or Sadduces that believe no Life to come Many are conscious of secret Fornication Drunkenness Stealing Deceiving c. rhe Minister or Magistrate is no judge of these Yet if they Communicate not they break the Rubrick and Law and are to be punished Many hundreds are conscious of secret unpreparedness and many timorous honest People so afraid of eating and drinking Judgment c. that they dare not come And many on many accounts are unwilling and yet all these are commanded to come In a word No unwilling Person hath right to the Sacramental Benefits and yet all such are commanded on great Penalties to Communicate thrice a Year 2. And I hinted how many were forced to admit to our wrong and theirs which you answer not CHAP. XX. § 1. YOur 19th Section is for our accusing those that we refuse to the Ordinance within fourteen days that he may proceed against them according to the Canon And first you tell us a strange thing which were it true would half reconcile me to the English sort of Prelacy viz. That the lesser Excommunication out of a particular Congregation seems to be allowed to all the Parish Ministers Say you so What a sleep have I been in these 50 Years since I have been Ordained it's 41 Years that never could hear or read of any such thing I have indeed read some honest Passages like it in the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast published by Iohn Fox which died before it was born and only shewed the good purposes of King Edward and his Divines But in our Articles Canons Liturgies or Book of Ordination I can find no such thing nor imagine what could thus deceive you Nor can I see any such thing in Cosms's Tables nor in any Conformist's Writings which describe our Church Government What was in Doctor Mocket's Book that was burnt I know not By the Execution done on it and their hatred of Arch-Bishop Abbot I should think it was as likely to be there as any where But if it were it is no proof The Laws and Authorized Church-Canons and Forms must decide the Case Were there but any tolerable Parish Discipline I would never quarrel against Diocesans Nay could I but have been a Pastor and not a meer Slave or Executioner of the will of others against my Conscience § 2. I cannot imagine what you mean unless it be that the Canon and Rubrick say That we shall not admit to the Communion such As be openly known to live in Sin notorious without Repentance nor any who have maliciously and openly contended with their Neighbours till they be Reconciled nor any that desire not Confirmation But 1. Do you take this temporary suspension of my act of delivering this Man the Sacrament to be the Minor Excommunication viz. our of that particular Congregation You are much mistaken as any Bishop or Chancellor can tell you He is Member of that Congregation still You only suspend your own Act and his Reception till his Case be tried and judged by the Chancellor or Diocesan whether he shall be cast out or not 2. Nay could all our importunity with the Bishops have prevailed but for a Power in the Parish Minister for Pastor they would not have been called to suspend his own Act and not give or deny the Sacrament against his knowledg and Conscience I should not have said much against Diocesans nor any reasonable Appeals to them But I will tell you what I take our Case to be after my long enquiry I. The great Parishes that have many score thousand Souls are such as the Priest or Incumbent I may call him knoweth not one of a multitude of his Parishioners And Bishop Taylor of Repentance Pref. saith A man cannot take charge of or answer for the Souls that he knoweth not And though fame say That in such a Parish there are multitudes of Atheists Infidels Hobbists Brutists Socinians Drunkards Whoremongers Perjured c. while they are almost all strangers to the Minister he can deny the Sacrament to none of them pro tempore And how can the Incumbent know in such Parishes what they are II. If he know a man to be a Papist if he be a Church-Papist or have a dispensation he cannot on that account deny him the Sacrament Yea Dr. Heylin in the Life of Arch-Bishop Laud maketh it his commendable design to have drawn the Papists into our Churches as they were say some others in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign and this say they is to be a Queen Elizabeth Protestant to be one that will communicate with the Papists in our Liturgy But many good Ministers dare not give the Sacrament to a Papist till he repent and renounce the Papal Universal Government and their grossest corruptions III. If the Minister know any man to be an Adulterer Fornicator Drunkard or Heretick or Infidel by private conference confession or other notice and cannot prove it he must give him the Sacrament IV. If he that converseth not with one of an hundred himself and can know them but by hear-say shall hear a neighbour or two or ten report that such a one is taken by those that converse with him to be an Heretick Atheist Infidel Scorner at Christ and Scripture a Fornicator Drunkard c. he cannot deny him the Sacrament unless the reporters will stand to it as witnesses And it 's known 1. That few that can prove it will tell it the Minister 2. Good people that hear it cannot prove it 3. Those that can prove it and privately tell it will not trouble themselves and offend their neighbours by witnessing it openly What need we more than experience Do not your Books and Complaints tell us that not only Coffee-houses and Taverns but other places are witnesses of abounding Atheism Infidelity or Sadduceism and that our Parishes have great numbers of them And how many such have you known in London excommunicated or openly suspended And are not the London Ministers able good men that would do it if they could Ask them why it 's never done If you say that such come not but excommunicate themselves I answer 1. Are they not still members of the Parish-Church 2. How doth the Minister know that they come not who knoweth very few of his Parishoners 3. It 's known by their acquaintance that such ordinarily communicate so far as to satisfie the Law For what should hinder them when it is their interest V. If the Minister should have private proof against one Atheist of forty or one Drunkard or Fornicator of many if he cannot get his witnesses to travel far and for nothing become odious to the accused to attest it before the Chancellor or Bishop the Minister must give him the Sacrament after he is acquit by the Court for want of proof VI. If proof be brought and the Proctors fail managing it or the Chancellor favour the accused or the man resolve before he goeth I will say I repent and then deny me the Sacrament if you
