hall-Phrase and by its Precedents with an express Declaration Entailing them upon the Heirs and Successors for ever But because Apostolical practice still presses you hard whose force apart from the Act and Donation of our Saviour seems to infer a divine Right the matter of Fact being apparent and beyond contradiction That the Apostles were invested with a Superiority beyond Bishops and Presbyters and did accordingly execute it Hereupon with a deep design but very Superficial Policy that is easily seen through and baffled you place their juridical consistorial Acts and Practices amongst those other Acts and Practices of theirs that were purely occasional and with regard to the present times and circumstances such as abstaining from Blood and things strangled eating or not eating the order of Widows the Love-Kiss Celibacy St. Paul's working with his own Hands Preaching the Gospel freely Circumcising Timothy c. all which are confessedly mutable and did alter in a very little time both in their Practice and Obligation But your Error is not only in ranging these quite different Practices under the same head and order whose distant natures are so plain and obvious but in that you do not consider that the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism will for the same reason come under that head of Indifferencies and Practices mutable and therein besides the ill consequences in Religion you plainly contradict your self who tell us at the same time and in the same Section and in doing of it dart your self through with your own Weapon That tho' there be no particular express Revelation for the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism yet Practice Apostolical or of Persons guided by an Infallible Spirit is sufficient to enact and declare them perpetually obliging For surely Apostolical practice guided by an infallible Spirit is equally manifest son a Superiority in the Ministry as for those two It is far more notorious and frequent but your Plot that was laid against the Immutability of Episcopacy engaged you to take no notice of it vid. Part I. Sect. 3. Part. II. § 20. Farther yet That you may be every ways secure in your design and wholly baffle and defeat all Plea for a divine and immutable Right from Apostolical Practice in the point of Episcopacy you go on in a sure way treading Antiquity under your Foot and impleading the most holy Primitive Bishops and Confessors of Defectiveness Ambiguity Partiality and Repugnancy that hereby you may root out their Order and destroy it from the Face of the Earth and you say in so many words That we cannot have that certainty of Apostolical Practice as to constitute a Divine Right It is not my business to argue points but to collect your particular Opinions or rather to write the History of your Theology otherwise I might here reply by demanding How and by what hands it is that we have any certainty of the Apostolical Writings or know their minds and intentions there The Church hath all along received the Canon and Sense of the Scriptures from the Faith and certainty of Antiquity and the repute and integrity of these holy Bishops Martyrs and Confessors Our Church of England certainly does so and they are her Rule in Reforming as to both and when the Authority of some Books of the New Testament were called in question the Tradition of Faith alone declared them Canonical and they remain such upon that Testimony in the account of the whole Christian World to this day And why then is the same evidence defective and less authoritative concerning their practice and sense in the point of Government But thus you expose the Scriptures their Authority their Sense to every Atheist and Enthusiust to uncertainties and conjectures or at the best to the intemperance of each violent heady and sceptical undertaker And thus it comes to pass that so much work is made for a Nicephorus Calisthus a Simeon Metaphrastes the very Jacobus de Voragine of the Greek Church those Tinkers that think to mend a hole and make three instead of it you taking away hereby the great evidence and muniments of our Christianity both as to the matter of Fact and the intent of it that which is next to the Foundation is cast down and what can the Righteous do Hence so many Whimsies and Forgeries of Mens Brains and monstrous Opinions fill up our Bodies of Divinity and your many forms of Government as by Divine Right are no less portentous than any of them as Geographers do Maps with some fabulous Creatures of their own Inventions Our Church of England I say in her Reformation supposes certainty and sufficiency in the Records of the Primitive Church and that matter of Fact is faithfully transmitted down unto us with the true sense of the Scriptures and Apostolical Practice both in matter of Doctrine and Government and her Reformation is receiv'd by the Civil Power and made Law in the Kingdom upon these terms alone viz. As bottom'd on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament and what the Catholick Fathers and ancient Bishops have thence collected particularly in the Four first General Councils or any other Council X. Elizabethae Cap. I. Sect. xxxvi And yet upon a Scandalous Interpretation of Eusebius Hist Eccles Lib. 3. Cap. 4. perverting his Sense quite contrary to his plain words and design which is to set forth the Succession of Bishops immediately from the Apostles over the known Parts of Christendom you blast the credit of all Antiquity and that with as much show of rancor and contempt as the scornfullest manner of expressing your self can declare What becomes then with our Rector of Sutton of our unquestionable Line of Succession of Bishops of several Churches and the large Diagram made of Apostolical Churches with every ones name set down in his order as if the Writer had been Clarenceaux to the Apostles themselves Is it come to this at last that we have nothing certain but what we have in the Scriptures And must then
