shall spend the day as the Lords-day or have any publick communion with the Church And they are apter to be sensible of this calamity themselves than the Objectors are 6. And I must add also that as London is the most populous place so it hath the greatest number of true Separatists and Sectaries and the sounder part are not responsible for their actions 12 Obj. But with what conscience do you come into Cities Corporations or within five miles of them or of your former Preachingplaces Doth God bid you preach just here And how do your scruples engage you thus to break the Laws Ans. Even with such a Conscience as we Preach in England when the Scripture nameth not England to us Did not the ancient Christians also disobey a lawful power when they setled their Churches in Cities even when they were forbidden both City and Country and if Christ say VVhen they persecute you in one city fly to another and you bid us fly from all and fly to none Hath not a Nonconformists Conscience something of the command of Christ to countenance his practice But our true Reasons are the same as are forementioned for our Preaching If necessity be upon us to Preach because of the peoples necessity to hear then where their necessity is greatest there our obligation is greatest But in populous Cities and Towns when the ablest conformable Minister is insufficient for a quarter of the Parish the peoples necessities are greatest Ergo If it be lawful for us to desert and betray to Satan the souls of all the Cities and Corporations in England and within five miles of them and of all the places where we have Preached why will it not be lawful to do so by the rest VVhere the carcass is the eagles will be gathered together and where the work and Vineyard is the labourer must be And all good men love the publick good and therefore will chuse those places for their labour caeteris paribus which the publick good doth most depend on Especially if the people of their ancient charge live there and they think that their relation to them is not dissolved And I must profess that few of the passages of this generation do more astonish me with dread and wonder than to think that City-Pastors who have so vast a charge and so much more need of help than the Country yea men of reputed learning sobriety and piety should ever be desirous to take this burden wholly on themselves and should be the forwardest to drive away assistants yea and make it a sin to preach to those souls that they know they cannot preach to themselves Yea that the same men that one year have much ado to satisfie their own consciences to conform and think they speed well if with Conformity they can but keep up some reputation of honesty yet the next year make so great a progress as to question his honesty that will not sacrilegiously renounce his Ministry and are the forwardest to put down all Preaching save their own Do the Pastors themselves no better know the Parish bounds and the peoples wants or the worth of souls What then can we expect from others Obj. But it is not your help but your hindering us that we are against Do you help us by drawing the people from us to your selves Ans. I cannot tell whether we help you or not till I know what is your help If your work be not to get followers and applause but to bring men to Christian knowledg faith love obedience and patience then all the Ministers that I plead for are you helpers those that are not silence them and spare not But if your work be to preach up your selves and your successes be reckoned by your applause I cannot tell whether we help you or not For though we seek to increase your reputation with the people yet it is not as you are self-seekers but as in charity we hope you preach more for Christ and mens Salvation than for your selves 13 Obj. But what you before denied of the Magistrate you cannot deny of the Church The Church calleth you and giveth you your power Therefore it may take it from you And so Mr. Rathband confesseth and the old Nonconformists practised Ans. 1. The Church is an ambiguous word If you mean the Bishops all those whom you call to be re-ordained deny that ever the Bishops gave them their power 2. And it was One Bishop who ordained each of the rest or two at most who are both dead and cannot take away what they gave 3. I have answered this before and more largely in my Dispute of Ordination Men give us not our Power at all as from themselves but as Servants of Christ invest them solemnly to whom he giveth it And a servant cannot dispossess him whom by his Masters Orders he hath invested 4. You give us our Baptism and Matrimony as truly as our Ministry And yet you cannot take them from us 5. But indeed if the Church that is the People refuse us we cannot teach and edifie them against their wills 6. And if one Bishop silence us he doth it but as exercising Government in his Diocess and it followeth not that we are silenced in all others 7. And they that dissent from our Diocesan frame of Prelacy do not much reverence their Governing Spiritual Power And if the Kings prohibition bind them not against their Conscience of Gods obligations to be silent much less will yours 8. No Bishops have silenced us by Spiritual Government that we know of but only as Barons by the Secular Laws to which they gave their Votes which yet all did not How then are we obliged by their Power of the Keys to be silent For my part I have one or two of their Licenses never re-called or nulled 9. If a Bishop should silence him under pretence of Government and Order whom God obligeth to preach as much as I have before proved that we are obliged it were ipso facto null as to our Consciences as being against the Laws of God 10. He that is silenced in every Bishops Diocess is not yet thereby degraded but is still a Minister to the world at least for their conversion For those without the Infidels and Heathens are of no Bishops Diocess And it 's a question whether those among us that openly renounce the Prelacy and declare themselves to be none of their Church are yet indeed members of their Church whether they will or not We believe not that a Law of the Land doth make any man a Church-member without his own consent If you think otherwise why distinguish you the Sons of the Church from others If all the people of London be not the Sons or members of your Church the rest are not under your Pastoral Spiritual Government And as for your Secular Power enough is said of that before And I think no man will say that the extent of your Diocess to many hundred Parishes is a
ever it be the question only VVhether this man or that man be fittest to have his countenance and maintenance and to be by him allowed to preach when only one of the two is needful we shall never speak against him for chusing according to his judgment as long as meer hereticks impious or intollerably unable ones are not chosen But if many hundred worthy Ministers shall be forbidden to Preach at a time and in a Land where many hundred thousand souls do wofully cry out for help as lying in damnable ignorance and sensuality and ungodliness in this case we say that no Rulers may forbid such Preaching 3. The Objectors seem to intimate dangerous Doctrine that if a King should not be a Christian or of the right Religion he lost his power over the Church which is false however maintained by the Papists The Heathen and Infidel Rulers had the Government of all their Subjects Christians and Apostles as well as others They wanted aptitude to do it well and therefore some of them persecuted But they wanted not Authority a King loseth not his Authority when ever he loseth his aptitude to use it rightly Christian Kings only can rule the Church well but others also are its authorized Rulers and there is no external coactive power at all but in the Kings or Magistrates be they Christian or Infidel 4. Christ himself did not set up a Kingdom of this world or worldly nor exempt himself from the Government of the Rulers Nor did his Apostles exempt themselves or the Church Paul Rom. 13 c. and Peter call on all Christians to honour the King and to be subject to the higher powers for conscience sake Mark then in this how little our case doth differ from the Apostles when they were forbidden to preach not by Usurpers only but by lawful Rulers to whom they professed conscientious subjection and yet must obey God rather than those very Rulers 5. Christian Rulers are the Churches nursing Fathers and have more obligation than others to build it up but no more power to pull it down They have all their power as Paul had his For edification and not for destruction It was never referred to them to judg as I have before said whether there shall be a Church or a Christ or a Ministry or whether souls shall be saved or damned or the Gospel Preached where it is necessary to Salvation or not But only by whom and in what order which best furthereth mens Salvation it shall be Preached If a Magistrate as a Magistrate may not forbid necessary Preaching much less may a Christian Magistrate as Christian who is more obliged to promote it This therefore altereth not the case 6. The Sanhedrin and Herod and other Jewish Rulers had such real Authority as Christ did not disown of the same nature with Jehoshaphats and Hezekiahs If therefore these were not to be obeyed when they forbad necessary Preaching then lawful Rulers in that case are not to be obeyed 7. The Arrian Emperours had lawful Power of coactive Government over the Church and yet the Orthodox Bishops never thought it their duty to cease Preaching in Conscience of obeying their commands Though they were forced oft to quit their present Stations Let not any Cainite here say that I compare our Rulers to Arrians For I only argue that if an Arrian Emperour had true Authority and yet when he thus abused it was not to be obeyed by forbearing to Preach the same must be said of others that have authority in case of the like Prohibitions 8. Christ setled Pastors over his Churches 300 years before there were any Christian Princes or States By which he shewed that though Princes are the true Rulers of Pastors yet Pastors are more necessary to the Being of the Church and to Salvation of the people than Princes are and that Pastors hold not their office from Princes nor at their will unless you think they had no true power till Constantines reign 9. Magistrates may not hinder a sufficient number from entering into the Ministry else the meaning of Christ must be Pray the Lord of the harvest to perswade Kings and Rulers to give leave to men to become labourers Therefore they may not hinder a sufficient number from labouring when they are entered 10. Magistrates cannot dispense with absolute lawful Vows to God at least about necessary duty This all Protestant Divines maintain in their Writings against the Papists who plead for the Popes power to dispense with Vows But our enterance into the Ministry had the nature of an absolute lawful Vow and was done by the Magistrates encouragement For in it we did solemnly devote our selves to the Sacred office and work 11. Magistrates are Christs Officers and Servants and have no power but from him and for him as the Justice and Constable are under the King Therefore they have no power against him Therefore they have no power to forbid the necessary Preaching of the Gospel and where it is not necessary we confess their power 12. If the Magistrate might degrade Ministers or absolutely forbid their work then it would follow that one Prince hath the Government of all other Princes Dominions or else that all Princes on earth must agree to the degrading of a Minister For it is fully proved by Divines of all parties except some of the Independents that Ministers at their Ordination are as Christians at their Baptism entered into a Relation to the Universal Church and not only to one particular Church And therefore he that is removed from one Church or Kingdom is not removed from the Ministerial office which continueth as towards an indefinite object Yea we are first in order of nature related to the unconverted world as we have capacity Go teach all Nations baptizing them will be Christs Law to the end of the world And if they cannot degrade they cannot take away the power of exercising the office statedly but only suspend it for a time or limit the exercise or regulate it by their governing power on just occasions and governing an office is not nullifying or destroying it Obj But if the Magistrate may suspend them and deny them liberty in his dominions then it is he and not every Minister that is to judg who deserveth such restraint 1. If you speak of publick judgment which is the publick decision of a controverted cause no doubt it is only the Magistrate that is Judg in foro civili No Pastor may enter into the Judgment seat and judg his own cause But if you speak of a private judgment of discerning every mans reason is the discerner of his own duty for he cannot do it without discerning it 2. The Magistrate is to judg publickly but not as he list as left to his own will but as an officer of Christ under the regulation of his Laws as our Judges are regulated by the Kings Laws The King may judg between an Infidel and a Christian whether Christ be the
