Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
law_n common_a court_n matter_n 4,363 5 5.8066 4 false
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A27006 Reliquiæ Baxterianæ, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his life and times faithfully publish'd from his own original manuscript by Matthew Sylvester. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Sylvester, Matthew, 1636 or 7-1708. 1696 (1696) Wing B1370; ESTC R16109 1,288,485 824

There are 42 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

and Formalists were not now broad enough nor of sufficient force The King's Party as their Serious Word called the Parliaments Party Rebels and as their common ludi●rous Name The Round-heads the original of which is not certainly known Some say it was because the Puritans then commonly wore short Hair and the King's Party long Hair Some s●y it was because the Queen at Strafford's Tryal asked who that Round-headed Man was meaning Mr. Pym because he spake so strongly The Parliaments Party called the other side commonly by the Name of Malignants as supposing that the generality of the Enemies of serious Godliness went that way in a desire to destroy the Religious out of the Land And the Parliament put that Name into their Mouths and the Souldiers they called Cavaliers because they took that Name to themselves and afterwards they called them Damme's because God Damn me was become a common Curse and as a By-word among them The King professed to sight for the Subjects Liberties the Laws of the Land and the Protestant Religion The Parliament profest the same and all their Commissions were granted as for King and Parliament for the Parliament professed that the Separation of the King from the Parliament could not be without a Destruction of the Government and that the Dividers were the Destroyers and Enemies to the State and if the Soldiers askt each other at any Surprize or Meeting who are you for those on the King's side said for the King and the others said for King and Parliament the King disowned their Service as a Scorn that they should say they fought for King and Parliament when their Armies were ready to charge him in the Field They said to this 1. That they fought to redeem him from them that took him a voluntary Captive and would separate him from his Parliament 2. That they fought against his Will only but not against his Person which they desired to rescue and preserve nor against his Authority which was for them 3. That as all the Courts of Justice do execute their Sentences in the King's Name and this by his own Law and therefore by his Authority so much more might his Parliament do § 52. But now we come to the main matter What satisfied so many of the intelligent part of the Countrey to side with the Parliament when the War began What inclined their Affections I have before shewed and it is not to be doubted but their Approbation of the Parliament in the cause of Reformation made them the easilier believe the lawfulness of their War But yet there were some Dissenters which put the matter to debates among themselves In Warwickshire Sir Francis Nethersole a religious Knight was against the Parliaments War and Covenant though not for the Justness of the War against them In Glocestershire Mr. Geree an old eminent Nonconformist and Mr. Copell a learned Minister who put out himself to prevent being put out for the Book of Recreations and some others with them were against the lawfulness of the War so was Mr. Lyford of Sherborn in Dorcetshire and Mr. Francis Bampfield his Successor and some other Godly Ministers in other Countries And many resolved to meddle on no side Those that were against the Parliaments War were of three Minds or Parties One Part thought that no King might be resisted but these I shall not take any more notice of The other thought that our King might not be at all resisted because he is our Sovereign and we have sworn to his Supremacy and if he be Supreme he hath neither Superior nor Equal And Oaths are to be interpreted in the strictest Sense The third sort granted that in some Cases the King might be resisted as Bilson and other Bishops hold but not in this Case 1. Because the Law giveth him the Militia which was contended for and the Law is the measure of Power 2. Because say they the Parliament began the War by permitting Tumults to deprive the Members of their Liberty and affront and dishonour the King 3. Because the Members themselves are Subjects and took the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy and therefore have no Authority to resist 4. It is not lawful for Subjects to defend Reformation or Religion by Force against 〈◊〉 Soveraigns no such good Ends will warrant evil Means 5. It is contrary to the Doctrine of Protestants and the ancient Christians and Scripture it selfe which condemneth all that resist the higher Powers and as for the Primitive Christians● it is well known they were acquainted with no other lawful Weapons against them but Prayers and Tears 6. It importeth a false Accusation of the King as if he were about to destroy Religion Liberties or Parliaments all which he is resolved to defend as in all his Declarations doth appear 7. It justifieth the Papists Doctrine and Practices of Rebellion and taketh the Odium from them unto our selves and layeth a Reproach upon the Protestant Cause 8. It proceedeth from Impatience and Distrust of God which causeth Men to fly to unlawful means Religion may be preserved better by patient Sufferings These were their Reasons who were against the Parliaments War which may be seen more at large in Mr. Dudly Digs his Book and Mr. Welden's and Mr. Michael Hudson's and Sir Francis Nethersole's § 53. As for those on the Parliaments side I will first tell you what they said to these Eight Reasons and next what Reasons moved them to take the other side 1. To the First Reason they said as before that for the Law to give the King the ●●●●itia signifieth no more but that the People in Parliament consented to obey him in Matter of Wars and to fight for him and under his Conduct For the Law is nothing but the Consent of King and Parliament and the Militia is nothing but the Peoples own Swords and Strength And that this Consent of theirs should be supposed to be meant against themselves as if they consented to destroy themselves whenever he commanded it is an Exposition against Nature Sense and Reason and the common Sentiments of Mankind And they said that the same Law required Sheriffs to exercise the Militia in Obedience to the Decrees of his Courts of Justice and this against the King's Personal Commands and in the King's Name Because King and Parliament have by Law setled those Courts and Methods of Execution a Command of the King alone can no more prevail against them than it can abrogate a Law And the Law said they is above the King because King and Parliament are more than the King alone And they pretend also Presidents for their Resistance 2. To the Second they said that when 200000 Protestants were murdered in Ireland and their Friends so bold in England and the Parliaments Destruction so industruously endeavoured it was no time for them to rebuke their Friends upon terms of Civility and good Manners though their Zeal was mixt with Indiscretion and that if the Londoners had not shewed that Zeal
Soldier saith It is my Commission and the High Court of Parliament saith It is the Law declared in a Court of Justice a Parliament seemeth to be the properest Judge As in Controversies of Physick who is to be believed before the Colledge of Physicians Or in Controversies of Religion who before a General Council If the House of York and Lancaster ●ight for the Crown and both Command the Subjects Arms. the poor Peasants are not able to judge of their Titles And if a Parliament shall not judge for them who shall These were the Reasons which caused Men to adhere to the Parliament in this War § 55. For my own part I freely confess that I was not judicious enough in Politicks and Law to decide this Controversie which so many Lawyers and Wise men differed in And I freely confess that being astonished at the Irish Massacre and perswaded fully both of the Parliaments good endeavours for Reformation and of their real danger my Judgment of the main Cause much swayed my Judgment in the Matter of the Wars and the Arguments à fine à natureâ necessitate which common Wits are capable of discerning did too far incline my Judgment in the Cause of the War before I well understood the Arguments from our particular Laws And the Consideration of the Quality of the Parties that sided for each Cause in the Countries did greatly work with me and more than it should have done And I verily thought that if that which a Judge in Court saith sententially is Law must go for Law to the Subject as to the Decision of that Cause though the King send his Broad Seal against it then that which the Parliament saith is Law is Law to the Subjects about the Dangers of the Common-wealth whatever it be in it self and that if the King's Broad-Seal cannot prevail against the Judge much less against their Judgment I make no doubt but both Parties were to blame as it commonly falleth out in most Wars and Contentions and I will not be he that shall Justifie either of them I doubt not but the Headiness and Rashness of the younger unexperienced sort of religious People made many Parliament Men and Ministers overgo themselves to keep pace with those hot Spurs no doubt but much Indiscretion appeared and worse than Indiscretion in the tumultuous Petitioners and much Sin was committed in the dishonouring of the King and provocation of him and in the uncivil Language against the Bishops and Liturgie of the Church But these things came principally from the Sectarian separating Spirit which blew the Coals among foolish Apprentices And as the Sectaries increased so did this Insolence increase I have my self been in London when they have on the Lord's Days stood at the Church Doors while the Common Prayer was reading saying We must stay till he is out of his Pottage And such unchristian Scorns and Jests did please young inconsiderate Wits that knew not what Spirit they were of nor whither such unwarrantate things did tend Learned Mr. Iohn Ball though a Nonconformist discerned the stirrings of this insolent Sectarian Spirit betimes and fell a writing against it even then when some were crying out of Persecution and others were tender of such little Differences One or two in the House and five or six Ministers that came from Holland and a few that were scattered in the City which were the Brownists Relicts did drive on others according to their own dividing Principles and sowed the Seeds which afterward spread over all the Land though then there were very few of them in the Countreys even next to none As Bishop Hall speaks against the justifying of the Bishops so do I against justifying the Parliament Ministers or City I believe many unjustifiable things were done but I think that few Men among them all were the Doers or Instigaters of it But I then thought that whosoever was faulty the Peoples Liberties and Safety could not be forfeited And I thought that all the Subjects were not guilty of all the Faults of King or Parliament when they defended them Yea that if both their Causes had been bad as against each other yet that the Subjects should adhere to that Party which most secured the welfare of the Nation and might defend the Land under their Conduct without owning all their Cause And herein I confess I was then so zealous that I thought it a great Sin for Men that were able to defend their Country to be Neuters And I have been tempted since to think that I was a more competent Judge upon the Place when all things were before our eyes than I am in the review of those Days and Actions so many Years after when Distance disadvantageth the Apprehension A Writer against Cromwel's Decimation recanting his great Adherence to the Parliament in that War yet so abhorreth Neutrality that he likeneth him rather to a Dog than a Man that could stand by when his Country was in such a case But I confess for my part I have not such censorious Thoughts of those that then were Neuters as formerly I have had For he that either thinketh both sides raised an unlawful War or that could not tell which if either was in the right might well be excused if he defended neither I was always satisfied 1. That the Dividers of the King and Parliament were the Traitors whoever they were and that the Division tended to the Dissolution of the Government 2. And that the Authority and Person of the King were inviolable out of the reach of just Accusation Judgment or Execution by Law as having no Superiour and so no Judge 3. I favoured the Parliaments Cause as they professed 1. To bring Delinquents to a Legal Trial 2. And to preserve the Person and Government of the King by a Conjunction with his Parliament But Matters that Warrs and Blood are any way concerned in are so great and tenderly to be handled that I profess to the World that I dare not I will not justifie any thing that others or I my self have done of any such consequence But though I never hurt the Person of any Man yet I resolve to pray daily and earnestly to God that he will reveal to me whatever I have done amiss and not suffer me through Ignorance to be impenitent and would forgive me both my known and unknown Sins and cleanse this Land from the Guilt of Blood § 56. Having inserted this much of the Case of History of those Times I now proceed to the Relation of the Passages of my own Life beginning where I left When I was at Kidderminster the Parliament made an Order for all the People to take a Protestation to defend the King's Person Honour and Authority the Power and Priviledges of Parliaments the Liberties of the Subject and the Protestant Religion against the common Enemy meaning the Papists the Irish Massacre and Threatnings occasioning this Protestation I obeyed them in joyning with the Magistrate in offering
Officers in the Court Freemen in Cities and Corporate Towns Masters and Fellows of Colledges in the Universities c. are required at their Admission into their several respective places to give Oaths for well and truly performing their several respective Duties their liableness to punishment in case of Non-performance accordingly notwithstanding Neither doth it seem reasonable that such Persons as have themselves with great severity prescribed and exacted antecedent Conditions of their Communion not warranted by Law should be exempted from the tye of such Oaths and Subscriptions as the Laws require § 17. 4. We agree that the Bishops and all Ecclesiastical Governours ought to exercise their Government not Arbitrarily but according to Law 5. And for Security against such Arbitrary Government and Innovations the Laws are and from time to time will be sufficient provision Concerning Liturgy § 18. A Liturgy or Form of Publick Worship being not only by them acknowledged lawful but by us also for the preservation of Unity and Uniformity deemed necessary we esteem the Liturgy of the Church of England contained in the Book of Common Prayer and by Law established to be such a one as is by them desired according to the Qualifications here mentioned 〈◊〉 1. For Matter agreeable to the Word of God which we 〈◊〉 all other lawful Ministers within the Church of England have or by the Laws ought to have attested by our Personal Subscription 2. Fitly suited to the Nature of the several Ordinances and the Necessities of the Church 3. Nor too tedious in the whole It 's well known that some Mens Prayers before and after Sermon have been usually not much shorter and sometimes much longer than the whole Church Service 4. Nor the Prayers too short The Wisdom of the Church both in ancient and latter times hath thought it a fitter means for relieving the Infirmities of the meaner sort of People which are the major part of most Congregations to contrive several Petitions into sundry shorter Collects or Prayers than to comprehend them altogether in a continued stile or without interruption 5. Nor the Repetitions unmeet There are Examples of the like Repetition frequent in the Psalms and other parts of Scripture Not to mention the unhandsome Tautologies that oftentimes happen and can scarce be avoided in the Extemporary and undigested Prayers that are made especially by Persons of meaner Gifts 6. Nor the Responsals Which if impartially considered are pious Ejaculations fit to stir up Devotion and good Symbols of Conformity betwixt the Minister and the People and have been of very ancient practise and continuance in the Church 7. Nor too dissonant from the Liturgies of other Reformed Churches The nearer both their Forms and ours come to the Liturgy of the Ancient Greek and Latin Churches the less are they liable to the Objections of the Common Enemy To which Liturgies if the Form used in our Church be more agreeable than those of other Reformed Churches and that it were at all needful to make a Change in either it seemeth to be much more reasonable that their Form should be endeavoured to be brought to a nearer Conformity with ours than ours with theirs Especially the Form of our Liturgy having been so signally approved by sundry of the most Learned Divines of the Reformed Churches abroad as by very many Testimonies in their Writings may appear And some of the Compilers thereof have Sealed the Protestant Religion with their Blood and have been by the most Eminent Persons of those Churches esteemed as Martyrs for the same § 19. As for that which followeth Neither can we think that too rigorously imposed which is imposed by Law and that with no more rigour than is necessary to make the Imposition effectual otherwise it could be of no use but to beget and nourish factions Nor are Ministers denied the use and exercise of their Gifts in praying before and after Sermon Although such praying be but the continuance of a Custom of no great Antiquity and grown into Common use by Sufferance only without any other Foundation in the Laws or Canons and ought therefore to be used by all sober and godly Men with the greatest inoffensiveness and moderation possible § 20. If any thing in the Established Liturgy shall be made appear to be justly offensive to sober Persons we are not at all unwilling that the same should be changed The discontinuance thereof we are sure was not our Fault But we find by experience that the use of it is very much desired where it is not and the People generally are very well satisfied with it where it is used which we believe to be a great Conservatory of the chief Heads of Christian Religion and of Piety Charity and Loyalty in the Hearts of the People We believe that the difuse thereof for sundry late years hath been one of the great Causes of the sad Divisions in the Church and that the restoring the same will be by by God's blessing a special means of making up the Breach There being as we have great cause to believe many Thousands more in the Nation that desire it than dislike it Nevertheless we are not against revising of the Liturgy by such discreet Persons as his Majesty shall think fit to imploy therein Of Ceremonies § 21. We conceived there needs no more to be said for justifying the Imposition of the Ceremonies by Law established then what is contained in the beginning of this Section which giveth a full and satisfactory Answer to all that is alledged or objected in the following Discourse which is for the most part rather Rhetorical than Argumentative Inasmuch as lawful Authority hath already determined the Ceremonies in question to be decent and orderly and to serve to Edification and consequently to be agreeable to the General Rules of the Word We acknowledge the Worship of God to be in it self perfect in regard of Essentials which hindereth not but that it may be capable of being improved to us by addition of Circumstantials in order to Decency and Edification As the Lord hath declared himself Jealous in Matters concerning the Substance of his Worship so hath he left the Church at liberty for Circumstantials to determine concerning Particulars according to Prudence as occasion shall require so as the foresaid General Rules be still observed And therefore the imposing and using indifferent Ceremonies is not varying from the Will of God nor is there made thereby any addition to or detraction from the holy Duties of God's Worship Nor doth the same any way hinder the Communication of God's Grace or Comfort in the performance of such Duties § 22. The Ceremonies were never esteemed Sacraments or imposed as such nor was ever any Moral efficacy ascribed to them nor doth the significancy without which they could not serve to Edification import or infer any such thing § 23. Ceremonies have been retained by most of the Protestant Churches abroad which have rejected Popery and have been approved by the
pursued me to this very day 2. But it is the Reasons against our full Obedience to the Imposition of this Conformity which I am now to rehearse but I must desire the Reader to remember that my bare Recital is no sign of my Approbation of all that I recite though I be one of those that dare not Conform § 304. And first there are divers general Reasons which keep some of them more than others from Conformity and drive them further even from joyning with them in Liturgy or Sacrament 1. Some of them look upon the Principles and Lives of many of those who fall in with the establisht Church as furnishing them with a sufficient Plea against Conformity For say they it 's easie to observe how the Prophane and Vitious and Debaucht and Scandalous which makes up but too great a part of the Nation fall in with that Party in the Church that are for Prelacy and Liturgy c. and for oppressing those who differ in their Sentiments from them about these Matters Now how say they can we safely joyn in with that Body of Men that harbours so many open Enemies to all Religion as the prophane part of the Nation comprehends But some who are more considerate reply That this is no other than what is the usual Attendant of a National Establishment it being a common thing for all those in a State who are really of no Religion in appearance to fall in with that Mode of Religion that is favour'd by the Law and most encouraged by the Prince § 305. 2. The same Persons say That by Conforming they shall own and strengthen Usurpers who have made a New Office which Christ never made and to the great wrong of Christ and the peril of the Church have made themselves Lords of God's Heritage And as he that obeyeth the Pope's Law is guilty of his Usurpation so is he that obeyeth the Prelates Laws though the Matter commanded were lawful in it self But the moderater Nonconformists are not for this Reason because say they it is but Counsel as it cometh from the Convocation and it is the King and Parliament that make a Law of it whom we must obey in lawful things And they say further That we must not forbear a Duty for fear of Encouraging Men's Usurpations § 306. They say also 3. That these Impositions are done by the Prelates in meer design to root out godly Ministers and Christians And that when they feared that the old Conformity would not serve turn they have added such new Materials of set purpose which keep out a Thousand at least that would have yielded to the Old Conformity And what they aim at further when they have thus driven out all the able faithful Ministers God knoweth But if we set in with them and use the very means which they have ●●bricated for this very end to destroy the Interest of Godliness though the Act commanded were indifferent we are made guilty of their Sin But the moderate Nonconformists say That such Reasons as these are good Seconds where the Matter is first proved evil but 1. That Mens Designs are late●t in their hearts and the strongest Conjectures will not serve instead of Proof 2. If that it were known to any one of us not by the Evidence of the thing but by some other Discovery that a lawful thing is Commanded with a pernicious design that will not excuse us from our Obedience unless it be probable that the Church is like to be saved from ruine by our forbearance to obey And we may do the thing commanded without any participation of the Guilt of Mens private malicious Intentions § 307. 4. Also they say That we have Covenanted to endeavour a Reformation and had begun it and therefore shall be Covenant-breakers and Backsliders if we yield to any thing which was to be reformed But here the more moderate have many Distinctions between things unlawful and things only inconvenient and between those that have opportunity to do better and those that have not and between seldom Communion and most ordinary And they say that things unlawful must not be done whether we have covenanted against them or not But for things only inexpedient or evil by a superable Accident they become our Duties and no Covenant disobligeth us from our Duty and that the Covenant never was intended to oblige us to prefer no Worship before that which is defective but only to prefer that which is better before it And that it may be a duty to Communicate sometime with a very faulty Church in order to our Catholick Communion with the whole so be it our ordinary particular Communion be in the purest Church and Order caeteris paribus that we can have § 308. 5. And another Reason given is That the Aggravation of the Sin of these Imposers is very great that they have been Persecutors heretofore and seen and felt God's Judgments for it and have been convinced and intreated to return to Charity and yet they have with renewed Malice set themselves to the debauching of the Consciences of the Kingdom and to the extirpation of Natural Honesty and have branded all their Party with the Mark of Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution while they brand the Consciencious with the Name of Puritans And therefore they are a Generation ready for perdition and certainly near some heavy Curse And for us to joyn with them that are in the way to Wrath is the way to be partakers of their Plagues But the moderate say to this 1. That the Extenuation as well as the Aggravation of their Sin must be considered And that it must be remembred that among the Nonconformists there is a Party of Sectaries that Rebelled against all the Governours that were over them and cut off the King's Head when they had conquered those that are now against them in the Field and sequestred their Estates And that such great Provocation may not only sublimate Malice where it findeth it but greatly exasperate even temperate Men. 2. That it 's true that we must partake with no Men in their Sin as ever we would escape their Plagues but when that which is the Imposers Sin is become the Subjects Duty God will not plague us with them for doing our Duties 3. That it is dangerous to presume to forete● on whom God will bring his Judgments in this Life and to pre●ume that we are safe and they are near perdition while all things come alike to all and the differencing Day of Judgment is not yet come Therefore it is dangerous on such Prophesies or Presumptions or Fears to go out of the way of any Duty or to avoid any lawful Communion with the Church § 309. 6. Again it is said That these Impositions being the Engines of Division in the Church as Mr. Hales himself affirmeth we shall be partakers of the Schisms if we use them But the moderate say That indeed if we partake in the Imposition we partake in the
Power to perform it so go together that God never calleth Man to Duty but he gives him this sort of Power that is Authority for the very Command to do the Work doth give Authority to do it Man may oblige himself without a Call and so have no Authority but whosoever is required of God to do it hath eo Nomine Authority to do it And the Office of the Ministry is but the Duty and Authority of performing the Works of the Ministry Moreover the Power is for the Work 's sake and not the Work for the Powers sake as the End So that if I prove once that the Duty is required of unordained Men I do thereby prove that the Power is given them Now that that Duty is required appears thus The greatest Works of Mercy to Mens Souls and of glorifying God are such as Men are obliged to by the Law of Nature if they have Ability and Opportunity and there be a Necessity But the Works of the Ministry are the greatest Works of Mercy to Mens Souls and Glory to God Ergo The Minor is proved by the Parts The Publick Preaching of the Lord Jesus to a Heathen People as the Jesuits have long been doing in the Indies and the Discipling Men to Christ and baptizing them is the greatest Work of Mercy imaginable Whereto add the teaching them to observe all things whatsoever Christ hath commanded and it makes up the whole absolutely necessary in all its Parts 1. The Greatness appears in that Men cannot be saved ordinarily without it It is to save Men from Everlasting Torments and help them to Everlasting Glory 2. It is that which Christ himself did yea made his Office to seek and to save that which was lost 3. It is that which he ordained the Ministry for yea giveth us his Gifts for yea upholds all things for and makes other Mercies subordinate to And that it is as conducible to that Honour that he will have by the Gospel and Mens Salvation is as clear For the Major Note that I suppose Ability and Opportunity for else they cannot be obliged Also I suppose Necessity that is that there be not Ordained Men Authoritatively enough competently to do it And then that it must be done without such Ordination rather than not at all is so plain in the Law of Nature that it needs no Proof To do good to our Power especially in so great Necessities and weighty Cases is a Principle in Nature that he who is a Man doth find in himself A Fortiore it 's proved that in lesser Cases we are bound to do thus much more in these so great If a Man be like to perish through Hunger or Nakedness he that is no Taylor must make him Cloaths if he can and he that is no Baker must make him Bread Or if a Man come into a Country infected with the Plague or other Epidemical Disease which he hath Skill in Curing he is a Murderer if he will not do it though he be no Physician while there is no Physician there that can Every Man that is able is a lawful Physician in case of desperate Necessity If these Instances serve not we may go higher In case of an unexpected Onslaught of the Enemy when the Commanders are asleep every Souldier may do his Office In case a General be slain in the Field or a Collonel or a Captain the next Officer may take his Place yea a common Souldier may do it in Necessity Or if the Commander turn Traytor the next Officer may take his Place and command the Souldiers against him Salus populi suprema lex esto is God's own Law And Salus Ecclesiae suprema Lex esto is no less his and unchangable as to all Church-Works still looking at his Glory herein as the highest absolutely He that should say I would cure these Sick Men but that I am not in Office a Physician ● or I would do this or that Work to save the City or the Army but it is not my Office or I have no Commission were not excusable Yet far more than he that would say I would Preach Christ to these People and Baptize them and acquaint them with his Laws to save them from Damnation but that I am not Ordained Durst you warrant that Man from being condemned for his Neglect Nay durst you encourage him to neglect it Nay durst you adventure to neglect it your self What should the People in New-England do if there were not Ministers among the Indians If there were Protestants cast into China and had the Opportunity as the Jesuits have what should they do To forbear the Ministerial Work till they had a lawful Ordination were no less than Soul-murder It would in probability never be had for if they travail'd for it to those parts of the World where it might be had there were no great probability of their Return If you say they may teach and baptize as private Men I answer If they do but what private Men here are allowed do viz. to Teach but privately and occasionally it would be still unnatural bloody Soul-murder To speak the Doctrine of Redemption to two or three in a House when they might speak to Multitudes and to teach now and then occasionally when they might do it ordinarily is cruel destroying of the most And to Baptize is no private Man's Work If you would have them Teach both publickly and ordinarily and Baptize then you would have them be Ministers under the Name of Private Men yea to do the Work of Apostles or Evangelists Certainly the Law of Nature is God's Law and Evangelical Ceremonies and points of meer Order do give Place to it as well as either Mosaical or Secular God hath as streightly commanded Obedience to Secular Power as to Ecclesiastical If therefore Matter of Order in Secular Things must stoop to Matters of Substance and Necessity and the Law of Corporations to the Law of Nature so it must do here The Gospel Crosseth not nor obliterateth Natural Principles And to love our Neighbours as our self and do him good especially to the Everlasting Saving of his Soul are too deep in Nature to be questioned or to stoop to a Point of meer Order If you say That the same God that requires us to do it doth require that we do it in his order and way I answer No doubt of it where that Order may be observed But where it cannot God's way revealed to Nature is to do it without as hath been shewed And Scripture seconds Nature in this Christ tells us That this is the second great Commandment Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and on this with the Love of God hang all the Law and the Prophets To do good to our utmost Power is a Charge laid on all Psal. 34. 14. and 37. 27. Gal. 6. 10. Eccl. 9. 10. As every Man hath received the Gift so must he as a good Steward of God's manifold Grace administer it 1 Pet. 4.