is You make Bishops for her as the Common-wealth-men make Kings by Accumulation not Deprivation in your Expressions just now mention'd and consequently retaining the Power entire to themselves they unmake them again when they please or to express it farther in your own words which are the aptest I have met withal When Persons and Circumstances Prudence and Discretion or the Interest of the Government requires it And so the Bishop like those inferior Officers of old as Sub-Deacons Acolouthi Door-keepers c. may be outed as the Perpetual Presbyter shall see occasion Mr. Prolocutor to the Assembly-men at Westminster never spake more bravely to the point And to fix all this surely on the less wary and inconsiderate Reader as a Nail driven by the Masters of our Assembly also you bring in several of our own Bishops for evidence against themselves and their Order in the days of Edward VI. and our whole Church establish'd by Law in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth As is to be seen in your Manuscripts and those other Citations throughout your last Chapter And when you had with so much ease and scorn rejected the Doctrines of all the Primitive Bishops in the case it was no small piece of confidence to think to carry your Cause by the testimony whether true or false of our own Prelates of the last Age. But you are not content to overthrow their Order unless you may fix such a Scandal upon their Persons as the Betrayers of it And indeed your stating this case of the mutability of Episcopacy can be only a design to fool and baffle it and thereby render it a very Babel or Idol in the language of its madder Adversaries and in the conception of every one else so trivially accidental a thing that it cannot be really contended for upon a Church account every accident giving occasion though Prudence will always be pretended for its abolition And it is observable That there are not any of your judgment that conclude themselves under an obligation to adhere unto it any longer than it supports and serves them by the advantage of the secular Power As the Church is that Tree in the Psalmist so Episcopacy is one of its bearing Boughs in which you can be content to sit and sing so long as you fill your Pockets but when the gathering time is over it is to be cut down as that which cumbereth the ground And you plead the same express directions for it our Saviour once gave concerning the Fig-tree in the Gospel I 'll state it together with the Presbyterian and Episcopal Hypotheses thereby to make it obvious upon the naked prospect The Presbyterian asserts That each Presbyter hath the whole Power of the Ministry and is enabled to discharge every Church-Office and that a restraint or enlargement is sinful The Episcoparian asserts That this Power is placed in the Bishop and Presbyter but unequally And that the Bishop hath some instances of it peculiar to his Order as Prerogatives and Incommunicable which if laid aside will be Sacrilege in him as also if assumed by the Presbyter You assert all that in the Presbyter and lose all that from the Bishop that the Presbyter desires and contends for only here is the difference You allow the Presbytery upon some occasions and in some instances of their Office to make a Deputy with a reserved Power to recal the Deputation at pleasure or upon each suspicion of his undue behaviour And this is the honour and service you do the Church of England These the Dissenters you tell us you design'd to gain upon and that your design did not want success both here and in a neighbouring Kingdom If you mean our Northern Neighbours I hope Episcopacy is setled there upon better grounds if it be not some of the thanks for it are due to you If you mean our Neighbours in the South they came over indeed but it is with their own Presbyterian Orders which they still adhere to as their commission from Christ The Episcopal Ordination which they receive here only enabling them for the Loaves to which they could have no right otherways by the Laws of our Kingdom And accordingly D. Blondel first offer'd his assistance to Archbishop Laud to write in defence of our Episcopacy whilst it was uppermost but upon the ensuing Rebellion he deserted it nay he turn'd his weapons against it Witness his Apologia pro Hieronymo which he Dedicated to the Rebellious Parliament and Schismatical Assembly at Westminster owning thereby the Vsurpation of the Regal Power in one and of the Episcopal in the other Salmasius did in effect the same and within the space of four Years both applauds and condemns Episcopacy and the Rump Parliament for removing it according to his present subject and design and John Milton the worst of Men takes from thence a just occasion to harangue and vilifie him in the Preface to his worst of Books Entituled Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio And the reasons for it are plain as themselves state the case the Bishop's Consecration being only an humane Rite performed at his Deputation and Enlargment to the execution of that Power which he had before when he was made a Presbyter by virtue of which there is no farther power conferr'd but only a Church Blessing with Imposition of Hands a legally qualifying him for possession according to the particular custom of that Kingdom in which he is to exercise his Episcopal Function And lastly for our own Country-men it may be wished some of them have not on this score also received Episcopal Ordination and then they may be bound to thank you because they kept their Benefices thereby and had farther accession of Church