the Ordinary will do but what the Law and Canon bind him and you to do CHAP. XXI § 1. YOu entitle the next Section of the Chancellor and his Office and reading Excommunications and the Order and Discipline in the Church of England And 1. You tell us of them that would have Unordained Ruling Elders in every Parish But 1. If that be ill how will it justifie Lay-Chancellors 2. Cannot many with the Pastor better govern one Parish than one Chancellor can many Scores or Hundreds 3. Some give Lay-Elders only a part of the Magistrates work and some only to be Delegates for the People to do but what they may do who cannot be oft present and to be occasional Arbitrators and some that give them any use of the Keys take them not for Lay-men but Ministers separated to that Ecclesiastical Office § 2. You tell us of thirteen parts of Discipline among us To which I said enough before 1. No Atheists Infidels or Pagans then must be refused Baptism if communicating God-Fathers how bad soever present him who never take him for their own and we doubt can neither give or prove his Title And that we are disabled to keep the unworthy from the Communion I have proved and the Excellent Learned Pious Parish Priests of London tell you by Practice 2. Few Communicants are Confirmed and Sacramental Capacity is not required to Confirmation And if it be not used or worse by Bishops who only have the power what satisfaction is that to the Parish Priest and Church 3. There is no sufficient means to Convict and keep away scandalous Sinners 4. The Sinner hath power to forbid you private Admonition by refusing to speak with you or come near you 5. What is Family Power to the Church We thank you for nothing But were not Parents formerly disabled from keeping Children and Servants from spending much of the Lord's Day in Dancing c. And doth not the Canon yet disable them from bringing them to hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church when they have none at Home 6. The Lawyers that I speak with take all for meer Falshood that you say of the Priests power of publick admonition of sinners by name not censured by the Ordinary You say Where is it forbidden I ask you Where is the Priest authorized to do it If not the Man will have his Action against him and Ruine him and the Bishop may suspend him for Usurpation And 2. Of all the worthy Parish Incumbents in London who did you ever hear once do it I never one heard one do it nor heard of one that did it in my life except a Non-conformist or a hot Parson point at a Puritan in the Church for some Non-conformity in a Circumstance Reverse then your charge of Hypocrisie if you find it must fall on all the worthy London Incumbents For they all speak for Discipline though not for more 7. If there be half as many bad Ministers as the Country saith there is it 's a small honour to the Church to reproach the Fathers that admit them as sinning against Church Law and Conscience and a small relief to Peoples Souls to tell that some Body had power to have provided better But the People had no such power to save themselves from a bad one though the Church for 700 if not more Years took him to be no Bishop but an Usurper that came not in by the consent of the Flock and election of the Clergy of which more elsewhere 8. Do or can Bishops by Visitations know the People and their Cases of a thousand or many hundred Parishes so as to hear and judge them Would they not have ten thousand scandalous Sinners sometime to try and exhort to Repentance in one or few Days 9. and 10. We are glad that the old prohibitions of Afternoon Sermons and Lectures are not yet revived But how few Parishes have such Lectures comparatively and how few have Catechizing And they that have none may not go to another If you think that it will save the Peoples Souls that the Priest might have instructed them if he could and would and that the Bishop should have made him do it I dissent 11. I have seen no Visitation Articles of late but in the old ones of 1634 1635 36 37 38 39. the Church-wardens were to swear to persecute Men for so many things which they thought their Duty as the foresaid going from a Non-preaching Minister keeping private Fasts and such like that many Men that feared an Oath and Persecution suffered because they durst not be Church-wardens 12. I confess more manners of Church-censures are in use among us than we desire The Canons will tell them to you Else so many hundred Non-Conformists formerly and lately had not been forbid to Preach nor all forbid to admit Non-conforming Christians to Communion nor had they been ipso facto excommunicate though Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis say so much to make odious all excommunicating ipso facto who they say first devised the name of a Doctrinal Penitence And Bishop Ier. Taylor saith so much against it And I confess that there is the Magistrate's sword to back all this by which about two thousand of us were silenced and you fly out of your Country from the Writ de excommunicato capiendo § 3. My belief of your unfeigned honesty makes one at last pity you and wonder when you add What more would you have what it was that could tempt you to contract the guilt of defending things of such publick and sad an Aspect and prospect against such light and after such experience of the effects and in such a time 1. Do you believe in your conscience that the Bishop of York Norwich Lincoln London or the rest with a Chancellor and his Officials and Arch-Deacons can possibly exercise that Discipline or the hundredth part of it which Christ hath appointed were they never so honest 2. Do you believe that a Lay-Chancellor who you confess hath not the power of the Keys doth or can well execute them 3. Do you not know how little of the Parish-Government against scandals is exercised by the Bishop and how almost is done by this Chancellor and Officials 4. Do you not know how unlike their Courts are to fit a sinner for absolution by true Repetance 5. Did you ever in your life know a sinner brought to a repentance seemingly unfeigned by them 6. Did you ever hear such worthy men of greatest honesty and Learning as Dr. Lloyd Dr. Stillingfleet Dr. Tillotson Mr. Sharp c. name any in the Pulpit or Church by way of publick admonition and invitation to repentance who was not first censured by the Ordinary 7. Do you think none of them would do it if they thought it a duty and the lawful and safe way of Discipline 8. Do you think their Parishes have no scores or hundreds of Brutists Atheists Drunkards Fornicators or other scandalous sinners 9. Do you think they can possibly
