necessary in Gods Service What kinde of signification requisite Not enough for the Presbyterians to allow Ceremonies THe determining of times and places and persons by The Lords Day observed by the authority of the Church which and at which of the Circumstances and Ceremonies of the Form and order according to which the service of God is to be celebrated is the Office and therefore is within the power of the Church The substance of Christianity wherein salvation consisteth was determined by our Lord in person to his Apostles That which hee trusted them with was the regulating of his Church supposing the same Christianity that God might bee served by the Assemblies of such as might appear to profess it That which he trusted the Apostles with the Church remains of necessity trusted with by the Apostles saving the personal Gift of the Holy Ghost in the Apostles rendring their Acts blameless in that estate for which they were made though not sufficient for all estates of the Church Otherwise the power of the whole Church is the power of the Apostles and obligeth the parts of the Church not to transgress the Acts of it Because the Unity of the Church is equally concerned in them and the substance of Christianity in neither of both This discovereth the Superstition of that Imposture which is pretended by deriving the Obligation of the Lords Day from the Jewish Sabbath For what reason can endure that the Church should bee bound to keep the first day of the week by that Precept which tyed the Synagogue to keep the last day of the week Seeing then the Obligation of it is to bee derived from the Act of the Apostles that is from the power of the Church For being once received by the whole Church it is for ever received to the same effect if the premises bee true it is the same Obligation that tyes all to observe the times appointed for the service of God by the Church whether Fasting days or Festivals The Example of the Primitive Christians at Jerusalem justifieth St. Hierome and others of the Fathers affirming that the Church should and would serve God continually in publick could the business of the world stand with it And therefore that order is to bee accounted most Christian that provides most opportunity for frequenting the publick service of God If this were considered it would appear a meer Imposture Therefore other Festivals and times of Fasting are to bee observed to demand that the Lords day bee celebrated with Sermons morning and evening and arbitrary prayers to usher them in and out treading underfeet all other times set apart by the whole Church for the service of God by such Offices as it enjoyneth If wee weigh by our own Weights and mete by our own Measures not only the mysteries of our Lords dispensatiâ—n in the Flesh but the memories of his Apostles and Saints not only the time of Lenâ— and the Wednesdays and Fridays But the time of Advent the Evens of Festivals the Ember and Râ—gation dayes once appointed to that purpose must still bee solemnized for the Festivals and Fasts of Gods Church To set a peculiar mark upon the Lords Day as if the time of it were more obliging then other time that is appointed to the same purpose is to change the day but to retain the Jews Superstition as Calvin most truely hath told them who in other things commit Idolatry to his Opinion But wherein he follows the whole Church in this point and in the state of souls before the Resurrection bid him farewell The Case is the same in the qualities of places as well as of How places and persons become qualified for Gods Service Preaching not convertible with ministring the Sacraments persons For the exercise of Christianity by the Law of this Kingdom there must bee places where all must meet they must bee limitted by the authority of the Church they must not bee balked for other places of mens private choise but by those that are willing to bee charged with Schisme for doing it They that quarrel the Bishops power in all other things must call this also in question when they mean to weigh by their own Weights and mete by their own Measures They are very studious to confound the difference between Priests and Deacons by having all called Ministers being a Term that may serve all Orders ministring those Offices which the Church enableth them to minister But they who would impose this sense upon the stile of Ministers of Gods Word and Sacraments that all and no other but they who are ordained to Preach are ordained also to Baptize and celebrate the Eucharist must bee told that this is an Imposture till they shew better reason for it then hitherto hath been shewed For I conceive I have shewed sufficient reason that the power of celebrating the Eucharist is convertible with the power of the Keys qualifying all Christians for the Eucharist which in the Bishop onely extendeth to publick causes concerning his whole Church or Diocese But in all Presbyters to private Causes wherein it may bee questionable between God and the Conscience whether a Christian bee qualified for the Eucharist or not As for the Sacrament of Baptisme that as the Bishop only allows it in any case that may bee questionable so the ministring of it may come to a Deacon in the Priests absence nay to a Lay-man rather then that any Child should dye unbaptized Neither is the Office of preaching restrained either to Priests or Deacons alone by any other authority then that of Gods whole Church Which being once passed in the Case by the general Custom and Practice of it it must bee the greatest Sacrilege in the World that is the Sacrilege of Schisme to transgress it The respect due to the memories of the Apostles and other Times places persons and things consecrated to Gods Service under the Gospel Saints and Martyrs of Christ is a reason sufficient to determine the time and place for the service of God To question that they are not just occasions for the consecrating of Festivals and of Churches to the service of God in honour of their memories is a just presumption that men seek to bee saved by some other Christianity then that which their Doctrine and their Blood planted But their names and the Festivals and the Churches that bear their names are but circumstances determining that service to bee acceptable to God which is performed in the Unity of his Church the authority whereof assigneth them to that purpose No more are the Utensils and Ornaments of Churches the Vessels in which the Sacraments are celebrated But they who think it Superstition that these things should bee set apart from Vulgar use and reserved only for Gods service plainly commit Idolatry to their own Imaginations in it For it is manifest that Consecration was in force not only by the Law of Moses but before it under the Law of nature as the
