That 's his act and not theirs and they cannot hinder him They send their Children to be Baptized and not to be Cross'd M. But we have many Antipadobaptists and converted Iews to be Baptized at Age. 2. And tho' I am much of your mind in this yet all wiser Men are not and the case is very difficult as to Infants If one knew beforehand that the Priest would use Oil and Spittle and Exorcism and invocate Saints and Angels over the baptized Child it were hard to say I send him only to be Baptized when he knew how sinfully it will be done The truth is I can justifie no Man that will submit his Child to such a crossing at Baptism that can caeteris paribus have it by another better done tho' Prohibited by Man We must not be guilty of other Mens Sins nor of Church Corruptions L. Christ that will have mercy and not sacrifice would not have men refuse Christendom for fear of a Cross. M. Christ who would have Teachers learn that Lesson I will have mercy and not sacrifice would have no Minister deny Christendom to such as think their crossing sinful And yet he would have no Man commit any Sin to gain Baptism but will save the unbaptized that desired it so they might have had it without and will himself shew Mercy to such as consent not to a polluted Sacrifice And would have us prefer a lawful way when we can have it Baptism is our Renunciation of Sin. CHAP. LI. POINT VIII Of Rejecting not-Kneelers from Communion L. AND well they deserve it that will not reverently receive so great a Gift upon their knees from God. M. Do you think it is for want of humble Reverence Do they not kneel after and longer to God in Prayers publickly and in their Families and Chambers than most that blame them Were Christ's Apostles unreverent that did not kneel at receiving it in his own visible presence Was all the universal Church unreverent that for 600 Years if not 1000 after Christ forbad strictly all Adoration by kneeling every Lords Day because they would use a Laudatory Gesture denoting their belief of Christs Resurrection Do those men shew more Reverence to God and Religion that will kneel at the Altar and scarce ever kneel to God at home and seldom use his Name but with prophanation It is not unreverence that causes their dissent L. I know no just cause they have of this dissent M. I confess nor I while the open Doctrine of the Church renounceth all Bread-worship and Idolatry But were it among Papists where the Doctrine expounds the action I durst not do it But I told you before what moveth them which I must not again repeat But I will repeat it that it is a heinous injury to the Church and the particular Persons that on the account of so small and doubtful a circumstance wherein all antiquity is against the imposers they should deny Communion with Christ and his Church as much as in them lieth to faithful Christians and should turn the Sacrament of Love for no just cause into an occasion of hatred and persecution and the Sacrament of Unity into an Engine of division by their own needless impositions to perplex mens Consciences and set people one against another O what a snare and instrument of wrath and discord and inhumane usage of other men do many turn that blessed Sacrament into which is instituted for the Communion of Saints in unfeigned Love. The more such magnify the Sacrament as the very Flesh and Blood of Christ the more do they condemn themselves CHAP. LII POINT IX Of denying Lay-men Communion in a Neighbour Parish Church when they dare not Communicate in their own Parish for the Reasons aforesaid M. IX DO you think it is a sin deserving exclusion from Christian Communion for a man to think it unlawful for him to own and encourage the Ministry of an ignorant insufficient or grosly scandalous or hurtful Teacher A poor Christian that is unwilling to be damned and readeth that he should love his Neighbour as himself perhaps heareth the Priest tell the People what hypocrites and odious persons Non-conformists are and exhorts them to avoid such and to prosecute them and root them out as the intolerable enemies of Church and State and as unfit to be Members of any Society He is acquainted with divers Non-conformists their Lives and their Books and Doctrines and finds the clean contrary He reads in Scripture See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently He heareth from the Pulpit See that ye hate one another and seek the destruction of one another Christ saith Love your enemies the Priest exhorts them to root out their friends Christ saith He that receiveth you receiveth me and shake off the dust of your Feet against them that receive you not It shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah than for such the Priest saith He that receiveth such Ministers sinneth against Christ and he that hath any communion with them is a Schismatick The man readeth Beware of false Prophets and thinks it a sin to encourage the teachers of lies and wickedness