Dignities upon his late Majesty's blessed return But I cannot think it is for this that your Superiors in the Church have for so long a time been pleased to treat you with that kindness you seem to boast of Sure I am all the kindness you have done hereby to the Church of England and her Bishops may be put in their Eyes and they see never the worse for it Tho' I will not say so of the unkindness she hath received from you Besides it will farther appear with what affection and byass you wrote this Treatise if we consider your different behaviour to the Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England and the Presbyterians Independents even Anabaptists and Quakers upon each occasion It is but a little to reflect upon those slender civilities which you shew all along to that great and eminent Divine Dr. Henry Hammond one that was every ways great and considerable provoking reverence and respect from his Adversaries that were in any measure civilized Such was his Learning Integrity Courage in those perillous times he lived in the Ark it self rested peculiarly upon his Shoulders But I say your unhandsom behaviour to him may easier be passed by because he was but one single Doctor in our Church you seem to treat him with
to the Magistrate I might here also again demand By what Law in your Sense But it is your bare Opinion I am now to relate and the Reasons you produce not to shew the rottenness of them For suppose in some indifferent Rites and Ceremonies the Church representative that is the Governors of it pro tempore do prescribe them to be observ'd by all the Supreme Power forbids the doing those things if this doth not null the former supposed Obligation I must inevitably run upon these absurdities First That there are two Supreme Powers in a Nation at the same time Secondly That a Man may lie under two different Obligations as to the same thing he is bound to do it by one Power and not to do it by the other Thirdly The same action may be a Duty and a Sin a Duty in obeying the one Power a Sin in disobeying the other Therefore there can be but one Power to oblige which is that of the Supreme Magistrate where by the way I note that these last reasons are the very same that Mr. Hobbs urges against this very Branch of Church-Power in his Leviathan Part II. c. 29. and Part III. c. 10. pag. 248. The summ of all is this and I choose to express my self in the words of a very Learned and Judicious Writer upon the like occasion You distinguish betwixt the Sacred Function which you grant to be the proper Office of the Church and the Power over Sacred Things which you annex entirely to the Civil Power By which distinction you leave the Governors of the Church no other Power than to administer the Offices of Religion without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion I confess Part. I. c. 8. you own the Church to be a Society distinct from other Societies with Laws Ends and Governors of a distinct Nature and you had done the same before Cap. 2. § 3. p. 35. just almost before you enter'd upon this grand determination and with punishments distinct from the Civil and for Spiritual ends which you call Excommunication or an Exclusion of the offending Person from Communion with the Society and say That this Power is peculiar to the Church But this reacheth not to the point as to Church-Laws or to the Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion Besides you have called this Church the Magistrate all-along and invested him alone with Church-Power or a Power distinct from that properly called Political which can be no other than Ecclesiastical and you have instanced only in Preaching the Word and Administring the Sacraments as the two Offices in which the Authoritative exercise of the ministerial Function derived by Christ to his Disciples doth consist But all this I have shew'd to be contrary to the judgment and Practice of the whole Church of God both Bishops Fathers and Councils of the Emperors themselves in the best Ages of the Church and when they were her Defenders to the determinations of our own Church and the Laws of our Kingdom It is the design and subject of my whole Book and I am also mightily secured that I did not take one Argument that Doctor Stillingfleet had used before to be sure in his Irenicum Fourthly You give to the Prince and enstate on him as his right and due those very Offices and Acts which you have appropriated to the Pastors of the Church as their peculiar Authoritative Power such as to Ordain to Excommunicate Baptize c. and undertake to censure every Man exposing him as ignorant of the State of our own Church that is not of your judgment wherein you and Mr. Hobbs so exactly jump together for I consider what you produce out of the Manuscripts as your own particular Opinion that I have here placed your words in two distinct Columns desiring the Reader to compare and judge of them Irenicum pag. 391 c. All Christian Princes have committed unto them immediately of God the whole cure of all their Subjects as well concerning the Administration of God's Word for the cure of the Soul as concerning the Administration of things Political and Civil Governance And in both these ministrations they must have sundry Ministers under them to supply that which is appointed in their several Offices The Civil Ministers under the King's Majesty in this Realm of England be those whom it shall please his Highness for the time to put in Authority under him as for example the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord Great-Master Lord Privy-Seal Mayors Sheriffs c. The Ministers of God's Word under his Majesty be the Bishops Parsons Vicars and such other Priests as be appointed by his Highness to that Ministration as for example The