Divine Institution obliging all mens consciences to obey you that shall come within that circuit of ground you will ascribe this extent of your power to the King and Laws of which more in due place And as to the old Nonconformists they forbore the Temples and publick maintenance and so do we And I am sure they used to preach in private as well as we yea and in the Churches when they thought it brought no great inconvenience by offence Mr. Hildersham Mr. Nichols and abundance more did preach in publick after they were forbidden and silenced till execution hindered them as well as Law And Mr. Nichols Mr. Langley Mr. Bromskill and many more when they were driven from one place would preach where they found opportunity in another And Mr. Herring was wont privately to preach in Shrewsbury as his most credible friends and hearers told me And indeed the far greatest part of the Nonconformists that ever I knew had publick liberty in some small peculiar for most of their time if not by connivence in greater places So had Mr. Knewstubs Ash Slater Root Ball Barnet Gilpin and many more And yet we as well as Mr. Rathband will submit to a suspension or prohibition of authority when it is but an act of Order and Government of just authority and not a notorious subversion of the thing Ordered or the End and Gods Laws and mens necessities oblige us not to the contrary The Papists hold that a Father may not keep his Son from taking Orders If the Bishops were our Fathers then they could not hinder us from the faithful exercise of what we have undertaken 14 Obj. The Reason why you are against Bishops is because you cannot be Bishops your selves And why was it that you so long demurred on the matter before you refused them when some had such offers Did it not shew that you had a mind of them Ans. The first half of this charge was given in the Pulpit to my face when no Minister or Nonconformist else was present The other is the Debate-makers in sense And seeing I am personally concerned in the matter my answer must be historical accordingly Will not all sober by-standers think that we have very hard measure and have to do with a strange generation When they shall know that Bishopricks were offered us without seeking directly or indirectly and refused with as much modesty as we could use and after all are denied not only the place of the poorest Curates but even all liberty to Preach for nothing to the rudest poorest Inhabitants of the Land and yet after all this to be told that we are against Bishops because we could not be Bishops our selves O happy Christians that must be finally judged by a more righteous Judg If you say that you mean it of those that never had such offers why should you not rather judg of them by us that were tryed than boldly judg that of them which they were never tryed in and of which it is impossible for you to have knowledge But the later objector telleth us whom he speaketh of To whom I must say There were but five or six Nonconformists of all England that ever I heard of that had any Church-Dignities offered them since his Majesties Restoration And of these but three that had Bishopricks offered them which were Dr. Edward Reignolds Mr. Calamy and my self And of these three I refused it the next day or next save one after the first offer of it by the Lord Chancellor for private overtures by inferiors before I answered with as much refusal as was fit to such uncertain offerers Dr. Reignolds in a very short time accepted Only Mr. Calamy delayed And if Dr. Bates and Dr. Manton who were offered Deanries as they said for I am certain of no offer but my own did delay their refusal it was on the same account And the true Reason of Mr. Calamies delay which few men knew better than my self was because perhaps he would have accepted a Bishoprick as altered by the Kings Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs and to be used according to that Declaration but not according to the ancient Laws and Customs of the Land and Church though of this much he was unresolved Therefore he being uncertain whether the Kings Declaration would stand or pass into a Law he delayed to see the certainty And when he saw that the Declaration was dead and Prelacy was what it was before he refused it And Dr. Reignolds professed to me to accept it but on the terms of that Declaration Now I would put two questions to the Justice of the Debater 1. Whether he do well to mention our refusing of Bishopricks at all which we our selves so studiously silence There is now no Refuser living but my self And I must profess that to this day I have been so careful to silence it that I do not believe there are many men if any alive that ever heard me mention it unless in answer to some one that askt me about it or in confutation of some such aspersions as these And my reason was because I apprehend it to favour of Ingratitude and disingenous carriage to my Rulers If they shall offer me preferment and I should boast how I refused it it would seem a casting it in their faces with unthankfulness and contempt And no man can say that ever I was so unworthy and few have ever heard me mention it And yet we cannot be quiet for accusers but if we say nothing such men will Q. 2. Whether candor or justice would without any distinction perswade the world that we had a mind of preferments and therefore so long delayed whereof only three men that had the offer of Bishops one refused in a day or two and the other presently accepted And the one that delayed with the two about Deaneries were known to do it that they might know first whether the Kings Declaration would pass into a Law or be cast by And if you proceed to intimate that we refused but for fear of losing our party I know no mans heart but my own and I will help you by some evidence to know it in this matter 1. Upon the offers by inferior agents that first were made to me my neighbour Ministers in Worcestershire having some knowledge of it concurred in a Letter to me neither perswading nor disswading me but thinking me the fittest judg assured me that if I accepted it they should be so far from censuring me for it as rather to believe that it would be for good c. 2. When I refused it being wary what men might after say I did it in writing in a Letter to the Lord Chanceller giving him those Reasons that did content him viz. If the Kings Declaration were established though I wisht a perfecter frame of Discipline than it reciteth yet I was so glad of that much that I took it to be my duty to promote our Concord with all my power upon that foundation
And I knew that if I were no Bishop my self I could far more effectually perswade men to Conformity than if I were And this was the reason I gave of my refusal But if the Kings Declaration should not be ratified as I verily did believe it would not I knew if I took a Bishoprick I must quickly leave it And then it was better refuse it at the first And this being our case methinks I might refer the judgment of it even to the Censurer himself whose civility to my self through the rest of his Debate I do acknowledge 15 Obj. If the King must change or relax his Laws as oft as men will be scrupulous or discontented there will be no setledness consistency or order Your tender Consciences are but tender heads And soft-headed people must be Rulers of us all if we must change as oft as their weakness will desire it Ans. You cannot think that when you talk at this rate the readers and hearers can be all so simple as not to understand that your words only signifie that you stand on the higher ground and not that you have the better cause For 1. you were not only importuned before these Laws were made to have done your part for a more universal Concord but you were also Commissioned by the King under his Broad Seal to consult for the making such alterations in the Liturgy as were necessary to satisfie tender Consciences When instead of so doing you have made the burden heavier than before And is this a fit plea for men that before the new Laws and Impositions had so much power and opportunity to have prevented the matter of our grievance and were so long importuned to it in vain to talk afterward of the inconvenience of changing or relaxing Laws 2. Have the Nonconformists so often changed their cause that you should be put to talk of so frequent change of Laws Do you not tell them that their arguments and exceptions are but the same that have been answered to their predecessors long ago If their cause be the same one alteration since the first Imposition of Conformity would have served their turn If after the troubles or differences at Frank ford they had been brought to an agreement by mutual accesses and concessions what need any more as to the Nonconformists to this day 3. Who were the Changers when you put your new clauses into the Liturgy as the doctrine of Baptized Infants salvation without distinguishing of them that were baptized Rightfully or without right c. If all the new Oaths Subscriptions and Declarations be imposed by your advice surely it was you that were in that the Changers Changes then will do well and be laudable when they serve your ends but they are dangerous when they are against your minds What changes doth Thorndike plead for 4. When the New Canons and Oath were made 1640 and when Rails and Altars were set up and bowing towards the Altar recommended there was no danger in these changes But if an Oath or Subscription of seven years age be abated how dangerous would such changes be 5. The Kings Majesty when he published his Declaration about Ecclesiastical affairs did not take those changes there made to be so dangerous Nor did the Commons in Parliament who gave him thanks for that Declaration We may know then by that much whence the noise of danger cometh 6. If a needless Subscription or a Ceremony have burdened so many and considerable Subjects an hundred years and more and if the calamitous attempts of change that have been made unlawfully in the Land have been occasioned by mens differences about those things and if they are still the burden of so many as are now against Conformity Let impartial persons then be judges whether the removing of those troublesome unnecessary burdens were not the likest means imaginable to prevent any more ill attempts of change 7. Is there any thing in the world that you think unlawful No doubt there is Suppose that one thing were by a Law imposed on you would you think that a change of that Law would be a dangerous thing and would you exclaim against it as now you do What if King Charles I. his Concessions in his restraint in the Isle of Wight had past into a Law as they had if the Parliament had not suddenly been broken and that Episcopacy had received as great a change as was then intended in those Concessions Would you have taken the rescinding of all these Laws for a dangerous change 16 Obj. It is obedience that beseemeth tender consciences Disobedience is as the sin of witchcraft And would you have any countenance you in so great a sin If Subjects must have the Laws changed instead of obeying them they will be Rulers and not Subjects Why are you not more tender of offending and disobeying your Governours Ans. 1. Are not you and we agreed that God is the chief Ruler and to be first obeyed and no man against him but only under him In this sure we do not differ To disobey God is as the sin of witchcraft and obedience to him is better than sacrifice And when it is only our obedience to God that maketh us disobey any Governours judge whether we were not more chargeable with disobedience if we obeyed men and disobeyed God We have no reason to cast our selves under all your reproach and so much suffering but only to avoid disobedience to God And when our costliest obedience must go for odious disobedience and if we disobey God to please men it would go for obeeience what remedy but to wait for a more righteous judgment where obedience and disobedience will be better known 2. Again I ask Is there any Oath that you dare not take any thing that you dare not subscribe to and declare any thing that in Gods worship you durst not use Suppose that one thing were imposed on you would you Conform to it or not If you were but put to subscribe all to the truth of Dr. Hammonds opinion that there were no Presbyters but Bishops in the Scripture-times and that no Church then was bigger than one Bishop with his Deacons did efficiate with would not some part of you scruple subscribing to it If any one thing or word which you judge unlawful to be done or subscribed were put on you by a Law would not you then be the Nonconformists And were it not as easie then to declaim against your Disobedience and Nonconformity as it is now for you to do it against ours Might not Volumes as plausibly be written to shew the mischief of Subjects disobedience and quarrelling with the Laws and being judges of what is unlawful And might not you be as largely characterized as a stubborn unquiet people as we are by you now So that all this still doth only tell us that you are got up in the highest seat from whence you have advantage to look down with scorn upon those that are more fearful