the Ruler of all Persons all Families all Pastors and Churches all Physicians School-masters c. that is to see all these do their own duty but not to take their Work from them upon himself not to take all Men from Self-government of their Tongues Passions Actions not to take on him the part of Parents Pastors c. And no Prince's Laws will acquit a Man before God from his Duty in any of these Relations while he is in them VI. God hath much conjoyned Interest and Duty No Man is so much concerned whether I be saved or damned as I am my self And therefore my own Choice and Self-government is first and chiefly to be used for the saving of my own Soul without which no Man else can save me Therefore I am more concerned than any Magistrate is to the Counsel and Conduct of what Pastor I commit my Soul and I have the nearest and first power in the Choice There is great Controversie in the World Whether Subjects have a Propriety in their Estates which is not at the will of Princes And it is commonly affirmed That Propriety is anticedent to Regiment which is but to order it for common good and not to destroy it But I had rather quit my Claim to Propriety in all my Worldly Estate than of my Salvation or the necessary means thereto If the Law commanded me but to use a Physician that I thought unskilful in my Disease and his Medicines pernicious I would choose a better if I could though the King and Laws forbad me and I would refuse the obtruded Physician and his Medicine so I would do if they commanded me to marry an utterly unsuitable Wife And I should judge that as these matters are more my Interest than theirs so they belong to my Self-governing power and not to their Civil Government And next my self while I am young my Parents being naturally indued with stronger love to me than Magistrates are the Choice in such Cases more belongeth to their power than to the Magistrates VII Accordingly it was for Seven hundred if not a Thousand years the currant Judgment of the Christian Churches that a Bishop must be set over a particular Church by the Election or Consent of all the Clergy and all the People and that he was no justly called Bishop that came not in by the common consent of the Flock This is not only proved in the ancientest Writers even Clemens ad Corinth and others commonly but by many Canons and even the Popes Decretals for many hundred years and the contrary is an undoubted Innovation VIII It is certain that neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical Rulers have their Power for destruction but for edification 2 Cor. 10. 8. and 13. 10. Rom. 13. 1 2 3 4. Even Parents that give life and being to their Children are justly destroyed if they destroy them It is no singularity of Mr. Humphrey that hath lately written That Laws against the Common Good bind not in Conscience to Obedience It is the Judgment of the greatest Casuists Greg. Sayrus Fragosus c. in whom you may see many others The terminus entereth the definition of relations It is not Authority Ius regendi which is not for the Ends of Government the Common Good The Magistrate may order the preaching of the Gospel and other means of Salvation but not forbid them and destroy them If he do this it is not by Authority received from God as Bishop Bilson afore-cited often sheweth and Bishop Andrews in Torturâ Torti I have more power from God to use needful means of my own Salvation than any Man hath to forbid me the using of them IX It is not another Man's saying That much preaching or praying is not needful to me that will make or prove it so or ex use me from it And there is so vast a difference between a found skilful and experienced sively Teacher and one that is ignorant heretical a meer artist dead or dull that readeth a Cento as a Boy saith his Lesson that no Man can make it my Duty to commit the Pastoral Care of my Soul to the latter when the former may be had without a greater hurt than the benefit will compensate Nor will other Mens Crosses Opinions or Appetite herein suffice to satisfie me against my Sense Reason and my own and other Mens Experience X. Yet a tolerable l●ss must be born rather than publick Order violated And seeing our Laws and Church-Canons allow any Man when he will to change his Bishop or Pastor or Congregation if he will but change his Dwelling the losses of this must rather be born than any greater real detriment to our Souls or to the Publick Good But Wives Children and some others cannot remove their Habitations XI An Infant or Child in minority in his Parents House as he is not to be supposed to understand the Laws so caeteris paribus he seemeth to me to be more obliged to hear the Teacher that his Parents choose for him than one that is chosen by the Magistrates As in his Diet and the choice of a Physician when he is sick so here The Magistrate is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but principally of Power The Pastor is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but eminenty of Wisdom The Parent is an Officer of Power Wisdom and Love but eminently of Love And the works of Love to his Children eminently belong to his Care and Government XII Yet when Children have the true use of Reason to discern what God and Man command them they must obey neither Parents not Princes against God XIII In the circa sacra or Circumstantials of Religion so much as should be commonly agreed on by all or most Churches for the Common Good the Prince by the Counsel of the Pastors is the Judge of and is to be obeyed before the Bishops unless he leave it only to the Pastors own Consent and then their Consent in Synods must be much regarded of which Grotius de Imperio Sum. Potest hath written excellently notwithstanding Bishop Brumhalls discommendation But in the Circumstances that are not to be universally agreed on but belong to the Pastoral Office to vary pro re natâ the present officiating Pastor is the Judge and to be followed XIV Rules are to be obeyed in all lawful things belonging to their Office to command but all lawful things belong not to their Office Whether I shall eat once or twice a day or once in two days what Meat I shall eat and how much what Ho●se I shall ride on what Wife I shall marry what Physician or Teacher I shall trust and what Medicine I shall take c. belongeth more to my self as is said XV. Intolerable Ministers justly forbidden to preach are bound to obey and the People forbidden to hear them should forbear But it no more follows that the Case is the same to all others than that a true Man may be hang'd because a Thief may If we
alter it and the King's Approbation of these Canons made them sufficiently obligatory unto us Those that were against it said I. That Episcopacy was either contra jus Divinum or at best not Iure Divino and therefore mutable when the King and Parliament pleased 2. Or at least that it was undeniable That Archbishops and Deans and Chapters and Arch-deacons c. were not all Iure Divino nay that the English frame of Diocesans having many hundred Parish Churches under one Bishop in fini gradus was not only against the Word of God but destructive of all the Episcopacy which was known in the Church at least for 200 years 3. They said that it was intolerable to swear to a blind Et caetera for litterally it included all the Officers of the Ecclesiastical Courts that are now in Exercise of the Government Lay-Chancellors that use the Keys for Excommunication and Absolution Surrogates Commissaries Officials and the rest And was it ever known that all the Clergy was sworn to such an Anomalous Rabble 4. They said that for ought they knew this Goverment in whole or in some part might be altered by the King and Parliament by a Law And to tie up our selves by an Oath that we would never obey such a Law nor consent to that which the King might command us this they thought was a Bond of Disobedience next to a Rebellion 5. They said that it was against the Subjects Liberty which alloweth them soberly to Petition the King and Parliament for a Redress of any Grievance And if now a Lay-Chancellor's use of the Keys e. g. were no burden to the People we know not how God may make such Alterations by his Providence as may make that a Grievance which now is none 6. And they said it was against the Priviledges of Parliament that such an Oath should be devised and imposed upon the Subjects without a Law or the Parliaments consent These and other Reasons were pleaded against it And afterward when the Parliament took it into consideration it was Condemned on these and other Accounts The Ministers of the Country met together at Bridgnorth to Debate this Business that they might have no Division and some few were for the Oath but more against it This put me upon deeper Thoughts of the Point of Episcopacy and of the English frame of Church-Government than ever I had before and now I had the opportunity of seeing some Books which I never had before My very dear Friend Mr. William Rowley a Gentleman of Shrewsbury sent me Gersomus Bucerus his Dissertatio de Gubernatione Ecclesiae and Didoclaves Altare Damascenum and shortly after I had Parker de Polit. Eccles● and Baynes's Diocesanes Trial and I received Bishop Downham and compared his Reasons with Bucers Didoclaves c. And though I found not sufficient Evidence to prove all kind of Episcopacy unlawful yet I was much satisfied that the English Diocesan frame was guilty of the Corruption of Churches and Ministry and of the ruine of the true Church Discipline and substituting an heterogeneal thing in its stead And thus the Et caetera Oath which was imposed on us for the unalterable subjecting of us to Diocesans was a chief means to alienate me and many others from it For now our drowsie mindlesness of that subject was shaken off by their violence and we that thought it best to follow our business and live in quietness and let the Bishops alone were rowzed by the terrours of an Oath to look about us and understand what we did § 23. This Oath also stirred up the differing Parties who before were all one Party even quiet Conformists to speak more bitterly against one another than heretofore And the dissenting Party began to think better of the Cause of Nonconformity and to honour the Nonconformists more than they had done And it fell out that at the same time when we were thus rowzed up in England or a little before the Scots were also awakened in Scotland For when all was quiet there under a more moderate Episcopacy than we had then in England though that Nation had been used to Presbytery a new Common-Prayer Book that is the English one with some few Alterations was framed and imposed on the People of Scotland who having not been used to that way of Worship one Woman in Edenburgh cried out in the Church Popery Popery and threw her Stool at the Priest and others imitated her presently and drove him out of the Church and this little Spark set all Scotland quickly in a Flame Insomuch that other Places taking as much distaste at the Common Prayer and at the Bishops also for its sake and for fear of the Silencing of their Ministers and some Ministers increasing their distaste the Lords presently were divided also insomuch that the King was fain to instruct the Earl of Trequaire as his Commissioner to suppress the Maiecontents But in a short time the number of them so encreased that the King's Commissioners could do no good on them but they got the power of all the Land because the far greatest part of the Nobility with the Ministry were conjoyned Hereupon they all entered into a National Covenant to the same purpose as formerly that Nation had done but they did it without the King's Authority The Oath or Covenant was against Popery and Prelacy and Superstition and to uphold the Gospel and Reformation The Aberdeen Doctors dissented from the Covenant and many Writings past on both sides between the Covenanters and them till at last the ensuing Wars did turn the Debates to another strain § 24. It fell out unhappily that at the same time while the Scots were thus discontented the King had imposed a Tax here called Ship-money as for the strengthning of the Navy which being done without Consent of Parliament made a wonderful murmuring all over the Land especially among the Country Nobility and Gentry for they took it as the overthrow of the Fundamental Laws or Constitution of the Kingdom and of Parliaments and of all Propriety They said that the Subjects Propriety in his Estate and the Being of Parliaments and that no Laws be made nor Moneys taken from the Subjects but by the Parliaments Consent are part of the Constitution of the Republick or Government And they said that the King having long disused Parliaments upon Displeasure against them because they curbed Monopolies and corrected Abuses of Officers c. had no way to lay them by for ever but to invade the Subjects Propriety and to assume the power of laying Taxes and raising Moneys without them and that if thus Parliaments and Propriety were destroyed the Government was dissolved or altered and no Man had any Security of Estate or Liberty or Life but the Pleasure of the King whose Will would be the only Law They said also that those that counselled him to this were Enemies to the Commonwealth and unfitter to counsel him than Parliaments who are his highest Court and Council The
were so used before what would they be said they if by such a War they should be conquered And they thought that the ruine of the State and of Men's Propriety was such an End as no means could be lawfully used for and that the Preservation of the Kingdom was such an End as would make lawful any necessary means which God himself had not forbidden 3. And then as to Authority they thought that the Legislative Power is the chiefest part of Soveraignty and that the Parliament having a part in the Legislative Power had so far inherently a Power to defend it which no Law can suppose them to give away And as the Peoples Representatives they supposed themselves much Intrusted to secure their reserved Liberties which the Law giveth not the King any Authority to take away 4. And they supposed that Government being that Publick Work which upholdeth the Common Peace it is to be done by Publick Instruments and● Means and that the Kings Laws are his Instruments of Government and also his Publick Courts and Officers And that the Subjects cannot know so well whether private Commands or Commissions be real or counterfeit nor are so much bound to take notice of them And that the Judgments and Executions of the Courts of Justice being the Effect of Laws which King and Parliament have made are of greater Authority than contrary Commissions or Commands from the King alone 5. It much confirmed them because all confessed That the Sheriffs of Counties must raise the posse Comitatus for the Execution of some Decrees of Courts of Justice though the King forbid it or grant a Commission to any to hinder it And that the foresaid Statute of Edw. 3. maketh even the King's Letters under the Broad Seal to be void when they would hinder Justice 6. And they pleaded the Law of Nature which is greater than Positive Laws That no Nation is bound to destroy it self The Militia being nothing but the Peoples own Sword they say they are not bound to destroy themselves with it nor can any Law be so interpreted And whereas it was said That the King sought not to destroy the Parliament but to bring some among them to punishment they said that it belongeth to the Parliament to judge its Members and that if on pretence of punishing offending Members the King may come and fetch away or demand those that displease him Parliaments and Liberties and all Security of them is gone 7. The King's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions greatly confirmed many when they saw the King himself declaring to them That the Legislative Power was in Kings Lords and Commons and that the Government was mixt and was not Arbitrary which they thought it must needs be if his Commissions were of greater power than his Laws and Courts and if no resistance might be made against any that executed an illegal Commission 8. It most prevailed with many that the Parliament professed not to fight against either the Person or Authority of the King though against his Will but that their War was only against Subjects They said that some Subjects were Delinquents that fled from Justice against whom they might raise Arms offensively and other Subjects took Arms against the Parliament and against these they made a Defensive War But all of them were Subjects and not Kings And the King's Will or Commission is not enough to save all Subjects from punishment when his Law is against it nor to authorize them to destroy the Parliament and their Country 9. They were much emboldened because this Parliament was continued by Law till it should dissolve it self And therefore some said the King's Presence is virtually with them he being a part of the Parliament and others said that no War could be lawful which was for their dissolution or ruine or to deprive them of their Liberty and that the defence of them was lawful whom the Law continued 10. They alledged King Iames who they said of any Man did most endeavour to advance his Prerogative and yet in his printed Treatise for Monarchy confesseth That a King cannot lawfully make a War against the Body of his Kingdom but only against an offending Faction Therefore say they not against the Representative Body till it be proved that by perfidiousness they have forfeited the Virtue and Honour of their Representation 11. They alledged Barclay Grotius and other Defenders of Monarchy especially that passage of Grotius de Iure Belli where he saith That if several Persons have a part in the Summa Potestas of which he maketh Legislation a chief Act each part hath naturally the power of defending its own Interest in the Soveraignty against the other part if th●● invade it And addeth over boldly That if in such a War they conquer the conqu●red party loseth to them his share And saith That this is so true that it holdeth though the Law expresly say that one of the Parties shall have the power of the Militia it being to be understood that he shall have it against Forreign Enemies and Delinquents and not against the other part 12. It much confirmed them to find the most Learned Episcopal Divines speak so high for the Legislative Power of Parliaments as Tho. Hooker doth Eccles. Pol. lib. 1. for the Eighth Book which saith more than the Parliament ever said was not then published And for resistance in several Cases as Bishop Bilson doth even in that Treatise wherein he so strongly defendeth Obedience and which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth And to find how far they defend the French Dutch and German Protestants Wars 13. They said that the Carnal respect of Men for personal Interests hath made all the stream of most Mens Words and Writings go on the Prince's side but Tyanny is a Mischief as well as Disobedience and that which all Ages and most Nations have grievously smarted by and they that befriend it are guilty of the Sin and of the Ruines which it procureth It keepeth out Christianity from five parts of the World It corrupteth it and keepeth out the Protestant Truth in most of the sixth part The Eastern and the Western Churches suffer under it to the perdition of millions of Souls If Bodily Sufferings were all the matter were nothing but it is Mens Souls and the Interest of the Gospel which is the Sacrifice to their Wills 14. Lastly This greatly confirmed many that the Matter being a Controversie whether the Disobedience and Resistance of King or Parliament is now the Rebellion and Sin the simple People are not wiser than the States-men that differ about it How then should they better quiet their Judgments than in the Judgment of the Parliament who are the Trustees of the People and the chief Court and Council of the King and have so many Lawyers and Wife men among them and are so greatly interessed in the common Good themselves If it were but the Question Which is the King 's Governing Will which the People must obey And a
of the true Religion and the Liberties of the Kingdom otherwise than we did For as they extended the word true Religion further than we did including the Form of Church Government in Scotland so they seem to understand it Conjunctione inseparabili and to prefer the Defence of Religion before the Defence of the King whereas we understood it Conjunctione seperabili and though in meer estimation we preferred Religion before King or Kingdom yet in regard of the Duty of Defence we thought the King must be restored and defended though legally he would have brought in worse than Prelacy Though we did not think that he might do it illegally and therefore that he could not govern Arbitrarily nor take away the Peoples fore-prized Propriety or Liberty nor change the Form of the Government of the Commonwealth But those that thought otherwise said That there is no power but from God and therefore none against him or above him and therefore none against or above his Laws which how true soever seemeth not at all to decide our Case For though it follow never so much that such Acts against God are not Acts of Authority yet the same Person that hath not Authority to do this may have Authority in other matters and may be our rightful Governour and therefore must be obeyed in all things lawful though not in this and his Person defended And therefore how they could refuse to receive the King till he consented to take the Covenant I know not unless the taking of the Covenant had been a Condition on which he was to receive his Crown by the Laws or Fundamental Constitution of the Kingdom which none pretendeth Nor know I by what power they can add any thing to the Coronation Oath or Covenant which by his Ancestors was to be taken without his own Consent But in their Zeal for the Church the Scots did cause the King when he was come over to them not only mutat is mutandis to take the Covenant but also to publish a Declaration to the World that he did it voluntarily and heartily and that he lamented the Sins of his Father's House acknowledging the Guilt of the Blood of the late Wars c. In all which it seemed to me and many others that they miscarried divers ways 1. In imposing Laws upon their King for which they had no Authority 2. In forcing him to dishonour the Memory of his Father by such Consessions 3. In tempting him to speak and publish that which they might easily know was contrary to his heart and so to take God's Name in vain 4. And in giving Cromwell occasion to charge them all with dissimulation § 103. What Transactions there were between the King and the Scots for the Expediting of his Coronation and what Preparations were made for an Army to defend him and what Differences among the Parties hereabouts I shall not describe there being enow of them that were upon the place who can do it better But to return to England as soon as they understood what the Scots had done the Sectaries in England reproached them as Fools and Hypocrites that by such a Pageantry mockt themselves and would make the People believe that the King was turned Presbyterian and was a Cordial Covenanter when they had forced him to say and do that which they might well know he did abhor And they presently resolve to invade the Scots to keep them from invading England and not to stay till they came in upon this Land as heretofore So that Cromwell is in Scotland with his Army before they were well setled in their Affairs This much increased the alienation of the Peoples hearts from the Cromwellians for though they might suppose that the Scots intended to bring the King into England yet few believed that he might begin with them by an Invasion it being too much to have resisted them at home § 104. When the Soldiers were going against the King and Scots I wrote Letters to some of them to tell them of their Sin and desired them at last to begin to know themselves it being those same men that have so much boasted of Love to all the Godly and pleaded for tender dealing with them and condemned those that persecuted them or restrained their Liberty who are now ready to imbrue their Swords in the Blood of such as they acknowledge to be Godly and all because they dare not be perjured or disloyal as they are Some of them were startled at these Letters and O blindness thought me an uncharitable Censurer that would say that they could kill the Godly even when they were on their march to do it For how bad soever they spake of the Cavaliers and not without too much desert as to their Morals they confessed that abundance of the Scots were godly Men. And afterward those that I wrote to better understood me § 105. At the same time the Rump or Commonwealth who so much abhorred Persecution and were for Liberty of Conscience made an Order that all Ministers should keep their days of Humiliation to fast and pray for their Success in Scotland and that we should keep their Days of Thanksgiving for their Victories and this upon pain of Sequestration so that we all expected to be turned out but they did not execute it upon any save one in our parts For my part instead of praying and preaching for them when any of the Committee or Soldiers were my hearers I laboured to help them to understand what a Crime it was to force men to pray for the Success of those that were violating their Covenant and Loyalty and going in such a Cause to kill their Brethren And what it was to force Men to give God thanks for all their Bloodshed and to make God's Ministers and Ordinances vile and serviceable to such Crimes by forcing Men to run to God on such Errands of Blood and Ruine And what it is to be such Hypocrites as to persecute and cast out those that preach the Gospel while they pretend the advancement of the Gospel and the liberty of tender Consciences And what a means it was to debauch all Consciences and leave neither tenderness nor honesty in the World when the Guides of the Flocks and Preachers of the Gospel shall be noted to swallow down such heinous Sins My own Hearers were all satisfied with my Doctrine but the Committee Men look sowre but let me alone And the Soldiers said I was so like to Love that I would not be right till I was shorter by the Head Yet none of them ever medled with me farther than by the Tongue nor was I ever by any of them in those times forbidden or hindered to preach one Sermon except only one Assize-Sermon which the High Sheriff had desired me to preach and afterward sent me word to ●orbear as from the Committee saying That by Mr. Moor's means the Independent Preacher at the Colledge the Committee told him that they desired me to forbear and not
Churches Good must be first regarded As to the other Question Why we dealt not thus by all the Parish and took them not all for Members without question We knew some Papists and Infidels that were no Members We knew that the People would have thought themselves wronged more to be thus brought under Discipline without and against their own Consent than to 〈◊〉 them to withdraw And we thought it not a Business ●it for the unwilling ●●●●ually at such a time as that But especially I knew that it was like to be their utter undoing by hardening them into utter Enmity against the means that should recover them And I never yet saw any signs of hope in any Excommunicate Person unless as they are yet men and capable of what God will do upon them except one that humbled himself and begged Absolution Now either Discipline is to be exercised according to Christ's Rule or not If not then the Church is no purer a Society as to its Orders than those of Infidels and Pagans but Christ must be disobeyed and his House of Prayer made a Den of Thieves If yea then either impartially upon all obstinate impenitent Sinners according to Christ's Rule or but on some If but on some only it will be a Judgment of Partiality and Unrighteousness whereas where there is the same Cause there must usually be the same Penalty If on all then the multitude of the Scandalous in almost all places is so great and the Effects of Excommunication so dreadful that it would tend to damning of multitudes of Souls which being contrary to the design of the Gospel is not to be taken for the Will of Christ we have our Power to Edification and not to Destruction A few in case of necessity may be punished though to their hurt for the good of all but multitudes must not be so used Indeed a Popish Interdict or mock Excommunication by the Sentence of a Prelate or Lay-Chancellour may pass against multitudes and have no considerable Effect but as it is enforced by the Sword But the Word of God is quick and powerful and when it is thus personally applyed in the Sentencing of a guilty obstinate Sinner doth one way or other work more effectually Therefore in this difficulty there can be but two Remedies devised One is with the Anabaptists to leave Infants unbaptized that so they may not be taken into the Church till they are fit for the Orders of the Church But this is injurious to Infants and against the will of God and hath more inconveniences than benefits Though for my part as much as I have wrote against them I wish that it were in the Church now as it was in the days of Tertullian Nazianzen and Austin where no man was compelled to bring his Infants to Baptism but all left to their own time For then some as Augustine c. were baptized at full Age and some in Infancy The second therefore is the only just and safe Remedy which is That by the due performance of Confirmation there may be a Soleman Transition out of the state of Infant Church-Membership into the state of Adult Church-Membership and due qualifications therein required and that the unfit may till then be left inter Auditores without the Priviledges proper to Adult Members of which I have fully written in my Book of Confirmation 26. Another Advantage which I found to my Success was by ordering my Doctrine to them in a suitableness to the main end and yet so as might suit their Dispositions and Diseases The thing which I daily opened to them and with greatest importunity laboured to imprint upon their minds was the great Fundamental Principles of Christianity contained in their Baptismal Covenant even a right knowledge and belief of and subjection and love to God the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost and Love to all Men and Concord with the Church and one another I did so daily inculcate the Knowledge of God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and Love and Obedience to God and Unity with the Church Catholick and Love to Men and Hope of Life Eternal that these were the matter of their daily Cogitations and Discourses and indeed their Religion And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery and which they had not known before and this I did that they might be kept humble and still perceive their ignorance and be willing to keep in a learning state For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know and do not shew that they excel them in Knowledge and easily over-top them in Abilities the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them and are as wise as they and they will be apt to contemn their Teachers and wrangle with all their Doctrines and set their Wits against them and hear them as Censurers and not as Disciples to their own undoing and to the disturbance of the Church and they will easily draw Disciples after them The bare Authority of the Clergy will not serve the turn without over-topping Ministerial Abilities And I did this also to increase their Knowledge and also to make Religion pleasant to them by a daily addition to their former Light and to draw them on with desire and Delight But these things which they did not know before were not unprofitable Controversies which tended not to Edification nor Novelties in Doctrine contrary to the Universal Church but either such Points as tended to illustrate the great Doctrines before-mentioned or usually about the right methodizing of them The opening of the true and profitable method of the Creed or Doctrine of Faith the Lord's Prayer or Matter of our Desires and the Ten Commandments or Law of Practice which afford matter to add to the knowledge of most Professors of Religion a long time And when that is done they must be led on still further by degrees as they are capable but so as not to leave the weak behind and so as shall still be truly subservient to the great Points of Faith Hope and Love Holiness and Unity which must be still inculcated as the beginning and the end of all 27. Another help to my Success was that my People were not Rich There were among them very few Beggers because their common Trade of Stuff-weaving would find work for all Men Women and Children that were able And there were none of the Trades-men very rich seeing their Trade was poor that would but find them Food and Raiment The Magistrates of the Town were few of them worth 40 l. per An. and most not half so much Three or four of the Richest thriving Masters of the Trade got but about 500 or 600 l. in twenty years and it may be lose 100 l. of it at once by an ill Debtor The generality of the Master Workmen lived but a little better than their