they bee members of Gods Church That is setting aside their Baptism and the Covenant which is solemnly inacted by it between God and each soul And though I do refer my self to the wisdom of Superiors in what form this reconciliation bee solemnized yet I must express my opinion thus far that there can bee none so fit as that which the wisdom of the Catholick Church from the beginning hath alwaies frequented By granting them the blessing of the Church with Imposition of hands renouncing for their part their several Sects and Errors That is by the praiers of the Church for the Spirit of God to rest upon them who have barred their baptism from giving it by opposing the peace of the Church which now they retire unto For how shall the Unity of the Church bee secured but by declaring them who violate the same accursed of God Nor let it bee thought that our Sectaries of their own accord retiring themselves unto the Communion of this Church it will bee requisite for the Church to admit them without taking notice of any thing that hath passed For neither is it to bee presumed that they who have made their own wills their Law for so many years will so much as profess conformitie to the Rule of the Church And if they did profess it there is no reason to think that they should stand to it having a dispensation dormant of the Spirit to stand to their profession as the interest of their faction shall require So their coming to Church would bee only an advantage for them to infect others And how should that Communion bee counted a Church which intertains Haereticks as Haereticks and Schismaticks as Schismaticks that is without renouncing positions destructive to the Faith without obliging themselves for the future to hold Unity with the Church Certainly there is no just answer for this if the Church of Rome should object it for the reason why they refuse to hold communion with us Certainly St. Augustine when hee was charged by the Donatists that the Church received their Apostates without rebaptizing them and in their respective Orders could have had no answer if he had not had this That the Church received them not as Donatists but as converted from being Donatists they not refusing to profess so much Certainly it may bee and perhaps is justifiable for the Secular Power to grant them the exercise of their Religion in private places of their own providing under such moderate penalties as the disobeying of the Laws of a mans Country might require For persecution to death for that cause the whole Reformation condemneth in the Church of Rome And I conceive there is no reason for that which will not condemn persecution to banishment But this would require the like moderation to bee extended to Recusants of the Church of Rome True it is in mine opinion those Papists that think themselves tied by the Bull of Pius V. against Queen Elizabeth or that they may bee tied by the like Acts of his Successors against hers are justly liable to the utmost of penalties as professed enemies to their Country But besides that it is manifest that all Papists are not of that opinion which the said Bull presupposeth The State may easier be secured of Papists against all such power in the Pope then of our Sectaries against that dispensation to their Allegiance which the pretense of Gods Spirit may import when they please And whereas it is manifest that many Papists hold against those equivocations and reservations which destroy all confidence of the Sovereign in his Subjects allegiance How shall a State bee secured against that infamous falsehood of the late Usurper in any man that pretends Gods Spirit upon his terms which I mentioned afore Besides the Recusants being for the most part of the good Families of the Nation will take it for a part of their Nobility freely to profess themselves in their Religion if they understand themselves whereas the Sectaries being people of mean qualitie for the most part cannot bee presumed to stand upon their reputation so much So if they cannot bee tolerated in the exercise of their Religion it must bee provided upon what terms they may bee received by the Church And by that which hath been said it may appear what my opinion will require of the Presbyterians for the condition of reconciling our selves into one Church again Namely in the first place their submission to the Act or Decree or Order according to which the Sectaries ought to bee tied to renounce the damnable positions which they have notoriously set on foot For if they should refuse this what reason could bee alleged why they should bee counted Strangers to that infection which they will not exclude As for the other Article of the Creed concerning one Visible Church it is evident that they cannot belong to that Church supposing the Premises For it is evident that there was a time when the whole Church was governed by Bishops and that not against Gods Law for then there had remained no Church And therefore for them to break the Unity of the Church upon pretense of governing this Church by Presbyters is to break Unity unless a part may give Law to the whole which who so do are for so doing Schismaticks And the Church of Rome would have due cause to cast us off for Schismaticks if wee should admit this pretense But this is a point the knowledg whereof cannot belong to the substance of Christianity for the reason alleged before And therefore I do not think the Church tied to exact the express profession of it or the disclaiming of the error that is opposite to it On the other side the Church maintaining the Ordinations of Presbyters alone to bee meer nullities in themselves can never own their