Bishop of Canterbury the Bishop of Winchester the Parson of Winwick c. All the said Officers and Ministers as well of the one sort as the other be appointed assign'd and elected in every place by the Laws and Orders of Kings and Princes In the admission of many of these Officers be diverse comely Ceremonies and Solemnities used which be not of necessity but only for good Order and seemly Fashion For if such Offices and Ministrations were committed without such Solemnities they were nevertheless truly committed And there is no more Promise of God that Grace is given in the committing of the Ecclesiastical Office than it is in the committing of the Civil In the Apostles time when there was no Christian Princes by whose Authority Ministers of God's Word might be appointed nor Sins by the Sword corrected there was no remedy then for the correction of Vice or appointing of Ministers but only the consent of the Christian Multitude among themselves with an uniform consent to follow the Advice and Perswasion of such Persons whom God had most endued with the Spirit of Wisdom and Counsel And at that time forasmuch as Christian People had no Sword nor Governor among themselves they were constrain'd of necessity to take such Curates and Priests as either they knew themselves to be meet thereunto or else as were commended unto them by others that were so repleat with the Spirit of God with such knowledge in the Profession of Christ such Wisdom such Conversation and Counsel that they ought even of very Conscience to give credit unto them and to accept such as by them were presented And sometimes the Apostles and others unto whom God had given abundantly his Spirit sent or appointed Ministers of God's Word sometimes the People did choose such as they thought meet thereunto And when any were appointed or sent by the Apostles or other the People of their own voluntary will with thanks did accept them not for the Supremity Impery and Dominion that the Apostles had over them to command as their Princes or Masters but as good People ready to obey the voice of good Counsellors and to accept any thing that was necessary for their edification and benefit A Bishop may make a Priest by the Scriptures and
it is brought for and bind no farther than the Party concerned doth judge the Sentence equal and just So that these too will help us no ways to end Controversies in the Church any farther than the persons engaged are willing to account that just which shall be judged in their Case And the Power of the State is no more Juridical and Obligatory than the Power of the Church And in pursuance to this it is laid down as a rule Part I. c. 6. § 6. pag. 117. Where any Church retaining purity of Doctrine doth require the owning of and conforming to any unlawful or suspected Practice Men may lawfully deny conformity c. Whereby you evidently take away the Obligation of all Laws because a suspicion of unlawfulness gives Men a lawful ground for their denial of Obedience and Conformity to them which the ignorant always may have not to say will have and the wisest may always pretend to And it is not in the power of the Law-giver to teach and convince them nor consequently to punish and coerce them You argue on to this purpose in the same Section That as it justified our separation from Rome because the Pope commanded things unlawful as conditions of Communion so it will justifie other Mens Non-conformity in things supposed by them unlawful and it may be as lawful to withdraw Communion from one as the other It is the highest Vsurpation to rob Men of their Liberties of Judgments That every one hath a judicium privatae discretionis which is the rule of Practice as to himself And though we freely allow a Ministerial Power under Christ in the Governors of the Church yet that extends not to an obligation upon Men to go against the dictates of their own reason and conscience Their Power is only directive and declarative and in matters of duty bind no more than reason and evidence brought from Scripture by them doth A Man hath not the Power over his own Vnderstanding much less can others have if Governors must be Judges what things are lawful in this case what not the Power will be absolute for to be sure what ever they command they will say is lawful If every private Person must judge as when all is said every private Man will be his own Judge in this case in things concerning his own welfare then he is no farther bound to obey than he judgeth the thing to be lawful which is commanded And at last after other Arguings of this nature you conclude So that Let Men wind and turn themselves which way they will by the very same Arguments that any will prove separation from the Church of Rome lawful because she required unlawful things as conditions of her Communion it will be proved lawful not to conform to any suspected or unlawful Practice required by any Church-Governors upon the same terms if the thing so required be after serious and sober enquiry judged unwarrantable by a Man 's own Conscience You particularly accuse the present Government and Governors of our Church because not complying to offers of union and accommodation as wanting of that tenderness and prudence that was visible in the first Primitive Church in our Church at the composure of her Liturgy and in the French Churches at the making of theirs I will repeat your own Words because I would not lie under a suspicion of doing you injury Were we so happy but to take off things granted unnecessary by all and suspected by many and judged unlawful by some and to make nothing the Bonds of our Communion but what Christ hath done viz. one Faith one Baptism c allowing a Liberty for matters of indifferency and bearing with the weakness of those who cannot bear