39 Articles and the Liturgy for they contradict not themselves Ans. There is no shew of contradiction If the Church in three Books express her sense must I not set all together and take them in all And when the Liturgy purposely referreth the unsatisfied to the Canon for her sense and reason it 's an odd way of expounding it to forsake the Canons Exposition and say I reduce it to the Liturgy Doubtless all three together express their sense § 7. The second Commandment forbad not all private use of Images either a Civil or meer Memorative or Monitory private yea or publick use As it forbad not Iacob to pitch a stone of remembrance or the Israelites to make a Memorative and Monitory Altar and yet forbad such an Altar for Worship to be erected without God's Order But it was external symbolizing with Idolaters by Images which the second Commandment forbad that is either worshiping them or God by them or by setting them up in the place of Worship seeming so to do So it is not all use of a Cross that breaketh the second Commandment When you have proved lifting up the hand or laying it on the Book c. to be Sacraments I shall further answer you Or if the second Commandment oblige us not to use Christ's Sacraments as it is now one of Christ's Commandments then I shall confess that it forbiddeth not us to devise the like § 8. You say If it be a Sacrament it would be universally unlawful If Baptism had not been ordained by Christ it would have been traiterous and sinful to use it as a Sacrament Ans. You grant us enough I durst not have used the word traiterous so boldly lest I should anger the Conformists But when did you prove that every professing sign is used to the same use in specie as the covenanting dedicating Symbol of the Cross is This was a supposition not so easily to have been begged § 9. As to my Simile That Baptism is Christ's Badge or Colours it illustrates in the point of similitude And so it doth that the King would take it ill to have a publick badge of the Order of the Garter to be added to his Star by a private Subject much more for any to make a Law for all his Subjects to be known by a badge of private invention You say That it 's lawful to wear those Colours in the Troop which he may wear out Ans. Yes if he may wear them out in specie to the same use and ends But if you at a Funeral wear a black Ribbon and your General 's Colours be white and some Souldiers will make a Law That the badge of all the Souldiers shall be black Ribbons joyned to the white it would not then be lawful for you in or out of the Troop to wear that black as the badge of a Souldier much less to declare that you approved of and consented to the imposition And when you tell me I allow the use of it I tell you I allow not your use prescribed by the Church You say I can never prove that Christ forbad it And yet you say before that It 's traiterous to have made a Sacrament without Christ. But you affirm That it 's made but for the same use in Baptism which I allow out But why did you not give some answer to my express proof of the contrary Or why put you me so oft to repeat it It is an outward visible sign by which in the solemnizing of the Covenant between Christ and us the person is dedicated to God by receiving the said sign of the Grace of the Covenant and the obligation of the Covenant and of the persons professed consent and engagement to the duties of it 1. That it is a Badge of Christianity the thirtieth Canon saith twice 2. That it is an honourable Badge by which the Infant is dedicated to the service of God the same Canon saith 3. That it is a Covenanting sign both the celebrating words and these of the Canon shew 4. That it is a sign of professed Consent to the Covenant-duties there named Not to be ashamed to confess the Faith of Christ crucified and manfully to fight under his banner against the World Flesh and Devil and to continue Christ's faithful Servant and Souldier to his lives end The words shew and none denyeth 5. That it is an Obliging sign both as imposed by God's Minister and as self-obliging by the said professed Consent is also exprest in the same words And this is it which is called The Covenant-Vow The person is Vowed or Devoted to God by two Sacramental signs Baptism and the Cross. 6. That it signifieth also God's Grace given by that Covenant the words of the expository Canon 30 shew To dedicate them by that badge to his service whose benefits bestowed on them in Baptism the name of the Cross did represent To the service of him that dyed on the Cross. 7. Yea that it is an Investing sign delivering the Church-priviledges appeareth in the words We receive this Child into the Congregation of Christ's Flock and do sign him with the sign of the Cross. 8. And that it is to operate Grace morally on the Intelligent is exprest in the foresaid words of instructing and obliging signification with the preface of the Liturgy To stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God by a notable and special signification whereby he might be edified § 10. Anno 1660. endeavouring to prevent what followed I used these same reasons with the great Bishop who I think hath had the first and and chief hand in the matter as it standeth and he denyed but two things of the Sacramental Cross 1. That it is of God's institution which he thought essential to a Church-Sacrament To which I say It is a humane unlawful Sacrament but that it is not Divine we easily grant 2. That the Cross giveth Grace I answered that effectually it doth not because God will not bless unlawful means But it is appointed by man to give or work Grace This I proved 1. Because as it is a Receiving sign into the Church it delivereth by Investiture the Relative Grace of Church-priviledges 2. As the Water of Baptism worketh morally by signifying the washing of Christ's Blood so the Cross is to operate morally by signifying Christ's Crucifixion the benefits of the Cross and our duty But he laid the stress of his Cause on this assertion That Sacraments as such are to give grace otherwise than by such moral operation and it is no Sacrament that is not instituted to give God's grace otherwise than morally I told him how commonly Protestants maintain that they are not instituted to give grace physically but only morally and by investiture in relations And here we broke And because I must expect that from others that are driven to it this will be the last refuge I will add that even the wisest Papists themselves do maintain only