of mercy as Preaching the Gospel is Though they were as maliciously and petulantly affected toward them v. 16. as was possible yet had they nothing to object or except against the whole action But Peter and John made light of their interdict or terrours and told them plainly that they were commanded by God to preach and that in all reason God must be obeyed before them or the greatest Magistrate on earth and that they themselves could not but confess so much And so not knowing what else to say to them being not able to deny the force of their argument they wanted our new wits they added more threatnings if possibly they might terrifie them and so dismiss'd them having nothing to lay to their charge And if Mr. Middlesly in Lancashire had brought out the many thousand people converted by him which Dr. Ames mentioneth had it not been a silencing argument against his silencer as well as the Cure of a lame man here was And on 1 Thess. 2. 15 16. It being unreasonable that they which have cast off obedience to God should persecute all men that come to tell them of their duty And this generally is the ground of their quarrel to us that in spight of their prohibition we preach to the Gentiles use means that they might repent of their Idolatries c. By which and the former things the Jews do so fill up the measure of their sins that the wrath of God to the utter destruction of them is now come out upon them already denounced and within a very little while most certain to overtake them I apply it no further than to tell you that if you will still chuse our Suffering as more desirable than our Preaching the Gospel of Christ your arms will sooner be tired with striking than faithful Ministers will be tired with Sufferings and you will be sooner a weary of smiting with the Sword than they will be with preaching the Word under all your pressures And when your nets have taken only the Greater fishes the lesser fry will all get through and become more numerous and in time as Great as those you took and will make the vanity of your trade apparent and make you one day wish that you had left such nets and with Peter and them have been fishers of men to win them rather than to destroy them 26. Obj. But Castellanus his objection against Bicot elsewhere cited out of Scaliger is their greatest strength who said Aristotle was against Monarchy Here they may borrow that by deceiving which by disputing they could not prove The Counterminor and many others like minded endeavour to make Rulers and people believe that it is Rebellion that is in our hearts and that it is only the renouncing of a Rebellious Covenant that we stick at and the Renouncing of Subjects taking arms against the King and any commissioned by him and therefore the silencing of such as cherish the principles of Rebellion is necessary And they think that this Oven gapeth so wide and is so hot that here they may boldly challenge our answer Ans. If men have any remnants of justice and modesty left they shall be constrained to confess that my Answer to this Objection is satisfactory I. I take that man to be an enemy to God to Kings and to Mankind who will maintain that there is any such thing in the world as a lawful unlimited Monarchy or humane Power and therefore wonder that Bishop Morley did put the denial of this among the accused passages of my Political Aphorisms where I expresly speak of Gods Limitation 1. He is an enemy to God that asserteth this because he thereby denieth God to be the Universal Soveraign who hath made Laws for all Kings who are all his Subjects and as they are finite receive but a finite power from him It is Atheism to deny Gods Soveraignty Hath not God forbidden Kings Idolatry Perjury Blasphemy Murder Tyranny Oppression Adultery c 2. He is an enemy to Kings who will render them odious to mankind by drawing such a picture or description of them as to say A King is one that is absolutely unlimited in his power and therefore may deny or blaspheme God and may destroy City and Kingdom and kill all the innocent people when he please 3. He is an enemy to Mankind that would bring them into such slavery under such a Monster and tell them If your King send but a few Commissioned executioners to command all your Heads and murder Senate City and Countrey Parents and Children and burn up all your dwellings neither the Law of Nature or of the Land will allow you to defend your selves against them Who will defend such a monster in War against his enemies when no enemy can bring them into greater slavery II. Almost all mankind on earth agree that all humane Power is limited and that Propriety is in order of nature antecedent to regiment which is to order the use of propriety Men are born with a propriety in their lives members and health And Nature giveth them a propriety in their Children and Contract in their Wives and natural Industry in the fruit of their labours And what am I that I should deny all this and seem wiser in Atheism and Inhumanity than almost all the world III. It is a known thing that Tyranny is the great hinderer of the Preaching of the Gospel and so of the Conversion and saving of the World Why is not the saving truth of God preached among Heathens and Mahometans who are five sixth parts of mankind and among Papists who are the fourth part of the other sixth but because Tyrants will not suffer it And no friend of God Christ or man then should set up or plead for such an evil IV. To stop the mouth of Malice it self I here truly adjoyn the profession of my judgment about all this Controversie and Accusation I do Assent and Consent to all that is said for the Power of Kings and the obedience and patience of Subjects in all the Word of God in all the Confessions which ever I yet saw of any Christian Church Reformed Greek or Papist except what exalteth the Pope his Councils and Agents or which is the ordinary Consent of Politicians Lawyers or Divines or which is established by the Constitution of this Kingdom I stand to the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy I hold it unlawful for any of his Subjects to take arms against the King that is against his Person Authority Dignity Rights or Laws or against any of his Courts Officers or Soldiers Lawfully Commissioned by him yea or if they be unlawfully Commissioned except when Gods Law of Nature or the Kings own Law or contrary Commission bind me to it And I will never endeavour to alter the Constituted Monarchical Government of this Kingdom Nor will I endeavour to reform the Church or its Government by Rebellion Sedition or any other unlawful means And I believe that no other Oath League
none The Churches in London are burnt down the Parishes are many so large that one of ten or twenty cannot hear in publick If it be in the Bishops power to judg that nine parts of London shall have no preaching why may he not so judg of the other tenth part And if he may judg that there shall be no preaching then why not that there shall be no praying and worshipping God And if so in London why not in other places and so whether there shall be any Gospel Religion or Salvation In cases of Faith a Council hath power only to judg truly that there is a Christ a Resurrection a life to come and not to judg that there is no Christ no Resurrection c. And holy practice is as necessary to our salvation as right believing And therefore the Bishops may judg that we shall preach and pray and worship God but not that we shall not Obj But they are to judg who shall preach The Gospel is not cast out if two thousand of you be silenced If there were not Preachers there may be Readers and the Liturgy Ans. Let them set up such competent Teachers in a sufficient number of Churches as will tell a sober conscience that all our labours are become unnecessary and then we shall think further of the case But is it so in London now Or can any be ignorant that it is not so And God useth to work according to the aptitude of means and too many Churches in the Countreys have such Teachers as say over a few cold words as boys do their Lessons and when experience telleth us how few are the better for them we are afraid of being so hypocritally modest as to let souls perish for fear of seeming to undervalue your raw Lads or scandalous ignorant Priests and to overvalue our selves 2. Are the bishops absolute Judges or not If absolute we must obey them if they command murder or idolatry If not what are the limits of their power Sure it is Gods universal Law They have no power against his commanding or forbidding word none against him or against the common good and mens salvation If Popish and other Casuists use so to limit Kings as to say that they are Ministers of God for good and that they have no power against the common good and that all Laws against it are null may we not much more say so of all our Diocesans You grant that they cannot command us to sin or forbid us duty But then either we have a judgment of discerning to know what is duty and sin or not If not then still if they forbid us duty and say it is no duty or command sin and say it is no sin we must obey But if yea then if we prove in an error it will be our sin And if the Bishops prove in the error it will be theirs And to obey conscience before a bishop is in our sense nothing but to obey God before a bishop in doing what we judg to be his will V. The next reason is none to us For if Presbyterians or any other silence Christs Ministers causlesly and forbid that preaching of the Gospel which is necessary to mens salvation we abhor it in one as well as in another VI. And as to the last 1. We believe not that if Christ should ask us Why we preach not it would excuse us to say The bishop forbad us no more than if he ask us Why did you not feed clothe visit me in my servants The Reasons forementioned tell you why we think we cannot be excused 2. But if we could Nature and Grace incline us to do all the good we can do in the world And if thousands were like to be drowned if we did not help the Ship-master when he forbids us Nature teacheth us to prefer their lives before his will And when our first question is Whether according to Gods ordinary operation by means so many thousands shall be saved from ignorance sin and hell or be damned For you to determine that they shall be damned if the Bishop will and then come in with a second question Who shall answer for it is so horrid to us as frightneth us from obeying the Silencers as if we saw Satan himself perswading us to obey them Will you give us leave openly to tell the people where our controversie lyeth That it is the Bishops will that they shall rather be all damned in their ignorance and sin than taught converted and saved by Nonconformists But they say that it 's they and not we shall answer for it As if they said Their blood be on us But we are loth to yeild that you must be untaught and damned though we were never so sure to be excused Whose interest or work it is Christs or Satans to forbid faithful Ministers to preach the Gospel and do their office the light of Grace when you have all done will tell the gracious as the light of Nature telleth men whose interest and work it is to deny to as many their necessary food Should you deny the necessity of either word or food still Grace or Nature would from age to age resist you Of the two methinks those that perswade us to stretch to conform against our consciences that we may preach do look more favourably towards the common good than those that perswade us not at all to conform but meerly to give over preaching the Gospel The very motion hath an ugly aspect it affrights us as perceiving the voice of an affrighting Solicitor in it It amazeth us to think that some Scholars of great parts and humility and obliging carriage dare make such a motion to so many vowed and consecrated to the Ministry while in so many Parishes so many thousand souls are wallowing in ignorance impiety and sensuality and have not a Church to hear in nor a Minister to instruct them but must stay at home or worse for want of room were they never so willing Shall the Churchwarden on his oath present twenty or forty or fifty thousand in a Parish for not coming into a Church where two thousand can scarce hear the Preacher Or shall all those thousands be idle play or drink without trouble and a few hundreds of them be hunted and ruined that rather join in Gods Worship with a silenced Minister O how easie would it be to our flesh and how dreadful to our consciences to forbear and leave men to themselves Have men nothing to accuse us of as our intollerable crimes but the greatest and costliest duties that ever we performed in the world The Lord keep us all from seducing Faction and forgive us the sin which we see and which we see not and cause us to pray harder for his glorious appearing and most righteous final Judgment Come Lord Jesus come quickly Amen INTEREST real or mistaken RULETH THE WORLD Gods Interest is the highest with all the sanctified I. GOD's Interest is the pleasing of his will