4. Most Presbyters that I know do perform all Ecclesiastical Matters upon supposition of a Divine Direction and not upon the Command of Humane Powers Ad 9m. The Ordination of meer Presbyters is not null and the Presbyters so ordained now in England are true Presbyters as I am ready to maintain But wait for the Accuser's proof of the nullity Ad 10m. 1. This calls me to decide the Controversie about the late Wars which I find not either necessary or convenient for me to undertake 2. The like I must say of deciding the Legality of Inductions and Admissions 3. If a worthy Man be cast out had you rather that God's Worship were neglected and the People perished for lack of Teaching then any other Man should be set over them though one that had no hand in casting him out Must the People needs have him or none as long as he lives Was it so when Bishops were cast out heretofore by Emperours or Councils I think may take the Guidance of a destitute People so I hinder not a worthy Man from recovering his Right 4. I never desired that any should be Excluded but the Unworthy the Insufficient or Scandalous or grosly Negligent And I know but too few of the Ejected that are not such And this Question doth modestly pass over their Case or else I should have said somewhat more to the Matter Ad 11m. 1. It is a necessary Christian Duty to see that we do not the least Evil for our own safety And all God's Ordinances must be maintained as far as we can But as I before disclaimed the Arrogance of determining the Controversie about our Diocesan Episcopacy so I think not every Legal Right of the Church which it hath by Man's Law nor every thing in our Liturgy to be worthy so stiff a maintenance as to the loss of Life nor the loss of Peace Nor did the late King think so who would have let go so much But I think that they that did this carnally for Self-interest and Ends did grievously sin whether the thing it self were good or bad especially if they went against their Consciences 2. I think there is no unlawful Prayers or Service now offered to God in the Church ordinarily where I have had opportunity to know it And I think we pray for the same things in the main as we were wont to do and offer God the same Service And that Mr. Ball and others against the Separatists have sufficiently proved that it is no part of the Worship but an Accident of it-self indifferent that I use These Words or Those a Book or no Book a Form premeditated or not And no Separatist hath yet well answered them Ad 12m. Such as you described you can hardly know and therefore not knowingly scruple their Communion for a Man's ends and knowledge are out of your sight You can hardly tell who did this against Knowledge and Conscience carnally for Self interest But if you mean it of your ordinary Ministers and Congregations I am past doubt that you are Schismatical if not worse you avoid the Assemblies and Ordinances mentioned upon such Accusations and Suppositions And I shall much easier prove this than you will make good your Separation Ad 13m. Permitting you to suppose Orthodox and Episcoparian to be the same at present you may easily know that the Episcopal are not all of a Mind but differ I think much more among themselves than the moderate Episcopal and Presbyterians differ some maintaining that the Ordination of meer Presbyters is not null with divers the like things which the novel sort doth disclaim The old Episcopal Protestant may not only take a Cure of Souls now without any Contradiction to his Principles but may comfortably Associate with the peaceable Ministry of the Land and may not conscionably avoid it The Novel sort before mentioned ought to rectifie their mistakes and so to take up their duty but as they are I see not how they can do it in consistency with their Principles unless under the Jurisdiction of a Bishop Ad 14m. For the Point of the legality of the Liturgy you call me to determine Cases in Law which I find my self unfit for And for the Directory its Nature is according to its Name not to impose Words or Matter nor bind by human Authority but to direct Men how to understand God's Word concerning the Ordering of his Worship Now either it directeth us right or wrong If wrong we must not follow such Directions If right it 's no unlawful disturbance of the Churches Peace to obey God's Word upon their Direction Circumstances wherein some place most of their Government they very little meddle with And indeed I know but few that do much in the order of Worship eo Nomine because it is so in the Directory but because they think it most agreeable to God's Word or most tending to Concord as things now stand Would you have us avoid any Scripture or orderly Course meerly because it is expressed in the Directory And think you those are Ways of Peace Ad 15m. I think on the Credit of others that the Jewish Church had a Liturgy I am sure they had Forms of Praises and Prayer in some Cases I know Christ taught his Disciples the Lord's Prayer I will not determine whether as a Directory for Matter and Order or whether as a Form of Words to be used or when or how oft used I conjecture you regard the Judgment of Grotius who saith in Matt. 6. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In hunc Sensum Non enim praecipit Christus verba recitari quod nec legimus Apostolos fecisse quanquam id quoque fieri cum fructu potest sed materiam precum hinc promere i.e. Pray thus that is to this Sense For Christ doth not command the saying of the Words nor do we read that the Apostles did it though that also may profitably be done but hence to fetch the Matter of Prayer You know the Directory adviseth the use of the Words And how it was that Iohn taught his Disciples to pray I cannot tell nor will herein pretend my self wiser than I am The Example of the Primitive Church is never the more imitable for the Cessation of Persecution and its Example before is most to be regarded that being purest that is next the Fountain We are sure that the Church long used extemporate Prayers and its probable betimes some Forms withal I think they are strangely Dark and addicted to Extreams that think either that no Forms are lawful or that only prescribed or premiditated Forms are lawful And if you will condemn all publick extemporate Prayers you will err as grosly as they that will have no other Ad 16m. I know no necessity of any Godfather or Godmother beside the Parents unless you will call those so that in case of their necessary Absence are their Delegates Nor do I know that ordinarily among us any Dictates or Prayers are used that
a sober Christian hath the least reason to scruple Communion in Will you have a Pastor that shall not speak in the Name of the People to God or will you call his Prayers his own which he puts up by Virtue of his Office according to God's Word Ad 17m. I think they cannot without Sacriledge make such Alienation except where God's Consent can be proved For Example if the Ministers of the Church have full as much means given as is fit for the Ends to which it is given and yet the People will give more and more to the Burden and ensnaring of the Church and the impoverishing or ruin of the Common-wealth here I think God consents not to accept that Gift and therefore it was but an Offer and not plenarily a Gift for want of Acceptance for he accepts not that which he prohibits Here therefore the Magistrate may restore this to its proper use But whether this were any of the Case of these Sacrilegious Alienations too lately made in this Land is a farther Question I apprehend a deep Guilt of Sacriledge upon some Ad 18m. The Particulars here mentioned must be distinctly considered 1. About Fasts and Feasts the Question as referring to the Obligation of the Laws of the Land is of the same Resolution as all other Questions respecting those Laws which being a Case more out of my way I shall not presume to determine without a clearer Call Only I must say that I see little Reason why those Men should think themselves bound in this who yet suppose themselves loose from many other Laws and who obey many of the Laws or Ordinances of the present Powers 2. I much fear that not only the Querist but many more are much ensnared in their Consciences by misunderstanding the Nature and use of Synods It 's one thing for an Assembly of Bishops to have a superior Governing Power directly over all particular Churches and Bishops and another thing for such an Assembly to have a Power of determining of things necessary for the Concord of the several Churches I never yet saw it proved that Synods are over Bishops in a direct Governing Order nor are called for such Ends but properly in ordine ad Unitatem and so oblige only more than single Bishops by Virtue of the General Precept of maintaining Unity and Concord This is the Opinion of the most learned Bishop and famous antiquary that I am acquainted with 3. And then when the end ceases the Obligation is at an End So that this can now be no Law of Unity with us 4. All human Laws die with the Legislator farther than the surviving Rulers shall continue them The Reason is drawn from the Nature of a Law which is to be jussum Majestatis in the Common wealth and every where to be a sign of the Rectors Will de debito vel constituendo vel confirmando Or his Authoritative Determination of what shall be due from us and to us Therefore no Rector no Law and the Law that is though made by the deceased Rector is not his Law but the present Rector's Law formally it being the signifier of his Will And it is his Will for the continuance of it that gives it a new Life In all this I speak of the whole Summa potestas that hath the absolute Legislative Power If therefore the Church Governors be dead that made these Laws and no sufficient Power succeeds them to continue these Laws and make them theirs then they are dead with their Authors 5. The present Pastors of the Church though but Presbyters are the true Guides of it while Bishops are absent and the true Guides conjunctly with the Bishops if they were present according to the Judgment of your own side Whoever is the sole existent governing Power● may govern and must be obeyed in things Lawful Therefore you must for all your unproved Accusation of Schism obey them The Death or Deposition of the Bishops depriveth not the Presbyters of that Power which they had before 6. Former Church Governors have not Power to bind all that shall come after them where they were before free But their Followers are as free as they were 7. The Nature of Church Canons is to determine of Circumstances only for a present time place or occasion and not to be universal standing Laws to all Ages of the Church For if such Determinations had been fit God would have made them himself and they would have been contained in his perfect Word He gives not his Legislative Power to Synods or Bishops 8. Yet if your Conscience will needs persuade you to use those Ceremonies you have no ground to separate from all that will not be of your Opinion 9. For the Cross the Canons require only the Minister to use it and not you and if he do not that 's nothing to you 10. Have you impartially read what is written against the Lawfulness of it by Amesius's fresh Suit Bradshaw Parker and others If you have you may at least see this that it 's no fit matter to place the Churches Unity or Uniformity in and they that will make such Laws for Unity go beyond their Commission Church Governors are to determine the Circumstances pro loco tempore in particular which God hath in Word or Nature made necessary in genere and left to their Determination But when Men will presume beyond this to determine of things not indeed circumstantial or no way necessary in genere nor left to their Determination as to institute new standing Symbols in and with God's Symbols or Sacraments to be engaging Signs to engage us to Christ and to Work Grace on the Soul as the Word and Sacraments do that is by a moral Operation and then will needs make these the Cement of Unity this is it that hath been the Bane of Unity and Cause of Divions 11. Kneeling at the Sacrament is a Novelty introduced many hundred years after Christ and contrary to such Canons and Customs of the Church to which for Antiqui●y and Universality you owe much more respect than to the Canons of the late Bishops in England 12. If your General Rule hold that you stand bound by all Canons not repealed by equal Power you have a greater burden on your back than you are aware of which if you bore indeed you would know how little this usurped Legislative Power befriends the Church And among others you are bound not to kneel in the Church on any Lord's Day in Sacrament or Prayer Grotius de Imperio Sumpotest would teach much more Moderation in these Matters than I here perceive Ad Q. 19m. 1. It 's too much Self-conceitedness and Uncharitableness to pass so bold a Censure as your Supposition doth contain of the visible ruling Church being Schismatical and so Heretical Which is the ruling Church I know none in England besides Bishops that pretend to rule any but their own Provinces and but few that pretend Order to Regiment Perhaps when the
omnes omnium Charitates inse complectitur Sir I have sent you my Answer written with a more legible hand and with some regard of ease to my self in transcribing with my very hearty love recommended and assured to you I commend you to the Grace and Blessing of Almighty God resting Your very respectful Friend Ra. Exon. Austie in Hartfordshire Iuly 21. 1655. Bishop Brownrigg ' s Answer about Government Prop. 1. YOur first Proposal is In every Parish where there are more Presbyters than one let one be the Chief and his Consent chiefly taken in the guidance of the Church Answ. 1. This Case is rarely to be found in the Parishes of England nor can there be a sufficient Maintenance for a Plurality of Presbyters in our Parochial Congregations yet if such be found it may be a good means to preserve Order and Peace that the ordering of Affairs which shall be referred to them be managed by him that hath the Praesecture of that Parish I wish that in those Churches which beside the Incumbent have had Lecturers this Rule had been observed Prop. 2. Let many such Churches be associated call it a Classis or what you will and let the fittest Man be their President as long as he is fit that is during life unless he deserve a removal Answ. 2. This Proposal looks like our Rural Deaneries or Choriepiscopal Order which hath been laid much aside but for the reducing of it and to make it profitable I wish that it may be bounded with fit Canons prescribing what they may do and with intimation from the Bishop and his Inspection and that such a Dean or President may be continued for Life that being a means to breed Experience if he do not deserve a removal Prop. 3. Let divers of these Classes meet once or twice a Year in a Provincial Assembly and let the fit●est Man in the Province be their standing President Answ. 3. This Course hath been by Law and Practice already used in our Church in the Archidiaconal Visitations and Synods which may be more quickened and actuated by sit Canons for their Direction what and who the President must be may be provided for by Canons and his Station continued and that Presbyters having Cure of Souls should not be accounted meer Preachers but Church-Guides and as they are already acknowledged Rectors of Churches Prop. 4. Let it be left to every Man's Conscience Whether the President be called by the Name of Bishop President Superintendent Moderator c. seeing that a Name is no meet Reason of a Breach c. Answ. 4. If by President you understand him that must moderate the Half-year or yearly Synods under the Inspection of the Diocesan as his Order may be newly framed so his Name may be newly imposed but that the Primitive Name of Bishop should be turned into a new Name is as you say no meet Reason for a Breach and we see Presbyters assume that Name to themselves and to put a new Name upon an old Institution is as Augustine speaks in the like Case Indoctis struere fallaciam doctis facere injuriam Prop. 5. Let no Man be forced to Express his Iudgment de Jure Whether the President have a Negative Voice in Ordination or Excommunication or whether he be distinct in Order or Degree seeing it is not the unanimous and right Belief of these things that is of Necessity for then they must have been in our Creed but the unanimous and right Practice but let them all agree that they will constantly joyn in these Classical and Provincial Assemblies and then only Ordain and that they will not Ordain but when the President is one unless in Case of flat Necessity which is never like to befall us if this may be taken● Answ. 5. If by President you understand the Diocesan then that the Bishop should be deprived of his Negative Voice in Ordination or Excommunication and so I conceive in other Censures and Acts of Government is to make him a meer Shadow without any Authority like our Scrutators in our University to propound Graces and collect Suffrages and pronounce Sentence Surely St. Paul invested Timothy and Titus with more Power and Authority both for Ordination and Censures but then to remedy the Inconveniencies of a wilful Negative it 's fit that an Appeal may be made to a Provincial Synod that may examine and if need be rectifie what was amiss in the Negative That Church Businesses were Ordered by the Concurrence of more Presbyters besides the Bishop in Cyprian's time was fit at that time when the Government of Church Affairs was Arbitrary and not Regulated by Law in which Case it was safest for the Bishop to have the Consent of others with him This is not our Case we have express Canons and Laws laid upon Bishops beyond which they cannot go and so may well be intrusted with the Execution of the Sentence of the Law the Sentence of the Judge being only Declarativa Executiva and if he transgress those Rules prefixed he is liable to Censure In our Church plurimum legi minimum Episcopo relinquitur as we see in Civil Matters one Justice of Peace hath the Power of Executing the Sentence of a Law or Statute but no Arbitrary Power granted to him That the Bishop be distinct from the Presbyter whether ordine or gradu is the Schoolmens Debate and I conceive may have such accord as may not ingender strife That Ordination be by the Assistance of Presbyters is already required in our Form of Ordination and if it be fixed to the Times of Synods it may be easily granted and sure that Blame that hath been laid upon our Bishops for Ordaining of insufficient Men is most what an undue Charge the Law of the Land hath set that lowness of sufficiency in Men to be ordained and instituted that if a Bishop refuseth to give Orders or Institution to a Man presented by the Patron he is punishable by the Judges As I have heard Archbishop Abbot was fined an Hundred pounds in case he did not admit a Clark so meanly qualified as the Law requires Some other Proposals are added in the End of your Letter Prop. 1. I Am satisfied that the Apostles have Successors in all those Works that are of standing Necessity and that Church Government is one of those Works and that it is improbable that Christ should settle one Species of Church Government in the Apostles Hands for an Age and then Change it for ever after and they that affirm such a change must prove it Answ. 6. Supposing what the Apostles did in ordering of Church Government to be in the Name and by the Authority of Christ this Assertion I conceive to be very true and it doth infer a Subordination of all Officers and Members of the Church to the Apostles and those that were their Successors Prop. 2. Whether the Apostles had a Power by Office to govern the LXX and the Presbyters as inferior Officers besides the
suggest nor did we ever hear any just Reasons given for their di●ient from the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy or Prelacy as it was stated and established in this Kingdom Which we believe to be for the main the true ancient primitive Episcopacy and that to be more than a meer presidency of Order Neither do we find that the same was in any Time ballanced or managed by any Authoritative Commixtion of Presbyters therewith Though it hath been then and in all Times since usually exercised with the Assistance and Counsel of Presbyters in subordination to the Bishops § 8. And we cannot but wonder that the Administration of Government by one single Person should by them be affirmed to be so liable to Corruptions Partialities Tyrannies and other Evils that for the avoiding thereof it should be needful to have others joyned with him in the power of Government Which if applyed to the Civil State is a most dangerous Insinuation And we verily believe what Experience and the Constitutions of Kingdoms Armies and even private Families sufficiently confirmeth in all which the Government is administred by the Authority of one single Person although the Advice of others may be requisite also but without any share in the Government that the Government of many is not only most subject to all the aforesaid Evils and Inconveniencies but more likely also to breed and soment perpetual Factions both in Church and State than the Government by one is or can be And since no Government can certainly prevent all Evils that which is liable to the least and sewest is certainly to be preferred As to the four particular Instances of things amiss c. § 9. 1. We cannot grant that the Extent of any Diocess is so great but that the Bishop may well perform that wherein the proper Office and Duty of a Bishop doth consist which is not the personal Inspection of every Man's Soul under his Government which is the Work of every Parochial Minister in his Cure but the Pastoral Charge of overseeing directing and taking care that the Ministers and other Ecclesiastical Officers within his Diocess do their several respective Duties in their several Stations as they ought to do And if some Diocesses shall be thought of too large Extent the Bishops may have Suffragan Bishops to assist them as the Laws allow It being a great mistake that the Personal Inspection of the Bishop is in all places of his Diocess at all times necessary For by the same reason neither Princes nor Governours of Provinces nor Generals of Armies nor Mayors of great Cities nor Ministers of great Parishes could ever be able to discharge their Duties in their several Places and Charges § 10. 2. We confess the Bishops did as by the Law they were enabled depute part of the Administration of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdictions to Chancellors Commissaries and Officials as Men better skill'd in the Civil and Canon Laws But as for Matters of more Spiritual Concernment viz. the Sentences of Excommunication and Absolution with other Censures of the Church we conceive they belong properly to the Bishop to decree and pronounce either by himself where for the present he resideth or by some grave Ecclesiastical Person by him Surrogated for that purpose in such Places where he cannot be Personally present Wherein if many things have been done amiss for the time past or shall be seasonably conceived inconvenient for the future we shall be as willing to have the same Reformed and Remedied as any other Persons whatsoever § 11. 3. Whether a Bishop be a distinct Order from Presbyter or not or whether they have power of sole Ordination or no is not now the Question But we affirm that the Bishops of this Realm have constantly for ought we know or have heard to the contrary Ordained with the Assistance of Presbyters and the Imposition of their Hands together with the Bishops And we conceive it very fit that in the exercise of that part of their Jurisdiction which appertaineth to the Censures of the Church they should likewise have the Advice and Assistance of some Presbyters And for this purpose the Colledges of Deans and Chapters are thought to have been instituted that the Bishops in their several Diocess might have their Advice and Assistance in the Administration of their weighty Pastoral Charge § 12. 4. This last dependeth upon Matter of Fact Wherein if any Bishops have or shall do otherwise than according to Law they were and are to be answerable for the same And it is our desire as well as theirs that nothing may be done or imposed by the Bishop but according to the known Laws For Reforming of which Evils c. § 13. 1. The Primates Reduction though not published in his Life time was formed many years before his Death and shewed to some Persons ready to attest the same in the Year 1640. but it is not consistent with two other Discourses of the same Learned Primate viz. the one of the Original of Episcopacy and the other of the Original of Metropolitans both printed in the Year 1641. and written with great diligence and much variety of ancient Learning In neither of which is to be found any mention of the Reduction aforesaid Neither is there in either of them propounded any such Model of Church Government as in the said Reduction is contained Which doubtless would have been done had that Platform been according to his setled Judgment in those Matters In which Reduction there are sundry things as namely the Conforming of Suffragans to the number of Rural Deaneries which are apparently private Conceptions of his own accommodated at that time for the taking off some present from Animosities but wholly destitute of any Colour of Testimony or President from Antiquity nor is any such by him offered towards the proof thereof And it would be considered whether the Final Resolution of all Ecclesiastical Power and Jurisdiction into a National Synod where it seemeth to be placed in that Reduction without naming the King or without any dependance upon him or relation to him be not destructive of the King's Supremacy in causes Ecclesiastical It is observable nevertheless that even in the Reduction Archi-Episcopacy is acknowledged As for the super-added Particulars § 14. 1. The Appointment and Election of Suffragans is by the Law already vested in the King whose Power therein is by the Course here proposed taken away § 15. 2. What they mean by Associations in this place they explain not but we conceive it dangerous that any Association whatsoever is understood thereby should be made or entered into without the King's Authority § 16. 3. We do not take the Oaths Promises and Subscriptions by Law required of Ministers at their Ordination Institution c. to be unnecessary although they be responsible to the Laws if they do amiss it being thought requisite as well by such Cautions to prevent Offences as to punish Offenders afterwards Upon all which Consideration it is that
necessary Engines for the dividing and persecuting of the Church But judge thou O Lord according to thy righteousness in the day which is comming But the Examples of Corporation and Colledges are brought in who prevent Offences by Subscriptions and Oaths And even so hath Christ whose Spirit would impose nothing on the Churches but things necessary appointed a Vow and Solemn Covenant to be the way of Entrance into his Church And the Apish Spirit which followeth him to counter-work him by the Addition of Humane Churches Sacraments and Ordinances doth also imitate him in making their Oaths and Promises necessary to engage Men to their Service and Institutions as Christ hath made Baptism necessary to engage us to his Service and Institutions And your Arguments for Diocesans are so weak that we wonder not that you think both Oaths Subscriptions Prisons Confiscations and Banishments necessary to enforce them What you add of such Persons as have themselves exacted Conditions of their Communion not warranted by Law we understand not Either the Law warranteth Men to own Christ for their Saviour and to own their own Membership in the particular Church which they demand constant Communion with or it doth not If it do not we have reason to desire more than is warranted by that Law If it do you should have done well to instance what Persons and what Exactions you mean If you speak this of all the Churches of the● Land that dislike● your Prelacy it is too gross an untruth to have been uttered in the Light If you speak only of some Persons or Parties that is no reason why others should be deprived of their Liberty and Ministry Nor indeed is it good Arguing that such Oaths and Subscriptions as the Church of old did never know may be imposed by the Laws of Men because some Brethren have lately required such Conditions of their Communion as are imposed by the Laws of God But let us prevail with you to drive this no further than the Persons whoever they be did drive it whom you blame Their utmost Penalty on the Refusers of their Conditions was Non-Communion with them A thing which many of you voluntarily chose Let this be all our Penalty for refusing your Oaths and Subscriptions if we can get no better from you But shall we be Silenced Imprisoned Confiscated Banished for refusing your Oaths and Subscriptions because somebody imposed Things which the Law allowed not in order to their own Communion These are no fit Proportions of Justice § 17. Out of your own Mouths then is your Government condemned What Act of Parliament ratified your Canons What Law imposed Altars Rails and the forcing of Ministers to read the Book for Dancing on the Lord's Days Or what Law did ratifie many Articles of your Visitation Books And did the Laws sufficiently provide for all those poor Ministers that were Silenced or Suspended for not reading the Dancing Book or any such things What the better were all those for the Laws that were Silenced or driven into Forreign Lands But perhaps the Laws will provide for us indeed as you desire Concerning the Liturgy § 18. 1. The Doctrine is sound But the Apocryphal Matter of your Lessons in Tobith Iudith Bell and the Dragon c. is scare agreeable to the Word of God 2. Whether it be fitly suited let our Exceptions and other Papers be heard before your Judgment go for infallible 3. What Mens Prayers you take your Measure or Encouragement from we know not But we are sure that if all the Common Prayers be twice a day read the time for Psalms and Sermons will be short And yet were they free from disorder and desectiveness in Matter we could the better bear with the length though other Prayers and Sermons were partly excluded by them 4. Though we live in the same Countreys we scarce differ any where more than in our very Experiences Our Experience unresistably convinceth us that a continued Prayer doth more to help most of the People and carry on their Desires than turning almost every Petition into a distinct Prayer and making Prefaces and Conclusions to be near half the Prayers And if the way of Prayer recorded in Scripture even in the Jews Church where Infirmity might be pleaded more than now were such as yours we shall say no more in that against it But if it were not be not wise then overmuch 5. We are content that the Liturgy have such Repetitions as the Scriptures have so it may have no other And we are content that all Extemporate Prayer be restrained which is guilty of as much Tautology and vain Repetition as the Liturgy is If this much will satisfie you we are agreed 6. Nor are we against any such Responsals as are fit to the Ends you mention If ours are all such upon impartial Examination let them stand 7. But the Question is 1. Whether the Greek and Latin Churches in the three first Ages or those of later Ages be more imitable 2. And whether the other Reformed Churches have not more imitated the ancientest of those Churches though we have more imitated the latter and more corrupt 3. And whether our first work be to stop the Papists Mouths by pleasing them or coming too near them when we know they that are likest them in all their Corruptions please them best Yet are we not for any unnecessary difference from them or affection of causless singularity As to the Reformed Churches Testimony of our Liturgy shall their very Charity become our Snare If they had liked our Form of Prayers best they would some of them have imitated us And our Martyrs no doubt they honoured as we do not as suffering for the Modes and Ceremonies of that Book as opposite to the Reformed Churches Mode for so they suffered not but as suffering for the Sound Doctrine and True Worship of the Protestants as opposite to Popery and the Mass. § 19. Your Reasons to prove your Impositions not too rigorous are 1. Because they are by Law If we tell you that so is the Spanish Inquisition you 'l say we compare our Law-givers to the Spaniards If we say that your New-mentioned Martyrs were burnt by Law in England you 'l say that we compare them to Papists But all these are Laws And so are those in Reformed Countreys which are against Bishops and Ceremonies Do you therefore think them not too rigorous 2. Your other Reason is that the Rigour is no more then is necessary to make the Imposition effectual You never spake words more agreeable to your hearts as far as by your Practices we can judge of them Either you mean effectual to change Mens Iudgments or effectual to make them go against their Iudgments or effectual to rid them out of the Land or World The first you know they are unfit for If you think otherwise would you that your Judgments should have such kind of helps to have set them right The second way they will be
effectual with none but wicked Men and Hypocrites who dare Sin against their Consciences for fear of Men And is it worth so much ado to bring the Children of the Devil into your Church The third way of Efficacy is but to kill or banish all the Children of God that are not of your Opinion for it is they that dare not Sin against Conscience whatever they suffer And this is but such an Efficacy as the Spanish Inquisition and Queen Mary's Bonfires had to send those to God whom the World is not worthy of You know every Man that is true to his God and his Conscience will never do that which he taketh to be Sin till his Judgment is changed and therefore with such it can be no lower than Blood or Banishment or Imprisonment at least that is the Efficacy which you desire And if no such rigour be too much its pity the French that murthered 30000 or 40000 at their Bartholo●●ew days or as Dr. Peter Moulin saith 100000 within a few Weeks and the Irish that murthered 200000 had not had a better Cause For they took the most effectual way of rigour But when God maketh Inquisition for the Blood of his Servants he will convince Men that such rigour was too much and that their Wrath did not fulfil his Righteousness You shew your Kindness to Men's praying in the Pulple without your Book Make good what you say that such Praying is of no great Antiquity and we will never contradict you more Or if we prove it not the Ancientest way of Praying in the Christian Church we will give you free leave to hang or banish us for not Subscribing to the Common Prayer Book which the Apostles used and which was imposed on the Church for some hundred years But it seems you think that we are beholden to meer Sufferance without Law or Canon for conceived Prayers How long then it will be suffered we know not if we must live by your Patience § 20. It seemeth that our Converse and yours much differ The most that we know or meet with had rather be without the Liturgy and you say That the People generally are well satisfied with it By this time they are of another Mind If it were so we take it for no great honour to it considering what the greater Number are in most places and of what Lives those Persons are of our Parishes and Acquaintance generally or for the most part who are for it Or what those are that are against it and whom for its● sake you desire your effectual rigour may be exercised against The Lord prepare them to undergo it innocently § 21. Doth there need no more to be said for the Ceremonies How little will satisfie some Men's Consciences Lawful Authority hath in other Countreys cast out the same Bishops and Ceremonies which are here received Doth it follow that they are good in one Country and disorderly and undecent in another Or that our Authority only is infallible in judging of them Is not God's Worship perfect without our Ceremonies in its Integrals as well as its Essentials As for Circumstantials when you saw us allow of them you need not plead for them as against us But the Question is whether our Additions be not more then Circumstances § 22. We suppose that you give all to the Cross in Baptism which is necessary to a Humane Sacrament And this we are ready to try be just Dispute When you say that never was Moral Efficacy ascribed to them you seem to give up all your Cause for by denying this ascribed Efficacy you seem to grant them unlawful if it be so And if it be not so let us bear the blame of wronging them The informing and exciting the dull mind of Man in its duty to God is a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy But the informing and exciting the dull Mind of Man in its Duty to God is an Effect ascribed to our Ceremonies Ergo a Moral Effect from Moral Efficacy is ascribed to our Ceremonies The major cannot be denied by any Man that knoweth what a Moral Effect and Efficacy is that which worketh not per modum Naturae in genere Causae efficientis naturalis only but per modum objecti vel in genere causae finalis upon the Mind of Man doth work morally but so do our Ceremonies Ergo sure the Arminians that deny all proper Physical Operations of God's Spirit as well as his Word and reduce all to Moral Efficacy will not say that Ceremonies have such a Physical Efficacy more than Moral And if not so the good Effects here mentioned can be from no lower Efficacy than Moral And the minor which must be denied is in the words of the Preface to the Common Prayer Book and therefore undeniable The Word of God it self worketh but moraliter proponendo objectum and so do our Ceremonies § 23. There is a great difference between Sacramental Ceremonies and meer Circumstances which the Reformed Churches keep These we confound not and could have wished you would not Our Cross in Baptism is A dedicating sign saith the Canon or transient Image made in token that this Child shall not be ashamed of Christ crucified but manly fight under his Banner against the Flesh the World and the Devil and continue Christ's faithful Servant and Soldier to his Lives end So that 1. It is a Dedicating Sign performed by the Minister and not by the Person himself as a bare Professing Sign is 2. It engageth the Party in a Relation to Christ as his Soldier and Servant 3. And in the Duties of this Relation against all our Enemies as the Sacramentum Militare doth a Soldier to his General and that in plainer and fuller words than are annexed to Baptism 4. And it is no other than the Covenant of Grace or of Christianity it self which this Sacrament of the Cross doth enter us into as Baptism also doth It is not made a part of Baptism nor called a Sacrament but as far as we can judge made essentially a Humane Sacrament adjoyned to Baptism The Reformed Churches which use the Cross we mean the Lutherans yet use it not in this manner § 24. This is but your unproved Assertion That the Fault was not in the Ceremonies but in the Contenders we are ready to prove the contrary but if it had been true how far are you from Paul's mind expressed Rom. 14. 15. and 1 Cor. 8. You will let your weak Brother perish and spare not so you can but charge the Fault on himself and lay Stumbling-blocks before him and then save him by your effectual rigour by Imprisonment or Punishment § 25. Those seem a few to you that seem many to us Had it been but one hundred such as Cartwright Amesius Bradshaw Parker Hildersham Dod Nicolls Langley Paget Hering Baynes Bates Davenport Hooker Wilson Cotton Norton Shephard Cobbet Word c. they had been enough to have grieved the Souls of many Thousand godly