Ordinations without renouncing the Catholick Church yet may it consent in the persons upon their consent to the order which shall bee established for the future And indeed what can they challenge by the meer consent of certain Presbyters which the Ministers of Congregations may not pretend to by the consent of their respective Congregations And yet I suppose both parties are agreed not to own them in that Power which the celebration of the Eucharist importeth Let any man that is capable to judge of such maters think upon the madness of the Lancashire Presbyterians without prejudice Of whom I am duly informed that they caused those who were ordained only Deacons in the Church of England to do the office of Presbyters which they had no title to in celebrating the Eucharist And tell me what reason there can bee excluding the Ordinations of the Congregations to admit the usurpations of the Presbyterians As for the form and solemnity in which the consent of the Church to their Ordinations shall bee celebrateed therein I refer my self to the wisdom of Superiors Thinking it would bee a great impertinence in the Presbyterians if finding a necessity of submitting
never appear I grant that there were miraculous Graces under the Apostles Apostolical Graces subject to Order which St. Paul directs the use of in ministring the prayers of the Church But that all Ministers had them they who require an ordinary Gift in all Ministers to that purpose cannot prove Much less that this ordinary Gift is to succeed those miraculous graces in all Ministers For even then St. Paul saith that the Spirits of the Prophets were to bee subject to the Prephets because God is not the God of confusion but of order And therefore charges all that pretended to such graces to acknowledg the Grace of an Apostle in him and to bee subject to the Orders which there hee gives out If the immediate inspirations of Gods Spirit were so dispensed that inferiors could presume nothing to the prejudice of Order against Superiors upon that pretense Much more now that Christianity is setled and the Unity of the Church a part of it are the Gifts of inferiors to bee ruled by the gifts of Superiors that Order in which Unity consisteth may bee preserved Of the Graces of the Spirit in St. Paul and the Original of Litanies St. Paul saith that the Spirit maketh intercession for the Saints with groans unutterable And St. Chrysostome saith thereupon that they who had these Miraculous Graces being imployed to minister the prayers of the Church did offer them to God with those deep sighs and groans which could hardly express what the Spirit suggested But addeth that the Deacon did the same in his time And this is visibly true by all that remains of the Liturgy in the Records of the Church It is evident that though the Bishop or Priest celebrating the Eucharist did offer the Common Prayers which I have described yet the Deacon also indited the same to the people from point to point as you have it to this day in our English Litanies the people answering from point to point Lord have mercy or some such acclamation as our Litanies do direct So far is the Catholique Church from the Maxime now pretended that the Priest alone is the mouth of the people in their prayers And the sighs and groans of that deep devotion which St. Paul saith the Spirit then moved and St. Chrysostome that the people answering the Deacon then expressed the form of our Litanies now containeth and expresseth And indeed those prayers which the Deacon indited are called Litanies in divers of the antient Liturgies Shewing that our Litanies are but a Transcript of them for the use of other occasions besides the Celebration of the Eucharist And Smectymnuus may remember how much they mistook Justine Martyr thinking hee had said that the Minister prayed thus according to his Gift Who saith indeed that hee prayed with all his might to wit with all the Devotion he could use Which devotion as it is not to bee found in their Pulpit Prayers pretending to apply the Gift to the present occasion so it visibly breathes in the Litanies through all occasions of Gods Church When miraculous Graces failed the prayers of the Church The Prayers of the Eucharist how prescribed by the Apostles were not to fail And the Apostles having delivered that which I have said to the Church whosoever was authorized to celebrate the Eucharist both must bee and easily might bee instructed how hee should discharge that Office There is so much agreement both for mater and manner in that which remains of it in the Records of the Church as to justifie those that affirm it to bee received by Tradition from the Apopostles Thus was the Forme prescribed from the beginning In time abuses might come For what Rule can there bee in humane business that shall not bee subject to abuse Therefore the African Canon which I spake of Orders that Bishops should confer the Forms which they used to wit through their Dioceses with their fellow Bishops Other Canons succeeding that the same Form should bee used throughout every Province In time the Church of Rome obtained that the Form thereof should bee received all over the West Wee see in the mean time what this pretense of Gifts tends Prayers of the Reformed Churches in the Pulpit but by a form to Even to shut the Eucharist out of doors or to confine it to thrice a year in case there bee company which case may bee so managed that a man need not bee tied to celebrate the Eucharist all his life time This is the satisfaction the Church hath for their withholding the Eucharist so many years from those that could not indure the ignorance malice and insolence of their Buckram Triers I grant that Calvins Reformation brings the Common Prayers from the Altar into the Pulpit And by that means confines the Communion to four times a year But are wee to follow Calvin in that wherein the whole Church of God is against Calvin Wherein the Rule of this Church and the Law of the Kingdom agrees with the whole Church against Calvin Was it the way to reform the abuse of private Masses to shut out the Communion excepting four times a year It must bee said that it was not the Reforming but the Deforming of the Church And