things which others count lawful we might indeed be restored to a true primitive lustre far sooner than by furbishing up some few antiquated Ceremonies which can derive their Pedigree no higher than some ancient Custom and Tradition God will convince Men one day that the union of the Church lies more in the unity of Faith and Affection than uniformity of doubtful Rites and Ceremonies Were there that Spirit of mutual condescension which was most certainly in the first and primitive Church in the Apostles time our breaches as to this thing too might soon be closed up and the voice of Schism be heard among us no more Certainly those Holy Men in the composing our Liturgy who did seek by any means to draw in others at such a distance from their Principles as the Papists were did never intend by what they did for that end to exclude any truly tender consciences from their Communion That which they laid a bate for them was never intended by them as a hook for those of their own profession The same reason which at that time made them yield so far to them then would now have perswaded them to alter and lay aside those things which yield matter of offence to any of the same profession with themselves now It cannot but be looked upon as a token of God's severe displeasure against us if any fair offers of union and accommodation be coldly embraced and entertained Neither is this all but you have equally obliged the Faction in other parts of your Book and censured our Church after the same manner Your words are these pag. 64. I am sure it is contrary to the Primitive Practice and Moderation then used to Suspend or Deprive Men of their Ministerial Function for not Conforming in Habits Gestures c. which you incomparably prove out of Walafridus Strabo Because there was no distinction of Habits in the Church in the Primitive times and then to be sure there was no Suspensions and Deprivations for not wearing them And you again pretty handsomely gird our Church and Church-men as Publick-Prayer-Readers and for not answering the end of their Ordination which is To be Dispensers of God's holy Word That the Apostles were not sent forth to Pray but to Preach and therein Ministers of the Gospel are to succeed them That Prayer among our Church-men is esteemed as Sarah and Preaching almost undergoes the hardship of Hagar to be lookt upon as the Bond-woman of the Synagogue and to be turned out of doors That they are setting up the honour of one Person and make the Offices of the Church a matter of State and Dignity more than Employment consulting their Ease and Honour judging of the Service of God rather by the practice of the Church when it came to enjoy Ease and Plenty than by the ways and practices of the first and purest Apostolical times when the Apostles who were best able to judge of their own Duty looked upon themselves as most concern'd in the Preaching of the Gospel pag. 333. by which every one knows what you mean and that you hereby design'd to disgrace the daily Sacrifice and Common-Prayers of our Church even to turn them out of it and at that time when the Authority of the Kingdom the miraculous
St. Cyprian with St. Augustin and St. Jerom are brought for farther instances of this supposed admirable Temper in the Primitive Church and for freely allowing Liberty to Dissenters from them in matters of Liberty and Practice whom you hope our Church of England then upon its re-establishment will follow in not imposing Rites but leaving Men to be won by the observing the true order and decency of Churches whereby those that act upon a true principle of Christian ingenuity may be sooner drawn to a compliance in all lawful things than by force and rigorous Impositions notwithstanding those Testimonies of St. Austin c. speak as if they had foreseen the case of our Church and had design'd so to determine on her side as to stop the mouths of all gain-sayers For as they allow of different Rites in things not unlawful in distinct Churches so they as strictly require compliance from all the Members of a Church with the Rites of its own Church and they are so far from allowing any difference as to these matters in one and the same particular Church that in case any of their Members travel to another Church they are directed to comply with the lawful Rites of that Church although different from the Rites of that Church of which they more particularly own themselves that so no division might be made And this I take to be the Doctrine of the Church of England and the very way of arguing and the occasion and the design of those Testimonies do so palpably confirm it that nothing but a Man who had Sacrificed his Judgment either to his Passion or the humour of a Party would have set himself to pervert them thus quite contrary to their meaning 5. You tell us That those who first brake this Order in the Church were Arians Donatists and Circumcellians whilst the true Church was known by its Pristine Moderation and Sweetness of Deportment towards all its Members So that the worst of Hereticks the worst of Christians and the worst of Men and such were these three Sects are the only persons to be found in all Antiquity that restrained Men by Laws from being of what Religion they pleased and reduced them to an Vniformity in the Worship of God. Or thus That Church-Laws laying limits to Mens practice in God's Service are from the same rise as Usurpation Rebellion Murder Burglary Schism Sacrilege Church-robbing Spoiling Men of their Possessions all manner of Profanation of Holy Things and Persons forcing Mankind to Heterodoxies in Religion Immorality in Manners and Rebellion in Government Perjury Hypocrisie Deceit for these were the constant Practices of those three Sects and the Laws and Rules that they proceeded