Presence and with the Advice and Assistance of his aforesaid Presbytery at the four set Times and Seasons appointed by the Church for that purpose 5. We will take care that Confirmation be rightly and solemnly performed by the Information and with the Advice of the Minister of the Place and as great diligence used for the Instruction and Reformation of notorious and scandalous Offenders as is possible towards which the Rubrick before the Communion hath prescribed very wholesom Rules 6. No Bishop shall Exercise any Arbitrary Power or do or impose any thing upon the Clergy or the People but what is according to the known Laws of the Land 7. We are very glad to find that all with whom we have conferred do in their Judgments approve a Liturgy or Set-Form of Publick Worship to be lawful which in our Judgment for the preservation of Unity and Uniformity we conceive to be very necessary And though we do esteem the Liturgy of the Church of England contained in the Book of Common Prayer and by Law established to be the best we have seen and we believe that we have seen all that are extant and used in this part of the World and well know what Reverence most of the Reformed Churches or at least the most Learned Men in those Churches have for it Yet since we find some Exceptions made to many absolete words and other Expressions used therein which upon the Reformation and Improvement of the English Language may-well be altered we will appoint some Learned Divines of different Perswasions to review the same and to make such Alterations as shall be thought most necessary and some such Additional Prayers as shall be thought fit for emergent Occasions and the improvement of Devotion the using of which may be left to the Discretion of the Ministers In the mean time and till this be done we do heartily wish and desire that the Ministers in their several Churches because they dislike some Clauses and Expressions would not totally lay aside the use of the Book of Common Prayer but read those Parts against which there can be no Exception which would be the best Instance of declining those Marks of Distinction which we so much labour and desire to remove 8. Lastly Concerning Ceremonies● which have administred so much Matter of Difference and Contention and which have been introduced by the Wisdom and Authority of the Church for Edification and the Improvement of Piety we shall say no more but that we have the more Esteem of all and Reverence for many of them by having been present in many of those Churches where they are most abolished or discountenanced and where we have observed so great and scandalous Indecency and to our Understanding so much absence of Devotion that we heartily wish that those pious Men who think the Church of England overburthened with Ceremonies had some little Experience and made some Observation in those Churches abroad which are most without them And we cannot but observe That those Pious and Learned Men with whom we have conferred upon this Argument and who are most solicitous for Indulgence of this kind are earnest for the same out of Compassion to the Weakness and Tenderness of the Conscience of their Brethren not that themselves who are very zealous for Order and Decency do in their Judgments believe the Practice of those particular Ceremonies which they except against to be in it self unlawful and it cannot be doubted but that as the Universal Church cannot introduce one Ceremony in the Worship of God that is contrary to God's Word expressed in the Scripture so every National Church with the approbation and consent of the Soveraign Power may and hath always introduced such particular Ceremonies as in that Conjuncture of Time are thought most proper for Edification and the necessary improvement of Piety and Devotion in the People though the necessary Practice thereof cannot be deduced from Scripture and that which before was and in it self is indifferent ceases to be indifferent after it is once established by Law And therefore our present Consideration and Work is to gratifie the private Consciences of those that are grieved with the use of some Ceremonies by indulging to and dispensing with their omitting those Ceremonies not utterly to abolish any which are established by Law if any are practised contrary to Law the same shall cease which would be unjust and of ill Example and to impose upon the Conscience of some and we believe much Superiour in Number and Quality for the Satisfaction of the Conscience of others which is otherwise provided for as it would not be reasonable that Men should expect that we should our self decline or enjoyn others to do so to receive the Blessed Sacrament upon our Knees which in our Conscience is the most humble most devout and most agreeable Posture for the holy Duty because some other Men upon Reasons best if not only known to themselves choose rather to do it Sitting or Standing We shall leave all Decisions and Determinations of that kind if they shall be thought necessary for a perfect and entire Unity and Uniformity throughout the Nation to the Advice of a National Synod which shall be duly called after a little time and a mutual Conversation between Persons of different Perswasions hath mollified those Distempers abated those Sharpnesses and extinguished those Jealousies which make Men unfit for those Consultations and upon such Advice we shall use our best endeavour that such Laws might be established as may best provide for the Peace of the Church and State 1. In the mean time out of Compassion and Compliance towards those who would forbear the Cross in Baptism we are content that no Man shall be compelled to use the same or suffer for not doing it But if any Parent desire to have his Child Christned according to the Form used and the Minister will not use the Sign it shall be lawful for the Parent to procure another ●Minister to do it And if the proper Minister shall refuse to omit that Ceremony of the Cross it shall be lawful for the Parent who would not have his Child so Baptized to procure another Minister to do it who will do it according to his Desire 2. No Man shall be compelled to bow at the Name of Jesus or suffer in any degree for not doing it without reproaching those who out of their Devotion continue that Ancient Ceremony of the Church 3. For the use of the Surplice which hath for so many Ages been thought a most decent Ornament for the Clergy in the Administration of Divine Service and is in truth of a different fashion in the Church of England from what is used in the Church of Rome we are contented that Men be left to their Liberty to do as they shall think sit without suffering in the least degree for the wearing or not wearing it provided that this Liberty do not extend to our own Chappel Cathedral or Collegiate
that seeing the greatning or the lessening of Episcopal Power is in your Majesty's Judgment but a Matter of Convenience the Lord will put it into your Heart to make such an Alteration in the alterable Points as the Satisfaction of the Consciences of sober Men and the Healing and Union of these Nations do require As to our Plea for Primitive Episcopacy the Offices and Ordinances of Christ must be still distinguished from the alterable Accidents Though we plead not for the Primitive Poverty Persecution or Restraints yet must we adhere to the Primitive Order and Worship and Administrations in the Substance as believing that the Circumstantiating of them is much committed unto Man but to institute the Ordinances and Offices is the high Prerogative of Christ the Universal King and Law-giver of the Church Concerning the Matter of your Majesty's Concessions as related to our Proposals 1. WE humbly renew our Petition to your Majesty for the effectual Security of those premised Necessaries which are the Matter of our chiefest Care and whereunto the Controverted Points subserve viz. 1. That private Exercises of Piety might be encouraged 2. That an able faithful Ministry may be kept up and the insufficient negligent scandalous and non-resident cast out 3. That a credible Profession of Faith and Obedience be pre-required of Communicants 4. That the Lord's Day be appropriated to H●ly Exercises without unnecessary Divertisements 2. For Church-Government In this your Majesty's Declaration Parish Discipline is not sufficiently granted us Inferiour Synods with their Presidents are passed by and the Bishop which your Majesty declareth for is not Episcopus Praeses but Episcopus Princeps indued with sole Power both of Ordination and Iurisdiction For though it be said That the Bishop shall do nothing without the Advice of Presbyters yet their Consent is not made necessary but he might go contrary to the Counsel of them all And this Advice is not to be given by the Diocesan Synod or any chosen Representatives of the Clergy but by the Dean and Chapter and so many and such others as ●e please to call In all which there being nothing yielded us which is sufficient to the desired Accommodation and Union we humbly prosecute our Petition to your Majesty that the Primitive Presidency with the respective Synods described by the late Reverend Primate of Ireland may be the Form of Church-Government established among us At least in these Three needful Points 1. That the Pastors of the respective Parishes may be allowed not only publickly to Preach but personally to Catechize or otherwise Instruct the several Families admitting none to the Lord's Table that have not personally owned their Baptismal Covenant by a credible Profession of Faith and Obedience and to admonish and exhort the Scandalous in order to their Repentance to hear the Witnesses and the accused Party and to appoint fit Times and Places for these things and to deny such Persons the Communion of the Church in the Holy E●charist that remain impenitent or that wilfully refuse to come to their Pastors to be instructed or to answer such probable Accusations and to continue such Exclusion of them till they have made a credible Profession of Repentance and then to receive them again to the Communion of the Church provided there be place for due Appeals to Superiour Power All this we beseech your Majesty to express under your Fifth Concession because it is to us of very great weight and the Rubrick is unsatisfactory to which we are referred 2. That all the Pastors of each Rural Deaneries having a stated President chosen by themselves if your Majesty please to grant them that liberty may meet once a Month and may receive Presentments of all such Persons as notwithstaning Suspension from Communion of the Church continue impenitent or unreformed and having further admonished them may proceed to the Sentence of Solemn Excommunication if after due patience they cannot prevail And may receive the Appeals of those that conceive themselves injuriously Suspended and may decide the Cause Or if this cannot be attained at least that the Pastors of each Rural Deanery with their President may have power to meet Monthly and receive all such Presentments and Appeals and judge whether they be fit to be transmitted to the Diocesan or not and to call before them and admonish the Offenders so presented Yet if Presentments against Magistrates and Ministers be reserved only to the Diocesan Synod and their Appeals immediately there put in we shall therein submit to your Majesty's pleasure 3. That a Diocesan Synod consisting of the Delegates of the several Rural Synods be called as often as need requireth and that without the Consent of the major part of them the Diocesan may not Ordain or Exercise any Spiritual Censures on any of the Ministers nor Excommunicate any of the People but by consent of the Synod or of the Pastors of the particular Parishes where they had Communion And that not only Chancellors but also Arch-deacons Commissaries and Officials as such may pass no Censures purely Spiritual But for the Exercise of Civil Government coercively by Mulcts or Corporal Penalties by Power derived from your Majesty as Supream over Persons and in things Ecclesiastical we presume not at all to interpose but shall submit to any that act by your Majesty's Commission Our Reasons for the first part of Discipline viz. in particular Parishes are these IT is necessary to the Honour of the Christian Profession to the integrity of Worship to the destruction of Impiety and Vice to the Preservation of the Sound the raising them that are Fallen the comforting of the Penitent the strengthning of the Weak the Purity Order Strength and Beauty of our Churches the Vanity of Believers and the Pleasing of Christ who hath required it by his Laws And withal it is agreeable to the ancient Canons and Practice of the Churches and is consented to by our Reverend Brethren and so is no Matter of Controversie now between us Yet is not the Rubrick satisfactory which we are referred to 1. Because it leaves the People at their liberty whether they will let us know of their intention to Communicate till the Night or Morning before and alloweth us then only to admonish them when in great Parishes it is impossible for want of time 2. Because it doth allow us to deny the Sacrament to those only that maliciously refuse Reconciliation with their Neighbour●s and only admonish other scandalous Sinners to sorbear Though the Canons forbid us to deliver them the Sacrament The Reasons why we insist on the second Proposal are these It being agreed on between us That the younger less discreet sort of Ministers are unfit to pass the Sentence of Excommunication without Advice and Moderation by others and every Church is not like to be provided with grave discreet judicious Guides the necessity of these frequent lesser Synods for such Moderation and Advice and Guidance will appear by these two general Evidences 1.
was done to my knowledge in Sixteen years of that kind was but this that when the Scots fled from Worcester as all the Country sought in covetousness to catch some of them for their Horses so two idle Rogues of Kedderminster that never communicated with me any more than he did had drawn two or three of their Neighbours with them in the Night as the Scots fled to catch their Horses And I never heard of three that they catcht And I appealed to the Bishop and his Conscience whether he that being urged could name no more but this did ingenuously Accuse the Corporation Magistrates and People to have appeared on all occasion in Arms for Cromwell And when they had no more to say I told them by this we saw what measures to expect from Strangers of his mind when he that is our Neighbour and noted for eminent Civility never sticketh to speak such things even of a People among whom he hath still lived § 159. About the same time about Twenty or Two and twenty furious Fanaticks called Fifth-Monarchy-men one Venner a Wine-Cooper and his Church that he preached unto being transported with Enthusiastick Pride did rise up in Arms and fought in the Streets like Mad-men against all that stood in their way till they were some kill'd and the rest taken judged and executed I wrote a Letter at this time to my mother-in-Mother-in-law containing nothing but our usual matter even Encouragements to her in her Age and Weakness fetcht from the nearness of her Rest together with the Report of this News and some sharp and vehement words against the Rebels By the means of Sir Iohn Packington or his Soldiers the Post was searched and my Letter intercepted opened and revised and by Sir Iohn sent up to London to the Bishop and the Lord Chancellour so that it was a wonder that having read it they were not ashamed to send it up But joyful would they have been could they but have found a word in it which could possibly have been distorted to an evil sence that Malice might have had its Prey I went to the Lord Chancellour and complained of this usage and that I had not the common liberty of a Subject to converse by Letters with my own Family He disowned it and blamed Mens rashness but excused it from the Distempers of the Times and he and the Bishops confessed they had seen the Letter and there was nothing in it but what was good and pious And two days after came the Lord Windsor Lord Lieutenant of the Country and Governour of Iamaica with Sir Charles Littleton the King's Cup bearer to bring me my Letter again to my Lodgings and the Lord Windsor told me The Lord Chancellour appointed him to do it After some expression of my sense of the Abuse I thanked him for his great Civility and Favour But I saw how far that sort of Men were to be trusted § 160. And here I will interpose a short Account of my Publick Ministry in London Being removed from my ancient Flock in Worcestershire and yet being uncertain whether I might return to them or not I refused to take any other Charge but preached up and down London for nothing according as I was invited When I had done thus above a year I thought a fixed place was better and so I joyned with Dr. Bates at St. Dunstan's in the West in Fle●tstreet and preached once a week for which the People allowed me some Maintenance Before this time I scarce ever preached a Sermon in the City but I had News from Westminster that I had preached seditiously or against the Government when I had neither a thought nor a word of any such tendency Sometimes I preached purposely against Faction Schism Sedition and Rebellion and those Sermons also were reported to be Factious and Seditious Some Sermons 〈◊〉 Covent Garden were so much accused that I was fain to print them the Book is called The Formal Hypocrite detected c But when the Sermons were printed I had not a word more against them The Accusations were all general of Sedition and Faction and against the Church but not one Syllable charged in particular § 161. The Congregations being crowded was that which provoked Envy to accuse me And one day the Crowd did drive me from my place It fell out that at Dunstan's Church in the midst of Sermon a little Lime and Dust and perhaps a piece of a Brick or two fell down in the Steeple or Belfray near the Boys which put the whole Congregation into sudden Melancholy so that they thought that ●he Steeple and Church were falling which put them all into so confused a haste to get away that indeed the Noise of the Feet in the Galleries sounded like the falling of the Stories so that the People crowded out of Doors the Women left some of them a Skarf and some a Shoe behind them and some in the Galleries cast themselves down upon those below because they could not get down the Stairs I sate still down in the Pulpit seeing and pitying their vain Distemper and assoon as I could be heard I intreated their Silence and went on The People were no sooner quieted and got in again and the Auditory composed but some that stood upon a Wainscot-Bench near the Communion Table brake the Bench with their weight so that the Noise renewed the Fear again and they were worse disordered than before so that one old Woman was heard at the Church Door asking forgiveness of God for not taking the first warning and promising if God would deliver her this once she would take heed of coming thither again When they were again quieted I went on But the Church having before an ill name as very old and rotten and dangerous this put the Parish upon a Resolution to pull down all the Roof and build it better which they have done with so great Reparation of the Walls and Steeple that it is now like a new Church and much more commodious for the Hearers § 162. While I was here also the daily Clamours of Accusers even wearied me No one ever questioned me nor instanced in any culpable words but in general all was against the Church and Government Upon which and the request of the Countess of Balcaries one of my Hearers a Person of exemplary worth I was fain to publish many of my Sermons verbatim on 2 Cor. 13. 5. in a Book called The Mischiefs of Self-ignorance and Benefits of Self-acquaintance And when the Book was printed without alteration then I heard no more of any Fault § 163. Upon this Reparation of Dunstan's Church I preached out my Quarter at Brides Church in the other end of Fleetstreet where the Common Prayer being used by the Curate before Sermon I occasioned abundance to be at Common Prayer which before avoided it And yet my Accusations still continued § 164. On the Week days Mr. Ashurst with about Twenty more Citizens desired me to preach a Lecture in
former naughty lives as is partly expressed in the Rubrick and more fully in the Canons Rubrick Exception Then shall the Priest rehearse distinctly all the ten Commandments and the People kneeling shall after every Commandment ask God's mercy for transgressing the same We desire 1. That the Preface prefixed by God himself to the ten Commandments may be restored 2. That the fourth Commandment may be read as in Exod. 20. Deut. 5. He blessed the Sabbath day 3. That neither Minister nor People may be enjoyned to kneel more at the reading of this than of other parts of Scriptures the rather because many ignorant Persons are thereby induced to use the Ten Commandments as a Prayer 4. That instead of those short Prayers of the People intermixed with the several Commandments the Minister after the reading of all may conclude with a suitable Prayer Rubrick Exception After the Creed if there be no Sermon shall follow one of the Hom●●●es already set forth or hereafter to be set forth by common Authority We desire that the Preaching of the Word may be strictly enjoined and not left so indifferent at the Administration of the Sacraments as also that Ministers may not be bound to those things which are are as yet but future and not in being After such Sermon Homily or Exhortation the Curate shall declare c. and earnestly exhort them to remember the Poor saying one or more of these sentences following Two of the Sentences here cited are Apocryphal and four of them more proper to draw out the Peoples Bounty to their Ministers than their Charity to the Poor Then shall the Church-wardens or some other by them appointed gather the Devotion of the People Collection for the Poor may be better made at or a little before the departing of the Communicants Exhortation   We be come together at this time to feed at the Lords Supper unto the which in Gods behalf I bid you all that be here present and beseech you for the Lord Iesus Christ sake that ye will not refuse to come c. If it be intended that these Exhortations should be read at the Communion they seem to us to be unseasonable The way and means thereto is first to examine your Lives and Conversations and if ye shall perceive your offences to be such as be not only against God but also against your Neighbours then ye shall reconcile your se●ves unto them and be ready to make Restitution and Satisfaction And because it is requisite that no man should come to the holy Communion but with a full trust in Gods mercy and with a quiet Conscience We fear this may discourage many from coming to the Sacrament who lye under a doubting and troubled Conscience Before the Confession   Then shall this general Confession be made in the name of all those that are minded to receive the holy Communion either by one of them or else by one of the Ministers or by the Priest himself We desire it may be made by the Minister only Before the Confession Exception Then shall the Priest or the Bishop being present stand up and turning himself to the people say thus The Minister turning himself to the People is most convenient throughout the whole Ministration Before the Preface on Christmas day and 7 days after   Because thou didst give Iesus Christ thine only Son to be born as this Day for us c. First We cannot peremptorily fix the Nativity of our Saviour to this or that day particularly Secondly it seems incongruous to affirm the Birth of Christ Upon Whitsunday and six days after and the descending of the Holy Ghost to be on this day for seven or eight days together According to whose most true promise the Holy Ghost came down this day from Heaven   Prayer before that which is at the Consecration   Grant us that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body and our Souls washed through his most precious blood We desire that whereas these Words seem to give a greater efficacy to the Blood than to the Body of Christ they may be altered thus That our sinful souls and bodies may be cleansed through his precious Body and Blood Prayer at the Consecration We conceive that the manner of the consecrating of the Elements is not here explicite and distinct enough and the Ministers breaking of the Bread is not so much as mentioned Hear us O merciful Father c. who in the same night that he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks he brake it and gave to his Disciples saying Take eat c.   Rubrick   Then shall the Minister first receive the Communion in both kinds c. and after deliver it to the people in their hands kneeling and when he delivereth the bread he shall say The Body of our Lord Iesus Christ which was given for thee preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting Life and take and eat this in Remembrance c. We desire that at the Distribution of the Bread and Wine to the Communicants we may use the Words of our Saviour as near as may be and that the Minister be not required to deliver the Bread and Wine into every particular Communicants hand and to repeat the words to each one in the singular number but that it may suffice to speak them to divers jointly according to our Saviours Example   We also desire that the Kneeling at the Sacrament it being not that Gesture which the Apostles used though Christ was personally present amongst them nor that which was used in the purest and primitive times of the Church may be left free as it was 1. and 2. EDW. As touching Kneeling c. they may be used or left as every Mans Devotion serveth without blame Rubrick Exception And note that every Parishioner shall Communicate at the least three times in the year of which Easter to be one and shall also receive the Sacraments and other Rites according to the Orders in this Book appointed Forasmuch as every Parishioner is not duly qualified for the Lord's Supper and those habitually prepared are not at all times actually disposed but many may be hindered by the Providence of God and some by the Distemper of their own Spirits we desire this Rubrick may be either wholly omitted or thus altered   Every Minister shall be bound to administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper at least thrice a Year provided there be a due number of Communicants manifesting their Desires to receive And we desire that the following Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-Book in 5 and 8 Edw. established by Law as much as any other part of the Common-Prayer-Book may be restored for the vindicating of our Church in the matter of Kneeling at the Sacrament although the Gesture be left indifferent Although no order can be so perfectly devised but it may be of some either for their Ignorance and Infirmity or else of Malice and Obstinacy misconstrued depraved and
for my fear that he symbolized with the Papists was abated now I perceived that he knew not what they held And Dr. Gunning answered against him and said that the Papists do so use the Word I went on and told him That I also granted that a Man for a certainspace might he without any Act of Sin end as I was proceeding here Bishop Morley interrupted me according to his manner with vehemency crying out what can any Man be for any time without Sin And he founded out his Aggravations of this Doctrine and then cryed to Dr. Bates what say you Dr. Bates is this your Opinion Saith Dr. Bates I believe that we are all Sinners but I pray my Lord give him leave to speak I began to go on to the rest of my Sentence where I lest to shew the Sense and Truth of my Words and the Bishop whether in Passion or Design I know not interrupted me again and mouthed out the odiousness of my Doctrine again and again I attempted to speak and still he interrupted me in the same manner Upon that I sat down and told him that this was neither agreeable to our Commission nor the common Laws of Disputation nor the Civil Usage of Men in common Converse and that if he prohibited me to speak I desired him to do it plainly and I would ●●sist and not by that way of interruption He told me I had speaking enough if that were good for I spake more than any one in the Company And thus he kept me so long from uttering the rest of my Sentence that I sat down and gave over and told him I took it for his Prohibition At last I let him talk and spake to those nearer me which would hear me and told them that this was it that I was going to say That I granted Bishop Lany that it was possible to be free from acting Sin for a certain time that so he might have no matter of Objection against me and that the Instances of my Concession were these 1. In the time of absolute Infancy 2. In the time of total Fatuity or Madness as natural Ideots that never had the use of Reason 3. In the time of a Lethargy Carus or Apoplexy or Epilepsie 4. In the time of lawful sleep when a Man doth not so much as dream amiss And whether any other Instances might be given I determined not But as I talked thus Bishop Morley went on talking louder than I and would neither hear me nor willingly have had me to have been heard Behind me at the lower end of the Table stood Dr. Crowther and he would consute me and I defended Dr. Lany in that Ieroboam made Israel to Sin What gather you thence quoth I that they had no Sin but that or never sumed before He answered yes and with a little Nonsence would defend it that Israel sinned not till then When I had proved the contrary to him in the general Acceptation of the Word Sin I told him that if he took the Word Figuratively the Genus for a Species I granted him that they sinned not that Species of Sin which Ieroboam taught them which is in the Text emphatically called Sin If he meant that they sinned no Sin of Idolatry or no National Sin till then It was not true and if it were it was nothing to our Question which was about Sin in the General or indefinitely He told me they Sinned no National Sin till then I asked him whether the Idolatry the Unbelief the Murmuring c. by which all the Nation save Caleb and Ioshua fell in the Wilderness and the Idolatry for which in the time of the Judges the Nation was conquered and captivated were none of them National Sins I give the Reader the Instance if this Odious kind of Talk to shew him what kind of Men we talkt with and what a kind of Task we had § 196. And a little further touch of it I shall give you When I beg'd their Compassion on the Souls of their Brethren and that they would not unnecessarily cast so many out of the Ministry and their Communion Bishop Cosins told me that we threatned them with Numbers and for his part he thought the King should do well to make us name them all A charitable and wise Motion To name all the Thousands of England that dissented from them and that had sworn the Covenant and whom they would after Persecute § 197. When I read in the Preface to our Exceptions against the Liturgy That after twenty years Calamity they would not yield to that which several Bishops voluntarily offered twenty Years before meaning the Corrections of the Liturgy offered by Archbishop Usher Archbishop Williams Bishop Morton Dr. Prideaux and many others Bishop Cosins answered me That we threatned them with a new War and it was time for the King to look to us I had no shelter from the Fury of the Bishop but to name Dr. Hammond and tell him that I remembred Dr. Hammond insisted on the same Argument that twenty Years Calamity should have taught Men more Charity and brought them to repentance and Brotherly Love and that it is an Aggravation of their Sin to be unmerciful after so long and heavy Warnings from God's Hand He told me if that were our meaning it was all well And these were the most logical Discourses of that Bishop § 198. Among all the Bishops there was none who had so promising a Face as Dr. Sterne the Bishop of Carlisle He look'd so honestly and gravely and soberly that I scarce thought such a Face could have deceived me and when I was intreating them not to cast out so many of their Brethren through the Nation as scrupeled a Ceremony which they confess'd indifferent he turn'd to the rest of the Reverend Bishops and noted me for saying in the Nation He will not say in the Kingdom saith he lest he own a King This was all that ever I heard that worthy Prelate say But with grief I told him that half the Charity which became so grave a Bishop might have sufficed to have helpt him to a better Exposition of the Word Nation from the Mouths of such who have to lately taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and sworn Fidelity to the King as his Chaplains and had such Testimonies from him as we have had and that our case was sad if we could plead by the King's Commission for Accommodation upon no no better Terms than to be noted as Traytors every time we used such a Word as the Nation which all monarchical Writers use § 199. Bishop Morley earnestly pleaded my own Book with me my fifth Disput. as he had done before the King And I still told him I went not from any thing in it He vehemently aggravated the mischiefs of Conceived Prayer in the Church and when I told him that all the Action of Men would be imperfect while Men were imperfect and that the other side also had its