the reforming thereof consists in restoring the Eucharist into the place that it ought to hold among the Offices of the Church So that the Communion thereof may bee most generally and continually frequented by Christians most prepared But Calvin dreamed of no Gifts all the while The Form of Common Prayer is as much prescribed according to Calvin as according to the Church of England though it bee read in the Pulpit It is the new Gospel of the Long Parliament that setup the The effect of the Long Parliament Prayers by the Spirit pretense of praying by the Spirit the Gift whereof is now claimed for every Ministers privilege in bar to Gods Church Though it bee manifest that the greatest part have no such gift so to minister the Offices of the Church as may bee to the discharge of the people the honour of God and of Christianity yet the Law of the Land must bee changed as supposing that which wee see is not The weaknesses and Imperfections the Falshoods the Blasphemies the Slanders the Sedition the Schisme that wee have known vented in such prayers oblige us to conclude that there is no such Gift in all Ministers At least not of Gods Spirit And therefore that wee must not forsake Gods Church changing the Form that is ruled by the Patern thereof and the Eucharist to boot for the Arbitrary prayers that every Ministers Gift shall vent in the Pulpit CHAP. XVII The Lords Day observed by the Authority of the Church Therefore other Festivals and times of Fasting are to bee observed How places and persons become qualified for Gods Service Preaching not convertible with Ministring the Sacraments Times places persons and things consecrated to Gods Service under the Gospel Ceremonies signifying by institution
necessary to the Salvation of Christians as Christians are by that mark for ever distinguished from things necessary to the Salvation of Christians as Members of the Church Because the Salvation of private Christians is concerned in not understanding the intent of the former sort But in the latter sort cannot bee concerned by not understanding the intent of them but by violating that Order and Unity of the Church which the Regular Use of them serveth to maintain That which I am to say of them here consists of two points That they are Ofâ—â—ces necessary to bee â—inistred to all Christians concerned in them And that they are to bee solemnized with those Ceremonies for which they are without any cause of offense called Sacraments by the Fathers of the Church How necessary iâ— it that those that are baptized Infants when Why the Bishop only Confirmeth they come to discretion and to receive the Eucharist should give account of the hope that is in them and undertake their Christianity upon which it is grounded For hee hath not this hope to God hee appeareth not to the Church to have it but upon these terms And thus far the parties seem content But why should not Presbyters Confirm as well as Bishops that can baptize and celebrate the Eucharist which is more to the Salvation of Christians By Commission from Bishops that they may do it is a point very disputable The practise of the Greek Church in the case is not new Besides some appearance of the like under S. Gregory in the West But that serves not the turn They must have the Catechising of them after their mode and make the grounds of Salvation what they please and not what the Church appointeth So the Answer is easie For neither is Baptism or the Eucharist ministred but by authority from the Bishop And to Catechize beside that Form which the Church allowes is to sow the seed of everlasting dissention in matter of Faith Hee that thinks there was a Reason why S. Peter and S. John should come to Confirm those whom the Deacon S. Philip had baptized can never want a reason why the Bishop alone should do it For hee cannot minister the means of Salvation alone But the Faith and the Unity of his Church with the rest is not to bee preserved without him Therefore the Gift of the Holy Ghost which Baptism promiseth dependeth upon the Bishops blessing because it dependeth upon the Unity of the Church Therefore Haereticks and Schismaticks who by departing from the Unity of the Church barre themselves of the effect of their Baptism being received with the Bishops blessing in the Primitive Church were justly thought to recover their Title to it If Ordination were taken for the conveying of publick Authority The effect of Ordination requireth Ceremony in giving it to minister the Offices of Gods Church by the act of those that have received by their Ordination authority to propagate the same there would bee no mervail that S. Paul should suppose a Grace received by Timothy through the laying on of his hands or the hands of the Presbytery For if the profession of Christianity inferre the Grace of Baptism shall not the profession of that Christianity which the state of the Clergy in general or that particular degree to which every man is ordained importeth inferre the Grace which the discharge of it requireth What is there to hinder it but the want of sincerity in undertaking that which the Order that a man undertakes requires him to undertake This is that which renders those Prayers of the Church of no effect as to God whereby the power is effectually conveyed as to the Church In the mean time shall not those Prayers bee solemnized with Why the Ordinations of our Presbyters are void due Ceremony by which so great a Power in the Church is conveyed Now seeing Presbyters never received by their Ordination authority to ordain others seeing no Word of God gives it them seeing all the Rules of the Whole Church take it from them The Attempt of our Presbyters in Ordaining without and against their Bishops must needs bee void and to no effect but that of Schisme in dividing of the Church upon so unjust a Cause They could not receive the Power of the Keyes from them that had nothing to do to give it And therefore in celebrating the Eucharist they do nothing but profane Gods Ordinance Therefore the lawful Ordaining of them is not re-ordaining but Ordination indeed instead of that which was only so called If a Christian after Baptism fall into any grievous sin voiding The necessity of