and he readeth He that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not eternal Life and if I have not charity I am but as sounding Brass c. He thinks him a false teacher that contradicteth Christ and that seeks to damn the hearers And he thinks that no tongue can more contradict Christ than that which Preacheth down Love and Preacheth for hating godly Men tho' on slanderous pretences and that no man can do more to damn the People than he that draweth them from love to such hatred Another liveth in a Parish where a dry ignorant fellow affords him no such help as he is conscious his soul needeth and where the Common-Prayer is so much better than the Sermon that were it not for that he might better stay at home And where the Priests Conversation encourageth the Drunkards and Prophane and vilifieth godly Men. This man is for the Church-way but for a better Minister The question is whether for this he be so great a sinner that all neighbouring Ministers must drive him away and deny him Communion Another honest Christian taketh it for a sin to kneel at the Railes or to join with the Organs or to receive or desire the Diocesan manner of Confirmation or to forbear Communion with all Christians whom the Church-men here condemn or cast out The question is whether it be no wrong to any of these to be denied Communion at a neighbour Parish where his doubts are removed I prove that he hath right to such neighbour Communion 1. Because he is a Member of Christs Body the Catholick Church and therefore hath right to the Communion of Saints And to believe that in the Creed and condemn it in Practice is to believe to condemnation 2. They themselves teach that a true Christian hath right to Communion with all Churches where he hath
care that no Parish want a fit Teacher whom the willing may hear 2. And that the negligent and unwilling be forced to hear either them or some other allowed or justly tolerated Teacher But I never said that 1. Because the Catechumens may be forced to hear their Parish Teacher who are Free-men therefore those that are Wives Children and Servants may be forced to go to one Church when the Husband Parent or Master commands them to go with him to another 2. Nor yet that those Masters that are Communicants and not Catechumens may be forced from hearing their own Pastors approved or tolerated It 's enough that they be forced to hear either And Men ought not to be deprived of the due Government of their Families L. Is not the Patron as fit to chuse a Teacher or Pastor for your Wives Children and Servants as you are M. No 1. A Mans Interest in and power over his Wife and Children is earlier and greater than a Patrons is It is natural and by a Law which no Men have power to abrogate Self-government and Family-government are antecedent to Princes or States Government and they have no right to dissolve it 2. I shall gain or lose more by the welfare or misery of my Family than the Patron will. 3. Nature hath given me a greater Love to Wife and Children and bound me to a greater care for them than it hath done a Patron 4. I know them better and therefore know what they need and what Teacher and Communion is fit for them better than a Patron that never saw them or me 5. Supposing that I am allowed to chuse my own Pastor and Communion it will be inconsistent with Family-government that my Wife Children and Servants be forced to go to another place where I can have no account of them what they do and how they behave themselves 6. If no Man may justly chuse for my Children a Tutor a Trade a Physician or Diet or Cloathing rather than my self much less a worse when I chuse a better nor may impose Husbands or Wives on them much less may any chuse for them against my will and choice an Office on which their Salvation is so specially concerned L. But if you may force your Wife and Children to what Pastor you chuse for them it seems then a Man may be forced to one Pastor rather than another And then why may not the Magistrate force you as well as you may force your Family M. You mistake me I do not say I may force my Family to any Pastor I say if they that are not Communicants but Catechumens may be forced to one Teacher itâ—s meeter for me to force them than for a Patron or any other 2. But as to Communion I will not force them to it at all nor to this or that Pastor But because different Places and Pastors for Communion signifieth different minds and will be a great distracting inconvenience to a Family I will use all my reason and loving interest in them to bring them all to one place for Communion And it s very strange if I prevail not having better advantage to satisfie their reason and to perswade them than a stranger hath so that such Breaches will be very rare But if I be as injurious to them as some Patrons are and would draw them to chuse an intolerable Pastor or false Teacher it is their Interest and Duty not to be perswaded by me to their