by in their pretended Reformations and attempts to reduce what they called Christianity And the Canons Rubricks and Injunctions of our Church and the whole Christian World beside take away and invade Christian Property and Liberty equally as those worst of Hereticks and Schismaticks did I do not now wonder that you have shew'd so much dislike to that part of Dr. Parker's Book of Religion and Loyalty where he makes it appear That Eusebius and his followers that Spawn of the Arian Heresie were for Comprehension and therefore opposed the Holy Athanasius and the first Council of Nice because limiting the Christian profession of Faith to Laws and Canons and denounced the Anathema's of the Church against all such as should violate them 6. And lastly You magnifie the indulgence which was granted at Breda by King Charles II. as the effect of his excellent Prudence and Moderation when it was purely his misfortune and necessity that engaged him to it occasion'd by a sort of Men in this Nation no ways behind the Arians Donatists and Circumcellians those Cut-throats of Christendom and therefore the Wisdom of the Nation to whom he at first referr'd it immediately advised him against its farther establishment and it was re-called Neither was he the first Christian Prince that complyed with the like necessity the very Gentile Worship having been indulged for some time and for the same reasons and by good Emperors by Constantine himself as is evident in Church-Story And your self would deride your own inference if another did make it viz. That therefore the Heathen Worship ought not afterward to have been silenced and that the succeeding Imperial Laws to that purpose were unwarrantable Innovations And so you have my account of this your unlucky Book I own that it was not my first design to make it thus publick and I had not done it now had I not been provoked to it in part by your indirect and unscholar-like dealings with me in that instead of an answer to matter of Fact and Argument you have only Libelled me to a principal Bishop of our Church in a Two-Penny Paper to which is tacked and therein your farther disingenuity appears one of your Four-Penny Sermons that it may with the greater dispatch and advantage be posted over the Kingdom and I be certainly condemned by Bell Book and Candle of those even your Female Admirers into whose hands the main Controversie never came nor indeed are they competent judges of it And whether my stile or your usage of me in this affair be more Barbarous I appeal to the common Reader You have out-done Dr. Burnet's rudeness who only cried me about London Streets tho' these Artifices never take long and a due discovery only breaks their Necks more surely But I was mostly prevailed with in that you have not only defamed me but vindicated this Book to that eminent Bishop your Diocesan as serviceable to the Church of England and designed to that end by you If this be to serve our Church by using and urging all sorts of Arguments whereby her Form of Government by Bishops is represented without any bottom and foundation as from Christ cheap and contemptible their Offices rendred suspicious to the Civil Magistrate and as his Supplanter their abetters and maintainers slighted and ridicul'd their manner of Worship vilified and described as set up in opposition to the Primitive Example their power wholly taken from them and a Liberty granted to all Pretenders In a word Where your chief design seems to be levelled against them then you have done it in the Irenicum and yet these are not all the Heterodoxies and dangerous Doctrines therein contained It is a Hotch-potch or mixture of all Religions in which something is to be found for the defence of each Sect that hath infested us since the Reformation and only the Church of England is constantly opposed I may safely say It has perverted many Thousands should I add Millions I did not exceed which otherwise would have been true Sons and Adherers to her Doctrine and Worship and Discipline It is the very center of Puritanism and Epitome of Fanatick madness rendring us guilty of the same Schism in respect of the Dissenters as the Church of Rome is charged with in respect of us If it be objected
or Believers in common The Presbyters indeed make the lower House of Convocation in our Church of England but the reason of that is from a particular Law in our Kingdom which imbodies no Canons giving to them the Secular protection but such as pass the Votes of all the inferior Clergy of the Nation represented by the Presbyters that sit there as well as the Votes of the upper Clergy or Bishops Such Stuff have you put together and yet there is worse for you add The utmost then can be supposed in this case is That the parts of the Church may voluntarily consent to accept the decrees of such a Council and by that voluntary act or by the Supreme Authority enjoining it such decrees may become Obligatory As pure Irenicum as any in the World. I 'll add but one instance more by which it will farther appear how you run against or at least evade the true Power of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church vested in them by Christ for the obliging the whole and it is that of Schism which in prosecution of your foregoing notion you assert pag. 290. to be a violation of that Communion which Christians are obliged to upon the acknowledgment of the truth of Christian Religion or upon owning Christianity the way to true Happiness Quisquis ille est qualiscunque est Christianus non est qui in Ecclesia Christi non est Cypr. de Novato Ep. 52. Inde enim schismata haereses oboriuntur dum Episcopus qui unus est Ecclesiae preest superba quorundam praesumptione contemnitur Et homo dignatione Dei honoratus indignus hominibus judicatur