in his glory which is much in the LOVE and Concord of his servants II. The Interest of the Universal Church is the pleasing and glorifying God in its unity and strength in the same Faith Hope Love and Obedience to Christ the sole Universal King III. The Interest of particular Churches is their pleasing and glorifying God by their union with Christ and the Church Universal by Faith Love and Obedience and their holy Union between Pastors and people and of the people among themselves IV. The Interest of the Kingdom is its pleasing and glorifying God and the welfare of the whole by a holy unity with God the Universal King and of the Soveraign and Subjects and of the Subjects among themselves V. The Interest of the King is the pleasing and glorifying God in the foresaid welfare and just government of the Kingdom his own salvation and his Political strength and honour which consisteth much in the most inseparable twist of union and interests with his united subjects VI. The Interest of the Pastors of the Church is the pleasing and glorifying God in the ministerial uniting of souls to God in Christ and among themselves in the same holy Life and Light and Love and their own salvation and consolation herein VII The Interest of each particular Christian is his pleasing and glorifying God in his holy union with Christ and with the Church Universal and subordinately his holy unity and concord with the Ecclesiastical and Civil Society where he liveth VIII The true Interest of an honest Separatist and Papist in England supposing them uncurably such requireth them to live quietly and peaceably in subjection to the King and in love with others in the concordant practice of so much of Religion even the Laws of Nature or common Christianity which we are all agreed in and in such tolerated exercises of their several errors as is consistent with the common welfare and not to exasperate others by reproaches or striving to get into suspected power IX The mistaken Interest of the Pope and Papal Clergy is to have their own wills in ruling all the world and to that end to weaken and disable Kings and States by divisions contentions and diversions and to draw them by deceit to a voluntary subjection as necessary to their salvation and to the concord of their subjects and the Christian world and to silence and disgrace all such as are against them X. The mistaken Interest of English Papists Quakers and all true uncurable Separatists is to encrease and strengthen their several parties and if it may be to get into power and to that end to unite in the bond of a common Toleration and to make the tolerated party as strong as they can and to weaken the united Ministry and Churches and therefore to cry down a Comprehension or Union of the sober Conformists and Nonconformists and to desire that those Impositions which themselves account sinful may be continued that good may come by the evil viz. lest the union of the rest should weaken the tolerated party and render them inconsiderable and to bring the established Ministry and all that are for union with them into contempt by reproaches XI The true Interest of a meer Nonconformist requireth him to commit no known sin on pretence of obedience unity or peace nor forsake his Ministry whatever he suffer for it but to live in loyalty peace and patience and in love and communion with the Parochial Churches and all Christians so far as they are agreed XII The true Interest of a Conformist requireth him to use all lawful means to procure as comprehensive a Union and Concord of all sound and faithful Ministers and Christians as they are capable of and to bear with tolerable differences to live in peace among themselves and by Ministerial skill fidelity diligence and holy living and by condescending humility and love to all men to win Dissenters to edifie and unite the people and so to advance the true honour of the Ministry and to encrease and corroborate the Church Octob. 27. 1675. R. B. FINIS THE CONTENTS A Prefatory History of our Case Page 1 c. Our judgment how far we are bound to Preach p. 14. Our Reasons for Preaching I. We judge it sacriledge to for sake the work to which we were consecrated p. 20. II. We cannot be ignorant of mens obliging necessities p. 22. III. Many express texts of Scripture oblige us p. 32. Many Objections answered to p. 44. Whether Princes may silence us Largely answered Of mans binding Conscience Of the Peoples choice of Pastors IV. By deserting our Ministerial Work we shall sin against the Natural Law of Love and be guilty of soul-murder p. 45. Objections and Accusations answered 1. That our preciseness falsly pretendeth mens necessity p. 52. 2. That we think too highly of our own Preaching as necessary p. 55. 3. That our Preaching doth more harm than good p. 56. 4. That we have made the People disobedient hypocrites c. p. 64. 5. That when we had liberty we cast out Catechising the Creed the Lords-Prayer Decalogue and Church-Government c. p. 69. 6. That we lived in sequestrations on other mens bread Mr. Durel's accusations of my self herein answered p. 77. 7. That we silenced and ejected others when we had power p. 83. 8. The better must suffer with the worse if they will joyn with them p. 85. 9. That our Preaching will increase mens dislike of Government p. 86. 10. That our pretended Piety is Pharisaical hypocrisie pride zealous Villanies The Pharisees described p. 91. 11. Of gathering Assemblies and separating from the Church p. 97. 12. For coming into Cities and Corporations within five Miles p. 102. 13. The Church giveth you power and may take it from you as the old Conformists in Mr. Rathbands book c. confess p. 104. 14. You are against Bishops because you cannot be Bishops Why did you demur so long before you refused Preferments p. 106. 15. Must the Laws be changed as oft as tender heads will scruple p. 108. 16. Obedience beseemeth tender Consciences Disobedience is as the sin of Witchcraft p. 110. 17. The only reason why some forsook the Ministry is that they durst not abjure the Covenant Why do they not do the rest p. 111. 18. Why not all tolerated as well as you and so let in Popery p. 113. 19. Preaching was necessary before the World became Christian c. p. 114. 20. Why do you not go preach among the Indians p. 115. 21. The folly and villany of your Religion is so opened by the Debater and the Ecclesiastical Politician that you should be ashamed to ask leave to preach ibid. 22. You overthrow all Principles of Government p. 120. This is answered since in a full Volume called The 2d Plea for Peace 23. They object our Doctrine as Calvinism and Puritanism c. The intended Scheme of my Reconciling doctrine since published p. 121. 24. You would make our Reconciliation with the Church of Rome impossible which is more desirable than with you p. 128. 25. Abating would countenance your scruples by authority and make you thought to be true Reformers p. 134. 26. It is rebellion that is in your hearts as your not renouncing the Covenant and resistance sheweth The foresaid 2d Plea for Peace fully answereth this accusation p. 137. 27. We remember your practices heretofore c. p. 140. 28. Dr. Goods Charge of the Kings death answered in a Letter to him p. 142. 29. The inhumane Calumnies of a book called The Modern Pleas for Comprehension Toleration c. considered p. 147. 30. The errors and faults of Sectaries imputed to us p. 155. 31. Dr. Ashtons and the Debate-makers Accusation of us of covetousness and pride and delaying to refuse preferment p. 157. 32. The Calumnies of a book called A free and impartial enquiry into the Causes of the very great esteem and honour that the Nonconformists are in c. p. 165. A notable passage of Clemangis and another of Bernard p. 173. The true Case of the Nonconformists sufferings which they are said to under go by Covetousness for gain p. 175. 33. Mr. Hollingworths Story of a Nonconformists cruelty p. 182. 34. Henry Fowlis heaviest accusation examined p. 182. Twenty Reasons why the Bishops and conformable Clergy should desire and endeavour the Nonconformists Ministry Plainly and seriously urged to their consciences p. 186. A Postscript Answering Mr. H. Dodwell's Reasons against our Preaching and publick worship when forbidden by the Bishops What he cannot deny us what we grant him what we cannot grant with the reasons of our dissent p. 237. An Account of the Interests of all the several Parties among us Interest ruleth the World p. 250. Reader I have not time to gather the Errata of the Press All this was written 1669. * 1669. â—y Gods merâ—y since theâ—riting of this have publiâ—hed it called â—atholick Theâ—ogy * The Earl of Orery who was present all the while at both times that ever I spake to Cromwell which was plainly and faithfully to his displeasure †The Lord Chief Justice Hale told me he had Hookers last books before and I now have the last printed long before Bishop Gauden published them ☞ â—his was writâ—â—n when we â—ad the Kings â—icense
Son of God but not indifferently as he please but only in the affirmative He may judg if it become a publick Controversie whether God shall be worshipped whether he may be blasphemed whether there be a life to come whether the Scripture be Gods word and so whether there shall be a Ministry whether Ministers shall preach in his Dominions or so many as is necessary to mens Salvation But he is bound before hand to judg only one way and hath no power to judg on the other side at all Else he might judg that men shall not be saved and that Christ shall have no Ministers or Church and consequently be no Christ. 3. Yet if Rulers do judg amiss in any such cases they are not by force of arms to be resisted though they are not to be obeyed Obj. By this pretence of a private judgment of discerning you will set up two Soveraigns or make every mans conscience his King and so the King having lost his power over conscience a zealous conscience will be the unruliest beast in the world Answ. 1. In good sadness would you have men have a judgment of private discerning or not If you would all this concerneth you as well as us If not then no man must discern that it is his duty to obey the King rather than an Usurper or rather than to rebel against him Such excellent assistance would brutish principles give to Government then men must not discern whether to preach or be silent or what to preach on Nor whether to be drunk or sober chaste or unchaste To think and speak well or ill whether God should be honoured or blasphemed or what Religion we should be of Christians or Infidels Then only the King must be a man and his subjects bruits that must use no reason and so the King be made a herdsman to govern beasts instead of men And then what Councellors Judges and Justices shall he have and O then what excellent Preaching shall the people hear Absolute obedience is due only unto God 2. And as to what you say of Conscience to bind conscience that is science is an improper expression but as to that which is commonly meant by it it is one thing to bind a mans soul to make conscience of his duty and another thing to bind his soul to go against the conscience of his duty Binding conscience is an ambiguous word We flatly affirm as well as you That the Kings Laws do bind the mind or soul or Conscience if you will so call it to a conscionable performance of all his lawful commands for nothing but cords and irons bind the body without the soul and he that obligeth not the soul obligeth not the man and he that obligeth not ruleth not As God bindeth by a primary obligation as God so Kings bind the mind by a secondary obligation by the power which they derive from God as men I say not only that God bindeth us in conscience to obey the King but that the Kings derived power enableth him to oblige the soul in subordination to God which is no more than to say that he may make Laws and rule by them But whether this shall be called a binding of conscience is only lis de nomine Conscience is sometime taken as largely as conscire and so we are conscious of our duty to the King But in Theology it is usually taken more strictly for a mans judgment of himself as he stands related to the judgment of God And so when the very definition appropriateth Conscience to our relation to God it cannot so be subject to man 3. Conscience is no King no Competitor with the King no Ruler of any man at all in a true proper sense It is but only a discerner of our duty and not a maker of it a knower and applier of the Law and not a Law-giver And is it not fine reasoning to say If a man must be the discerner of his duty to God and the King he can be no good subject 4. And Conscience discerning duty to God is it that is here to be orderly distinguished from Conscience discerning duty to man God and man are our Governours if we are not agreed which of them is the greater stay a while and we shall be agreed Conscience is but a discerner of our respective duty to each of them or taken strictly and Theologically of our duty to God only so that this is the question Whether when a man is conscious of his duty to God he may omit it because that man forbiddeth it Or when a man is conscious what God forbiddeth he may do it if man command it so that for man to bind Conscience if you will speak ineptly to duty is one thing and for man to bind us to go against conscience is another thing For that 's all one as to bind us to do that which as far as we can discern is against Gods Law and so the issue of all is whether conscience of Gods command or conscience of mans command is to be preferred And this being the plain English of the case is it not a blessed time and land think you when confident raw confused wits shall by such questions as VVhether the King or Conscience be supream deceive and mislead poor people in a maze and confound them as to all Religion when an ordinary wit that had been but preserved by Humility and Catholicism or freedom from faction might easily have distinguished and set them in the open light 13. It went for current in the Catholick Church not only for the first 300 years but long after there were Christian Emperors that the people were to chuse their Pastors Cyprians Epistle that earnestly pleadeth for the peoples power and duty in this kind and chargeth the guilt upon them if they forsake not seducing and schismatical Pastors is well known The common practise of the Churches also is known as well And long after there were Christian Emperours though some Dignitaries as Patriarchs and a few great Bishops were obtruded on the people by the Emperours choice when they could not agree among themselves yet the people constantly kept their former custom and priviledg and chose all the ordinary Bishops and Pastors in conjunction with the Presbyters The Bishops sometimes chose alone who should be a Minister in general as the Colledg of Physicians licenseth general Physicians But who should be their own Pastors was always or usually at the peoples choice with the Ordainers as every man chuseth his own Physician See Blondels copious Testimony de jure plebis in regimine Ecclesiastico adjoined to Grotius his Excellent Treatise de Imperio sumar potestat circa sacra Now this being so the old Christians never believed that the Emperour could justly so frustrate their choices as to make it unlawful by his prohibition for their Pastors to preach to them when their Preaching was necessary to the Churches good nor that the Emperours were the only Judges of