Penance the effect of Baptism can it fall within the sense of a Christian to imagine That hee can bee restored by a Lord have mercy upon mee No it must cost him hot tears and sighs and groans and extraordinary prayers with fasting and almes to take Revenge upon himself to appease Gods Wrath and to mortifie his Concupiscence If hee mean not to leave an entrance for the same sin again If his sin bee notorious so much the more Because hee must then satisfie the Church that hee doth what is requisite to satisfie God that is to appease his wrath and to recover his Grace The Church may bee many ways hindred to take account of notorious sin But the power of the Keyes which God hath trusted it with is exercised only in keeping such sinners from the Communion till the Church bee so satisfied And for this Exercise the time of Lent hath always been deputed The observation of Leâ—â— and the use of it by the Church The Fast before the Feast of the Resurrection stands by the same Law by which that stands For the Feast was from the beginning the end of the Fast So the Lent-Fast and the keeping of the Lords day stand both upon the same authority For the Lords day is but the Remembrance of the Resurrection once a week It doth not appear that the Fast was kept forty days from the beginning That it was kept before Easter whensoever Easter was kept that is from the time of the Apostles it doth appear The baptizing of Converts the restoring of the Relapsed and the preparing of all by extraordinary Devotion to solemnize the Resurrection was the work of it Did this Church desire the restoring of this Order and yet disowne Lent Daniel abstained from pleasant meat when hee fasted The Jewes forbad all that comes of the Vine on the day of Attonement The Whole Church of God always forbore Flesh and Wine when they fasted And shall our Licentiousness make the difference of meats superstitious Then let the late Parliament Fasts bee Reformation that provided a good break-fast to fast with and heard a Sermon as well after Dinner as before If Sin bee not notorious there is no cause why it should not The necessity of private Penance for the cure of secret sins bee pardoned without help from the Church supposing that the
same to enable them to perform it To which purpose it must needs bee requisite that this tender bee attributed not to the Faith of him that receives though the tender must needs become frustrate without it but to the Faith of the Church and the act of that Faith in executing the order of our Lord and deputing the Elements to bee the body and blood of Christ by Consecration before the receiving of them This who so holds shall neither bee engaged either to Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation nor yet to hold either of both destructive to the Salvation of them that are bred in them holding that which is necessary to Salvation Namely the renewing of the Covenant of Baptism in and by Communion in the holy Eucharist As for them who abhorring Transubstantiation communicate with Consubstantiation It is enough that I say as afore that they weigh not by their own weights nor mete by their own measures For how is it more destructive to the Grace of the Sacrament that the body and blood of Christ is thought from the Consecration the subject of the accidents of those Elements that once were then that they should possess the same dimensions which the substance of the Elements filleth And that not by virtue of the Consecration but of the Hypostatical Union of the flesh and blood of Christ with his God-head But the errour of the Sacramentaries taking this Sacrament for a meeâ— sign to confirm a mans Faith leaving it indifferent whether consecrated or not leaves it also indifferent whether used or not though the Socinians only owne the consequence But if the Faith which it confirmeth bee thought to bee the assurance of a mans Praedestination then involveth in the Haeresie of the Fanaticks The abuses of the Church of Rome in Confirmation As for the rest of those Ordinances which the Church of Rome counteth Sacraments as well as Baptism and the Eucharist though not to the like effect It is manifest that they tend all of them to a wholesome Communion in the Holy Eucharist Confirmation was for many hundred years given after Baptism before receiving the Eucharist which was to bee received by those that were baptized upon their Baptism If the Bishop himself baptized them as usually hee did baptize those that were baptized in the Mother-Church at the usual times of Easter and Whitsontide then did hee Confirm them immediately If they were baptized in their Parishes which fetched Chrisme from the Mother-Church on Maundy Thursday in token of the license to baptize which they had from the Bishop they were brought to the Mother-Church to bee Confirmed A manifest sign of that which I said That Confirmation is reserved to the Bishop because his authority it is that must allow the baptized to bee of the number of the Church For whereas the Gift of the Holy Ghost promised in Baptism depends never the less upon the continuing of the Baptized Members of Gods Church Is it strange that the Holy Ghost which Baptism promiseth a Christian as a Christian should bee given him again by Confirmation as a Member of Gods Church when hee that believes and lives as a Christian otherwise cannot have the Holy Ghost unless hee continue in the Church over and above Now that all are baptized Infants how necessary it is that Confirmation should pass upon them before they come to receive the Eucharist I need not dispute Boâ—h sides acknowledging that as well the tryal of their knowledge as the exacting of their profession in Christianity is a thing due unto them from the Church And therefore in the Church of Rome where this substance of the Office is not provided for it is little more then a shadow Professing Unity with the Church by seeking the Bishops blessing but neglecting the reason for which the Unity of the Church is provided by God for the Salvation of a Christian to wit the exacting and allowing of his Christianity All Ordination tends to the Celebration and Communion of In the other fâ—ur Offices the Eucharist As well that of Bishops to the