is it And is this the Power of the Keys or Excommunication If you ask me How I would have all this remedied I have oft enough answered it and will not here repeat it Only I would have a Minister have some such freedom as a School-master or Philosopher hath in his School and not a meer slave or Agent of others to take in and use and exclude and say as strangers to the Flock command him against his conscience and knowledge of the Case till it be proved that it shall justifie him at judgment for all such actions to say The Law Bishop or Chancellor commanded me § 2. You tell us as by your many Years Experience that private repelling by Counsel and Persuasion may serve with most And 1. I wonder that you that had but a small Country Chappel and no Church at all where near Neighbours might easily be spoken with should talk of your Experience as an argument against that which is of notorious matter of Fact 1. Shew me where Law Canon or Rubrick giveth power to the Priest to refuse a Parishioner that saith I take you not for my Pastor nor to have any authority over me but as the Bishop's Curate to do what the Law bids you and I will not speak with you 2. Do you not now dwell in London where Parishes are so great that the Parson can do no such thing on one of a Multitude nor doth so much as know them And know you not that de facto there are Multitudes that will refuse and scorn to give you any account or hear you or come to you or admit you to any such discourse with them I had the most obedient tractable People to deal with that ever I knew And yet I had some that attempted by present violence to Murder me for Admonishing them and forbidding them the Sacrament and many that would give me no other account of themselves but demand of me to deliver them the Sacrament as the Canon and Liturgy order it whenever they appear at Church and require it Hundreds and Thousands will stoop to no other Terms in the great Parishes of England § 3. I confess if ever I had been thought tolerable under our Prelates and had thought my self able as I do not for the care of some of the smaller Parishes I should have most trusted to the New Liturgy for my power to keep away some of the grosly Ignorant as being not ready to be Confirmed because they know not the Catechism But now I perceive by you this were not like to serve my turn for you say It is only for those that never yet Communicated when as multitudes of the Aged are grosly ignorant of the Essentials that have long Communicated 2. And divers of these grosly ignorant Persons are Confirmed long ago Bishop Morton was one of the Learnedst and best Bishops that ever I knew And when I was fourteen or fifteen Years old I and my School-fellows and abundance of Boys and Girls when he came into the Country went as to some Spectacle and without any certificate or question to us or instruction of us we all kneeled in a long row in a Church-yard in the Path-way and as he went by he laid his Hands on every one and huddled over a short Collect of which I scarce understood one sentence that he said and I was never the wiser nor fitter for the Sacrament that I perceived § 4. But you say that The Order binds to a Repelling by publick Admonition and Church Power notifying to the Congregation such a Man's Crimes and Scandals as a Fornicator c. and warn him not to come to the Sacrament till he have made open confession of his Sins and reformed his Life Ans. What Order is it that binds us to this If you mean Christ's Order we must do it If you mean the Churches where shall we find it This is like the Rubrick new Article of Faith which will Silence us all who are not certain by God's Word that Baptized Infants without exception are undoubtedly saved and yet that Charity was wanting that should but once have cited the Text that maketh it undoubtedly certain A short labour for so great an End So when you might know how very far it would go to reconcile me to our Prelacy could I but prove what here you say yet you will not so much as tell me where to find it Nay if you that have studied the Law would but have told me how to escape when I am accused for doing it § 5. But your next is too apt to provoke Laughter viz. Suppose you honestly tell the Ordinary that the uncapable are too many to be presented lest Violence make them worse and Excommunicating them signifie nothing but endanger them to rise in Rebellion or Mutiny and turn you and us out of Place that reason is considerable or quite leave our Assemblies and turn Quakers Papists Infidels and precipitate Souls to Hell by Obstinacy and Viciousness But if you will leave it to me I will Christen their Children and keep them within the Church Is that Excommunicating them as Hearers and Learners and Candidates c. Do I not then honestly perform the Law Ans. Your honesty I shall commend And Christ's Law you may much perform But what Law of the Church is it that you thus perform What is the Law that giveth you any such power What Law forbids it you I have shewed Let the Rejected sue you and let the Judges tell you whether you have kept the Law The issue will answer you better than I can But you say It is the Intention of the Law that you perform Ans. You have proved me also and all of us Conformists before we were aware The end of the Law is to edifie and save Men and to prefer Mercy before Sacrifice But all this I do or endeavour in my Preaching Dwelling and Practice Ergo I am a Conformist and perform the Law But that did not keep me out of the common Gaol nor save my Library And must we be punished for Conforming Break the Law and Canon and say you did it in Mercy and kept it and try whether you will pass for a Conformist Did you not thus keep the end of the Law when you Preacht at Warrington and did your Excommunicators call it Conformity § 6. But you say All that are accused are not Excommunicate nor laid in Gaols it is to be hoped that the Ordinary will do them Iustice. Ans. 1. As they did you 2. They may escape the Gaol by flying their Country as you do But what shall they do with their Wives and Children 3. But we grant you all this If 500 in a great Parish should be accused by the Minister as uncapable of the Sacrament by gross Ignorance Infidelity Heresie or Crimes and as you say they be not Excommunicate when they come home acquit the Minister must give them the Sacrament the next time 4. But our question is not what