Idem Ep. 171. Et non attendisti inter schismaticos haereticos quam magna distantia sit inde est quod ignoras quae sit sancta Ecclesia omnia miscuisti Optat. cont Parmen Donatist lib. 1. Catholicum facit simplex verus intellectus singulare verum sacramentum unitas animorum Schisma verò sparso coagulo pacis generatur deserta matre Catholica impii filii dum foras exeunt se separant à radice matris Ecclesiae invidiae falcibus amputati errando rebelles abscedunt nec possunt novum aliquid aut aliud agere quam quod jamdudum apud suam matrem didicerunt Haeretici veritatis exules sacri symboli desertores c. de se nosci voluerunt ideo falsum habent Baptisma Vobis vero Schismaticis quamvis in Catholica non sitis haec negari non possunt quia nobiscum vera communia traxistis Sacramenta ibid. the very Schism in the days of St. Paul at Corinth For if he that cometh Preacheth another Jesus whom we have not Preached or if ye receive another Spirit which ye have not received or another Gospel which ye have not accepted ye might well bear with him 2 Cor. 11.4 Immanes non habentes Dei dilectionem suam utilitatem potius considerantes quam unitatem Ecclesiae propter modicas quaslibet causas magnum gloriosum corpus Christi conscindunt dividunt quantum in ipsis est interficiunt pacem loquentes bellum operantes vere liquantes culicem camelum diglutientes Nulla enim ab iis tanta fieri potest correptio quanta est Schismatis corruptio Irenaeus l. 4. c. 62. Sed crimine Schismatis à quo immanissimo Sacrilegio nemo vestrum se dicere potest immunem quamdiu non communicat unitati omnium gentium Aug. l. 2. Cont. Petil. Donatist c. 96. Quid ergò prodest homini vel sana fides vel sanum fortasse solum fidei Sacramentum Vbi letali vulnere Schismatis perempta est sanitas charitatis per cujus solius peremptionem etiam illa integra trabuntur ad mortem Idem l. 1. de Baptismo contra Donatist c. 8. Nobiscum enim estis in Baptismo in Symbolo in caeteris dominicis Sacramentis in Spiritu autem unitatis in ipsa denique Catholica Ecclesia nobiscum non estis Ep 48. Vincentio Quisquis ab hac Ecclesia Catholica fuerit separatus quantumlibet laudabiliter se vivere existimet hoc solo scelere quod à Christi unitate disjunctus est non habebit vitam sed ira Dei manet supra eum Ep. 152. And so in the Apostles Canons Can 31. The Schismatick is he that altare aliud erigit nolente Episcopo Can. 6. Conc. Constant 2. Gen. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called Schismaticks tho' of a sound Faith. Schisma est recessio à proprio Episcopo Can. 13. Conc. 1 2 Constantinop And to the same effect Can. 10. Conc Carthag 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contra proprium Episcopum I 'll add but this one Authority more and it is St. Basil ad Amphiloc Can. 1. Haereses quidem eos qui omnino abrupti sunt in ipsa fide sunt abalienati Schismata autem propter aliquas Ecclesiasticas causas medicabiles questiones inter se dissident Schisma autem est de penitentia dissentire ab iis qui sunt ex Ecclesia Haereses autem ut Manichaeorum Valentinorum Marcionistarum c. statim enim de ipsa in deum fide est dissentio herein contradicting all the ancient Fathers Doctors and Teachers of the Church of God and the whole current of Theology who still speak of Schism as a breach of the Laws and Canons Ecclesiastical of which those are guilty who receive and own the Foundation or the Scriptures as the indispensable Rule of Faith and Manners but recede from their Pastors or Bishop that break the outward peace when owning the same Articles of Faith and for little things make divisions And in this respect it is that St. Austin lays such blame upon the Donatists telling them That a true Faith will avail them nothing nay that they are worse than Idolaters Dr. Hammond in his Book of Schism considers it also in this Ecclesiastical notion and therefore concludes us to be no Schismaticks not because retaining your essentials or being of a Church consisting in a belief in Christ and walking in him but because keeping those due Subordinations in which our Christianity placed us in respect of our Church-Governors whether to the Deacon or Presbyter or Bishop Metropolitan Exarch or Patriarch as also that due co-ordination as fellow Christians without breaches of Charity made upon one another And to what end you should give this notion of it differing both from the Church of God and our own Doctors is not conceiveable only that you designed thereby to gratifie and comply with those amongst us whose Maxime is That to strike a Schismatick is to hit a Saint That Schism in this Church-Sense of it is a meer Chimera invented only by Church-men to keep the People in Dependence and Subjection unto them that Vnity does not consist in Vniformity but in owning the general Truths of the Gospel and obeying them or believing in Christ and walking
you have Mountebank'd and Quack'd for full Five and twenty Years and find your Patient worse and worse under your hands and that you are unable to work a Cure you then return him to the Church and her Laws of Discipline for a just Habit and Temperature The College of Physicians I am sure would not think themselves beholden to such an Empirick 2. The reason which you give for that great tenderness you shew'd to Dissenters when writing the Irenicum Preface pag. 84. or that plenary Toleration all Men ought to have is because the Laws were not then Established and return it upon them that they have not very well requited you for the tenderness and pity you had for them and the concernment you expressed to have brought them in upon easier terms than were since required But pray was not the Church of England the same under the Rump Parliament and Cromwel and the Committee of Safety as it now is And what had you to