intent that they may Ordain the other Orders And that of Deacons that they may wait upon the Celebration of it As that of Priests that receiving the Power of the Keyes to warrant the effect of it they may therefore have power to celebrate it Whereby it may appear how great an abuse it is to this Ordinance in the Church of Rome that a Priest is Ordained to sacrifice for quick and dead Understanding for the dead to deliver their Souls from Purgatory pains to the sight of Gods face But for the lâ—ving That all that assist or assist not so the Priest intend them though they mind not what is done much less understand or assist it with their devotions by virtue of the work done have the Sacrifice of Christs Cross applyed to them to such effect as the Priest shall intend Whereas the celebrating of Ordination with the Communion of the Eucharist signifieth plain enough That the Grace of ministring aright the Office which they receive depends upon the Christianity which they profess to receive it with by communicating in the Eucharist As well as the effect of it upon the Christianity of those to whom they shall minister the same As for the ministring of the Keyes of the Church in Penance whether publick in notorious sins or private for the assuring of those which are not notorious that they have right to the Eucharist you see it tends still to Communion in it And you may as easily see how great is the abuse of this Ordinance in the Church of Rome when it is taught That submitting to the Keyes of the Church by Confession turneth imperfect sorrow for sin or as some say sorrow for the guilt of punishment not for the offense of God which they call attrition into contriâ—iâ—n which is that sorrow which intitleth to forgiveness Whereas the power of the Keyes is ordained to procure this sorrow by barring a sinner from the Communion till it appears that hee hath it not that submitting to the Keyes ipso facto hee hath it And upon this abuse there hangs a second that when the sinner undertaking the Penance enjoyned to make his conversion appear is thereupon admitted to the Communion before the performing of it for which there may bee many reasonable occasions though not according to the Primitive Rule the performing of it is thought and said not to pretend the qualifying of him for pardon but the redeeming of temporal pains remaining due after â—in is pardoned and therefore to be paid in Purgatory if not satisfied here Things whereof there is no mark in the Faith and Practise of the Catholick Church The Unction of the sick I have shewed to bee only an appendage of the Ministry of the Keyes in that estate tending to the recovery of bodily health And therefore called extream Vnction by abuse in the Church of Rome as if the intent of it were to prepare
against the conflict of Death with the spiritual enemies of the Soul For though the Church ordaining Prayer for bodily health can by no means forget the health of the Soul if it mean to remember the Common Christianity Yet appeareth it nevertheless what ground and occasion the Institution of S. James pretendeth And so it appeareth what dependence the Unction of the Sick holdeth upon the Communion of the Eucharist As for the Marriage of Christians if it bee under a peculiar rule by virtue of the Common Christianity and that the interest of the Church in allowing of Marriages is grounded upon the same It is far from any imputation of abuse that the Church of Rome celebrateth the same at the Eucharist For seeing our Christianity is particularly concerned in the duties of Marriage How should the Grace of God enabling to discharge the said duties bee expected but by reviving the obligation of our Common Christianity which the receiving of the Eucharist signifieth I will not undertake to clear the See of Rome from all abuse of Ecclesiastical Power in multiplying the Impediments of Marriage as beyond necessity so beyond the Interest of Christianity and in dispensing in them again for favour or for reward as having been prohibited for no better reason then this That Power appears most in that which there is least reason for On the other side dispensing in those degrees which the Law of Moses prohibiteth and therefore Christianity ought to bee farther from allowing It seemeth to stretch the Power of the Church beyond the bounds of it And thus it appeareth first what relation these Offices hold with the Eucharist and the Communion of it and then what is the point of Reformation in which the voiding of those abuses standeth On the other side they that now are content with Confirmation The Reformation pretended no lâ—ss abuse on the other side so they may have the giving of it themselves and the Catechizing of them that receive it after their mode not distinguishing themselves from the Fanaticks cannot bee presumed to Catechise according to the Christianity of Gods Church But in as much as they Usurpe unto themselves authority without their Bishops and against them they cannot make Members of Gods Church by the Confirmation which so they may give So they bar the gift of Gods Spirit which Baptisme promiseth a Christian as a Christian by barring the Unity of Gods Church Again Ordaining all whom they Ordain to one and theâ— same Office of Preaching the Word and Ministring the Sacraments First they usurpe the power of Ordaining which they never received any authority by their Ordination to exercise And that in despite of their Bishops as seducing the people from the way of salvation which by their Ordinations they pretend to teach So receiving no Power of the Keys by their Usurpation they receive no power to celebrate the Eucharist but only to commit sacrilege by profaning so high an Ordinance And then they tread under foot the Hierachy of Bishops Priests and Deacons in despite of the whole Church dividing the authority of their Bishops among themselves but abolishing the Order of Deacons by confounding the title of Ministers common to all three Orders for ministring their several Offices with that sense in which the lowest Order are called Deacons for ministring to Bishops and Priests in their Offices As for the power of the Keys which is not that which God left his Church unless the