you feign them to speak Nonsense or to Tautologize You say You Assent to all but not that All is true Which is a Contradiction or Equivocation § 4. Prove say you that there is any one thing in the Book which may not in the course of Conformity be godly used Ans. To some Men I will undertake to prove nothing If there be no proof in the Book which you write against when you have got leave to Print it you are likely to have more Till then to call for proof when you have it and speak not sense against it is too easie a way to satisfie the Just. § 5. III. I told you by word of Mouth that your Catholicon of trusting to the Bishops Exposition of the Book yea to his silence so gentle and tractable are you become is no relief to you for expounding the Assent Consent Subscription against the obligation of the Vow and about Arms c. because these are part of the Act of Uniformity and you say that Act is no part of the Book To this you Print your Answer that you Have another string to your Bow viz. That the Bishop is by Law the Ordinary to Ordain and take Subscriptions and may admit Ministers to subscribe these Tests with such Explications Meanings and Allowances as will well stand with the words justly and fairly construed Ans. 1. The Bishop is not made the Expounder of the Law but the Receiver of your Subscription according to the Law 2. If you will confound Indulgent Connivance and Conformity must we do so too This is Mr. Humphrey's project And I freely confess to you That if you can meet with an Indulgent Bishop it 's a fairer way to intromit a Dissenter than any that you have named in your Book All words are ambiguous The sense is the Soul of them If e.g. I were commanded to say that The Scripture is not God's Word and I had leave to expound it 1. All Scripture or Writing is not God's Word but the sacred Bible is Or It is not God's Eternal Coessential Word which is Christ were it not for Scandal this might be said as true And some think the Scandal is sufficiently avoided if you give in your sense in Writing and make it as publick as is your Subscription But I think that the very subscribing such scandalous Words will scandalously harden others and encourage Tyrannical Imposers more than your Exposition can Cure and therefore I would not use them And if I would I could cast in such an Expository Writing whether the Bishop will or not And if he accept it I pray better understand that This is not Conformity but Indulgence Connivance Toleration or Prevarication You might as well say He Conformed that by the King's Indulgence was excused from Subscribing and Declaring You put a Supposition that you had gone to Bishop Sanderson and askt his sense according to his Rules de Juramento Ans. I doubt your Party will think you betray their Cause by Prevarication 1. I told you how publickly in a meeting of Bishops Bishop Sanderson gave his judgment about Baptism against you 2. I cited the words of his Rules de Iuramento in the Book which you answer as being plainly against Conformity And you give no answer to it and yet suppose them to be for you This is too supine neglect to satisfie us § 5. You come over your foresaid sense of the Declaration again and pag. 160. You have better bethought you and will take the Debate of the Lords and Commons as useful to know the meaning of the Law Ans. What shall we do then by your Useful Error Why you now say You know nothing in the Book but what may be assented to as true Ans. And why was this so much disclaimed before When you put us to the trouble of Confuting you you Confute your self by changing your Cause and so we labour in vain Your Repetitions of the same things with saying and unsaying and bare saying without proof are so many that I will not wrong the Reader with Confuting any more of them save only to give you some account why I am sorry 1. That you retract your saying that Oaths are stricti juris 2. And that while you pretend to own Bishop Sanderson's Rules de Iuramento you renounce this which is one of the chief of them And I will tell you the reasons of my dissent from that and most of your Book IV. By stricti juris is not meant the meer Literal Sense as different from the less Proper which is more notified but strict is contradistinguished from loose and stretcht I told you the Rule that we go by in this and it pleased you not to Confute it Thus much I repeat 1. We must take Oaths Covenants and Professions imposed by Authority in the sense of the Imposers as near as we can know it 2. But if they discover their Sense in words so unmeet as that in the Vulgar Sense they seem false or wicked we must number such with unlawful words unless we can by the publick notifying the Exposition avoid the Scandal 3. We are to take the Laws and imposed words of Rules especially in Oaths Covenants and Professions in that sense as those words are commonly used and understood in that time and place by Men of that Profession Unless the said Rulers make known that they use them in a different unusual sense 4. We must not presume that they mean not as they speak by an unusual sense upon dark and uncertain Conjectures especially dictated by our Interest but only by Cogent Evidence These are our Rules The reasons why we cannot Swear or Covenant or profess in your Laxe and stretched sense nor call that sense honest as you do especially on pretence of a Bishop's Exposition contrary to what I have reason to be fully satisfied our Law-makers meant are those which I gave you in the thirty Aggravations Sect. 16. which it did not please you to contradict These few I repeat I. The words of the Third Command are dreadful God will not hold him guiltless that taketh his Name in vain or falsly II. Such licentious stretching of Oaths and Professions overthrow that mutual trust which is necessary to Humane Converse III. It depriveth the King of his due security of his Subjects Loyalty and of his Peace and Life I much fear lest relaxing and stretching the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but as much as you relax and stretch the words of the Subscription Declaration Liturgie c. may untie the Consciences of Rebels and King-killers so far as to make way for and consist with Rebellion and killing the King IV. It seemeth to me most dangerously to expose the Lives of all the Subjects of the Kingdom to the will of their Enemies and to be a Vertual Murdering of many or any if not all Persons that have Enemies For while two false Swearers may take away a Mans Life if Men are taught to stretch Oaths and