do to enlarge or limit her terms then more than now It was then a Pragmatick Encroachment and so it is now I do not believe that Bishop of this Church from whom you say you received in those days Episcopal Orders gave you any such Directions I am sure you received no such Authority at your Ordination by him When the Empire frowns upon the Church or Anarchy relaxates the due Exercise of her Worship and Discipline Church-men and every good Christian are to consider what is most necessary to be practised And some directions are given in the case by the Author of the Discourse of Church-Power c. cap. 5. But none are to think themselves acquitted of their Obedience to Church-Laws during the Suspension or Interregnum much less that they are Authorized to prescribe easier terms and acquit the first Obligation Besides this Answer and Practice is no ways agreeing with him who hath told us That the Church is a peculiar Society in its own Nature distinct from the Commonwealth subsisting by Powers of its own apart from it subjected in the hands of its own Officers by a Charter from Christ never to be divorced but remaining formally in the Church after its being incorporated into the Commonwealth For how can this Church be disestablished by any confusions in the State or lose this Power All that can be said in your behalf is this and I am resolved to say what is to be said for you That according to this reason you do not believe the Power that is enstated on the Officers in this Body and Association for governing the whole to extend to Acts and Laws restraining their Liberties in these cases or that the Church is a Body subsisting by her own Laws but assert the Legislative Power in the Secular Hand which being at that time so much lessened in this Church and Kingdom you thereby amongst the rest of the Arbitrary Subjects became at liberty to act apart and did so conceiving that no Law as a Church-man or in Episcopal Orders did enjoin you the contrary And hence it 's plain why in the Appendix to the Irenicum where we have also the above-mentioned Definition of a Church you say That you have slit the Hair betwixt the Church and State adjusting to each that Power which belongs to them when you name only Excommunication and Administration of the Sacraments as her Rites And hence it is as evident also as any thing can be That I did not Steal my considerable Arguments out of this Appendix which I used in behalf of that other instance of the Power of the Church viz. to govern her own Body by her own Laws the asserting whereof makes up the Body of my Discourse And it farther appears That that was not one of those points concerning which you saw reason to alter your Judgment in Twenty Years time As in the Preface to the Vnreasonableness c. 3. In that Preface pag. 53. upon the clamors of Dissenters by reason of your Sermon against Separation and that you Preached not for Abatements and Alterations and taking away Ceremonies and Subscriptions and leaving them full Liberty to do what they pleased by which you might have gained their good Opinion and have been thought to have Preach'd a very seasonable Sermon Or in plain English because you did not make Proposals for Toleration as you did a little after To all this you suggest supposing my private Opinion were never so much for some Abatements to be made that might tend to strengthen and unite Protestants and were consistent with our Nations setlement had it been seasonable to have spoken of the alteration of Laws before Magistrates and Judges who are tied up to the Laws in being What the Power of Magistrates and Judges is relating to Church-Laws I have shew'd at large elsewhere and that according to the constitution of the Empire when Christian and the Statute Book of our Kingdom since the Reformation And I do allow your Plea to be just and good Christian Magistrates always were and still are Preservers and Executors of Church-Laws the Church owes her support in a great measure unto them And it is impious as well as unseasonable for a private Man but much more for a Man in the Pulpit to make Proposals for Nullities and Repeals of those Laws and Enfranchisements which the Religious favour of the Prince hath granted God's Church and the Zeal and Vigilance of good Magistrates take care to preserve entire and serviceable unto her But yet this is not all the guilt that is contracted or undecency that is committed by such attempts There is a Church-Power which you have defined to be distinct from the State and remaining in the Church after its Incorporation into the Commonwealth And no other reason can be given why your doing the same before these Magistrates and Judges had not been alike unseasonable or why you pleaded not the equal regard which you ought to have to them also only that you in reality are still of your Irenicum judgment viz. That the other Magistrates are the Church and all Power to make Church-Laws or execute them relating to outward decency and order is invested in them and that there is no Legislative Power enstated by Christ on his Officers You who could tell your Story and defame me to your Bishop whom I honour as one that is vested with the utmost of Power that our Saviour was pleased to have continued in his Church till his coming again and do owe an Obedience in special unto him and all that are of that Sacred and Superior Order in God's Church in your Epistle Dedicatory might have consider'd also that he was your Diocesan or that Spiritual Magistrate to whom you owe a more immediate Subjection and in respect of whom an attempt to alter Establish'd Laws had been equally unseasonable Neither did the absence of his Person at the Guild-Hall Chapel render him less awful and tremendous unto you 4. When you come to the Discourse