effect of it bee the binding and loosing of sin It is plain enough that under pretense of taking away the scandal of notorious sin they would have power to shame and domineer over their neighbours overtaken with sin but without pretense of curing their sin for the condition upon which they are restored Such Discipline goes no further then the outward man and the restraining of him from sin for shame of the world The presumption of a voluntary change in the inward man for hope of Gods Grace by the Sacrament of the Eucharist must bee the effect of the Keys of Gods Church As for this power in sin that is not notorious what do they pretend more then their Preaching Which whether it bee such as shows the cure of sin let their diligence in Preaching mortification witness And yet whether every Christian can learn or will bee induced meerly by Preaching to use that mortification which is requisite let them that are able judge But what visiting of the sick do they pretend but to pray by them or comfort them without ever entring into the ground of their comfort upon examination of the conscience The blessing of Mariage they have reserved to the Church but upon an ungrounded presumption that the Mariage of Christians is to bee ruled by the Law of Moses The insufficience whereof being discerned by the people when they were loose from the Law of the Land hath occasioned all the incests and other disorders of the late times In the mean time whereas all these Offices are either provided to bring Christians to the Eucharist or to bee celebrated with the Eucharist It is demanded that godly Ministers bee not tied to celebrate the Eucharist above thrice a year It should rather bee demanded how they come to bee counted godly Ministers that demand this I shall not need to say how the point of Reformation is The point of Reformation in the mean between both found through which the line of it is to pass in these particulars Confirmation fitteth for the Eucharist by the profession of Christianity and by being a Member of Gods Church Ordination giveth some degree in the Clergy above the people and therefore supposeth the profession of retiring from the world more then other Christians undertake to do The Eucharist conveyeth Gods Spirit for the performing of this profession sincerely and resolutely made Both requiring the Unity of the Church both are to bee ministred by that authority without which nothing is to bee done in each Church The reconciling of notorious sin is the Bishops peculiar The Priest hath authority to cure that which is made known to him But this authority is not arbitrary in either of both The rigor of antient Discipline by the Canons of the Church is quite out of force But in these lees and dregs of Christianity which now wee draw there is some reasonable ground to presume upon that a sinner is resolved to live a good Christian for the future Let that bee limited and the power of the Keys will have effect in barring the sinner from the Communion till the presumption bee visible in him But to what shall the Keys of the Church reconcile him when the Eucharist is celebrated but thrice a year To what purpose is the visiting of the sick but that upon such presumption they may have the Eucharist to maintain them in the great journey which they are going The duty of Mariage among Christians depends wholly upon this supposition that God gives the maried an
Scripture that hee is to depend upon the Pulpit for resolution in it where it is easie as St. Gregory Nazianzene answered St. Jerome about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in St. Luke to make you believe by the pleasing delivery of Language that you have satisfaction and yet when you come to seek where it lies remain in as much doubt as before And if you hackney out Ministers to two Sermons a Sabbath the people must not expect that from them in private which they cannot expect from the Pulpit But if it bee thought part of the instruction due to Gods people to make the Laws of the Church and of the State and the proceedings of publick Government a subject for the Pulpit In which as I said it is not possible for particular Christians to bee satisfied by all the Inquiry they can make in private then what may come to pass I need say to no man that hath seen what hath come to pass amongst us I let pass less abuses of vain-glory priding it self in the volubility rather then Eloquence of Language and rendring more able Curates not so ready speakers contemptible to their people and the like In which regard it may many times bee questioned whether the gifts of praying and preaching which wee hear so much of bee Gifts of Gods Spirit which ordinarily suppose Christianity or of the evil spirit which always put it to flight For all that I have said of the bad effects of Preaching is to bee understood much more of those prayers whereby evil doctrine is repeated to God for a blessing of his Spirit upon it For Christian people being weakly superstitious as the generality of all people are are apt to place the bond of that Religion wherein they think themselves tied to God in that which they see and hear alleged to God in so reverend postures That Form of Service which wee hitherto use hath well deserved What Order of Service the continual Communion will require all that hath been said in defense of it being assaulted by violent hands even in those parts in which it ought to bee inviolable Nevertheless professing as I do that the restoring of the continual Communion is such a point of Reformation that the Church is not to bee at rest till it bee brought to effect I must not stick to declare what will bee requisite to render our Communion Service useful to that purpose I have said that the word Lituâ—gy is proper to signifie nothing else but that form of Service which the Communion is celebrated with But I have shewed alsâ— that those prayers for all states and conditions of men in Christs Church which are contained in our Litanies are to bee offered up to God at the celebrating of it And seeing it was at the Reformation and is at present a Law in the Church of Rome that all Christians should bee present at Mass all Sundays and Festivals And that Reformation