Equivocate it will embolden the Consciences of Men so far as that few Mens Lives shall have any security but be at the mercy of any Rogues It is a wonder of God's Merciful Providence that false Swearers murder no more than they do But such a Laxity would make our Case far more dangerous V. I that greatly fear lest God's late dreadful Corporation Iudgments Plague Flames Poverty and Divisions are inflicted for Corporation Sins and among those Sins eminently for Perjury am more inclined to call them in Bradford's words at the Stake Repent O England than to encourage them in such Sin and by Printing to persuade them not to repent VI. When we cry out of the Jesuits for stretching Oaths and Testimonies and all words by Equivocations and Mental Reservations to the endangering of Kings and Kingdoms and Mens Lives and Souls it ill beseemeth us to imitate or encourage them or to enable them to say that they stretch words no more than we VII It would be an unexcusable Sin in such a one as I who live not in another Age Land or Place where the Imposers sense could not be known but in the same Age and Place and have had so many Personal Treaties with the Bishops and the Lord Chancellor Hide who were the chief promoters of the Impositions and who know so many of the Parliament and Convocation that made these Forms and have had so great and satisfactory testimony of their Minds and Meanings and their Speeches and Reasons in Parliament upon these subjects and am fully satisfied in my Conscience that you satisfie their meaning It is not the sense of any Bishops that came in since that Act was made nor of any odd Person that is to pass for the Law-makers sense VIII People commonly think that Preachers should be so much more holy than they that if they come but near us they are safe And therefore if we stretch Oaths and Covenants they may do that and such as they count lesser Sins than Perjury and so we may harden them to Damnation IX It is a heinous aggravation of Sin to do it as for God and that we may serve him in the Ministry X. It is a dreadful thing to undertake to justifie thousands whom we never knew as well as the old Parliament Men whom we know and to prove that they ought not to Repent nor to endeavour Church Reformation if it should prove that by a Vow they are bound to such endeavour by lawful means XI I dare not provoke God to desert me in my Ministry yea and in my secret Comforts nor tempt Men to think basely of the Ministers as a Perjured sort of Men who cry down other Mens Sins while they have greater of their own XII It is a dreadful aggravation to do all this not by sudden Surprize but upon Deliberation and to make a Covenant against Duty and for Sin and to say I ought to do it and never to Repent yea and by justifying it to harden multitudes against Repentance Especially if it tend to corrupt the publick state of the Church and Worship For these Reasons I cannot use Violence with imposed Oaths Covenants or Professions but must expound them in the common sense of Men of that Profession till the Law-makers themselves shall declare that they mean otherwise And all this I speak but as the Reasons of our own Practice and not at all to accuse any Conformists Yea I so far excuse them against the Non-conforming Conformist that I do take the chief Men of them whom I have known to mean plainly as they speak I suppose they really Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in the Books and really mean contrary to your stretching Expositions of Infants Salvation of Baptism Communion Burial and the rest And by Dr. Smith's Books and such others I believe they take such Conforming Non-conformists to be as the late Westminster Assembly proved the most dangerous underminers of their Church And when we have Confuted such as you our Work is all to begin again with the serious Conformists who deal plainly and go on other Principles The Second Part. Mr. Cheney's Five Undertakings Considered § 1. DEar Brother you and I have exposed our selves as Publick Warnings to Mankind to take heed of an overvaluing of their own Understandings and of a hasty confidence in their Erroneous Conceptions and of rash obtruding that upon the World as necessary Truth for want of Judgment and Time to digest things which will prove very dangerous Error and if received and practised alas what Mischief may it do Erring Men know not that they Err If I think it is you and you think it is I and a third think it is both the Reader greatly profiteth by us who learneth by our Harms to have a due suspicion of his own Understanding and so it be without unnecessary Scepticism to have humble thoughts of his Conceptions which have not had time and helps convenient to ripen them Especially if your Friend or you be Conscious that you have formerly or lately been as confident in that which you now see was your Error you should think that the same Mind is still in danger of Deceit and it 's as easie to reel into the other Extreme § 2. Oh what cause have we to pray Lead us not into temptation we little know what is in our Hearts or others till just Trial call it up Nor what great hurt even good Men may live to do And if one Error get in to how many worse it may open the Door And if we begin to roul down the Hill how little know we where to stop But though Satan desire to have us that he may sift us I hope Christ's Intercession will keep our Faith from failing But wo and alas that we must one or both which ever is in the wrong be instruments of Mischief against the Interest of our dear Lord and his Truth and Church and Mens Souls whilst both our desires are to live in the World for no other end but to build up that which by Ignorance Self-conceitedness Error and Rashness we are laboriously pulling down § 3. And if it be I that have by Error wronged the Church my Case is made worse by your strengthening my Temptation when instead of convincing Argument you give me little but naked Assertions and saying I conceive and run into such Singularities as all sober Men are bound to suspect and some condemn almost all Christ's Churches without one word of Convincing Proof § 4. That you Answer only in Print to the World the private Talk that I had with you whilst you gave me no Vocal Answer I take but for a small and modal Irregulatity Some Men have Humours and Ways of their own which they will follow Had you done it as judiciously and truly with fear of Erring and Seducing as you did it publickly the rest might be well interpreted But we must take it as it is QUESTION I.