lying in great pain of the Stone and Strangury I went to visit him Twenty miles further And while I was there Mr. Baldwin came to me and told me that he also was forbidden to preach We returned both to Kidderminster and having a Lecture at Sheffnel in the way I preached there and stayed not to hear the Evening Sermon because I would make haste to the Bishop It fell out that my turn at another Lecture was on the same day with that at Sheffnal viz. at Cleibury in Shropshire also And many were there met in expectation to hear me But a Company of Soldiers were there as the Country thought to have apprehended me who shut the Doors against the Ministers that would have preached in my stead bringing a Command to the Churchwarden to hinder any one that had not a License from the Bishop and the poor People that had come from far were fain to go home with grieved hearts § 249. The next day it was confidently reported that a certain Knight offered the Bishop his Troop to apprehend me if I offered to preach And the People disswaded me from going to the Bishop supposing my Liberty in danger But I went that Morning with Mr. Baldwin and in the hearing of him and Dr. Warmstry then Dean of Worcester I remembred the Bishop of his Promise to grant me his Licence c. but he refused me liberty to preach in his Diocess though I offered him to preach only on the Creed and the Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments Catechistical Principles and only to such as had no preaching But the Discourse between him and me at that time I have had occasion since particularly to recite in my Answer to him according as I noted it down when I came home and therefore I shall here pass it by And since then I never preached in his Diocess § 250. When he Silenced me he told me that he marvelled that I should think my own preaching so necessary as to offer to preach for nothing as if other Men could not do as much good as I I told him That when they and I had all done our best there would be many Places unsupplyed and asked him Whether he thought that such an one as I were not better than none He told me That he thought no meanly of my Abilities but till I was better affected he thought they were better that had none I urged him to tell me what he thought was the Errour of my Mind or Affections and what he would have me do towards the Cure My Errours he would not tell me save the ridiculous recital of that Sentence at the Savoy of Sin per accidens which I have spoken of in my Answer to him at large but for my Cure of I know not what he would have me read Bilson and Hooker I told him that was not now to do But when at his perswasion I revised them I admired at their Infatuation that ever they suffered such Books as Hooker's Eighth Book and Bishop Bilson of Obedience to see the Light When Hooker goeth so much further than the Long Parliament went as to affirm that the Legislative Power is so naturally belonging to the whose Body that it is Tyranny for a single Person to exercise it Lib. 1. And that the King is singulis Major sed Universis Minor and receiveth his Power from the People with many more Antimonarchical Principles which I have confuted in the Fourth Part of my Christian Directory particularly as judging them unsound And Bilson in that excellent Book of Christian Obedience hath this passage which methinks should make them burn it and not commend it to us for our Cure Pag. 520. If a Prince should go about to subject his Kingdom to a Foreign Realm or change the Form of the Commonwealth or neglect the Laws established by common Consent of Prince and People to execute his own pleasure In these and other Cases which might be named if the Nobles and the Commons joyn together to defend their ancient and accustomed Liberty Regiment and Laws they may not well be counted Rebels I never deny'd that the People might preserve the Foundation Freedom and Form of their Commonwealth which they fore-prized when they first consented to have a King I say the Law of God giveth no Man leave to resist his Prince but I never said that Kingdom and Commonwealths might not proportion their States as they thought best by their publick Laws which afterwards the Princes themselves may not violate By Superiour Powers ordained of God we understand not only Princes but all Politick States and Regiments somewhere the People somewhere the Nobles having the same Interest to the Sword that Princes have in their Kingdoms And in Kingdoms where Princes bear rule by the Sword we do not mean the Princes private Will against his Laws but his Precept derived from his Laws and agreeing with his Laws which though it be wicked yet may it not be resisted by any Subject with armed violence Marry when Princes offer their Subjects not Iustice but Force and despise all Laws to practise their Lusts not every nor any private Man may take the Sword and redress the Prince but if the Laws of the Land appoint the Nobles as next the King to assist him in doing right and withhold him from doing wrong then be they licensed by Man's Law and so not prohibited by God's to interpose themselves for the safety of Equity and Innocency and by all lawful and needful means to procure the Prince to be reformed but in no case deprived where the Scepter is inherited So far Bishop Bilson to whom I was sent § 251. To return to Bishop Monley He told me when he Silenced me that he would take care that the People should be no losers but should be taught as well as they were by me And when I was gone he got awhile a few scandalous Men with some that were more civil to keep up the Lecture till the paucity of their Auditors gave them a pretence to put it down And he came himself one day and preached to them a long Invective against them and me as Presbyterians and I know not what so that the People wondered that ever a Man would venture to come up into a Pulpit and speak so confidently to a People that he knew not the things which they commonly knew to be untrue And this Sermon was so far from winning any of them to the estimation of their New Bishop or curing that which he called the Admiration of my Person which was his great endeavour that they were much confirmed in their former Judgments But still the Bishop looked at Kidderminster as a Factious Schismatical Presbyterian People that must be cured of their over-valuing of me and then they would be cured of all the rest Whereas if he had lived with them the twentieth part so long as I had done he would have known that they were neither Presbyterians nor Factious nor Shismatical
fourth sort are the Independents who are for the most part a serious godly People some of them moderate going with Mr. Norton and the New-England Synod and little differing from the moderate Presbyterians and as well ordered as any Party that I know But others of them more raw and self-conceited and addicted to Separations and Divisions their Zeal being greater than their Knowledge who have opened the Door to Anabaptists first and then to all the other Sects These Sects are numerous some tolerable and some intolerable and being never incorporated with the rest are not to be reckoned with them Many of them the Behm●nists Fifth-Monarchy-men Quakers and some Anabaptists are proper Fanaticks looking too much to Revelations within instead of the Holy Scriptures And thus I have truly told you of all the Sorts among us except the Papists who are sufficiently known and are no more of us than the other Sects are The Atheists and Infidels I name not because as such they have no Pastors § 286. Next it will not be amiss if I briefly give you the Sum of their several Causes and the Reasons of their several Ways I. The Conformists go several W●ys according to their forementioned Differences 1. Those that are high Prelatists say 1. For Episcopacy it is of Divine Institution and perpetual Usage in the Church and necessary to Order among the Clergy and People and of experienced Benefit to this Land and most congruous to Civil Monarchy and therefore not to be altered by any no not by the King and Parliament if they should swear it Therefore the Oath called the Et caetera Oath was formed before the War to Swear all Men to be true to this Prelacy and not to Change it 2. Those that are called Conforming Presbyterians and Latitudinarians both say that our Prelacy is lawful though not necessary and that Mr. Edward Stillingfleet's Irenicon hath well proved That no Form of Church Government is of Divine Institution And therefore when the Magistrate commandeth any he is to be obeyed But since they grew up to Preferment they grow to be hot for the Prelacy § 287. And therefore as to the Covenant they all say 1. That the End of it was Evil viz. To Change the Government of the Church without Law which was setled by Law 2. That the Efficient Cause was Evil or Null viz. That the Imposers had no Authority to do it 3. That the Matter was Evil viz. to extirpate and change the Government of the Church by Rebellion and Combination against the King 4. That the Swearers Act in taking it was sinful for the foresaid Reasons 5. That the King's Prohibition and disowning it did nullifie all the Subjects Obligations if any were upon them by virtue of Numb 30. 6. That the People being all Subjects cannot endeavour the Change of Church Government without the King 7. That King Charles took not that same Covenant but another 8. That he was forced to it 9. That he was virtually pre-engaged to the contrary Matter in that he was Heir of the Crown and bound to take the Coronation Oath 10. That to cast so many Men as the Bishops out of all their Honours and Possessions is Injustice which none can be obliged to do 11. That if it were lawful before to endeavour an Alteration of the Government of the Church yet now it is not when King and Parliament have made a Law against it These are Mr. Fulwood's and Mr. Stileman's Pleas and the Sum of all that I have heard as to that Point § 288. But further as to the Interpretation of the Words of the Declaration hereabouts the Latitudinarians and Conforming Presbyterians and some of the Prelatists say as followeth 1. That the Declaration includeth not the King when it saith There is no obligation on me or any other person which they prove because that Laws are made only for Subjects and therefore are to be interpreted as speaking only of Subjects 2. Because the King is meant in the Counterpart or Object viz the Government of the State which is not to be altered 2. They say that it is only Rebellions or other unlawful Endeavours that are meant by the words to Endeavour 3. They say that by any Alteration is meant only any Essential Alteration and not any Integral or Accidental Alteration of the Government 4. And the leading Independents have taught them also to say that this Covenant was essentially a League between two Nations upon a certain occasion which therefore if ever it did bind is now like an Almanack out of date Et cessat obligatio cessantibus personis materiâ fine 5. They principally argue that all Mens words are to be taken charitative in the most honest and favourable sence that they will bear much more the King 's and Parliaments Therefore Charity permitteth us not to judge them so inhuman irrational irreligious and cruel as to command Men to be perjured and to change the constituted Government by prohibiting King Parliament or People to do any thing which belonged to them in their places These are the Reasons for the lawfulness of declaring against the Obligation of the Covenant § 289. 3. In the same Declaration it is professed That it is not lawful on any pictente whatsoever to take up Arms against the King or any Commissionated by him c. Concerning this they are also divided among themselves One Party say That this is true universally in the proper sence of the words The other say That it is to be understood of such as are legally Commissioned by him only and that if he should Commission two or three Men or more to kill the Parliament or burn the City or to dispossess Men of their Freeholds it were lawful forcibly to resist Or if the Sheriff be to raise the Posse Comitatus in obedience to a Decree of a Court of Justice to put a Man into possession of his House he may do it forcibly though the Defendant be Commissioned by the King to keep it Because they say that the Law is to be taken sano sensu and not as may lay the Law-givers under so heavy an Accusation as the literal unlimited sence would do § 290. 4. The fourth Matter of Difference being the Oath of Canonical Obedience they here also differ among themselves 1. Some of them think that as the Necessity of Monarchy and our Relation to the King doth make the Oath of Allegiance necessary or very meet so the Necessity of Prelacy and our Relation to the Prelates doth make the Oath of Obedience to them justifiable and meet For that which must be done may be promised and sworn 2. Others of them say That it is only to the Bishops as Magistrates or Officers of the King that we swear to them 3. And others say That as we may be subject to any Man in humility so we may promise or swear it to any Man And it being but in licit 〈◊〉 honestis that what we may
not the Primitive Episcopacy or any other sort but the present Diocesan Prelacy which was in being in England Ergo no other could be extirpated 2. Because when the Covenant was debated first in the Synod at Westminster abundance of Divines who Subscribed the Covenant did openly profess that they were not against Episcopacy and would not consent to it in any such sence 3. Because the said Divines upon that profession caused the Description of the word Prelacy to be exprest in a Parentheses which is only the Description of our Diocesan Frame which is to be seen in the words of the Covenant 4. Because when the House of Lords who imposed it did conjunctly and solemnly take the Covenant Mr. Tho. Coleman who preached and gave it them did openly declare at the giving and taking of it that it was not all Episcopacy that they renounced or vowed by this Covenant to extirpate but only the Diocesan Prelacy there described All this with the words themselves I think is sufficient Evidence of the matter of that Clause § 365. 2. And for the Persons here are especially three sorts in question 1. The King 2. The Parliament 3. The People The first question is Whether the People in the number allowed by the Act may not by humble petition endeavour a reforming Alteration of the Prelacy 2. Whether Parliament Men may not lawfully speak and vote for it 3. Whether King and Parliament may not alter it by altering the Laws If all these Actions be the endeavouring of a Duty or of a lawful Thing in their several Places and Callings and that be the very thing which the Vow obligeth them to then the question is Whether hereto it do not bind them § 366. 1. To say that the People may not so much as petition for a Thing so much concerning their Felicity is to take away not only that Liberty which the King hath in many of his Declarations against the Parliament professed to maintain but also such Liberty as Lawyers say is woven into the Constitution of the Kingdom by the Fundamental Laws and cannot be taken from them but by changing the Constitution yea and reducing them to a state below that of a Subject § 367. 2. To say that a Parliament Man may not speak or vote for such an alteration seemeth to be against the old unquestioned Priviledge of Parliaments which was never denied by the King who opposed them in other things And this Opinion also by such an Alteration of Parliaments would alter the Constituted Government of the Land § 368. 3. To say that the King and Parliament may not alter Prelacy by altering the Law doth seem to be the highest Injury to Soveraignty by denying the Legislative Power § 369. If it be a thing which the People may not petition for nor Parliament vote for nor speak for nor King and Parliament alter then either because the Law of God disableth them or the Common Good forbiddeth them or the Laws of the Land restraineth them from But it is none of these Ergo 1. It is before shewed That no Law of God hath established the English Form of Prelacy nay that the Law of God is repugnant to it 2. And that the Common Good forbiddeth not the Alteration but requireth it 3. And that no Law restraineth in any of the three formentioned Cases is plain in that there is no Law against the Peoples Petitioning as aforesaid nor can be without alteration of the Government And the King with his Parliament are above Laws and have power to make them and to abrogate them So that it seemeth a thing that may be done and a Vow turneth a may be into a must be where it is of force And thus far they think that there is no great difficulty in the Controversie § 370. Before I tell you their Answers to the contrary Reasons I may tell you that not only Dr. Sanderson granteth but all Conformists that ever I talkt with hereabout do agree with us in these following Points 1. That we must here distinguish between the Actum Imperantis the Actum Iurantis and the Materiam Iuramenti the Act of the Parliament imposing it the Act of the Persons taking it and the Matter of the Oath or Vow 2. And also between the Sinfulness of an Oath the Act of the Swearer and the Nullity of it 3. And that if the Imposers Act be sinful and the Taking Act be sinful yet the Oath is obligatory if the Matter vowed be not unlawful and the Actus Iurandi were not a Nullity as well as a Sin 4. That if there be six Articles in a Vow and four of them be unlawful this doth not disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part Otherwise an unlawful Clause put in may free a Man from a Vow for the most necessary Duties 5. That if a Nation take a Vow it is a personal Vow to every individual Person in that Nation who took it 6. That if there be in it a mixture of a Vow to God and a League Covenant or Promise to Men the Obligation of the Vow to God may remain when as a League or Covenant with Man ceaseth unless when the Vow is not co-ordinate but sabordinate to the League or Covenant as being only a Vow or Oath that it shall be faithfully performed 7. That if a Vow be imposed in lawful proper Terms it is not any unexpressed Opinion of the Imposers that maketh the Matter unlawful to the Taker 8. That if the Imposers be many Persons naturally making one collective Body ●o ●ence of theirs is to be taken as explicatory but what is in the words or otherwise publickly declared to the Takers Because they are supposed to be of different 〈◊〉 among themselves when they agree not in any Exposition 9. That though a Subject ought to take an Oath in the sence of his Rulers who impose it as far as he can understand is yet a Man that taketh an Oath from a Rob●e● to sive his Life is not alway bound to take it in the Imposers sence if he take it not against the proper sence of the words 10. That though a Subject should do his best to understand the Imposers sence for the right taking of it yet as to the keeping of it he is bound much to the sence in which he himself took it though possibly he misunderstood the Imposers § 371. Now to their Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists Object 1. The End was evil to change the Government of Church and State with●●● Law which was setled by Law The Bishops were a part of the House of Lords and therefore could not be cast out but by their own consent and the whole Parliament's with the King Answ. 1. It is not the ill ends of the Persons imposing that can disoblige the Taker unless it had been the fi●is proximus ipsius Iuramenti essential to the Vow it self and inseparable from it The Ends of Parliaments may be manifold and unknown
which the People cannot know nor are bound to search after The words of the Vow it self are in our several Places and Callings we shall endeavour And this was the expressed work and end And this was not doing any thing against Law If a discontented Person now should say that the Parliaments End in the Act of Uniformity and that against Conventicles was Persecution and the Suppression of Religion and therefore they are not to be obeyed how would this hold while Uniformity and Peace are the published Ends and the rest are either uncertain or impertinent to us 2. Whether indeed the Imposers Ends were ill is a Controversie fit to be touched by it self They thought such a Change of Church-Government was a good End And for doing it against Law they put not that into the Swearers part in this Clause and pro●essed the contrary themselves But if they did themselves purpose to do that against to Law which others swear to do in their Places and Calling that is according to Law are those others therefore not obliged to do what they vowed to do according to Law because the Imposers intended to do their part against Law 3. I suppose all the King's Party who took the Oath at their Composition had no ill end in it and are they not then to interpret it by their own Ends as it is their Personal Vow 4. If we reach Men that the bad Ends of the Imposers do disoblige Men from performing Vows materially good take heed left it follow that it will disoblige them much more from obeying Commands and Laws materially good And then every Subject will take himself to be disobliged who is but confident that Persecution Oppression c. were his Rulers Ends. What if a Man for evil Ends command me to obey the King or to worship God or to give to the Poor Or make me swear to do all this Doth not my Vow oblige me because he had evil Ends that drove me to it Nay if I had my self vowed to do all these for some evil end though it is certain that I must not do it to that end yet whether the change of my End does disoblige me also from my Vow as to the Matter is a difficult question which I think Casuists commonly resolve in the Negative But if any Man did mistake their Design and had good Ends himself while theirs were bad yea and the End commanded him were good the Case is much plainer 5. Who can say that the King had an ill End in taking it Or that his Place and Calling did not impower him to do that which in a Subject would have been illegal and that he may not lawfully endeavour accordingly And whereas it is said That the very War it self expounded their meaning who imposed it they being then in Arms against the King It is answered by the Non-Subscribers 1. That they openly professed to take up Arms only against Delinquent Subjects according to Law 2. That their misapplication made not good words to be bad to others 3. That if they make me swear to do it in my Place and Calling I am not obliged to expound this to be out of my Place and Calling because they go out of their Place and Calling And whereas it is said That the Bishops were part of the Parliament and so of the Civil Government ● It is answered 1. That the Parliament declared that they were no Constitutive Essential Unchangeable Part without whom the Acts of both Houses were invalid They were but part of the Lords House where they might be over-voted 2. The Scruple of the Non-Subscribers is not at all whether they are obliged to endeavour to dispossess them of their Baronies or Places in Parliament which is in the power of the King to give them but only about their Ecclesiastical Power and Government as here formed And if it could be proved that the Covenant intended both the Ejection of them from their Church Power and their Places in Parliament it followeth not that it obligeth not to the lawful act because it obligeth not to the unlawful● 3. Nor can it easily be proved unlawful for the King and Parliament either to make a separation of these Powers or to take both from them and so set up the Primitive sort of Bishops either with or without any Civil Authority Abbots had once also a place in Parliament and yet they are now taken down it is supposed not unlawfully The King himself doth lawfully make Members of both Houses by making Earls and Barons and by giving Corporations power to choose Burgesses who before had none And as the new making of these so the excluding of some Members may be without any change in the Form of Civil Government Certainly many Fathers and Canons are against the Civil Government of the Clergy § 372. 2. The second objection is That the Authority of the Imposers was null as to that Act Answ. That is a distinct Controversie which here I shall pass by But granting it to be so no more will follow but that the People were not bound by any Command of theirs to take it But a Vow that is taken in my Closet without any Man's imposition or knowledge may be obligatory or one that a Robber forceth me to by the High-way The nullity of the Oblig●●on to take it is all that followeth the nullity of their Authority which will not infer the nullity of the Obligation to keep it for it maketh it but equal to a Vow which is made of a private Will without any Command of Authority at all § 373. 3. The third Reason which most nearly toucheth the Controversie is That the Matter vowed to extirpate Prelacy was unlawful both as against the Laws of God and of the Land Answ. If this be proved no doubt but the Obligation is void and of no effect But 1. It is before proved to be far from being against the Law of God to alter this Prelacy by warrantable means And also that it is not against the Law of the Land for Subjects mode●●y to petition or Parliament Men to speak or the King and Parliament to change which are the Actions which belong to their Places and Callings And if it had been expresly part of the matter of that Vow to do this by unlawful means the question is Whether this can disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part adjoying which is to do it in their Places and Callings Whatever other matter is this matter is not yet proved to be unlawful § 374. Object But Episcopacy is Jure Divino and the Covenant mentioneth the extarpatien of Prelacy which is of the same Species with the other Episcopacy And therefore it is to be understood as to the extirpation of all Episcopacy and so not obligatory Answ. 1. It is before proved that our Prelacy is not of Divine Right but against it 2. And that it differeth even specically from the Primitive Episcopacy 3. But that 's nothing to the
In the best sence which hath Evidence of Truth Charity requireth us to take all the words of others But the question is first Which is the true sence and not which is the best And if it can be proved that another is either certainly or probably the true meaning of any words we must not feign a better sence because it is better In the Case in hand the Law-makers have plainly declared their own sence by their Speeches and Votes and deliberate plain Expressions and by another Act for Corporations If I might take all Oaths and Statutes in the best sence which possibly those words may be used to express than I could take almost any Oath in the World and disobey any Law in the World under pretence of obeying it and tell any Lie under the pretence of telling Truth and Jesuitical Equivocation would be but the common Duty of the Charitable But Charity is not blind nor will it prove a fit Cover for a Lie He that knoweth the Parliament and is but willing to know their sence may know the mistakes of this pretended Charity And especially Laws and Oaths are to be taken in the sence which is plainest in the words § 391. Besides all that is already said I shall end this Subject with this question on the Non-subscribers part Whether an Oath doth not bind Men in the sence of the Takers though they be bound to take it in the sence of the Imposers if they know it As if I had been commanded to swear Allegiance to the King and he that commandeth it should mean Cromwell or some Usurper and I thought he had meant my rightful King Am I not bound hereby to the King indeed And if so Query further Whether any Man so well know the sence of every Man and Woman in England Scotland and Ireland as to be able to say that it was so bad that they are not obliged to it And in what Age it was that all Ministers were forbidden to Preach the Gospel of Christ till they knew the Hearts of all the People in three Kingdoms so far as to justifie them before God from the Obligations of such Vows and Oaths § 392. And though I heartily wish that the Prelates would have been intreated to have chosen another course of proceeding with their Brethren and not have tempted any to Repinings or Complaints for endeavouring which I lost their love yet I would admonish all my Brethren to take heed of aggravating this Difference so far as to bring the present Ministry into Contempt and hinder the Efficacy of their Labours I did my best to have prevailed beforehand that we might not have had any occasion of Divisions but if we must needs be divided that it might have been upon some lower Points than the Obligation of Oaths and Vows It had been better for the Prelates that the Non-subscribers had seemed to be scrupulous Persons that refused only some tolerable Ceremonies than that the fear of so great a Crime as justifying three Kingdoms from the Bond of an Oath and the guilt of Perjury should be the occasion of their Ejection and the Matter of this Publick Controversie But seeing this could not by us be prevented let us not be so partial as to wrong the Church by making them odious to justifie our selves It was sad when the Names of Formalists and Puritans and afterwards of Malignants and Rebels and Cavaliers and Roundheads distinguished the divided Parties But it is now grown worse when they are called PER-fidious jured secutors and PURITANS For the most odious Names do most potently tend to the extinguishing of Charity and the increase of the Difference between them § 393. III. The next Controversie is Political That it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King or as is after said against any Commissionated by him In this the Lawyers are divided yea and Parliament themselves one Parliament saying one thing and another another thing And the poor ejected Ministers of England are commonly so little studied in the Law that in these Controversies they must say as they are bidden or say nothing And they think it hard that when Lawyers and Parliaments cannot agree every poor ignorant Preacher must be forced to decide the Controversie and say and subscribe which of them is in the right upon pain of being cast out of their Office and silenced which they think as hard as if they were required to decide a Controversie between Navigators or Pope Zachary and Boniface's Case about the Antipodes or else be silenced We are ready to Subscribe That King Charles the Second is our lawful King and that we owe him Obedience in all his lawful Commands and that we are bound to defend his Person Dignity Authority and Honour with our Lives and Estates against all his Enemies and that neither Parliaments nor any other at home or abroad have any power to judge or hurt his Person or depose him or diminish any of his Power and that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to conspire against him or ●stir up the People to Sedition or to take up Arms against either his Authority or his Person or against any lawfully Commissioned by him or any at all Commissioned by him except he himself by a contrary Commission or by his Law do enable us or not forbid us or when the Law of Nature doth oblige us In all these Cases we are ready to Subscribe And one would think this much might procure our Peace But that which is scrupled by the Non-subscribers is as followeth The words on any pretence whatsoever studiously put into a Form of Declaration by a Parliament are so universal as to allow no Latitudinarian Evasions or Limitations or Exceptions by any Man that is sincere and plain-hearted and doth not Equivocate with God and his Governours Now 1. Though the King's Authority or Person may not be resisted by Arms they are not certain that his Will may not in any Case be resisted 2. Though none Authorized that is Legally Commissioned by him may be resisted yet they are not certain that all that are Commissioned by him are Authorized or Legally Commissioned 3. Either this Declaration requireth us to suppose that the King never will Commission any illegally or else that though he do yet such may on no pretence whatsoever be resisted by Arms. If the former be the sence then either it is because no King will do it or only because no King of England will do it The former all Historians Politicians Lawyers and Divines are against And the latter hath no Evidence of Certainty to us But yet if that had been the sence we should have consented that on supposition the King commission Men legally they are not to be resisted But this no Man will say is to be supposed as an Event certainly and universally future But if the worst that is possible might be supposed possible then in these several Cases