the necessity and that God and nature had given no power to themselves to know what is necessary good and helpful or unnecessary bad or hurtful to themselves Obj. The sheep chuse not their own shepherds nor children their own School-masters Ans. 1. This is as some call it Phrase-divinity Similitudes prove nothing beyond the point of likeness Sheep have not reason and children have it not in maturity and full use 2. Are we grown better and wiser now than the Churches all were for 600 years or for the first 300 either Why do men pretend so much to antiquity and cry out against novelty who when interest bids them do more than others despise the judgment and example of the Primitive ancient Church as a ragged fordid infant-thing 3. Mans nature hath laid the foundation of this order It is not possible for the people to be edified by Ministers or worship God in their communion acceptably against their own wills And therefore as their consent is of absolute necessity to their benefit and salvation so it is the more necessary to the just calling of him that must profit them For they are the likelier to consent to his Doctrine and rule when they have first consented to his relation and so e contra they are the likelier to reject the guidance of him that was forced on them against their wills Obj. But what divisions and heresies shall we have if all the people shall chuse their Pastors and then they may bring in Hereticks whether the Magistrates will or not Ans. 1. Their choice is a matter of mutable convenience but their consent is a matter of necessity 2. I say not that they alone must chuse them or consent Two or three Negative wills sine quibus non in a case of great concernment is safer than one alone Writings or treasures belonging to three parties kept in a chest of which every party hath a lock and key are safer than under a single lock The Ordainers have a negative voice and so have the people as to the relation of the Pastors to themselves And so hath the Magistrate under Gods Laws whether that man shall live or preach in his dominions 3. And God in wisdom is pleased to lay all mens salvation or damnation more upon themselves and their own choice than on the Kings because it is themselves that must have the everlasting joy or sorrow And therefore so he hath done by all the actions and means that stand nearest to their own Salvation 4. And when we say the Ordainers and people conjunctly should chuse their Pastors we still say that when they are chosen they are under the Government of the King 5. Apply all your Objections to the case of a Physician to his Patients it is meet that all Physicians be under the Government of the King and that he by Laws restrain them from the abuse of their callings And it is meet that the Colledg that can best judg be the discerners who shall be a Licensed Physician But when all 's done it is not meet that any one be forced on the sick without their own consent And why 1. Because their consent is necessary to the use of the remedies 2. Because it is themselves that are most concerned in the event 3. Because every man knoweth much of his own condition which the King doth not know Yet here you may as handsomely exclaim What shall every woman every boy every sottish rustick and tradesman have liberty to put his life into the hands of women or foolish Empericks what murdering of men by medicine shall we then have and what diminution of the Kings subjects Ans. But 1. this is your error which confoundeth all that you think the matters of imperfect man in an imperfect world can be done without any imperfection or inconvenience and then that you look only with one eye on your own side and cannot or will not see the far greater inconveniencies on the other side but will cure an inconvenience with a mischief and subvert the end and substance to preserve your particular way of Order What would follow on the other side if all men must have Physicians forced on them Those empty fellows that could make most friends should be the seekers and finders of the place especially if Physicians were made Lords and had the honour and maintenance that Bishops have And next the people must be taught by these formalists that it is not for them to judg themselves what is good or bad for them nor when to take Physick nor how much And next they must be told that it being an office of Government as well as of skill they must put their lives into his hand who ever he be that is the Physician of the place and not go to others as abler men O what work would these Orderers make If you here except against the aptness of the similitude I will only ask you now 1. Whether the King is not as truly the Governour of his subjects as to their lives as he is as to their Salvation Do not his subjects bodies and lives belong to his care 2. Is not every man as much concerned for his own soul more than the King is or any other as he is for his health or life Will not the Salvation or damnation be his own 3. Is not every mans free will as much and more to be exercised for his salvation as for his health You may drench him by force as a horse for his health and therefore there is more pretence for cogent Laws But so you cannot for his soul. These things are plain to them that are willing to see but not to them whose interest will not give them leave but like the Ephesian Craftsmen must cry up Diana and cry down Paul to save their Trades And yet I still maintain that the King is to afford his Subjects all help in his power for their souls as well as for their bodies IV. OUR Fourth main Reason why we dare not cease our Ministry is Because we shall sin against Nature it self even the great and radical Law of Love and shall be guilty of murdering mens souls And because Magistrates cannot dispense with the great and necessary Laws of Nature we put them all into one for brevity 1. If we were Lay men yet charity would naturally oblige us to do our best to save mens souls in a way that doth not greater hurt Deny this and you deny the master-points of natural obligation and are unfit to dispute about things indifferent And the judgment of the ancient Church as the case of Origen and other Teachers and Catechists at Alexandria as well as that of Frumentius and Edesius do witness is flat against you and so is the common judgment of Divines both Protestants and Papists who use to cite these instances to prove that in some case Lay-men may be publick Teachers But if they might not in Churches lest they seem usurpers yet in other
and yet that I should speak with no more wisdom life and servency That I do not every time importune the hearers with the greatest seriousness that my soul can reach unto and with tears beseech the impenitent to consider and with earnestness awaken stupid souls at least to some regard of their Salvation though I were never so much derided for all this with all the reproaches that blinded malicious wit can invent The Lord knoweth that if it had not been for the undeniable necessities of the world which hath not enow that are fitter than my self though very unworthy I had never entered into the Sacred Ministry and after I was entered I had soon repented of it We have upon our selves so penitent a sense of our own neglects that hindereth us from flying in the face of those that silence us We use not to others whatever we now say to your selves to talk of your faults herein so much as of our own And we daily beg of God to pardon us that we speak no more wisely and importunately in so great a case when we had time And that we did not watch more diligently over the peoples souls and teach them publickly and from house to house day and night in season and out of season even with tears And we daily pray that those that come in our places may be better than we have been and may take warning by us to be more studious and laborious But yet seeing you have left us no other answer I shall Historically tell you the truth of our course and leave it to the judgment not of you for you are partial and some deride us and some believe us not nor yet of our People for they know it and therefore believe not the reproachers but of all indifferent sober men I remember when Mr. Thomas Wadsworth Minister at Newington-Buts was put out the Parishioners came to me with a Petition to the King for some pity to their souls in his Restoration and would have had me to have directed them how to get it delivered I told them it was a thing not to be attempted being contrary to the course of the present Laws and so it never was delivered that I know of But when I read it I saw the difference between man and man They therein expressed that he had been a prudent constant painful Preacher to them that he was of a most blameless exemplary life that he spent all that he had in charitable works that he visited and instructed and Catechised every family house by house that he hired a Minister to assist him in such private Catechising and instructing that he bought Bibles to give all the poor of the Parish that could not buy them with much more of the like And he was not succesless nor is not since his silencing to this day It would be endless to multiply such instances of the now silenced Ministers in this Land But because I am Purus putus Puritanus as it s said and you will have it so that I must be named more than others as one by whom the world may know the rest even with an Ex uno omnes to use some of your own expressions I shall tell you what was my course and how far I am guilty of the matter of these accusations 1. My body being exceeding weak I Preached but twice a week once on the Lords-day and once on the Market-day 2. The Doctrine which I Preached being visible in above seventy Books and my Religion described so fully in my Reasons of the Christian Religion my Confession and many other Treatises I need not now repeat nor plead for it to the world that it is not heresie nor Phrase-divinity as they now speak And whether non sense other men that have sense must judg 3. I had one or two Assistants with me who besides two sequestred Ministers and my self were maintained out of the maintenance of the Vicaridg and at last an augmentation for a Chappel One of these Preached one part of the day with me and the other twice at a Chappel near 4. We never baptized a child without the profession of the Creed so that we did not cast out that and we seldom prayed any day without concluding with the Lords-prayer And the Sacrament we administred oft Indeed we kneeled not in the reception because we had liberty to do as we thought fittest But I openly told them that I judged kneeling not unlawful nor would refuse any that did kneel on that account But many came not because the rest kneeled not and they might not have it on a distinct day by themselves which tended to division but most because they were told of the after mentioned Discipline that would be used towards them 5. At first we Catechised in the Church where the Creed Lords-prayer and Decalogue were daily repeated Afterward we took a more effectual course all the families in the Town came to my house and my Assistants went to their houses in the Parish it being almost twenty miles about Mondays and Tuesdays half the day we constantly spent in this work taking about fourteen families a week between two of us We first heard them repeat the words of the Catechism or at least of the Creed Lords-prayer and Decalogue Next we tried how they understood some part of them Then we a little with tenderness and modesty enquired of their consent their resolution and their thoughts of and preparations for another world and if any were ashamed to open their ignorance we urged them not any further but turned our speech to instruction and exhortation And the superiors and ancients we examined not before their servants or children but put those Questions and used those Exhortations to their servants and children in their hearing which we desired them themselves to receive And we still concluded with the most urgent exhortations for preparation for death and judgment that we were able and when it was meet engaging the ignorant negligent and sensual to sober promises of another course And thus we usually spent about an hour with a family in which I spent my self as much as in a Sermon at least And through Gods mercy we seldom parted with them without some signs of their present repentance and purposes of amendment for the time to come But our method being punctually described in the end of my Reformed Pastor I shall say no more of it 6. My Assistant in the Town Mr. Sergeant was a man of so great prudence piety meekness peaceableness self-denial and blamelesness of life that I never to my remembrance saw him in anger nor ever heard an offensive word from his mouth nor ever saw or heard of an offensive much less a scandalous action done by him in all the years that he was there I never heard him grudg at any labour when he travelled as aforesaid to all the houses of the Parish and Preached usually twice each Lords-day at three miles distance one from the