Vow falsly But the harder it is for him to know his own Mind the more excusable he is And a false entrance is not a Sin that is unpardonable nor is the Sinner uncurable but may be converted in the Church though he came in unlawfully § 6. While preposterously you tell us who you think hath right to Baptism and the Lord's Supper you pass over the Fundamental Controversie as if you knew it not which is What Baptism and the Lord's Supper are This is it that we are mostly disagreed about End this and end all I suppose you take Baptism to be the first Sacrament and that less is not necessary to the Lord's Supper than to it And I presume to tell you that Christ never ordained nor the Church ever used any other Baptism of the Adult than 1. That which delivered the present Remission of Sin and right to Life to the just receiver of Baptism 2. and that which contained on the part of the Receiver his present profession of saving Faith and Repentance that is his true consent to the Covenant § 7. The Scripture telleth us that Baptism saveth as containing the answer of a good Conscience to God And that as many as are Baptized into Christ have put on Christ and have professed that they are buried with him by Baptism into his Death and raised with him to newness of Life c. § 8. God in great Mercy hath delivered down to us from the Apostles the form of Baptism by a fuller Tradition than the words of the Scripture or any things else of our Religion are delivered All Ages and Churches to this Day have retained the same form as to all the Essential parts The very words of the Baptizer and the Baptized the Credo Abrenuncio c professed full shew that all used this one Baptism which was a professed Vow and Covenanting with God and renouncing of the Flesh the World and the Devil for present delivered pardon and right to Christ and Life See the long List in Gataker against Davenant of the Ancients that took all the Baptized for justified In a word If you make another Species of Baptism which hath lower Conditions and Gifts only than these I am past doubt 1. That you introduce a new sort of Christianity 2. That you hereby would change the very Essence of the Church and wofully corrupt it A worse thing than to impose new Ceremonies 3. That by denying the truth of so universal concurrent Tradition as the form of Baptism hath you will shake Mens Faith by weakning the Credit of that Tradition by which we have received the Bible It being a harder matter to keep all the words of such a Book than the Form of Baptism used on every Christian in the World 4. That you will too grosly reproach all the Christian Churches as if they had in all Ages and Places been ignorant what Christening and Christianity is and had used a false Baptism till of late 5. You will contradict the Church of England which you Conform to and all the Churches now in the World which in their form of Baptizing and their Catechisms and Confessions tell us of no Baptism but what is a present Covenanting with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as consenters to his Covenant giving up our selves to him in the foresaid Relations for present Pardon c. See Dr. Hammona's Pract. Cat. of the Baptismal Vow And is all this fit Work for two or three singular Men To deny the said History is to be grosly Ignorant or Immodest § 9. And now I am ashamed to trouble you and the Reader with the opening of all your Impertinencies and Contradictions of That Man will not be persuaded to consent to the Baptismal Covenant and to be a Christian indeed doth yet sigh and grown and pray for that which he would not have and that the Impenitent must penitently use this means for Penitence and because whosoever will must come and take the Water of Life therefore they that will not take it must take the Sacrament And that the outward Act which is false Vowing themselves to God and saying They consent to the Covenant when they do not is the means of Grace appointed for their Conversion in which they do well and are accepted And that Non-consenters may fly to Christ as a merciful Physician to save Souls and cast themselves at his Feet Repenting Praying and crying for Mercy which they would not have and yet if they come with particular ill intentions away with them Confute what I have written to the contrary if you would convince me or any Man that hath read my Five Disputations QUEST III. WHether a Minister may put from the Sacrament those of his Parish who be Christned People and come to Church and joyn in the Publick Worship and tender themselves to receive being under no sentence of Excommunication You say He may not Ans. § 1. 1. What 's this to the Primitive Churches that were not Parishes Or to the Countries that yet are not settled into Parish Churches Or to such Churches as are but tolerated among Papists Parishes 2. And all that is here mentioned the Papists did for the first ten Years of Queen Elizabeth 3. And remember that we have in our Parishes many that are open Atheists Infidels Sadduces Persecutors Scorners of the Scripture and Religion open boasting impenitent Whore-mongers Blasphemers Drunkards c. and many that openly deny the Ministry and Sacraments and yet to avoid Penalty and for Custom will do all that is here named though they deride it And that all these are to be received though also you suppose that they never so much as professed consent to the Baptismal Covenant you take on you to prove 1. Because it is the Will of Christ. Oh! Brother dread such additions to Christ's Words And how is that proved Why None but Dogs and Swine must be denied holy things Ans. 1. Where found you that None else 2. How prove you that none of these are Dogs or Swine 3. Yea are not all they swinish despisers of Grace who will not be persuaded to consent that God shall be their God and Christ their Saviour and the Holy Ghost their Sanctifier and give up themselves to him in these Relations § 2. Yet Page 30. the Case is this If the People being Christened do make a credible profession of true Christianity or a profession of true Christianity which we cannot prove to be false at least by a violent Presumption we must accept their Profession and admit them Ans. This is mine as cited and the plain truth But 1. Did you think that a credible profession of true Christianity is not a credible profession of Conversion Are not true Christians saved What else are Men to be Converted to 2. Do all such as are afore described make such a credible profession of true Christianity § 3. You tell us that the Standard that Christ hath set is that If now thou be