skill in Laws than they 12. They find that even the greatest Episcopal Divines approved by our Princes and most Learned Defenders of Monarchy and Obedience do yet set up the Laws above the King and write more in this Case than we can consent to● Mr. Tho. Hooker whom King Charles the First commended to his Children to be read speaketh so very high not only in his whole Eighth Book dedicated by Bishop Gauden to the King but also in his First Book which was extant when King Charles the First commended his Works that for my part I do not believe him that the Body as such hath the Legislative Power and that the King is singulis major and universis minor with much of the like And therefore I have wrote a full Confutation of him in the Fourth Tome of my Christian Directory And yet he is one of the most magnified Authours with the Bishops And so is Bishop Bilson who in his Treatise for Christian Subjection dedicated to Queen Elizabeth hath that terrible passage for resisting Kings before-recited § 253. 13. And they find that not only Politicians speak more in this Case than we allow and the Roman Greek and other Historians but the Historians and Chroniclers of this Land For instance Hollingshead Lib. 1. in his Chapter of Parliaments saith This House hath the most high and absolute Power of the Realm For thereby Kings and mighty Princes have from time to time been deposed from their Thrones Laws either enacted or abrogated Offenders of all sorts punished and corrupted Religion either disannulled or reformed which commonly is divided into two Houses or Parts c. Here is more then I assent to or think to be justifiable Now when all these say so much more for Resistance than we judge sound it seemeth hard to us to go so far contrary to them all in Matters of other Mens Profession as to Subscribe That on no pretence whatsoever no one Commissionated by the King may be resisted by taking up Arms. 14. And we read how Dr. Mainwairing and other Divines have been condemned by Parliament for Matters of this Nature And whatever any Latitudinarian may say we are sure that on no pretence whatsoever are words that exclude all these fore-mentioned Pretences from being lawful And if it yet be said That it is disloyal to suppose that any such illegal Commission will be granted we do not suppose that it will be so but if it be not possible to be so in this Age or another then we are contented to Subscribe this Clause For Parliaments will not differ about Impossibilities § 395. Incident to this Controversie are other Clauses of the Declaration as that the Covenant was in it self an unlawful Oath and imposed against the known Laws c. which though they contradict not yet many that were Children then and know neither Matter of Law or Fact no not so much as the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom do think themselves very uncapable of determining § 396. And for the Trayterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him We see no position here recited and therefore must annex this Clause to the former as before supposing that the meaning is that it is a Trayterous Position to say That it is lawful by the King's Authority to take up Arms on any pretence whatsoever against c. And we all confess that it is a Contradictory and Trayterous Position for any man to say that he may take up Arms by the King's Authority against his Authority or Dignity or Honour or Person But all the Doubt is as aforesaid Whether the King's Laws have not his Authority and whether his Laws and his Commission may not be contrary or one Commission contrary to another And in that case whether it be Trayterous to say that one side hath his Authority against the other As if his Law allow Men to defend their Lives and Purses against Assaults and an Assailant produce a Commission whether the King's Authority in his Laws and Courts enable not a Man by Arms to save his Purse or Life against such a pretended Commissioner And how shall any Subject at the time of the Assault be sure whether the Commission be true or spurious If as Ioa● and Abner sent the young Men to play mad play before them and the Romans caused their Gladiators to fight to make them sport so if the King to try the Valour of some Subjects would Commission a few on both sides to fight against each other doth it follow that both sides were Traytors because they both fought by his Authority against such as were Commissionated by him If it be said That this is not the meaning of the Act we answer● That where Forms are supposed to be deliberately worded by a Parliament if we must not understand Universals universally but may put in Limitations or Exceptions at our Pleasure then their words are not the signifiers of their Minds and we know not whether to go to understand them nor what be the Exceptions and Limitations allowed but every Man may except according to his Fancy and thus all will be but Equivocation and Deceit And Dr. Sanderson resolveth it That when Oaths and consequently subscribed Forms are ambiguously worded and the Imposers will not explain them it is not fit at all to take them Some Lawyers tell me that if it came before the Judges they would judge an unlawful Commission to be no Commission and that the Judges are the Expositors of the Law I answer 1. We have no assurance that the Judges would so judge much less unanimously nor that they have so done 2. Lately Mr. Ioseph Read offered at the King's-Bench-Bar to take the Oxford Oath as expounded in that sence by the Vote of the Lords about the Test and he was reproved for his Offer and told that he must take it as the Law imposed it and was sent back to Jail 3. The Law-makers only can expound a Law as antecedently Obligatory to all the Subjects The Judges can only expound it consequently for the decision of a particular Case in order to Execution and ad hoc which warranteth no Man to take that for the true meaning of the Statute § 397. IV. The Fourth Controversie is about the Oath of Canonical Obedience And the Reasons why this is scrupled by the Non-Conformists are these Because they take the Power it self to which they are to swear to be specifically Evil and against the Word of God of which their Proofs are given before And therefore they dare not be guilty of swearing Obedience to them lest they 1. Take the Name of God in vain and Oath being a thing which is not to be ventured on but with the greatest reverence deliberation and sincerity 2. And lest they scandalously approve of Usurpation in Christ's Kingdom to the wrong of his Crown and Dignity and contract the guilt of Treason or Disloyalty
Prelatical Dignity is not some way retrenched and whether they bear still that irreconcileable hatred against good and godly Presbyterians that they may not be suffered to exercise their Charge and Duty Or if they are wholly deprived of the power and authority to serve their Parishes as to our great Scandal we are informed I had many things more to write to you but dare not trouble you most worthy Sir any further fearing to keep you from your weighty Business Only I crave very humbly your Answer and as much Information of the true present Estate as opportunity will give you leave Whether we have so much cause to fear the Introduction of Popery in England as some by the News amongst us are wholly perswaded In the mean while we will continue to pray the Lord our God and most merciful Father with all our Hearts and Souls to preserve your Person for the General Good and Edification of his whole Catholick Church that your great Light may shine more and more and so I remain Reverend and most worthy Sir Your humble and most Affectionate Servant Iohn Sollic●ffer unworthy Servant of Christ. Saingall in Helvetia Reformatâ 16 April 1663. The vigilant Eye of Malice that some had upon me made me understand that though no Law of the Land is against Literate Persons Correspondencies beyond Seas nor have any Divines been hindered from it yet it was like to have proved my ruine if I had but been known to answer one of these Letters though the Matter had been never so much beyond Exceptions So that I neither answered this nor any other save only by word of mouth to the Messenger and that but in small part for much of this in the latter part was Matter not to be touched Our Silencing and Ejection he would quickly know by other means and how much the Judgments of the English Bishops did differ from theirs about the Labours and Persons of such as we § 443. About this time I thought meet to debate the Case with some Learned and Moderate Ejected Ministers of London about Communicating sometimes in the Parish Churches in the Sacraments For they that came to Common Prayer and Sermon came not yet to Sacraments They desired me to bring in my Judgment and Reasons in writing which being debated they were all of my mind in the main That it is lawful and a duty where greater Accidents preponderate not But they all concurred unanimously in this That if we did Communicate at all in the Parish Churches the Sufferings of the Independents and those Presbyterians that could not Communicate there would certainly be very much increased which now were somewhat moderated by concurrence with them I thought the Case very hard on both sides That we that were so much censured by them for going somewhat further than they must yet omit that which else must be our Duty meerly to abate their Sufferings that censure us But I resolved with them to forbear a while rather than any Christian should suffer by occasion of an action of mine seeing God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and no Duty is a Duty at all times § 444. In Iuly 1665. the Lord Ashley sent a Letter to Sir Iohn Trevor That a worthy Friend of his in whose Case the King did greatly concern himself had all his Fortunes cast upon my Resolution of the enclosed Case which was Whether a Protestant Lady of strict Education might marry a Papist in hope of his Conversion he promising not to disturb her in her Religion It came at Six a Clock Afternoon and knowing it was a Case that must be cautelously resolved at the Court I took time till the next Morning that I might give my Answer in Writing The next day the Lord Ashley wrote again with many words to incline me to the Affirmative for the Lady told them she would not consent unless I satisfied her that it was lawful Who the Lord and Lady were I know not at all but have an uncertain Conjecture So I sent the following Resolution The Case was thus expressed Whether one that was bred a strict Protestant and in the most severe ways of that Profession lived many years without giving offence to any well known in her own Country to be such may without offence to God or Man marry a profest Roman Catholick in hopes of taking him off the Errour of his ways he engaging never to disturb her My Lord's Letter was as follows SIR THere is a very good Friend of mine and one his Majesty is very much concerned for that this enclosed Case has the power of his Fortunes None but that worthy Divine Mr. Baxter can satisfie the Lady this has been the way by which the Romanists have gained very much upon us they are more powerful in perswasion than our Sex besides the putting this Case shews some inclination to the Person though not to the Religion Sir If Mr. Baxter be with you pray let me have his Opinion to this Case in writing under it Wherein you may oblige more than you think for Your very affectionate Friend to serve you ASHLEY For his much honoured Friend Sir Iohn Trevor at Acton To this Case I drew up the following Answer and sent it to Sir John Trevor to be by him conveyed to my Lord Ashley SIR THough I cannot be insensible how inconvenient to my self the Answer of this Case may possibly prove by displeasing those who are concerned in it and medling about a Case of Persons utterly unknown to me yet because I take it to be a thing which Fidelity to the Truth and Charity to a Christian Soul requireth I shall speak my Judgment whatever be the Consequents But I must crave the pardon of that Noble Lord who desired my Answer might be Subscribed to the Case because Necessity requireth more words than that Paper will well contain The Question about the Marriage is not An factum valeat but An fieri debeat There is no affirming or denying without these necessary Distinctions 1. Between a Case of Necessity and of no Necessity 2. Between a Case where the Motives are from the Publick Commodity of Church or State and where they are only Personal or Private 3. Between one who is otherwise sober ingenuous and pious and a faithful Lover of the Lady and one that either besides his Opinion is of an ungodly Life or seeketh her only to serve himself upon her Estate 4. Between a Lady well grounded and fixed in Truth and Godliness and one that is weak and but of ordinary setledness Hereupon I answer Prop. 1. In general It cannot be said to be simply and in all Cases unlawful to marry an Infidel or Heathen much less a Papist 2. In particular It is lawful in these following Cases 1. In Case of true Necessity when all just means have been used and yet the Party hath a necessity of Marriage and can have no better If you ask Who is better I answer A suitableness
Ministers can perform and it is a work that I never yet knew one Prelatist well perform to my remembrance and few of them meddle with it at all any farther than to read Common Prayer some time to a dying Man if any one of a Multitude desire it 2. Many of them had Pastoral Charges in Cities and Corporations from the obligation of which they take not themselves to be well released by the bare prohibition of Man while then Peoples needs and desires continue and where their places are supplyed with Men so ignorant and vicious as to be un-meet for such a charge of Souls And it must be more than the Will of Man that must warrant them to fly and forsake their Flocks to which they had a lawful Call and to leave their Souls to those notorious Perils as in very many places they must do 3. And in the rest of the Land where can a Minister labour with advantage but with those that know him and are known of him and have formerly profited by him and will afford him Entertainment 4. If it be lawful to desert the Souls of all Cities and Corporations and all other Parishes where-ever we preach'd it will follow that it is lawful to desert all the rest and so sacrilegiously to desert our office 5. Christ saith When they persecute you in one City fly to another Therefore we are not obliged to desert them all as soon as we are commanded 6. The Preaching of Christ's Apostles and of all his Ministers for 300 Years was against the will of the Princes and Rulers of the Countries where they preached And yet they planted Churches and ordained Elders principally in all the Cities where they came and would rather suffer Imprisonment and Death than to desert them any further than by flying from one to another § 9. 2. But natural necessity also constrained many For many had Wives and many Children to maintain and had not one Penny of yearly Revenue nor any thing but the Gifts of charitable People to maintain them And if they had a poor Cottage to live in and no Money to pay their Rent nor to buy Fire Food or Cloathing they had much less enough to take another House and pay for the removal of their Goods far off and the Charges of a new Settlement and there to dwell among Strangers far from those whose Charity relieved them was but to turn their Families to famish which is more inhumane than to see a Brother have need and to shut up the Bowels of our compassion from him which yet is contrary to the Love of God § 10. And indeed in many Countries it was hard to find many places which were not within five Miles of some Corporation or of some place where we had Preached before for some Ministers preached in a great number of Parishes at several times And if such a place were found was it like that there would be Houses enough found untenanted to receive so many Ministers Or if there were perhaps the Landlords would be so much for Prelacy as to refuse such Tenants or so timorous as to be afraid lest by receiving such they should bring themselves under Suspicion of favouring Non-conformists and so be ruined or so covetous as knowing their advantage to ask more for their Houses than poor Ministers that had hardly any thing left to subsist on could be able to give Besides that almost all Country Houses are annexed to the Farms or Land belonging to them And Ministers are ill Farmers especially when they have no Money to Stock their Land § 11. Yea they allowed them not to be kept as common Beggars on the Alms of the Parish but when by the Law every Beggar is to be brought to the place of his Birth or last abode and there to be kept on Alms No Minister must come within five Miles of the Parish where he ever exercised his Ministry nor any that were born in Cities and Corporations must come within five Miles of them for relief § 12. In this strait those Ministers that had any Maintenance of their own did find out some Dwellings in obscure Villages or in some few Market-Towns which were no Corporations And those that had nothing did leave their Wives and Children and hid themselves abroad and sometimes came secretly to them by night But God bringing Good out of Men's Evil many resolved to preach the more freely in Cities and Corporations till they went to Prison Partly because they were then in the way of their Calling in which they could suffer with the greater peace and partly because they might so do some good before they suffered and partly because the People much desired it and also were readier to relieve one that laboured for them than one that did nothing but hide himself and partly because when they lay in Prison for preaching the Gospel both they and their Wives and Children were like to find more pity and relief than if they should forsake their People and their Work Seeing therefore the Question came to this Whether Beggary and Famine to themselves and Families with the deserting of their Callings and the People's Souls was to be chosen or the faithful performance of their Work with a Prison after and the People's Compassion They thought the latter the more eligible § 13. And yet when they had so chosen their Straits were great for the Country was so impoverished that those of the People who were willing to relieve the Ministers were not able And most that were able were partly their Adversaries and partly worldly-minded and strait-handed and unwilling And alas it is not now and then a Shilling or a Crown given very rarely which will pay House-Rent and maintain a Family Those Ministers that were unmarryed did easilier bear their Poverty but it pierceth a Man's Heart to have Children crying and Sickness come upon them for want of wholsom Food or by drinking Water and to have nothing to relieve them And Women are usually less patient of Suffering than Men and their Impatience would be more to a Husband than his own wants I heard but lately of a good Man that was fain to Spin as Women do to get something towards his Family's relief which could be but little and being Melancholy and Diseased it was but part of the Day that he was able to do that Another Mr. Chadwick in Somerset for a long time had little but brown Rye Bread and Water for himself his Wife and many Children and when his Wife was ready to lye in was to be turned out of Door for not paying his House-Rent But yet God did mercifully provide some Supplies that few of them either perished or were exposed to sordid unseemly Beggary But some few were tempted against their former Judgments to Conform § 14. The Oath imposed on them was this I A B De Swear That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King And that I do abhor
Court of Justice declare That the King by his Laws commandeth us to assist the Sheriffs and Justices notwithstanding any Commission to the contrary under the great or little Seal and one shew us a Commission to the contrary which must we take for the King's Authority 8. Whether this extendeth to the Case of King Iohn who delivered the Kingdom to the Pope Or to those Instances of Bilson Barcley Grotius c. of changing the Government putting by the true Heir to whom we are Sworn in the Oath of Allegiance c. if Subjects pretend Commission for such Acts 9. Whether Parliament Judges in Court or private Men may by the King's Authority in his Laws defend their Lives against any that by a pretended Commission invadeth them or their Purses Houses or Companions 10. Whether we must take every Affirmer to have a Commission if he shew it not Or every shewn Commission to be current and not surreptitious though contrary to Law 11. Whether he violateth not this Oath who should endeavour to alter so much of the Legislative Power as is in the Parliament or the Executive in the Established Courts of Justice Or is it meant only of Monarchy as such 12. Doth he not break this Oath who should endeavour to change the Person Governing as well as he that would change the Form of Government 13. If so doth it not also tye us to the Persons of Church-Governours seeing they are equally here twisted and Church-Government preposed 14. Is it the King 's Coercive Government of the Church by the Sword which is here meant according to the Oath of Supremacy Or Spiritual Government by the Keys Or both 15. Is it not the English Form of Church-Government by Diocesans that is here meant and not some other sort of Episcopacy which is not here And doth he not break this Oath who instead of a Bishop over 500 or 1000 Churches without any inferiour Bishop should endeavour to set up a Bishop in every great Church or Market-Town or as many as the Work requireth 16. Seeing Excommunication and Absolution are the notable parts of Spiritual Government and it is not only the Actions but the Actors or Governours that we Swear not to alter and Lay-Chancellors are the common Actors or Governours whether an endeavour to alter Lay-Chancellors Government as some did that procured his Majesty's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs be not contrary to this Oath and excluded by any alteration 17. Whether petitioning or other peaceable means before allowed by Law be not any endeavour and a violation of this Oath 18. Whether not at any time c. tye us not to disobey the King if he should command us by Consultation or Conference to endeavour it Or if the Law be changed doth not this Oath still bind us Lastly Whether this following Sense in which we could take it be the true sense of the Oath I A B do Swear That a it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever b to take up Arms against the King c And that I do abhor that Traytorous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person or against those that are Commissionated by him d in pursuance of such Commission And that I will not at any time endeavour any alteration of Government either in Church or State e a In my Opinion b For the Subjects of his Majesty's Dominions c Either his Authority or his Person the Law forbidding both d Whether it be his Parliament Courts of Justice Legal Officers or any other Persons authorized by his publick Laws or his Commission supposing that no contrariety of Laws and Commissions by over-sight or otherwise do Arm the Subjects against each other e I will not endeavour any alteration of State-Government at all either as to the Person of the King or the Species of Government either as to the Legislative or Executive Power as in the King himself or his Parliament or Established Courts of Justice And therefore I declare That I take all the rest of this Oath only in a Sense consistent with this Clause implying no alteration in the Government And I will endeavour no alteration of the Coercive Government of the Church as it is in the King according to the Oath of Supremacy Nor any alienation of the Spiritual Power of the Keys from the Lawful Bishops and Pastors of the Church Nor will I endeavour to restore the Ancient Discipline by removing the Spiritual Government by the Keys out of the Hands of Lay-Chancellors into the Hands of so many able Pastors as the number of Churches and necessity of the work requireth nor any other Reformation of the Church by any Rebellious Schismatical or other unlawful means whatsoever nor do I believe that any Vow or Covenant obligeth me thereto declaring notwithstanding that it 's none of my meaning to bind my self from any Lawful Means of such Reformation nor to disobey the King if at any time He command me to endeavour the Alteration of any thing justly alterable The General Answer was as followeth UPon Serious Consideration of the Act of Parliament Entitled An Act for Restraining of Nonconformists from Inhabiting in Corporations And of the Oath therein mentioned I am of Opinion That there is nothing contained in that Oath according to the true Sense thereof But that it is not Lawful to take up Arms against the King or any Authorised by his Commission or for a private Person to endeavour the Alteration of the Monarchical Government in the State or the Government by Bishops in the Church And that any Person notwithstanding the taking of such Oath if he apprehend that the Lay-Judges in Bishop's Courts as to Sentence of Excommunication for Matters meerly Ecclesiastical or for any other Cause ought to be Reformed or that Bishopricks are of too large extent may safely Petition or use any lawful Endeavour for Reformation of the same For that such Petition or other Lawful Endeavour doth not tend to the Alteration of the Government but to the amendment of what shall be found amiss in the Government and Reformed by Lawful Authority and thereby the Government better Established And I conceive every Exposition of the said Oath upon Supposition or Presumption of an Obligation thereby to any thing which is contrary to the Law of God or the Kingdom is an illegal and a forced Exposition contrary to the intent and meaning of the said Oath and Act of Parliament for it is a Rule nullum iniquum est in Lege praesumendium And an Exposition tending to enjoyn any thing contrary to the Law of God would make the Act of Parliament void which ought not to be admitted when it bears a fair and plain Sense which is no more Than that Subjects ought not to take up Arms against their Lawful King or such as lawfully Commissionated by him and for private Persons to be unquiet in the place wherein they live to the disturbance of the Government in Church or State Iohn Fountain Feb. 6.
read against Atheism Sadduceism and Infidelity to prove first the Deity and then the immortality of Man's Soul and then the truth of Christianity and the holy Scripture answering the Infidels Objections against Scripture It is strong and masculine only too tedious for impatient Readers He saith he wrote it only at vacant hours in his Circuits to regulate his meditations finding that while he wrote down what he thought on his thoughts were the easilyer kept close to work and kept in a method and he could after try his former thoughts and make further use of them if they were good But I could not yet persuade him to hear of publishing it The Conference which I had frequently with him mostly about the immortality of the Soul and other Foundation points and Philosophical was so edifying that his very Questions and Objections did help me to more light than other mens solutions Those that take no Men for Religious who frequent not private Meetings c. took him for an Excellently righteous moral Man But I that have heard and read his serious Expressions of the Concernments of Eternity and seen his Love to all good Men and the blamlessness of his Life c. thought better of his Piety than of mine own When the People crowded in and out of my House to hear he openly shewed me so great respect before them at the Door and never spake a word against it as was no small encouragement to the Common People to go on though the other sort muttered that a Judge should seem so far to countenance that which they took to be against the Law He was a great Lamenter of the Extremities of the Times and the violence and foolishness of the predominant Clergy and a great desirer of such abatements as might restore us all to serviceableness and Unity He had got but a very small Estate though he had long the greatest Practice because he would take but little Money and undertake no more business th●n in he could well dispatch He often offered to the Lord Chancellor to resign 〈…〉 when he was blamed for doing that which he supposed was Justice He had been the Learned Selden's intimate friend and one of his Executors And because the Hobbians and other Infidels would have persuaded the World that Selden was of their mind I desired him to tell me truth therein And he assured me that Selden was an earnest Professor of the Christian Faith and so angry an Adversary to Hobbs that he hath rated him out of the Room § 108. This year 1669 the Lord Mayor of London was Sir William Turner a Man Conformable and supposed to be for Prelacy but in his Government he never disturbed the Nonconformable Preachers nor troubled men for their Religion And he so much denyed his own gain and sought the Common good and punished vice and promoted the rebuilding of the City that I never heard nor read of any Lord Mayor who was so much honoured and beloved of the City Insomuch that at the End of his year they chose him again and would have heard of no other but that he absolutely refused it partly as being an usual thing and partly as was said because of a Message from his superiours For the Bishops and Courtiers who took him for their own were most displeased with him § 109. The liberty which was taken by the Nonconformists in London by reason of the plague the fire the connivance of the King and the resolved quietness of the Lord Mayor did set so many Preachers through the Land as is said on the same work that in Likelyhood many thousand Souls are the better for it And the predominant Prelates murmured and feared For they had observed that when serious Godliness goeth up they go down So that they bestirred themselves diligently to save themselves and the Church of England from this dreaded danger § 110. At this time our Parson Dean Rive got this following advantage against me As I had it from his own mouth At Wolverhampton in Staffordshire where he was Dean were abundant of Papists and Violent Formalists Amongst whom was one Brasgirdle an Apthecary who in Conference with Mr. Reignolds an able Preacher there silenced and turned out by his bitter words tempted him into so much indiscretion as to say that the Nonconformists were not so contemptible for Number and Quality as he made them that most of the people were of their mind that Cromwel tho an Usurper had kept up England against the Dutch c. And that he marvelled that he would be so hot against private Meetings when at Acton the Dean suffered them at the next door With this advantage Brasgirdle writeth all this greatly aggravated to the Dean The Dean hastens away with it to the King as if it were the discovery of a Treason Mr. Reignolds is questioned but the Justices of the Country to whom it was referred upon hearing of the business found meer imprudence heightened to a Crime and so released him But before this could be done the King exasperated by the name of Cromwell and other unadvised words as the Dean told me bid him go to the Bishop of London from him and him so to the suppression of my Meeting which was represented to him also as much greater than it was whereupon two Justices were chosen for their turn to do it One Ross of Brainford a Scot before-named and one Phillips a Steward of the A. Bishop of Canterbury § 111 Hereupon Ross and Philips send a Warrant to the Constable to apprehend me and bring me before them to Brainford When I came they shut out all persons from the Room and would not give leave for any one person no not their own Clerk or Servant or the Constable to hear a Word that was said between us Then told me that I was convict of keeping Conventicles contrary to Law and so they would tender me the Oxford Oath I desired my Accusers might come Face to Face and that I might see and speak with the Witnesses that testified that I kept Conventicles contrary to the Law which I denied as far as I understood Law but they would not grant it I pressed that I might speak in the hearing of some Witnesses and not in secret for I supposed that they were my Judges and that their presence and business made the place a place of Judicature where none should be excluded or at least some should be admitted But I could not prevail Had I resolved on silence they were resolved to proceed and I thought a Christian should rather submit to violence and give place to Injuries than stand upon his right when it will give others occasion to account him obstinate I asked them whether I might freely speak for my self and they said yea but when I began to speak still interrupted me and put me by Only they told me that private Meetings had brought us to all our Wars and it tended to raise new Wars and Ross told me