of sinning than your selves 3. We are so tender of disobeying our Rulers that we will do any thing to obey and please them except disobeying God and damning our own or others Souls And if you must have us yet go further you must excuse us we had rather go to your prison under all your obloquy Your furnace is not so hot as Gods 17 Obj. The only reason say most of them why they forsook their Ministry was that they durst not abjure the Covenant Dispense with them for this and they are Conformists But if that be the only thing they scruple then why are they not Conformists in all other particulars against which they pretended no such exceptions And what doeth renouncing the Covenant concern the people c Thus the Ecclesiastical Polititian Pag. 242 243. Ans. 1. Is this flaming-hot Disputer so much better acquainted with us than we are with our selves and one another Hath he talkt with the most of us or have the most ever said or written that it is only the Covenant that we stick at I must profess of all the Nonconformists that ever I knew or spake with I never knew any one of this mind which he saith the most of them say they are of Nay I never heard of any one Nonconformist of that mind And if the world and posterity must be told so confidently that most say and hold that which I that am supposed so much on their side did never know nor hear of any one man that said or held you may judge what a history posterity is like to have of this age and also with whom we have to do and upon what terms I confess I know one that hath suffered the loss of all these many years and been denied so much as leave to teach School that is for Episcopacy Liturgy and Ceremonies as lawful and never took the Covenant nor was ever for it nor for the Parliaments War but against both that yet cannot disoblige every one that ever did take the Covenant so far as is required to Conformity nor cannot subscribe or declare Assent and Consent to every word in the three Books so to be consented to But such a one as sticks at the Covenant only I never knew nor heard of 3. But if the accusers of the Brethren do believe themselves they tell the world the little charity that is among them who had rather so many Ministers were silenced to say nothing of their bodily sufferings and so many thousand souls want their Ministry than abjuring the Covenant should be dispensed with when a fuller security for loyalty and peace is offered 4. It is either the Episcopal Presbyterian or Independent Nonconformists for all these sorts there be at least that he meaneth by most of them or most as mixt 1. The Episcopal Nonconformists are not for the Covenant but stick most at consenting and swearing to the English Hierarchy and Discipline and Church-state as it differeth from the old Episcopacy described in Archbishop Ushers Reduction 2. The Presbyterians surely have told the world by Books enow that they are Nonconformists in more things than abjuring the Covenant And in good sadness doth not England know that call them what you will the Divines commissioned by the King did give their reasons against more 3 And the Independents are so far from being to be numbered with his most of them that I know not if you would free them from the rest of Conformity whether the leaders would not yield in this For when Scotland was invaded and Mr. Love Beheaded it was pleaded that the Covenant was as an Almanack out of date And Mr. Eaton hath written a Book to prove that the Covenant and the Oath of Allegiance bind not 5. But as for abjuring I never heard that it was required of the Ministers and how can that possibly be their only Nonconformity which never was imposed on them 6. But what he and others mean to pretend that the Laity are unconcerned in the renouncing of the Covenant when it is known by Printed Laws and by practice that all the Cities and Corporations in England as to the Governing or trusted part are constituted by the Renunciation of the Covenant and also all the Vestries as the Corporation Act and the Vestry Act declare is but more matter of wonder to men that have not been used to such things So many new Printed Laws and the visible state of all the Cities and Corporations in England are not evidence enough on a Nonconformists part to decide a controversie of fact But if they shall say that they meant that the Laity are not on such terms forbidden to come to Church I answer if we also had learned the trick of speaking writing and swearing in universal terms or equipollent and meaning not universally but particularly as many do we could say or subscribe or swear as far as you desire us 18 Obj. If you be tollerated why not all others as well as you And so the Quakers and the Papists may come in And it 's well if the Presbyterians do not thus let in Popery Ans. 1. What if the Law imposed one word on you which you could not conform to and you differed from the Church in nothing else what answer would you give to such an Objection as this which equally excludeth Chillingworth and Knot Would you not say that a difference should be made O how hardly can men understand that are unwilling to know How easie a case were this to the willing Mr. John Rogers of Dedham Mr. John Ball and sometime Mr. Dod and Mr. Hildersham had liberty to preach without conforming and did it infer the necessity of such a Toleration as you talk of 2. I pray you take heed of bringing Conformity more into contempt than yet it is by seeming to judg it such a thing as men will not yield to without constraint and punishment Take off the penalty of subscribing declaring crossing c. and all that are willing will use them without force And if most must be forced it intimates that they do not like or love them What good doth subscribing a sentence which he believeth not do either to the soul of the lyar himself or to the Church 3. If so large a Toleration as you talk of be so dangerous and the Presbyterians are like to occasion it for their liberty why will you not prevent so great a danger at so cheap a rate as it might be prevented at Are you indeed against a Toleration of Heresie and Popery and yet would you rather venture on the danger of it than abate to Protestants a needless ceremony or subscription 4. I cannot tell whether you are indeed such strangers to the thoughts and talk of the people of England concerning your selves as you seem to be If you are I will not now tell you what they say of you But they rejoice that they have a King so far from Popery that he hath by a Law made it a
say that they are certain of their own Salvation I know that many excellent Protestants have made it the sense of that article of the Creed I believe that my own sins are pardoned and say that this Proposition My sins are pardoned is de fide Divina And yet I know that in propriety and strictness of speech which should be used in Controversies it is not true I know that many of the School-mens assertions are commonly rejected as erroneous because they are not commonly understood I know that Luther maketh the Doctrine of Justification to be Articulus stantis vel cadentis Ecclesiae and yet I know that Ludovicus le Blank of Sedan in his Theses hath greatly narrowed the difference and understands it much better than Luther seemeth to have done Which I may say also of Bucer Conradus Bergius In Praxi Cathol Ludov. Crocius and many other such Conciliators And that Luther on the Galatians is so acceptable to the Antinomians that I conceive divers passages in it have need of as candid an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Doctrine of Scotus and many Papists on that point I am my self a Christian and that is my Religion and I own the name Protestant for no greater reason than because it is the Protestant Religion to be meer Christians and to protest against the Roman Superadditions and depravations of it And so to be a Protestant and to be a meer Christian adhering to Scripture sufficiency as the test and terms of Union and Communion are all one Yea if any one doubted of the Canonicalness of the Canticles Esther or some one or few Books and acknowledg the main body of the Scriptures and the ancient articles of faith I would not cast such a one from my Communion And these terms or none I have foretold it you oft must heal the Church if ever it be healed And till the Papists will see the equity of these terms it is our great advantage that the certain truth of all our Religion is so fully acknowledged But 2. as long as we let others alone with their additions why may they not live in peace with us and let us alone without them All men are united in the Essentials of Humanity though they are not all of one complection stature or degree of strength And if any be so peevish that he will associate with none that are not of his own complection the separation is the effect of his folly which may possibly be cured and till it be cured both the fault and the suffering is his own If a Law were made that none shall live in the Kings Dominions but men of a Sanguine complection and of a strait and comely person and of such a proportion of tallness and of strength and of flaxen hair this Law would necessitate a separation and diminution of the Kings subjects from generation to generation But if the Law be that all English men that will live after the rules of Reason Honesty and Society shall have the priviledges of subjects if an hundred thousand had got a conceit that they may not lawfully be of the same Kingdom with any but men of their own complection and stature as aforesaid this is a cureable folly and the Law-makers may say we have done our parts for universal society and it is not we that make it impossible or hinder it and men in time may come to reason We refuse not them but they refuse us If you make things necessary and of common agreement to be your terms of Union Greeks Abassines Armenians Romans may take their own way and every one without injury enjoy his own be it wisdom or folly upon these terms But if you unite upon any other terms you make Laws for schism even for the exclusion of all that are not of your mind For Hales his Doctrine is true in the judgment of all men save the guilty that the Imposer of unnecessary doubtful things is the Schismatick or cause of all the schism So that there is no true union to be expected with Rome or any others but on the terms of primitive simplicity or which all true Christians are agreed in And they are no good terms which induce the authors through the force of interest to say that none in the world are good Christians that are not of their cut and strain and wear not their livery and lace not their coats in the Imposers mode 4 And as long as we take nothing from the men of various modes and fashions by unity in the Essentials of Humanity and Christianity to imagine that it is the way to union to force all Dissenters to their modes is but to renounce union and to gratifie a distant party so far as to make them laugh at us as fools and hope ere long to get us at their mercy and thereby to lose disoblige and destroy those that are nearer to us and would indeed be our friends and strength and to become enemies to our own families rather than to displease the people of France by not wearing their fashions 5. And if you had attained a seeming union with the Papists you are not sure it will hold seven year For their Religion still thriveth and thereby changeth and is yet far short of its maturity in all likelihood For General Councils make their Religion and who knoweth how many General Councils of forty Bishops perhaps like that at Trent for a great part of the time there may yet be and what alterations of Religion they may make And are you sure you can go along with them in all as far as they will go If you must break at last unite not on such mutable terms at first But there 's no talking to men whose interest and passion and partiality is the maker of their Religion It is not my purpose to speak any of this either to one of Grotius's mind if Saraviad and the Book called Grotius Papirans be credible or if he be that man that wrote the Discussio Apolog. Rivet who would have us unite upon the acceptance of all the Councils even that of Trent nor to such as come as near them as Mr. Thorndike nor any of that degree of affinity For I suppose they are already gone out of the hearing of such a voice as mine Yet still remember that I am not setting a Law no not Christs Law to your selves for the rule of your own opinions or practices If you will please the Papists by coming yet nearer them even nearer than the learned Forbes Bishop of Edenburgh did if you will have more of their Doctrine Discipline and Worship take it if it will do you any good But why must all others needs be of your judgment or those be of your way that are not of your judgment And why cannot you unite with the Papists if you will without destroying the Protestants or renouncing them Unite in things necessary and hold and use the rest as matters of liberty and it will