hurt L. What confusion will this make in the World when all people even Wives and Servants may chuse on what Pastor they will depend and where they will Communicate M. It were a happy World if you or any did deliver it from differences yea or confusion But perfect concord is no where but where is perfect knowledge holiness righteousness and love If it breed confusions in the World that every Man chuse his own Dwelling Trade Diet Cloathing Wife Servants Travels Company Physician Counsellor Tutor Master Books c. And so that their Life Death and Souls be more in their own power than anothers there is no remedy If you would devise any other Chuser for them of all these you would cure that disorder with madness and destruction who is it that should chuse all these for all other Men He that chuseth for them must answer for them and must be accordingly saved or damned for them If God had appointed some Pope that he would always make wise and good to chuse for the Kingdoms of China Pegu Tartary Iapan Sumatra and all the rest of the World what Religion they should be of and what they should love and hate speak and do it would have brought the World to a happy state if all would stand to that Mans choice But who can teach God how to Rule the World and say Thou shouldst have made Man otherwise Will you mark this Either it is only to command Men what to chuse or else to make them chuse by efficient determination of their wills or else to move them by force without or against their wills that you would have the World saved from sin and confusion There is but these three ways And I. To move them against or without their wills is natural motion or violent and will make none of their actions good or bad in a Moral sence Nil nisi voluntarium est morale Thus a Horse a Watch a Ship is governed And you may lay them in what order you will when they are dead II. To make them good by Physical efficient determination of Mens wills God can do it and doth not at least with most Man cannot do it It 's madness to pretend to it And I hope you will not accuse God who only can do it for not cureing the sin and confusions of the World this way III. It is therefore only the Moral way of Cure that remaineth by Laws Rewards and Punishments And hath not God made better Laws for Religion than Man can make More infallible and perfect with more aweful Power and with ten thousand fold greater Rewards and Punishments And now what mean you by saying that every Man must not be left to chuse what Religion he list 1. Every Man is a rational voluntary Agent and not a Stone or Brute 2. Every bad Man is left undetermined by efficiency of God or Man in all the evil that he doth 3. Every one in the World is left by God and Man to chuse Salvation or Damnation in the means and to speed as he chuseth 4. No Man is left Lawless to chuse what he will without the Obligation of a perfect Divine Law. L. But Men that believe not a God and a Life to come must be moved by temporal punishment which they can feel Let them stay till death and they will deride Religion and live in wickedness M. You are too confused while you talk against confusion 1. Do you think Men that believe not a God and a Life to come are fit
it is or the Parish Churches to be no Churches or their Communion utterly unlawful Or did it bind us to preferr a desertion of all publick Communion before it No it did not but if it had it had been sinful and to be repented of But 1. We were bound by God's word and no Covenant or Practices bind us to any more than Scripture binds us to to avoid all that is sin 2. And when we have our choice to preferr the best he that doth either turn to Sin or preferr a less good when it is so before a greater goeth back but he that preferreth no Publick Worship before the Parish Worship goeth back indeed and breaketh the Covenant by profaneness and Schism God's word is a clearer and surer Test of our Duty and Controversies than any humane Covenants When Ministers were changed 1647. many places got out some tolerable weak Ministers to get in abler men in great Towns. When the Bishops returned their abler Ministers being dead or ejected they took the old ones again Did these go back from Covenant Reformation or Duty when they could have no better Had not those been the revolters that would rather have had none L. But why go you to the Parish-Churches when you might have better M. 1. All Non-Conformists Preach not better than many of them yea the Liturgy is better words of Prayer than some weak or faulty Non-Conformists oft use 2. A brown loaf and a white one both may be better than a white one alone I found both best and I knew it sin to renounce Communion with any Church for weakness because they are not as good as others 3. That is best at one time and place that is not so at another Praying in it self is better than working and eating sleeping And yet in their proper time your servants working and your eating