under the Profession of being a Church distinct from the Church of England and neither of these is my Case 2. The Statute of the 35 of Eliz. expoundeth it accordingly charging none of Unlawful Assembling but such as Separate or Communicate not with the Church 3. There is no other Statute that saith otherwise 4. The Rubrick and Law alloweth Conformable Ministers to keep many Religious Assemblies which are not in the Church being but Subordinate as 1. At the Visitation of the Sick where no numbers of Neighbours are prohibited to be present Sermons at the Spittle Sturbridge-Faire c. 2. At private Baptisms 3. At private Communions where any Family hath an impotent Person that cannot Communicate at Church 4. At the Rogation Perambulations where it was usual to Feast at Houses in their way and there for the Minister to instruct the People and to Pray and sing Psalms 5. The Laborious sort of Conformable Ministers have many of them used to repent their Sermons to all that would Assemble at their Houses Which Repeating was as truly Preaching as if they had Preached the same Sermon in several Pulpits Therefore all Meetings besides Church-Meetings are not Conventicles nor those that are in Subordination to them 5. Even the late Expired Act against Conventicles forbiddeth no Religious Exercises but such as are otherwise than the Liturgy or Practice of the Church and distinguishing expresly between the Exercises and the Numbers doth forbid no number when the Exercises are not otherwise as aforesaid tolerating even unlawful Exercises to the number of Four but not to more The Second Proposition That my Meetings were never Unlawful Conventicles is proved 1. I do constantly joyn with the Church in Common Prayer and go at the beginning 2. I Communicate in the Lord's Supper with the Church of England 3. I am no Nonconformist in the Sense of the Law because I Conform as far as the Law requireth me having been in no Ecclesiastical Promotion May 1. 1662. the Law requireth me not to subscribe declare c. till I take a Cure or Lecture c. 4. I sometimes repeat to the Hearers the Sermon which I heard in the Church 5. I exhort the People to Church-Communion and urge them with sufficient Arguments and Preach ordinarily against Separation and Schism and Sedition and Disloyalty 6. I have commanded my Servant to keep my Doors shut at the time of Publick Worship that none may be in my House that while 7. I go into the Church from my House in the Peoples sight that my Example as well as my Doctrine may persuade them 8. In all this I so far prevail that the Neighbours who hear me do commonly go to Church even to the Common-Prayer and I know not three or two of all the Parish that use to come to me who refuse it which success doth shew what it is I do 9. I have long offered the Pastor of the Parish the Dean of Windsor that if he would but tell me that it is his Judgment that I hinder his Success or the People's Good rather than help it I will remove out of the Parish which he never yet hath done 10. I have the Now-Arch-Bishop's License not reversed nor disabled to Preach in the Diocess of London which I may do by Law if I had a Church And I offered the Dean to give over my Meetings in my House if he would permit me to Preach without Hire sometimes occasionally in his Church which I am not disabled to do By all this it appeareth that any Meetings are not Unlawful Conventicles 11. And riotous they are not for my House being just before the Church Door the same Persons go out of the Church into my House and out of my House into the Church so that if one be riotous both must be so And I perform no Exercise at all contrary to the Doctrine or the Practice of the Church but when the Curate readeth only in the Evening and doth not Preach or Catechize when he hath done one part I do the other which he omitteth 2. The Oath cannot be imposed on me because I am none of the three sorts of Offenders there mentioned The first sort in the Act are such as have not Subscribed Declared and Conformed according to the Act of Uniformity and other Acts I am none of them because the Laws require it not of me being as aforesaid in no Church Promotion on May 1. 1662. The second sort are other Persons not Ordained according to the Order of the Church but I am so Ordained The third sort is School-Teachers which is not my Case though I have also a Lice●se to Teach School And that the two Descriptions of the Conventicles in the Preamble are to be the Expositions of the following prohibitous Parts of the Act is plain by the answerable distinction of them And also 1. Because the very Title and plain design of this Act is only to restrain Nonconformists 2. Because the express end and business of it is to preserve People from Seditious and Poisonous Doctrine But the Clergy which are not Nonconformists are not to be supposed to be defamed or suspected by the Laws of Preaching poisonous seditious Doctrine nor can it be imagined that they mean to drive them five Miles from all their Parishes in ●ngland if they should once be at a private Meeting or put the 40 l. Fine on them if they preach one Sermon after such Meeting to their Parishes before they have taken the Oath though no Man offer it them which would follow if it extended to them And I am exempted from the Suspicion of that Preaching 1. By being chosen and Sworn His Majesty's Chaplain in ordinary and Preaching before Him and Publishing my Sermons by His Special Commands and never since accused of ill Doctrine but the sharpest Debates written against Nonconformists do quarrel with them for quarrelling with my Doctrine 2. Some think the words have kept in the Act refer to the time past before the Act and then 't is nothing to me 3. Should I not have been Convict in my presence of some one unlawful Conventicle and of not departing after five Miles from the place for how should I be bound to forsake my Dwelling as an Offender before I knew of my Offence Lastly I told the Justices That I did not refuse the Oath but professed that I understood it not and desired time to learn to understand it if I could which they denyed me and would neither tell me who were my Accusers or Witnesses nor shew me the Words of the Accusation or Depositions nor suffer any Person but us three themselves and me to be at all present or to hear any thing that was said by them or me And though I shall never take Oaths which I cannot possibly understand nor in a Sense which is contrary to the plain importance of the Words till they are so expounded nor shall ever number deliberate Lying or Perjury with things indifferent yet
I so far defie any Accuser who will question my Loyalty that as I have taken the Oaths of Supremacy and of Allegiance and a special Oath of Fidelity when I was Sworn I know not why as His Majesty's Servant so I am ready to give a much fulle● signification of my Loyalty than that Oath if I had taken it would be And to own all that is said for the Power of Kings and of the Subject's Obedience and Non-resistance by any or all the Councils and Confessions of any Christian Churches upon Earth whether Greeks or Romans Reformed Episcopal Presbyterian or any that are fit to be owned as Christians that ever came to my notice besides what is contained in the Laws of our own Land And if this will not serve I shall patiently wait in my Appeal to the Un-erring Universal Judgment § 123. 2. In other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or Practice of the Church of England At which Conventicle Meeting or Assembly there should be Five Persons or more Assembled over and above those of the Houshold Pos. 1. To Preach or Teach in a House not Consecrated for a Temple is not contrary to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England Arg. 1. That which the Scripture expresly alloweth is not contrary to the Liturgy and Practice of the Church of England But to Preach and Teach even Multitudes in Houses and other places not so Consecrated the Scripture expresly alloweth Ergo. The Major is proved 1. Because the Book of Ordination requireth that all that are Ordained shall promise to Instruct the People out of the Holy Scripture being persuaded that they contain sufficiently all Doctrine required of Necessity to Salvation and to teach no other And with all Faithful Diligence to banish all Doctrines contrary to God's Word And to use both publick and private Monitions and Exhortations as well to the Sick as to the whole as need shall require and occasion shall be given 2 The same Sufficiency of the Scripture is asserted in the 6th Article of the Church And Article 20. bindeth us to hold That it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing contrary to God's written Word So Art 21. more 3. The said Scriptures are appointed by the Rubrick to be read as the Word of God himself 4. The Law of the Land declareth That nothing shall be taken for Law which is contrary to the Word of God 5. The First and Second Homily shew the sufficiency of it and necessity to all Men. The Minor is proved 1. from Acts 20. 20. 7 8 28. last 8. 4 25 35. 10. 34. 12. 12. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Mat. 5. 1 2. Mark 2. 13. 10. 1. Luke 5. 3. 13. 26. 2. From those Texts which command Christ's Ministers to Preach and not forbear Therefore if they be forbidden to Preach in the Temples they must do it elsewhere Iohn 21. 15 16 17. 1 Cor. 9. 16. Acts 4. 18 19 20. 2 Tim. 4. 1 2. Luke 9. 62. 3. From the Expository Practice of the Church in all Ages 4. From the Expository Practice of the Universal Church of England who Preached in Houses in the time of their late Restraint by Cromwel Arg. 2. The Church of England bindeth Ministers to Teach both publickly and privately in their Ordination as afore recited 2. In the Liturgy for the Visitation and Communion of the Sick it alloweth private Exhortation Prayer and Sacraments 3. The 13 Canon requireth that the Lord's Day and other Holy-Days be spent in publick and private Prayers And the very Canon 71. which most restraineth us from Preaching and Administring the Sacrament in private Houses doth expresly except Times of necessity when any is so impotent as he cannot go to Church or dangerously sick c. 4. The instructing of our Families and Praying with them is not disallowed by the Church And I my self have a Family and Persons impotent therein who cannot go to Church to Teach Arg. 3. The 76 Can. condemneth every Minister who voluntarily relinquisheth his Ministry and liveth as a Lay-Man Ergo We must forbear no more of the Ministerial Work than is forbidden us Pos. 2. The number of Persons present above Four cannot be meant by this Act as that which maketh the Religious Exercise to be in other manner than allowed by the Liturgy or Practise of the Church Arg. 1. Because the manner of the Exercise and the number of Persons are most expresly distinguished And the restraint of the number is expresly affixed only to them who shall use such unallowed manner of Religious Exercises not medling at all with others The Words at which Conventicle c. do shew the Meeting to be before described by the manner of Exercise Otherwise the Words would be worse than Non-sense 2. Because if the Words be not so interpreted then they must condemn all our Church Meetings for having above four As if they had said where Five are met it is contrary to the Liturgy of the Church which cannot be If it be said That for above Four to meet in a House is not allowed by the Church I Answer 1. That is a Matter which this Act meddleth not with as is proved by the foresaid distinguishing the manner of Exercise from the number of Persons 2. Nor doth the Act speak of private Houses or put any difference between them and Churches but equally restraineth Meetings in Churches which are for disallowed Exercises of Religion 3. Nor is it true in it self that the Church disalloweth the number of Five in private Houses as is proved before But it contrarily requireth that at private Communions there shall be Neighbours got to Communicate and not fewer than three or two And at private Baptisms and other occasions the number is not limited by the Church at all 3. Because the Act is directed only against seditious Sectaries and their Conventicles 4. Because the Words of the Act shew that the Law-makers concur with the sence of the Church of England which is no where so strict against Nonconformity as in the Canons And in these Canons viz. 73 and 11. A Conventicle is purposely and plainly descibed to be such other Meetings Assemblies or Congregations than are by the Laws held and allowed which challenge to themselves the Name of true and lawful Churches Or else secret Meetings of Priests or Ministers to consult upon any matter or course to be taken by them or upon their motion or direction by any other which may any way tend to the impeachment or depriving of the Doctrine of the Church of England or the book of Common-Prayer or of any part of the Government and Discipline of the Church So that where there is no such Consultation of Ministers nor no Assemblies that challenge to themselves the Name of true and Lawful Churches distinct from the allowed Assemblies there are no Conventicles in the sence of the Canons of the Church of England which this Act professeth to
the loss of one Grain of Love was worse than a long Imprisonment And that it much more concerned us to be sure that we deserved not Suffering than that we be delivered from it and to see that we wronged not our Superiours than that they wrong not us seeing we are not near so much hurt by their Severities as we are by our Sins Some told me that they hoped this would make me stand a little further from the Prelates and their Worship than I had done To whom I answered That I wondred that they should think that a Prison should change my Judgment I rather thought now it was my Duty to set a stricter watch upon my Passions lest they should pervert my Judgment and carry me into Extreams in opposition to my Afflictors And not past a Year and half after two Gentlemen turned Quakers in Prison If Passion made me lose my Love or my Religion the loss would be my own And Truth did not change because I was in a Goal The temper of my Visitors called me much to this kind of talk § 126. When I was in Prison the Lord Chief Baron at the Table at Serjeant's Inn before the rest of the Judges gave such a Character of me openly without fear of any Man's displeasure as is not fit for me to own or recite who was so much reverenced by the rest who were every one Strangers to me save by hear-say that I believe it much settled their Resolutions The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan was no Friend to Nonconformity or Puritans but he had been one of Selden's Executors and so Judge Hale's old Acquaintance Judge Tyrell was a well-affected sober Man and Serjeant Fountain's Brother-in-Law by Marriage and sometime his Fellow-Commissioner for keeping the Great Seal and Chancery Judge Archer was one that privately favoured Religious People And Judge Wild though greatly for the Prelates way yet was noted for a Righteous Man And these were the Four Judges of the Court. § 127. My Habeas Corpus being demanded at the Common Pleas was granted and a Day appointed for my Appearance But when I came the Judges I believe having not before studied the Oxford-Act when Judge Wild had first said I hope you will not use to trouble this Court with such Causes asked whether the King's Council had been acquainted with the Case and seen the Order of the Court which being denied I was remanded back to Prison and a new Day set They suffered me not to stand at the Bar but called me up on the Table which was an unusual respect and they sent me not to the Fleet as is usual but to the same Prison which was a greater favour § 128. When I came next the Lord Chief Justice coming towards Westminster Hall went into White-Hall by the way which caused much talk among the People When he came Judge Wild began and having shewed that he was no Friend to Conventicles opened the Act a●d then opened many defaults in the Mittimus for which he pronounced it invalid but in Civility to the Justices said that the Act was so Penned that it was a very hard thing to draw up a Mittimus by it which was no Compliment to the Parliament Judge Archer next spake largely against the Mittimus without any word of disparagement to the main Cause And so did Judge Tyrell after him I will not be so t●dious as to recite their Arguments Judge Vaughan concluded in the same manner but with these two Singularities above the rest 1. That he made it an Error in the Mittimus that the Witnesses were not named seeing that the Oxford-Act giving the Justices so great a power if the Witnesses be unknown any innocent Person may be laid in Prison and shall never know where or against whom to seek remedy which was a Matter of great moment 2. When he had done with the Cause he made a Speech to the People and told them That by the apperance he perceived that this was a Cause of as great Expectation as had been before them and it being usual with People to carry away things by the halves and their misreports might mislead others he therefore acquainted them That though he understood that Mr. Baxter was a Man of great Learning and of a good Life yet he having this singularity the Law was against Conventicles and it was only upon the Error of the Warrant that he was released and that they use in their Charge at Assizes to enquire after Conventicles and they are against the Law so that if they that made the Mittimus had but known how to make it they could not have delivered him nor can do it for him on any that shall so transgress the Law This was supposed to be that which was resolved on at White-Hall by the way But he had never heard what I had to say in the main Cause to prove my self no Transgressor of the Law Nor did he at all tell them how to know what a Conventicle is which the Common Law is so much against § 129. Being discharged of my Imprisonment my Sufferings began for I had there better Health than I had of a long time before or after I had now more exasperated the Authors of my Imprisonment I was not at all acquit as to the main Cause they might ame●d their Mittimus and lay me in again I knew no way how to bring my main Cause whether they had power to put the Oxford-Oath on me to a legal Tryal And my Counsellors advised me not to do it much less to question the Justices for false Imprisonment lest I were born down by power I had now a great House of great Rent on my Hands which I must not come to I had no House to dwell in I knew not what to do with all my Goods and Family I must go out of Middlesex I must not come within five Miles of City Corporation c. where to find such a place and therein a House and how to remove my Goods thither and what to do with my House the while till my time expired were more trouble than my quiet Prison by far and the Consequents yet worse § 130. Gratitude commandeth me to tell the World who were my Benefactors in my Imprisonment and Calumny as much obligeth me because it is said among some that I was 〈◊〉 by it Serjeant Fountain's general Counsel ruled me Mr. Wallop and Mr. Offley sent me their Counsel and would take nothing Of four Serjeants that pleaded my Cause two of them Serjeant Windham afterwards Baron of the Exchequer and Serjeant Sise would take nothing Sir Iohn Bernard a Person that I never saw but once sent me no less than Twenty Pieces and the Countess of 〈◊〉 Ten Pound And Alderman Bard Five and I received no more but I confess more was offered me which I refused and more would have been but that they knew I needed it not And this much defrayed my Law and Prison Charges § 131. When
Constitutive Essential Part of the Kingdom But we are not willing accordingly to Swear Subscribe or Covenant to every petty Officer in the Kingdom nor to approve of every Law Custom or Exercise of Government in it tho we would live peaceably under what we approve not And if a Law were made that he shall be Banished as an Overthrower or Vnderminer of the Government who would not so Covenant or Subscribe Houses and Lands would be cheaper than they are and the King have fewer Subjects than he hath For I am not acquainted with one Conscionable Man that I think would Subscribe it And why should all the King's Subjects be bound more strictly to the Human Part of Church Government than of State or Civil Government and to approve of Lay-Chancellours than of Civil Officers Or of the matter of Canons than of Civil and Common and Statute Laws 3. If it be a Crime to know it is a Crime to Iudge or to use our Reason and Observation If it be not it is no Crime for us to know that Clergy-Pride imposing a multitude of things small and doubtful on the Churches as the Conditions of Ministry and Communion and forcing Magistrates Ministers and People to consent to many unnecessary things in their Humane part of Government Liturgies and Ceremonies hath been so great an Engin of Schism and Blood and Confusions in the Roman Church as assureth us that it is no desirable thing that by us any thing like it should be consented to 4. And it is no Crime in us to be sure that if Subscribing to all the present Church-Government Liturgy and Ceremonies be the thing that shall be necessary to our Ministry and Union and Communion our present Dissentions and Divisions will not be healed unless by Killing or Banishing the Dissenters and as Tertullian speaketh Making solitude and calling it Peace 1. Prop. His Majesty's Subjects Legal Commission any other of his Subjects Stic c Deleatur Answ. 1. We did not think that it had been your meaning that we must make our selves Judges of the Case not only of all his Majestie 's Subjects but of all others in the World If the Judges will give it us under their Hands that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever for the Subjects of any Prince on Earth to take Arms against any King of England or any Commissioned by him or that it is not possible for any War against us in any Age on any pretense whatever to be Lawful or else that they are sure that all the Kingdoms on Earth are so Constituted as that no where any Subjects may on any pretence take Arms against their Kings we shall accordingly submit to their Judgment But seeing Papists and Protestants Lawyers and Divines even Monarchical and Conformable say the contrary it were not modesty in us that are ignorant of Matters of Law to say that they are all mistaken till we are instructed to know it to be so For our parts we must profess our selves not acquainted with the Constitution of every Kingdom in the World 2. If Legal must be obliterated we shall our selves quietly submit to the Exercise accordingly and suffer from any one that saith he is Commissioned to hurt us if it be required of us But we are not skill'd in Law and thefore cannot say that all others are bound to do the like To deal plainly seeing Legal must be obliterated we understand not what the word Commission meaneth Whether it must have the King 's Broad-seal or the Lesser-seal or his Name only Whether the Commission and Seal must be shewed to those that are not to resist or proved to be Currant and how But that which causeth us to forbear subscribing is 1. We have taken the Oath of Allegiance and think that the King's Subjects are bound to defend his Life Crown and Dignity And we fear left by this the Lord Chancellour if not others may have power at his Pleasure to Depose the King that is to Seal Commissions to Confederates to take Possession of all his Navy Forts Garrisons Arms if not his House and Person and no man must resist them 2. We are not certain that a Commission can Repeal all that Law of Nature who obligeth a Man to preserve the Life of his Parents or Children or Neighbour We have not indeed any reason to fear that our King should grant such a Commission But who can deny but that it 's possible for some King or other to do it And seeing we know not when a Commission is counterfeit if two or three men come to my House and say they have a Commission to Kill my Father Mother Wife and Children and my self and shew it or if they Assault me and my Company on the High-way and shew a Commission to take our Purses and Kill us we are not sure that God will excuse us from the Duty of defending the Lives of our Parents Children and Friends Or if half a dozen should come to the Parliament and shew a Commission presently to kill them all or Burn the City and Kill all the Citizens or Kingdom we are not wise enough to know that neither Parliament City nor Kingdom may resist them And we find Parliaments so conceited that they have Propriety in Life and Goods and that none may at pleasure take them away and lay Taxes without their consent and that we fear if we should plainly say that whatever Taxes are laid or Estates or Goods or Persons seiz'd on or Decrees of Judges rejected by such Execution it were unlawful for the Sheriff or any others to resist they would trouble us for so saying And if an Admiral General or Lieutenant should be made by Act of Parliament Durante Vita and Authorized to resist any that would dispossess him we are not so Wise as to know whether he may not resist one to whom the Chancellour Sealeth a Commission to dispossess him And though we are confident that the Person of the King is inviolable yet if King Iohn did deliver up his Kingdom to the Pope we are not sure that the Kingdom might not have resisted any of the Pope's or any Foreign Prince's Agents if they had been Commissioned by the King to seize upon the Kingdom Or that no Subjects of any Foreign Prince may be resisted if they should come against us by such a Commission Had we the Judgment of the Judges in this Case we should submit as far as any reason could require us But tho we justify not Barclay Grotius Bishop Bilson and others of the contrary mind we must confess our selves not wise enough to Condemn them 1. Prop. Nor by any other unlawful means to endeavour Reformation Stric d Deleatur Vnlawful Ans. 1. Here we may see how many minds the Conformists are of or how unjustly all that I have debated the Case of Subscription with do affirm That by not endeavouring any Alteration is meant only not endeavouring by unlawful meanst which is here contradicted by a
dare not desert it lest we shortly appear before our Judge in the guilt of sacriledge perfidiousness against Christ and the people's Souls But we are forbiden to exercise it unless we will do that which we profess as Men that are passing to our final Doom we would readily do were it not for fear of God's displeasure and our Damnation Deprivation of all Ministerial maintenance with heavy Mulcts on such as have not money to pay and long Imprisonments in the Common Goals with Malefactors and banishment to those that shall survive them and that into remote parts of the World were the penalties appointed for us by your Laws Voluminous reproaches are published against us in which our Superiours and the World are told that we hold that things indifferent are made unlawful by the Commands of lawful Governours and that we are guilty of Doctrines inconsistent with the Peace and Safety of Societies and that we are moved by Pride and Covetousness as if we were proud of Men's Scorn and covetous of sordid Want and Beggery and ambitious of a Gaol and that we are Unpeaceable Disloyal Odious and Intolerable Persons Lest we should seem over-querulous and our Petitions themselves should prove offensive we have been silent under Twelve years sufferings by which divers Learned and holy Divines have been hastened home to Glory hoping that Experience would have effectually spoken for us when we may not Speak for our selves And did we believe that our own pressures were the greatest consequent Evil and that the People's knowledge and piety and the allowed Ministers Number sufficiency and Diligence were such as made our Labours needless and that the History of our Silence and Sufferings would be the future Honour of this Age and the future Comfort of your Souls and theirs that instigate you against us before our Common Judge we would joyfully be silent and accept of a Dismission But being certain of the contrary we do this once adventure humbly to tender to Your Majesty and Your Parliament these following Requests 1. Because God saith That he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not Eternal Life We humbly crave leave once to Print and Publish the true State and Reasons of our Nonconformity to the World to save Mens Souls from the guilt of unjust Hatred and Calumny And if we err we may be helped to Repentance by a Confutation and the Notoriety of our shame 2. That in the mean time this Honourable House will appoint a Committee to consider of the best means for the Healing our Calamitous Divisions before whom we may have leave at last to speak for our selves 3. That these annexed Professions of our Religion and Loyalty may be received as from Men that better know their own Minds than their Accusers do and who if they durst deliberately Lie should be no Nonconformists 4. That if yet we must suffer as Malefactors we may be punished but as Drunkards and Fornicators are with some Penalty which will consist with our Preaching Christ's Gospel and that shall not reach to the hurt or danger of many Thousand Innocent People's Souls till the Re-building of the Burnt-Churches the lessening of great Parishes where one of very many cannot hear and worship God and till the quality and number of the Conformable Ministers and the knowledge piety and sobriety of the people have truly made our Labours needless and then we shall gladly obey your Silencing Commands And whereas there are commonly reckoned to be in the Parishes without the Walls above Two hundred thousand persons more than can come within the Parish Churches they may not be compelled in a Christian Land to live as Atheists and worse than Infidels and Heathens who in their manner publickly worship God The Profession of our Religion I A. B. Do willingly profess my continued resolved consent to the Covenant of Christianity which I made in my Baptism with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost forsaking the Devil the World and the sinful Lusts of the Flesh And I profess my Belief of the Ancient Christian Creeds called The Apostles The Nicene and The Constantinopolitane and the Doctrine of the Blessed Trinity fullier opened in that ascribed to Athanasius And my Consent to The Lord's Prayer as the Summary of Holy Desires and to The Decalogue with Christ's Institutions as the Summary Rule of Christian Practice And to all the Holy Canonical Scriptures as the Word of God And to the Doctrine of the Church of England professed in the 39 Articles of Religion as in sence agreeable to the Word of God And I renounce all Heresies or Errours contrary to any of these And I do hold that the Book of Common Prayer and of Bishops Priests and Deacons containeth in it nothing so disagreeable to the Word of God as maketh it unlawful to live in the Peaceable Communion of the Church that useth it The Profession of our Loyalty and Obedience I do willingly and without Equivocation and Deceit take the Oaths of Allegiance and the King's Supremacy and hold my self obliged to perform them I detest all Doctrines and Practices of Rebellion and Sedition I hold it unlawful for any of His Majesty's Subjects upon any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against the King His Person Authority Dignity or Rights or against any Authorized by his Laws or Commissions And that there is no Obligation on me or any other of his Subjects from the Oath Commonly called The Solemn League and Covenant to endeavour any change of the present Government of these His Majesty's Kingdoms nor to endeavour any Reformation of the Church by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means The Overplus as a remedy against Suspicion We believe and willingly embrace all that is written in the Holy Scriptures for the power of Kings and the Obedience of their Subjects and the sinfulness of Rebellion and Resistance And concerning the same we consent to as much as is found in any General Council or in the Confession of any Christian Church on Earth not respecting Obedience to the Pope which ever yet came to our knowledg or as is owned by the Consent of the Greater part of Divines Politicians Lawyers or Historians in the Christain World as far as our Reading hath acquainted us therewith II. To the King 's most Excellent Majesty The Humble Petition of some Citizens of London on the behalf of this City and the Adjoyning Parishes Sheweth THat the Calamitous Fire 1666 with our Houses and Goods Burnt down near 90 Churches few of which are yet Re-edifyed And divers Parishes whose Churches yet stand are so great that it is but a small part of the Inhabitants that can there hear whereby great Numbers are left in ignorance and as a prey to Papists and other Seducers and which is worse to Atheism Infidelity and Irreligiousness And if many of their ancient ejected silenced Pastors who for refusing certain Subscriptions Declarations Promises Oaths and Practices are called Nonconformists had not through
Kingdom is to Heaven § 291. When I understood that the design was to ruin me by heaping up Convictions before I was heard to speak for my self I went to Sir Thomas Davis and told him that I undertook to prove that I broke not the Law and desired him that he would pass no Judgment till I had spoke for my self before my Accusers But I found him so ignorant of the Law as to be fully perswaded that if the Informers did but swear in general that I kept an unlawful meeting in Pretence of a Religious Exercise in other manner than according to the Liturgy and practice of the Church of England he was bound to take this general Oath for Proof and to record a Judgment and so that the Accusers were indeed the Judges and not he I told him that any Lawyer would soon tell him the contrary and that he was Judge whether by particular Proof they made good their general Accusation as it is in case a Man be accused of Felony or Treason it is not enough that Men swear that he is a Felon or Traytor they must name what his Fact was and prove him guilty And I was at charge in Feeing Counsellors to convince him and others and yet I could not perswade him out of his mistake I told him that if this were so any two such Fellows might defame and bring to Fines and Punishment himself and all the Magistrates and Parliament-Men themselves and all that meet in the Parish-Churches and Men had no Remedy At last he told me that he would consult with other Aldermen at the Sessions and they would go one way When the Sessions came I went to Guild-Hall and again desired him that I might be heard before I was Judged But though the other Aldermen save two or three were against such doings I could not prevail with him but professing great Kindness he then laid all on Sir Iohn Howell the Recorder saying that it was his Judgment and he must follow his Advice I desired him and Sir Thomas Allen that they would desire of the Recorder that I might be heard before I was Judged and that if it must pass by his Judgment that he would hear me speak But I could not procure it the Recorder would not speak with me When I saw their Resolution I told Sir Thomas Davis if I might not be heard I would record to Posterity the injustice of his Judgment and Record But I perceived that he had already made the Record but not yet given it in to the Sessions At last upon Consultation with his Leaders he granted me a hearing and three of the Informers met me at his House that had sworn against me I told them my particular Case and asked them what made my Preaching a Breach of that Law and how they proved their Accusation They first said Because I Preached in an unconsecrated Place I told them 1. That the Act only laid it on the manner of the Exercise which the Place was nothing to And 2. That it was the Practice of the Church of England to Preach in unconsecrated Places as at Sturbridge-Fair at the Spittle at Whitchall-Court and many such like They next said Because I am a Nonconformist I easily convinced them that I am not a Nonconformist in Law-sence but in the same case with a Conformist that hath no Benefice whatever I am in conscience the Law obliging me to no more than I do And if I were that is nothing to the manner of the exercise Their last and great proof was that I used not the Common Prayer I undertook to prove to them that Law commandeth the use of the Common Prayer only in Church Meetings and not in every other subordinate or by-Meeting for Religious Exercises such as ours was And that it was not the sense of the Act that Conformable persons that Communicate in the Liturgy with the Parish Churches should be judged Conventiclers whenever above four of them joyned in a Religious Exercise without the Liturgy For else all Tutors in the University should be punishable and all School-masters that teach their Scholars and pray with them if above 16 years of age and they that instruct Prisoners at Newgate and they that exhort and pray and sing Psalms with them at the Gallows with many such Instances We ought not to judge so uncharitably of King and Parliament unconstrained as to think that they would allow Multitudes to meet at a Play-house a Musick-house a horse-race a Bear-baiting or Dancing or any game and allow many to meet at a Coffee-house Ale-house or Tavern or in any private house and do on pain of utter ruine only forbid Conformable persons to joyn more than four in singing a Psalm or reading a Chapter or a Licensed book or in praying together or Conference tending to Religious Edification In Summ they confest they could not Answer me nor prove their charge but they still believed that I was guilty The Justice was so far from thinking that they proved it that he motioned to them to Retract their Oaths or else still he thought that he must condemn me They denyed to do that and said That the Bishop assured them That it was a Conventicle and I was guilty I desired them if it must all lie upon the Bishop that I might Speak with them to the Bishop for my self They told me That it was the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and they were all just now going to him and promised to bring me word when I might Speak with him But I heard no more of them of that But the Justice retracted not his Judgment but delayed a Month or more to give out his Warrant to distrein though I daily look when they take my books for they will find but little else Though both Justice and Accusers have before witness confessed that they cannot prove me guilty but one professeth to go on the belief of the Recorder and the other of the Archbishop § 292. But God hath more mercy on these ignorant Informers than on the Pharisaical Instigators of them For those repent but no Prelate save one that I hear of doth repent One of them that ●●ore against me went the next Fast to Redrif● to Mr. Rosewell's Church where a Fast was kept where hearing three Ministers pray and preach his heart was melted and with Tears he lamented his former course and particularly his Accusing me and seemeth resolved for a new reformed Course of Life and is retired from his former Company to that end And a third the chief of the Informers lately in the Streets with great kindness to me professed that he would meddle no more coming by when a half distracted Fellow had Struck me on the head with his Staff and furiously reviled at me for Preaching with the titles of Rogue Villain Hypocrite Traytor c. as the Prelatists and Papists often do § 293. The Parliament meeting Apr. 13. they fell first on the D. of Lauderdale renewing their desire to