or Covenant doth disoblige me from any of this aforesaid nor warranteth me to disobey any lawful Command of the King or any of my Governours nor to do any unlawful thing And I renounce all Doctrines and Practices contrary to this profession Especially of those Popes and Councils of Bishops who have decreed the Excommunicating and Deposing of Kings or other Temporal Lords and the Absolving their Subjects from their Oaths and Fidelity and the rest of the Papal Usurpations and Church-Tyranny against the Rights of Princes and Christian people though judged Hereticks by Pope Prelates or Priests If this be not enough see the 2d Plea for Peace and my form of professed Loyalty in my book called The true and only way of the Concord of all Christian Churches V. And because they still cant over the mention of the late miserable Wars as if they hated the Act of Oblivion and Peace I add that malice may have no more to say that hath the shew of reason Silence and cast out all that ever had any hand in those Wars except the Conformists and no more and we will give you a thousand thanks and acquiesce in it as unexpected justice And is not all this yet enough VI. As to the particular reasons that we have against Subscribing Universally and unlimitedly without any exposition given by the Law-makers that it is unlawful to take arms against any Commissioned by the King and as referring to on any pretence whatsoever it belongeth to another discourse to render them which giveth the reasons of our Nonconformity It would be here unseasonable and they are many and great 27 Obj. But good words must not satisfie while the remembrance of your Rebellious practises yet remaineth Ans. 1. I have elsewhere told the strangers and young men that know it not that it was between two Parties of Episcopal Conformists that the War began 2. Is it not Words that you require as satisfactions in your Subscriptions and Oaths What more than Words is it that you would have 3. Are not the Laws in Power and Judges to execute them against any that shall speak or do disloyally What would you have more than Words and that mens Estates and Lives be answerable for their offences Obj. But why will you not then subscribe and swear in the words of the Law but in your own Ans. To give here the reasons of that is the unseasonable digression before disclaimed You may as well here call us to dispute over all our differences Obj. But here I am charged as an impudent falsifier of History for saying that the War began between two Parties of Episcopal Conformity which maketh me pity the World in point of History when the publick affairs of a Kingdom so openly managed shall be in such a manner controverted in the very age when they were done Divers Lords are yet living who were interessed in these matters and it is unpleasing to give men the Catalogue of great mens Names in a matter which His Majesty hath committed to oblivion But a breviate of all the necessary proof I shall draw up in a History by it self The Accusation 28 being made publickly by my old friend Dr. Thomas Good in his book called Dubitantius Firmianus I will annex a Letter which I wrote in answer to it ACCUS 28. To my Reverend and Worthy Friend Dr. Thomas Good Master of Baliol-Colledge in Oxford Reverend and Worthy Sir IT is now about a Month since I received a Letter from you for the furthering of a good work which I sent to Mr. Foley by his Son Mr. Paul Foley not having opportunity my self to see him I have stayed so long for an answer not hearing yet from him that I think it not meet any longer to forbear to acquaint you with the reasons of the delay He liveth quite at the other end of London from me and my weakness and business keep me much within doors and it 's hard to find him within except at those hours when I am constrained to be in bed But I have reason to conjecture that his answer will be 1. That the rich men whose judgments are for Conformity are far more numerous than those who are of another mind and therefore fitter to promote that work And there are so very few that do any thing for the ejected Ministers that some of them live on brown bread and water c. which hindereth those Gentlemen from other kind of charitable work 2. And I must crave your patience being confident by your ancient kindness of your friendly interpretation which I tell you that this day I heard one say We can expect that Dr. Good do make his Scholars no better than himself And what reason have we to maintain and breed up men to use us as he hath done in his late Treatise I got the Book and was glad to find much good and several moderate passages in it and I knew you so well as that I could not but expect moderation but when I perused the passages referred to I could say no more for them but that I would write to you to hear your answer about them For I confess they surprized me though at the same time I received many new Books of a sanguine complection from other hands without any admiration I. The first passage referred to was pag. 104. Which are confessedly things indifferent This is spoken indefinitely of the Presbyterians Where have I lived I know not one Presbyterian living that divideth from you for any thing which he confesseth indifferent I crave your answer containg the proof of this at least to name some one of them that we may reprove him We take Conformity to be so far from indifferent that we forbear to tell the world the greatness of the sin which we think to be in it lest men cannot bear it and lest it should disaffect the people to the Ministry of the Conformists II. Your p. 156. I pass by The main matter is p. 160 161. that though All the Nonconformists were not in actual arms against the King nor did they all as natural agents cut off his Head but morally that is very sinfully and wickedly they had their hands stained with that royal blood for whosoever did abet these sons of Belial in their rebellions treasons murders of their King and fellow subjects either by consenting to their villanies praying for their prosperity praising God for their successes c. The Charge is high If it be not true 1. They are almost as deeply wrong'd as you can wrong them 2. Our Rulers are wronged by being so provoked to abhor them silence and destroy them 3. Posterity is wronged by a misinforming History I. You are too old to be ignorant that it was an Episcopal and Erastian Parliament of Conformists that first took up these arms in England against the King The Members yet living profess that at that time they knew but one Presbyterian in the House of Commons Interest forced or
it is our comfort that we have a King and Parliament whose aversness to Popery and their Law against all such surmises doth put them out of the peoples suspicions And I think you should do no less but more than any others to avert all unjust suspicions from your selves 20. Is it possible that any partiality interest or passion can make you think either that the people of England need not as much Teaching and Exhortation and Ministerial help to bring them to Repentance and Salvation as all the qualified Ministers in the Land together are able to afford them or that God may not bless the labours of such men as Burges Allen Norman and hundreds more that now are silenced to the conversion of many hundred or thousand sinners unto Repentance and a holy life And if you cannot or dare not deny this have you considered whether your reasons for silencing them be so weighty as will countervail the salvation of so many Souls and will comfort and excuse you at the bar of God And whether then you can justifie your selves by saying Lord though so many Souls persisted in sin and are damned that might have been saved by the Ministry of these learned grave and godly Preachers yet the good which we obtained by their silencing and all their other sufferings was greater than so many mens salvation would have amounted to And if deliberately you will venture on such a cause your selves what would you wish the silenced Ministers to do You say it is our duty to forbear preaching when we are forbidden But what if it prove otherwise and that we must be judged as sacrilegious for alienating consecrated persons from Gods work and as guilty of the blood of all those souls that have perished by our silence and neglect What say you Will you undertake to justifie us and answer for us and bear all the divine displeasure your selves which shall fall upon us for our obeying your silencing commands Are you willing to run all that danger for us But why do I ask you such a question when your undertaking would but shew your greater obdurateness and neither save us nor your selves If you say that the crime is ours for not conforming that is to be examined by it self If ever Episcopacy had two learned and judicious defenders it was Bishop Bilson and Bishop Andrews let not interest now make you differ from your chiefest champions I will add the words of one of them at large Bilson of Subjection p. 399. saith The election of bishops in these days belonged to the people and not to the Prince and though Valens by plain force placed Lucius there yet might the people lawfully reject him as no bishop and cleave to Peter the right Pastor And indeed the people so rejected Lucius that the boys in the street would not touch the ball any more which Lucius's horse feet had trod upon and to the last suffered all the Magistrates displeasure in refusing the Pastor imposed on them who yet perswaded them that he was Orthodox And the error of a Magistrate taketh not away his power as I before said but only his aptitude to use it aright And the Nonconformable people think that they lawfully adhere to their old known faithful Pastors and reject unknown obtruded persons Pag. 236 he saith Princes have no right to call or confirm Preachers but to receive such as be sent of God and give them liberty for their preaching and security for their persons And if Princes refuse so to do Gods labourers must go on forward with that which is commanded them from heaven not by disturbing Princes from their thrones nor invading their Realms as your holy father doth and defendeth he may do but by mildly submitting themselves to the powers on earth and meekly suffering for the defence of the truth what they shall inflict How you gather out of this or any words of ours that Christ and his Apostles might not preach the Gospel without Cesar's delegations and license from others the Kings of the Countreys whither they went I see not except you take the word Supreme for superior to Christ all which standeth neither with our assertion nor intention but is a very pestilent and impudent sophistication of yours Marg. Bishops may preach without Cesars leave if they submit themselves to Cesar's sword as the Apostles did To this I pray add his two pages p. 233 234. to prove that Patriarchs were not erected by Christ but by the consent of Bishops and that Archiepiscopal and Metropolitan Dignities were the gifts of Princes and then consider how far that Office of Presbyters which is of Christs own instituting is to be forsaken in obedience to the command of a Metropolitan or any power of mans ordaining Pag. 226. The charge which the Patriarchs and Bishops of England have over their flocks proceedeth neither from Prince nor Pope nor dependeth on the will or word of any earthly creature therefore you do us the more wrong to say what you list of us By supreme Governours we do not mean Moderators Prescribers Directors Inventors or Authors of these things as you misconster us but Rulers and Magistrates bearing the sword to permit and defend that which Christ himself first appointed and ordained and with lawful force to disturb the despisers of his will and testament Now what inconvenience is this if we say that Princes as publick Magistrates may give freedom protection and assistance to the preaching of the Word Ministring of the Sacraments and right using of the Keys Doth that prove that all Ecclesiastical power and cure of Souls do proceed and depend of the Princes right See also Page 362. And p. 259. As Bishops ought to discern what is truth before they teach so must the people discern who teacheth right before they believe Pag. 261 262. Princes as well as others must yield obedience to Bishops speaking the word of God But if they pass their Commission and speak besides the word of God what they list both Prince and people may despise them See him further proving that all have a judicium discretionis Pag. 259 260 261 262. Bishop Andrews his determination against giving unfit Kings the Sacrament and in what sense the Pastors rule their Princes and consequently may not obey them in the neglect of their own office I have shewed in the decision of the Erastian Controversie and need not repeat it yea he alloweth the very Deacon to deny an unworthy King admittance to the Sacrament And Chrysostome would lose his life rather than give it to the greatest that is unworthy How far then Christs Ministers must give over Preaching Sacraments and all if men command them so to do you may hence gather by these mens judgments And in the conclusion let me again remember you that the trick of twisting your interest pretendedly with Princes and making them believe that those that you would have to be afflicted or expelled are more against Monarchy and Loyalty than