and sleeping is better than praying at that time One that is a Son a Servant a Wife who is commanded by ahe Master of the Family to hear a tolerable Parish-Minister may then find it better than disorderly and disobediently to hear an abler Man that may by variety of conditions be one mans Duty which is anothers sin But alas I fear that Communion with a Non-Conformist-Church will quickly in England be so rare as will end the controversy which you should preferr and you must have Parish-Church Communion or none As it was before 1638 when there was scarce more than one Non-Conformist that held any Church-Communion but Parochial in each County I think God's Judgments will soon silence this dispute with all that will not renounce all Local-Church Communion I will conclude with another reason of my practice Almost every Church on Earth hath a worse Liturgy as I said and People than ours But I dare not separate from almost every Church on Earth And therefore not from one for a reason that is common to almost all CHAP. LIX A Draught of ten Articles containing that which the Non-Conforming Reconcilers desire to unite us and heal the Church when GOD seeth this Land meet for so great a Mercy L. I Have one thing more to desire of you That you will so far answer the common question What would you have As to tell it us punctually as to those things which you take to be necessary to our agreement It may be hereafter they may be regarded and used tho' not in our days M. Do you mean as to the ends and things desired of us or a form of Words to be the containing means As to the former 1. We desire nothing but the promoting God's Glory Kingdom and Will according to the three first Petitions in the Lord's Prayer for the Information Sanctification and Salvation of the People by the Pure Plentiful and Powerful preâ—ching of the Gospel the True and Spiritual Worshipping of GOD and the due Exercise of Church-Discipline according to Christ's Laws And that herein all Christians may live in Love and Peace and as much Concord as they can And to that end that they may take God's Word which they are all agreed in as the Test of their Concord and as sufficient for all things necessary to Salvation and the only universal Law And that the Churches may not be torn by the imposition of Mens Canonical Engines as necessary to Liberty or Communion in which all never did nor can unite And that such course may be taken for the Choice of Church-Pastors that the Flocks may be guided and fed by Truth and Love and not famished nor opprest by Malignants that hate the serious practice of what they Preach It is not Wealth nor Honour nor any thing but this that we desire but see small hopes of attaining by Men. L. The desires are honest but you all profess just desires in general and de fine But I desire you to leave to the World in writing the ipsissima Verba which you would wish in a healing Law with as little change as may be M. I shall do it premising 1. That such a yielding form must contain but what 's of necessity to our Concord and not all that our well-being requireth 2. That the words must not be too many lest they seem too tedious nor too few lest they be not intelligible 3. That they that will defeat them will pretend but to change the words and thereby cross our sence and necessities but take them tho' men give us no present hopes A Breviate of the Ten Articles desired by such Non-Conformists as treated for Concord 1660. and 1661. for such a Reformation of the Parish-Churches as is needful to our Union I. THat the Profession of the Christian Faith and consent to the Baptismal Covenant by Parents or Pro-parents or Adopters for Infants and by the Adult for themselves be the Terms of Church-Entrace by Baptism II. That the Terms of the Communion and Privileges of the Adult be That they have personally owned and renewed solemnly the said Christian Covenant and are not proved to have nulled that Profession by Apostasie Heresie or an inconsistent wicked Life And that they understandingly desire the said Communion III. For the necessary notification of such understanding consent and desire the Pastors that know them after due Catechizing shall try them and upon Approbation admit them to the Communion of the Adult or upon a just Certificate that they have been so approved and received by any other Orthodox Pastor IV. Such as are proved to violate the Baptismal Covenant by Apostasie Heresie or a wicked Life the Pastor must wisely and compassionately admonish to repent and amend And if after private and open Admonition such remain obstinately impenitent the Pastor shall publickly declare them Persons unfit for Communion with the Church or where so much is not permitted shall at least forbear to give them the Sacrament but shall receive them when they credibly profess Repentance V. No unnecessary Oath Covenant Subscription Profession or Promise shall be made necessary to Communion or Ministry