Hostility is Disunion and Dissolution Therefore no Head or Soveraign hath power to destroy or sight against his Kingdom nor any Common-wealth or Kingdom against their King or Soveraign Rulers unless in any case the Law of Nature and Nations which is above all Humane Positive Laws should make the dissolution of the Republick to become a Duty As if some Republick should cast off the Essential Principles of Society By Law neither King nor Kingdom may destroy or hurt each other For the Governing Laws suppose their Union as the Constitution and the Common good with the due Welfare of the Soveraign is the end of Government which none have power against But it must be noted that the words are against the King and not against the King's Will for if his Will be against his Welfare his Kingdom or his Laws though that Will be signified by his Commissioners the Declaration disclaimeth not the resisting of such a Will by Arms. 3. And if there be any that assert that the King's Authority giveth them right to take up Arms against his Person or Lawful Commissions it must needs be a False and Traiterous Assertion For if his Person may be Hostilely fought against the Common-wealth may be dissolved which the Law cannot suppose for all Laws die with the Common-wealth And it is a contradiction to be authorized by him to resist by Arms his Commissions which are according to Law For the Authority pretended to be his must be his Laws or Commissions and to be Authorized by his Laws or Commissions to resist his Laws must signifie that his Laws are contradictory when by one we must resist another But so far as they are contradictory both cannot be Laws or Lawful Commissions For one of them must needs nullifie the other either by Fundamental Priority or by Posteriority signifying a Repeal of the other And it must be noted that yet the Trayterous Position medleth not with the Question of taking Arms against the King's Person or Commissioners by the Law of God of Nature or of Nations but only of doing it by his own Authority 4. And that it is not lawful to take Arms against any Commissioned by him according to Law in time of Rebellion and War in pursuance of such Commission is a Truth so evident that no sober Persons can deny it The Long Parliament that had the War did vehemently assert it and therefore gave out their Commissions to the Earl of Essex and his Soldiers to fight against Delinquent Subjects for the King and Parliament 5. And the Oath containeth no more than our not endeavouring to Alter the Protestant Religion established or the King's Government or Monarchy It cannot with any true reason be supposed to tie us at all to the Bishops-much less to the English Disease or Corruption of Episcopacy or to Lay-Chancel lours c. but only to the King as Supreme in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil so far as they fall under Coercive Government This is thus proved past denyal 1. The word Protestant Religion as estalished in the Church of England cannot include the Prelacy For 1. The Protestant Religion is essentially nothing but the Christian Religion as such with the disclaiming of Popery aud so our Divines have still professed But our Prelacy is no part of the Christian Religion 2. The Protestant Religion is common to us with many Countreys which have no Prelacy And it is the same Religion with us and them 3. The words of the Oath distinguish the Religion of the Church of England from the Church of England it self and from Government 4. If Episcopacy in general were proved part of the Protestant Religion the English Accidents and Corruptions are not so They that say that Episcopacy is Iure Divino and unalterable do yet say that National and Provincial Churches are Iure Humano and that so is a Diocesane as it is distinct from Parochial containing many Parishes in it And if the King should set up a Bishop in every Market-Town yea every Parish and put down Diocesanes it is no more than what he may do And if by the Protestant Religion established should be meant every alterable mode or circumstance then King-James changed it when he made a new Translation of the Bible and both he and our late Convocation and King and Parliament by their Advice did change it when they added new Forms of Prayer And then this Oath bindeth all from endeavouring to make any alteration in the Liturgie or mend the Translation or the Metre of the Psalms c. or to take the keys of Excommunication and Absolution out of the hands of the Lay-Chancellour's c. which none can reasonably suppose 2. And that our Prelacy is not at all included in the word Government of the Kingdom in Church and State but only the King 's Supreme Government in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil is most evident 1. Because it is expressly said The Government of the Kingdom which is all one with the Government of the King For a Bishop or a Justice or a Mayor is no Governour of the Kingdom but only in the Kingdom of a Particular Church City Corporation or Division The summa potestas only is the Government of the Kingdom as a Kingdom And because forma denominat we cannot take the Kingdom to signifie only a Church or City 2. Because else it would change the very constitution of the Kingdom by making all the inferiour Officers unalterable and so to be essential constitutive parts Whereas only the pars Imperans and pars Subdita are constitutive parts of every Kingdom or Republick and the Constitutive pars Imperans is only the summa potestas except where the mixture and fundamental Contract is such as that Inferiour Officers are woven so into the Constitution as that they may not be changed without it's Dissolution which is hardly to be supposed even at Venice Tbe Oaths between the summa potestas and the Subject are the bonds of the Commonwealth their Union being the form that must not be dissolved But to make Oaths of Allegiance or Unchangeableness ●each to the Inferiour Magistrates or Officers is to change the Government or Constitution 3. And so it destroyeth the Regal power in one of it's chief properties or prerogatives which is to alter inferiour Officers who all receive their power from the Supreme and are alterable by him even by the Majestas which hath the Legislative powers And this would take away all the King's power to alter so much as a Mayor Justice or Constable For mark that Government of the Kingdom in Church and State are set equally together without any note of difference as to alteration If therefore it extend to any but the Supreme even to inferiour Officers it were to extend to them as Governing the State even to the lowest as well as the Church But this is a supposition to be Contemned 4. And if the Distinction should be meant de personis Imperantibus and should
years importuned me to let him Print it 1. The sharp execution of the Law had then brought Multitudes into Prison and Poverty 2. Nonconformists both Presbyterians and Independents had taken the Corporation Oath and Declaration and Communicated in the Parish Churches for to make them capable of Trust and Office in the City And because it se●m'd to tend to their protection and advantage we heard of no noise made against them by the Independents but they admitted them as their Members to their Communion as before I was against their taking the Declaration but not against their Communicating but I medled not with them At last when the Earl of Shaftsbury was broken and gone and the City Power and Common Council subdued to the will of the King the foresaid Communion in publick was more freely blamed by the Independents and Anabaptists and some few hot Scots Men. And the private Church Meetings were so much supprest and the prisons so full that my Conscience began to tell me that I should be guilty of injuring the truth the Church and the Souls and Bodily welfare of my brethren if I should by silence harden them against publick worship Specially the Case of the Countrey moved me wherein a great part of the Kingdom scarce two hundred men in a whole Country can have the liberty of any true Church Worship besides Parochial I remembred the Case of the Old Nonconformists against the Brownists and the Writings of Mr. I. Ball Paget Hildersham Bradshaw Gifford Brightman Ames c. I could not but remember what work the separating party had made in England and Scotland in my days from 1644. till 1660 against Government Religion and Concord I saw what I long foresaw each extreme party growing more extreme and going further still from one another And so great a Change is grown on London that the Terms which we offered the Bishops for Concord 1660 are now abhorred as Antichristian I saw multitudes like to be Imprisoned and Ruined for refusing their Duty as if it were sin and disgracing Religion by fathering these Errours on it The Conformists seeing the Errour of the Separatists derided them all and were confirmed in the Justification of all their Conformity thinking that it was but a just differing from a crazed Company of Fanaticks Those that imprisoned and ruined both them and the rest of the Nonconformists thought they did God service by it against an unruly sort of Men The Common people were made believe that this was the true Complexion of all the Dissenters from whatever the Law Commanded The distance growing wider and great sufferings increasing hard thoughts of those by whom Men suffered all real Love did seem to be almost utterly destroyed and Neighbours dwelt together like unplacable Enemies And worst of all Men were frightened to think that they must rather give over all Church Worship than they must Communicate with the best Ministry in the Parish Churches and so the main body of the Land would live like Atheists who can have no other Church-Worship but the Parochial For the Nonconformists Churches were in almost all Countries so suppressed that no considerable Numbers could enjoy them And by this means the Papists were like to have their Wills The Protestants must be told that Recusancy is all their Duties And going to the Publick Churches a sin And who can for shame drive Papists to sin And if thus they could draw all Protestants to forsake the said Churches they would like a deserted City and Garrison'd Fort be open and ready for their possession And while the Papists and Malignants are studying how to cast out all the Godly Conforming Ministers that the Ductile remainder might be prepared for Popery the separating part of the Independents and Anabaptists and some few hot Scotch Presbyterians go before them and tell all the People that it is unlawful to hear them and to own them as Ministers or Churches and to have Communion with them in the Liturgy or Sacraments Even when the rigour of Prosecutors hath brought it to that pass that they must have such or none as to Church worship Seeing so many in prison for this Error to the dishonour of God and so many more like to be ruin'd by it and the separating party by the temptation of suffering had so far prevailed with the most strict and zealous Christians that a great Number were of their mind and the Non-conformable Ministers whose Judgment was against this separation durst not publish their dislike of it partly because of sharp and bitter Censures of the Separatists and who took them for Apostates or Carnal Temporizers that communicated in publick and partly for fear of Encouraging Persecution against the Separatists and partly for fear of losing all opportunity of teaching them and some that had no hope of any other friends or maintenance or Auditors thought they might be silent On all these accounts I that had no gathered Church nor lived on the Contribution of any such and was going out of the world in pain and Languor did think that I was fittest to bear men's Censures and to take that reproach on my self which my brethren were less fit to bear who might live for farther Service And at the Importunity of the Bookseller I consented to publish the Reasons of my Communicating in the Parish-Churches and against Separation Which when it was coming out a Manuscript of Dr. Owen's who was lately dead containing Twelve Arguments against such joyning with the Liturgie and publick Churches was sent me as that which had satisfyed Multitude I thought that if this were unanswered my labour would be much lost because that party would still say Dr. Owen's Twelve Arguments confuted all Whereupon I hastily answered them but found after that it had been more prudent to have omitted his Name For on that account a swarm of revilers in the City poured out their keenest Censures and three or four wrote against me whom I answered I will not name the men that are known and two of them are yet unknown But they went on several Prineiples some Charged all Communion with the Liturgie with Idolatry Antichristianity and perjury and backsliding One concealed his Judgment and quarrel'd at by-words And another turned my Treatise of Episcopacy against me and said it fully proved the Duty of Separation I was glad that hereby I was called to explain that Treatise lest it should do hurt to mistakers when I am dead and that as in it I had said much against one extream I might leave my Testimony against the other I called all these writings together a Defence of Catholick Communion And that I might be Impartial I adjoyned two piece against Dr. Sherlock that ran quite into the contrary Extreames unchurching almost all Christians as Schismaticks I confess I wrote so sharply against him as must needs be liable to blame with those that know not the man and his former and latter Virulent and ignorant Writings § 81. About this time
separare se debet nec se ad sacrilegi sacerdotis Sacraficia miscere 4. If the Case may be so plain who the Person is that God would have as that there is no room for a Controversy about it then it may possibly be determined by the meer Light of the Law without a Judge But the Case may be so plain Ergo The Antecedent is proved thus When these things following visibly concur then the case is so plain 1. When the Person is visibly qualified with Abilities and Piety and a Righteous Conversation to Men. 2. When he hath a Will to it 3. When he hath Opportunity as having Liberty from secular Power Proximity a known Language Vacancy from other Engagements and Employments of more necessity c. 4. When the Peoples Hearts are moved towards him 5. And when there is no Competitor or none who equalleth him or not so many but that all may be chosen when these concur there is no controversy who should be the Man if you say there may be many such and who knows then which to choose I Answer 1. Congregations should have many Pastors ordinarily 2. Providence answereth that Objection for me It is exceeding hard to find half enough that are competent God hath not given his Church more than they need but contrarily there is need of many more than he hath given It is therefore all Mens Duties that have Ability and Opportunity to be Preachers if they be not taken up with Employments of greater use to the Church as Secular Rulers often are but they must seek an orderly admission where it is possible and not be their own Judges of their fitness where there are other Judges of God's appointment Christ bids us to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth Labourers into the Harvest because the Harvest is great and the Labourers few It is visibly true in a great measure to this day what we must pray for that we must endeavour that the Labourers may in Number be proportioned to the Work and we are like to have use for that Prayer still 3. It is not always that there are too many so apparently fit And therefore at least when it is not so the determination of the Individual Person is easie 4. As the Bishops Determination of one among many is valid so is the Determination of others in case of Necessity The Law of Nature and well ordered Common-wealths doth require that every Ignorant Man that thinks himself Skilful should not play the Physician least he kill Men nor the School-master least he delude and corrupt them And therefore that there should be some able Men appointed to try and judge who are fit before they are admitted I think God's Law of Nature requireth this as evidently as the written Law requireth that none be Ministers without Ecclesiastical Ordination or Approbation and in case there be many of equal fitness all must be admitted except they be too many which is not seen there neither for Nature multiplieth not the most noble Parts as it doth the the Fingers or the Hairs c. And if there be too many the Judges must Determine who shall be the Man Yet the same Law of God in nature doth as evidently teach that if either the Tryers and Judges be all dead or gone or enviously resolve to approve of none but such as are Ignorant or Wicked that would Poyson and Kill the People it is Lawful and the indispensible Duty of such as are able to offer themselves for Practise to the People without the Judges Consent rather then the Pestilence should sweep them away for want of a Remedy And there hath scarce yet been sound such an Enemy to Mankind that would forbid such Men to save Mens Lives for want of Approbation Or if there were many at once in an Infected City that were thus able they would rather let all Practise that have opportunity or let the People go to whom they please then to forbid all under pretence of the difficulty of discerning the fittest As scarce any thing is more Inhumane against Nature then to prefer a Commission or other Formality or point of Order before Mens Lives and Common Good which is finis Reipublicae so it is yet more Inhumane as well as Unchristian and against the evident Law of Nature and the main scope of Christ's Merciful Doctrine and Example who often neglected Formalities to save Mens Lives and Souls though to the Displeasure of t●t is Pharises for a Man to prefer a Formality or point of Order before the Saving ●as Mens Souls and the publick Good and Safety of the Church but of this before 5. If in case of the want of a lawful Magistrate or of such as they may lawfully use for Judgments the People may determine of an individual Person whom God shall Authorize though Scripture Name no Individual of this Age then they may do so also in regard of the Ministry But the former is true Ergo 1. Else we should have no Magistrates in the World scarce but by violent instrusion which is worse than popular Election 2. 1 Cor. 6. 1 2 3 4 5. Paul would have the Corinthians to choose some of the Church of the Saints to judge between man and man concerning the things of this Life whereabout they were wont to go to Law before Heathen Judges This is plainly to the Office of a Magistrate at least quoad partem Iudicialem tho not quoad violentam executionem They were to choose a wise Man that should be able to judge between his Brethren verse 5. The consequence is grounded on this that the Scripture meddles no more with the Individuals for Magistracy then for Ministry nor gives ordinarily the power of choosing Soveraigns to the People in the Common-wealth then the Power of Ordaining Ministers to the People of a particular Church and the People may determine of one as well though not so easily as of the other but I spoke somewhat of this also before to another Point I have transgressed the limits of the part of a Respondent on this point 1. Because I know it is Light and not Formality of Proceeding that you expect though it be formality before Light and Safety that you plead for 2. Because I know that the whole stress of your Cause lyeth on this Point and I doubt not to say that if I answer you well in this one Argument which you make your Second I easily carry the whole Cause To what you add concerning Authority I confess that it is not the same thing with Fitness c. but I say it may be conveyed sine vicariis Episcopis 2. I deny that any Church-Guides are in point of Government vicarii Christi They are nearest it as Nuncii and so may Beseech and Require in Christ's Name and Stead but they are no more his vicarii then the Magistrate is of the Soveraign They are not Pro-reges nor do they represent his Person They have not
that it 's necessary Necessitate praecepti and if you will Necessitate medii if you speak not of absolute Necessity ad esse Ordinationis but a lower Necessity as of a mutable means and ad bene esse Do you think this is good arguing The Holy Ghost hath revealed it to be the Will of Christ that a Bishop must be blameless and having faithful Children and be not soon angry Tit. 1. 6 7. One that ruleth well his own House having his Children in subjection with all Gravity 1 Tim. 3. 4 5 6. Ergo It is essential to a Bishop to have faithful Children to be blameless not to be soon angry c. O what an Interruption then is made in the Succession or is this good arguing It is the Will of Christ that a Christian should not speak an Idle Word Ergo He that speaks an idle Word is not a Christian Next you suppose your self questioned How you know that it was Christ's Mind and Will that Imposition of Hands should be used in the Ordination of Ministers and you confess 1. That you have neither express nor implicite Command for it 2. But conclude that Christ's Mind may be otherwise known I confess I like this Passage worse than all the rest of your Writing 1. I can find both implicite and in a large sense explicite Commands for it in the Word of God 1 Tim. 5. 22. Heb. 6. 2. 1 Tim. 4. 14. at least an implicite that is unquestionably plain 2. If you had confessed as readily only this that there was no Word of God implicite or explicite to prove the Essentiality of Imposition of Hands to Ordination then I should have believed you But you will needs do more and do much to destroy the very Duty of Imposition while you are pleading it so essential so unhappy are extream Courses and so sure a way is overdoing to undoing Yet with me you give up the Cause of the supposed Essentiality in disclaiming Scripture Precept implicite 3. I perceive it is your Judgment that there are Duties essential to Ordination and consequently without which in your Judgment there is no Ministry and no Church which have no Command in Scripture no not so much as implicite And consequently that Scripture is not God's only Word for revealing supernaturally or his sufficient Law for obliging to Duties of universal standing necessity but he hath another Word called Tradition which revealeth one part of his Mind as the Scripture doth the other and another Law obliging as aforesaid This is the great Master Difference between the Reformed Churches and the Romanists of which so much is said by Whittaker Chamier Baronius and Multitudes more that it 's meerly vain for me to meddle with it For I take it for granted that you would not venture to disclaim the Reformed Churches in this Point till you had well read the chief of their Writers That were to venture your Peace and Safety to save you a Labour At least I hope you have read Chillingworth Yet I must tell you that some moderate Papists confess that the written Word containeth all things of absolute necessity to Salvation but I doubt you do not so for I think you will say that ordinarily there is no Salvation without the Church and Ministry and no Ministry without Ordination and no Ordination without Imposition of Hands and no Imposition of Hands by any Scripture Command so much as implicite Yea it seems you take not up this Course on any strongly-apparent Necessity when such Cases as this will put you on it and you are so willing to make the Scripture silent where it speaks plainly that you may prove a necessity of another Word I do confess the necessity of Tradition to deliver us safe the Scripture it self the Cabinet with the Treasure and the certainty of Tradition in seconding Scripture by handing down to us the Articles of our C●eed and Substance of Christianity in and against which the Church 〈…〉 in sensu composito because so erring unchurcheth it But this will not 〈…〉 necessity of another Law besides the written Law for it is opus subordina●●●● 〈…〉 not the part of a Law nor belongs to it's sufficiency to publish pro 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 conserve it self But it belongs to it's Sufficiency to contain all the standing matter of Duty in Specie where the Species is permanently due and in genere only with Directions for determining of the Species when the said Species is of uncertain unconstant mutable Dueness He that faith a Duty of so great and standing necessity is not so much as implicitely commanded in Scripture doth plainly say that besides the Scripture which is insufficient God hath either another more perfect Law for Supernaturals or else another part to add to the Scripture to make it perfect Your Addition mollifieth the Matter in Terms but I doubt scarce in Sense for when you say that the Texts where Imposition of Hands is spoken of commented upon by the universal Practice of the Church from the first Age till this wild exorbitant last Century seems a clear Evidence what the Will of Christ is c. I very much like the Words and Sense which they in propriety express viz. That in a Matter of Fact where Scripture is obscure the Practice of the first second or third Centuries may be an excellent Commentary that is a help to understand them much more the Practice of the universal Church in all Ages But I must tell you that it is not the Work of a Commentary on the Laws expresly to add such Precepts about matters of such very great Concernment as is the very being of the Republick which are neither expresly or implicitly in the Law it self I must judge therefore that you make the Churches Practice a real Law though you thought meet to give it but the Title of a Comment And I scarce approve of your comparative Terms of the Centuries as bad as this is What! hath this Century which hath been the only reforming Age been worse than that before it whose Corruptions it reformed and worse than that of which Bellarmine saith Hoc seculo nullum extitit indoctius vel infoelicius quo qui Mathematicae aut Philosophiae operam dabat Magus vulgo putabatur and that of which Espencaeus saith that Graecè nosce suspectum fuerit Hebraicum propè Haereticum What worse than the four or five foregoing Centuries wherein Murderers Traytors common Whoremongers Sodomites Hereticks were the pretended Heads of the Church and grosly ignorant superstitious and wicked ones were the conspicuous part of the Body Will you appeal from this Century to those Did you not even now confess that it is admirably worth our Consideration that when God stirred up the drowzy World to depart from Rome's Superstitions and Idolatries he bowed the Hearts of some of the Church-Officers to go along with them Rome then was idolatrous We departed from it God stirred Men up and bowed their Hearts thereto I confess you
poor Plowmen understood but little of these Matters but a little would stir up their Discontent when Money was demanded But it was the more intelligent part of the Nation that were the great Complainers Insomuch that some of them denied to pay the Ship-money and put the Sheriffs to distrain the Sheriffs though afraid of a future Parliament yet did it in obedience to the King Mr. Hampden and the Lord Say brought it to a Suit where Mr. Oliver St. Iohn and other ●Lawyers boldly pleaded the Peoples Cause The King had before called all the Judges to give their Opinions Whether in a Case of need he might impose such a Tax or not And all of them gave their Opinion for the Affirmative except Judge Hatton and Judge Crook The Judgment passed for the King against Mr. Hampden But this made the Matter much more talk of throughout the Land and considered of by those that thought not much of the Importance of it before § 25. Some suspected that many of the Nobility of England did secretly Consederate with the Scots so far as to encourage them to come into England thinking that there was no other way to cause the Calling of a Parliament which was the thing that now they bent their minds to as the Remedy of these things The Earl of Essex the Earl of Warwick the Earl of Bedford the Earl of Clare the Earl of Bullingbrook the Earl of Mulgrave the Earl of Holland the Lord Say the Lord Brook and I know not how many more were said to be of this Con●ederacy But Heylin himself hath more truly given you the History of this That the Scots after they came in did perswade these Men of their own danger in England if Arbitrary Government went on and so they petitioned the King for a Parliament which was all their Consederacy and this was after their second Coming into England The Scots came with an Army and the King's Army met them near Newcastle but the Scots came on till an Agreement was made and a Parliament called and the Scots went home again But shortly after this Parliament so displeased the King that he Dissolved it and the War against the Scots was again undertaken to which besides others the Papists by the Queens means did voluntarily contribute whereupon the Scots complain of evil Counsels and Papists as the cause of their renewed dangers and again raise an Army and come into England And the English at York petition the King for a Parliament and once more it is resolved on and an Agreement made but neither the Scottish or English Army disbanded And thus began the Long Parliament as it was after called § 26. The Et caetera Oath was the first thing that threatned me at Bridgenorth and the second was the passage of the Earl of Bridgwater Lord President of the Marches of Wales through the Town in his Journey from Ludlow to the King in the North For his coming being on Saturday Evening the most malicious persons of the Town went to him and told him that Mr. Madestard and I did not sign with the Cross nor wear the Surplice nor pray against the Scots who were then upon their Entrance into England and for which we had no Command from the King but a printed Form of Prayer from the Bishops The Lord President told them That he would himself come to Church on the morrow and see whether we would do these things or not Mr. Madestard went away and left Mr. Swain the Reader and my self in the danger But after he had spoken for his Dinner and was ready to go to Church the Lord President suddenly changed his purpose and went away on the Lord's Day as far as Lichfield requiring the Accusers and the Bailiffs to send after him to inform him what we did On the Lord's Day at Evening they sent after him to Lichfield to tell him that we did not conform but though they boasted of no less than the hanging of us they received no other Answer from him but that he had not the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and therefore could not meddle with us but if he had he should take such order in the business as were fit And the Bailiffs and Accusers had no more wit than to read his Letter to me that I might know how they were baffled Thus I continued in my Liberty of preaching the Gospel at Bridgenorth about a year and three quarters where I took my Liberty though with very little Maintenance to be a very great mercy to me in those troublesome times § 27. The Parliament being sate did presently fall on that which they accounted Reformation of Church and State and which greatly displeased the King as well as the Bishops They made many long and vehement Speeches against the Ship-money and against the Judges that gave their Judgment for it and against the Et caetera Oath and the Bishops and Convocation that were the formers of it but especially against the Lord Thomas Wentworth Lord Deputy of Ireland and Dr. Laud Archbishop of Canterbury as the evil Counsellers who were said to be the Cause of all These Speeches were many of them printed and greedily bought up throughout the Land especially the Lord Falklands the Lord Digbies Mr. Grimstones Mr. Pims Mr. Nath. Fiennes c. which greatly increased the Peoples Apprehension of their Danger and inclined them to think hardly of the King's Proceedings but especially of the Bishops Particular Articles of Accusation were brought in against the Lord Deputy the Archbishop the Judges Bishop Wren Bishop Pierce and divers others The Concord of this Parliament consisted not in the Unanimity of the Persons for they were of several Tempers as to Matters of Religion but in the Complication of the Interest of those Causes which they severally did most concern themselves in For as the King had at once imposed the Ship-money on the Common-wealth and permitted the Bishops to impose upon the Church their displeasing Articles and bowing towards the Altar and the Book for Dancing on the Lord's Day and the Liturgy on Scotland c. and to Suspend or Silence abundance of Ministers that were conformable for want of this Super-canonical Conformity so accordingly the Parliament consisted of two sorts of Men who by the Conjunction of these Causes were united in their Votes and Endeavours for a Reformation One Party made no great matter of these Alterations in the Church but they said That if Parliaments were once down and our Propriety gone and Arbitrary Government set up and Law subjected to the Prince's Will we were then all Slaves and this they made a thing intolerable for the remedying of which they said every true English Man could think no price to dear These the People called Good Commonwealth's Men. The other sort were the more Religious Men who were also sensible of all these things but were much more sensible of the Interest of Religion and these most inveyed against the Innovations in the