Thauluus Gerhardus Zutphaniensis Sales and abundance such yea Persons of Resolution will think there have been very holy Papists and for number they exceed the Protestants And yet that proveth not Popery to be lawful 5. That the Baptized's White Garment Milk and Hony not kneeling on Lord's Days c. were more generally used of old and yet are not now so well thought of Nor the giving the Eucharist to Infants nor the Millenary Doctrine much the Ancients Language like the Arrians which Pâ—tavius citeth § 13. Your main Argument you say is that Ye obey that Command Mat. 28. 19. And Christ doth not forbid you to use the Cross. Ans. As if you should say When I Celebrate Christ's two Sacraments I obey his Commands and he hath not forbidden me to use two or ten more As when you are commanded to believe in Christ as your Saviour it is implied that you must take no other for your Saviour so when you are commanded to Hear and Obey him as the great Prophet and King of the Church it is implied that you Hear and Obey no other as such And therefore give to no other any of the Prerogatives of Christ and ascribe nothing to Man's Law which is proper to his which you confess to make a Sacrament is Lest your hear In vain do they Worship me teaching for Doctrine the Traditions of Men If it be Sin it is worse than Suffering Do you think Worshiping in the high Places was worse than this § 14. You plead the Law of Nature even Mercy to the Magistrate's Soul to keep him from Silencing and Persecuting and to the Peoples Souls that they may have good Ministers Ans. What then If the Cross be lawful to be used as prescribed then no doubt I should use it If it be not must I sin when the Magistrate bids me to save him from Persecuting me The Martyrs might so have saved Bonner and Gardiner by a Lye But this is no saving them For if they First draw me to Sin endanger my Soul and would Silence me or destroy my Body if I did not this doth increase their Guilt and not diminish it 2. And you may exercise Mercy to the People as Ministers did the first 300 Years in a Suffering way and by good Example better than by Sin and consent to corrupt the Ministry and Church § 15. You call the Crossing and such things Trifles and Bawbles on which weak and childish Minds dote yet wise Parents may please their Children with Bawbles Ans. The Bishops will be more offended at this than the Non-conformists They that cannot allow us the pity due to weak Children will not take it well to be told that we are Fathers and they the Children whom we must please with Bawbles And you say The external part of Baptism is not so excellent as Prayer or Preaching Water and Words be not matters worth our comparing but remember Words are part of Baptism too and the Solemnizing the great Vow and Covenant between God and believing Sinners on the terms and to the great ends of Baptism is a high transaction of unspeakable Concern And it 's shame to many that cry out against Anabaptists that they reverence it far less than they § 16. But you say We assent not and consent not to the Imposing of it Ans. Nor I and therefore I will not say that I do Is not the Imposing of the Cross expresly in the Book And do you not plead for it openly declaring that you Assent and Consent to all things contained in it and prescribed by it What can be plainer § 17. You say I t 's better to do a doubtful small Evil than forbear a certain and great Good Ans. Negatives bind ad semper but Affirmatives do not And that which is Evil and not Good is ill called Better No evil must be done that can be avoided None that good may come of it The Apostles and Pastors of the three first Ages did good against the will of Governors What if a Man doubt whether a Lye or Perjury be Sin in such a case must he therefore do it that he may Preach without Persecution It is no Duty to you much less a greater which you cannot do but on condition you will Sin § 18. You say that Though he that doubteth is damned if he eat the case is not like the using of the Cross because there is liberty Ans. I have said so much of Rom. 14. in my Treatise of the Church Called that I need not add much more The advantage seemeth to me more on the other side They that did eat or forbear did it in Conscience to the Will of God as they that kept a Day or not But that Text expresly commanding even Church-Governors to do nothing contrary to mutual forbearance in such things here Conscience towards God is set against our obeying the supposed unlawful command of Man and our escaping Persecution The Iews then Persecuted those Christians that would not conform to their Law in Meats and Days even to the Death and more sharply than the Romans did And they seemed to be Scandalized by them to the hindrance of their Conversion Why then was that Case free and ours of the Cross not free CHAP. XIX § 1. YOur 18th Section is about giving the Sacrament to all the Parishioners thrice a Year You say It could not be the Churches meaning to give it to all Ans. Darkness is a great advantage to one that must be hid or run away and confusion to one that must defend an Error They are two distinct parts of our Dissent 1. That all the Parishioners are enjoined to Communicate thrice a Year 2. That we are enjoined to give it not to all but to more than we can with a safe Conscience You prove that there are Limitations to the last but that proveth not that they are so to the first Do you think that it will excuse a Man that Communicates not to say I am not willing to be Confined or I am out of Charity or I am a scandalous Sinner or the Church did suspend me for Scandal or Contumacy If it will the Papists may save their Estates or others called New Recusants at least But the Law and Liturgy and Canon all shew the contrary If they are unfit it 's long of themselves say they And that shall not excuse them from a Gaol You will say It commandeth them not to receive unfit but to be fit and then receive Ans. True But 1. All the Parish of natural Capacity are commanded to be fit and then receive and punished if they do not though morally never so unfit 2. Fitness is not gotten by bare Commands 3. There are multitudes unfit and ought not in that unfitness to receive that the Law layeth no hold on for any other Fault and many that cannot receive it much less can the Minister by the Law keep away Too many know themselves to be secret Atheists and more to be Infidels