are so large and the Churches so small and the Preachers voice so low that one of ten or twenty of the Parishioners cannot hear if they were never so willing 7. That many Ministers are insufficient and the Parson of the Parish where I live hath been suspended ab officio these two or three years or at least hath not officiated 8. That therefore the silence of all the Nonconformists is like to prove the damnation of many thousand souls 9. That if the King only forbid us preaching and not the Bishop we are not bound to such silence as he requireth 10. That our Bishops are not chosen by the Presbyters of the Diocess or the people but by the King whatever formality seem to contradict this 11. That the extent of their Diocesses is not jure divino 12. That none of them is jure divino the Bishop of me or any other such 13. That National Churches are but of humane institution 14. That what man instituteth man may abrogate or undo 15. That if King or Bishop forbid me to relieve the poor in true necessity or to feed any family or teach them I must not obey 16. That the prime part of Religion is in positives and but the second in negatives and therefore sins of omission are the first sins 17. That no sin must be matter of obedience to Bishops or any man 18. That the Apostles had their power to edification and not to destruction 19. That in case of controversies of Faith the Church may not judg in partem utram libet but only for the truth 20. That all Bishops power is limited and not absolute 21. That when they command without power only passive obedience is due 22. That Bishops are not made Judges whether there shall be preaching and worshipping God or not but only to order it aright and judg by whom it shall be done 23. That Bishops cannot dispense with the Law of God nor humane power prevail against Divine 24. That order is for the end and for the thing ordered and not against it 25. That natural morals are to be preferred caeteris paribus before positives much more before humane orders and God will have mercy and not sacrifice 26. That the silencing of the faithful Preachers of the Gospel greatly pleaseth the Devil and that he is so far of the Silencers mind 27. He accuseth not the silenced Ministers with any false doctrine 28. He chargeth them not with Immoralities or a bad life saving his supposed sin of Schism for preaching Christs Gospel when forbidden 29. He confesseth that Paul must preach though forbidden and that he chargeth Timothy before God and Angels to preach in season and out of season 30. He confesseth that the Pastors for 300. years preached when lawful Magistrates were against it and for bad them 31. I acquaint him that I my self have the Bishops ordination the Bishop of the Diocess License not repealed and the Kings License and yet unless I will say that I trust to the Bishops License as that without which all were Schism it is Schism still so that it seemeth to be made necessary not only to have it but to believe in it or trust it On the other side we grant as followeth 1. That we must not over-value our own grace or gifts nor undervalue other men nor pretend that our labours are more necessary than they are 2. We must not disobey our lawful Rulers by omission or commission in any thing which it belongeth to their office or power to command or forbid us 3. That if they command or forbid without power that which belongeth not to their office as that which belongeth to a mans private Trade or self-government or family-government c. if it be not in it self evil we should materially obey them finis gratia to preserve order and reverence to their office and that we embolden not men to disobey in other things though formally that particular injunction be powerless of itself 4. That if they command us that which God forbiddeth or forbid that which God commandeth we must patiently suffer what unjust punishment they inflict on us for not obeying them and not resist them in their executions by force Though we cannot say that this hath no exceptions as if a Bishop would ravish a woman she may resist him to save her chastity yet at least no resistance is lawful which deposeth the Governour or disableth him to govern 5. We think it not lawful to invade or take the publick Temples or Tythes or other maintenance of the publick Ministers against the Kings will or without authority 6. We believe that lawful Rulers have power to forbid such ministers to preach in this or that place or any where in their dominions whose preaching is such as tendeth to do more harm than good 7. Had we any reasonable conviction that our Ministry is unnecessary we would obey our Rulers though they silenced us causlesly and would seek some other place or way of serving God 8. In those times places and circumstances which perswade us that more hurt than good will come by it if we preach we will then and there forbear it though it be not as an act of formal obedience nor a desertion of our Office or of the exercise of it at other times 9. We judg it our duty to further the good success of the Conformable Ministers to the utmost of our power 10. And we take Schism to be a great sin and that which we are bound to do the best we can not only to avoid our selves but to cure or hinder in others But we cannot in our present case give over the preaching of Christs Gospel for the Reasons before given 1. We judg it a violation of the grand Law of Charity to agree with the Bishops that the people shall be damned by thousands and content our selves that not we but they shall answer for it 2. We judge it perfidiousness to violate our Ministerial Covenant with God in which we gave up our selves to his service 3. We judge it also heinous sacriledge it being a holy work to which we are devoted 4. It is an Idolatrous setting up mans will and power above and against Gods 5. It is a preferring of pretended Order before the thing ordered and that which is less than sacrifice even sin before Mercy yea the greatest mercy 6. It is a pleasing of the Devil who is the great enemy of Preaching the Gospel and of sinners repentance and salvation and whose instruments the hinderers of the Gospel are we leave to consideration 7. It is a contradicting of the prayer taught us by Christ Pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth labourers For we are sure he hath not sent forth supernumeraries 8. It is a wilful running on Christs damning sentence after his premonition Matth. 25. by omitting greater matters than feeding cloathing visiting c. 9. It will be a burying our talent with the unprofitable servant and denying God
the service which he hath qualified us for and all our former time hath been spent in preparing for and so it is as a casting away our time and life 10. It will be a wilful compliance with Phariseism after the warning of their ill examples who preferred their orders traditions sabbaths and their own authority before the good of the peoples souls and bodies 11. It will be an encouraging compliance with Church-tyranny in exercitio if we will give over Preaching as oft as Bishops forbid us because we will not take their Oaths and be stigmatized with their PER I say supposing this had been the case 12. We think it will be a compliance with Church-tyranny quo ad titulum being ready to prove not only that the present Diocesans have no true power over us but what is given them by the King as Magistrates but also that their frame of Government is destructive of the Churches Ministry both Episcopacy and Presbytery and Discipline of Christs appointment 13. We are afraid of being guilty as things now go of mens Usurpation and injury against the King while we have the Kings License to preach and they tell us not only that the King hath not so much authority to License us as they but also that he hath less authority to silence us than they and that it is lawful to preach when Kings unjustly forbid us as the ancient Pastors did but not when these Bishops forbid us 14. In short When we think what a work it is to damn souls by starving them or to hinder their salvation our hearts dread to participate in such guilt considering 1. It is contrary to the very nature of God who is Love it self And we find that the silencers are ready to trust in Gods Love to themselves in the hour of their extremity And shall we think that he so little loveth the souls of men as to desire that they should be damned rather than saved against the will of a Diocesan 2. It is contrary to the very office and design of Christ who laid down his life a ransome for many and came to seek and to save that which was lost and would not cease when the Rulers forbad him to teach the people and demanded an account of his authority but would break even the rest of the Sabbath to save mens health telling them that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath and if Prelacy be of God it is for the peoples salvation and not their salvation to be sacrificed to a Prelates will 3. It is contrary to the sanctifying-work of the Holy Ghost who by the Gospel converteth man to God 4. It is contrary to Christs institution of the Ministerial office which was for mens salvation 5. It is contrary to our duty to the Catholick Church whose increase we must endeavour 6. It is contrary to our daily prayers To pray God to have mercy upon all men and to deny them his mercy and starve their souls is gross hypocrisie 7. It is contrary to our Baptismal-vow in which we engaged our selves to fight under Christs banner in the place where he should set us against the world the flesh and the devil 8. It is contrary to our due Love to our native Countrey for whose temporal welfare even a Heathen would have dyed 9. It is contrary to that peace of the Church which is pretended for it For it destroyeth the necessary foundations and ends of peace 10. And it is contrary to the very honour of the Prelates themselves which is set in competition with things of inestimable worth For it will make the people that believe the Gospel to take such men as prosessing themselves the Fathers of the Church do silence the faithful Preachers of it to be grand enemies of Christ and Souls and the Captains in the Army of the devil 11. All good men long for the propagating of the Gospel to the Heathen and Infidel World And shall we then be guilty of suppressing it at home 12. The Papists and all such will condemn us who will not give over Preaching even when King and Law and Bishops forbid them And shall we incur all this guilt by ceasing for nothing yea even now while we are licensed by the King We had rather be taken in the company of thieves in a pursuit than to be found among PER's and soul murderers at judgment Sion is the City of Salvation but in Babylon is found the blood of souls of whom for carnal ends they made merchandize The foregoing Reasons of our Accusation are sufficiently answered already I. Where it is said that our Calling is dependent on the Bishops I answer It is yet lis sub judice whether such a Prelacy be of God we mean the English Species that is for one man to destroy a thousand or many hundred Churches and make them but Parts of one Diocesan Church and without any Bishop under him to Rule and exercise the Power of the Keys over that one Church by a Lay-Chancellor in a secular manner and deny the Power of the Church-Keys to all the demi-Presbyters If these Diocesans were of God so is not every one that by worldly power gets possession of the place being neither chosen by the Clergy or the people any more than one that forcibly usurpeth the name and dignity What maketh that man a Bishop over me any more than another man Had they said the King I should have reverenced the answer at least Though the Arrians had the same in Constantius and Valens's days But when they trust not to this but to their divine right what is it that is their title They say Consecration I answer 1. Consecration is but a Ministerial investiture like Marriage of one that before had right by election This they deny and lay all on Consecration and not Election 2. But if so then if the unjustest claimer be Consecrated he is our Bishop And then the Consecrators have more power to determine who shall be Bishops than Kings and People 3. But who be these Consecrators Are they any Bishops whatever or some in special above the rest If any then any wicked Bishops may make more and undo the Church And then what if three Bishops Consecrate one and three another and three another over one Diocess Are they all the Bishops of that Diocess or which 4. But the Objectors confess that Consecration doth but make one a Bishop without a determinate Church but to make him the Bishop of this or that Church humane application is necessary But 1. Where find they in Scripture a Bishop made that was not made the Bishop of a particular Church I believe that a Minister of Christ in general and an Evangelist in specie may be made before he is fixed to any particular Church But not a Bishop if Scripture must be the rule 2. But if he be Consecrated a Bishop and not my Bishop or any other mans this layeth on me no