consists in restoring the Communion It seemeth to me that the pretense of Reformation is not made good till the present provision bee brought to effect that the Eucharist bee celebrated all Sundays and Festivals in all Churches and Chappels And so that all Christians may bee tied to bee present that they may bee brought as neer as the Church ought to bring them to communicate Supposing this the intent of the Church How should it bee attained without two Assemblies every Sunday and Holy-day-morning in all Churches For let never Sabbatarians hope to make us so perfect Jewes as to bring us to dress no meat on Sundays If they could a Parish can never bee all at Church at once The order of the Church never becomes the Church till it demonstrate a care of all Christian souls a like Between the hours of eight and twelve there is time enough for two Assemblies For who would wish that either of them should last above an hour The Liturgy is an Office consisting of Psalmâ— and Lessons intermixed with Hymns and of the Eucharist which the common Prayers for all states conditions and necessities in the Church are to bee offered up to God with Now though that which wee call the first Service bee compleat for the intent of it yet I must needs find it too long for this purpose to allow time both for the Eucharist and for the iâ—struction of the people which I do not intend to exclude out of those Assemblies which I confine to an hour And how easie were it to frame for this purpose an Order of Psalms and Lessons according to the order of the whole Church Which requires that the Epistles bee read after the Old Testament and the Gospels after them as in our Communion Service the Gospel comes next afore the Creed For there would bee room for brief Lessons out of the Law and Historical Books out of the Sapiential Books and Prophets And after for the Epistles and Gospels which not onely wee but the Lutherans as well as the Church of Rome do now use with Hymns between each according to the Canon of Laodicea received by the Whole Church This is the place for the instruction of the people according What form of Instruction this Order will require to the order of the whole Church And truly the greater and more solemn Assemblies may bee capable of edifying by learned and eloquent Sermons which the generality of Parish Churches the edification whereof the Church iâ— to study are very little the better for And the endless number of strifes that arise about the Scripture and variety of judgments fansies and interests in what is fit to bee preached make the design of Homilies necessary rather to restrain the abilities of Indiscreet Preachers then to help the inabilities of unlearned Preachers Only that they bee so framed as to contain a course of familiar instruction in the whole body of Christian Doctrine not concerning Faith alone but all the chief duties of Christians which these that wee have do not satisfie though not unfit for the time when they were set forth And being so framed Though it bee all one to the edification of the Church whether the mater of them bee delivered by word of mouth as every Minister can best insinuate it into the minds of his hearers or as it may bee couched word for word in writing yet will it bee absolutely necessary for the instruction of all preserving the Unity of the Whole that the Ordinary have account not only negatively that nothing bee taught the people contrary to the form But positively that the whole mater of it bee taught the people in such time as the Law shall determine to bee repeated again and again for the certain proficience of all For it must not avail to say that the people will not come to Church unless they may bee entertained there with variety Unless the people bee content to bee conducted by that which is best to save their souls though it please not their fansies it shall
to lay aside the thought of it so long as there appears any means of proceeding to it Now it seemeth manifest to common reason that there can bee no such opportunity for improving the Laws of the Kingdom by which Religion is to bee established as while the minds of men after the breaches which wee have seen remain unsetled to any Order in Church maters For before the breach there is appearance enough that all means of doing this were studiously obstructed by the Puritan party in Parliament And it will appear if it bee well considered that this is it that made it popular having always just cause of complaint which can never bee wanting in any Civil Laws And therefore not in those Civil Laws whereby Religion is setled but always pretending an unjust way of redressing the same But there is a greater reason for us to think that the Church The restoring of the Ecclesiastical Laws of the Land is not the restoring of the Church of England will not bee restored by the restoring of those Civil Laws of the Land which gave force to the Order of it After those manifest and notorious breaches which wee have seen in it For it is visible that it is the Secular power only that is acknowledged by those that return from their Schisme and conform themselves to the Ecclesiastical Laws which it inforceth in consideration of the temporal reward or punishment which they are inacted with It is now found to bee the sin of Superiors when such things are imposed upon tender consciences as they are offended at Not the sin of them who conform themselves to that which is enjoyned And all that hath been pretended for a change in the Laws seems now to bee made a meer Office of Charity to the Kingdom That it might not sin in imposing upon tender consciences that which they were offended at who are safe enough from sinning all the while that they submit to it In like manner they who to bee capable of Benefices get to bee Ordained anew because the Ordination was void which they had from those who had nothing to do to give it do profess openly enough that they do it not because they thought their void Orders defective but to obtain the privileges which the Law of the Land annexeth to that Ordination which it protecteth At which rate the Oath of Canonical Obedience it self will tye them in conscience only to themselves That is to avoid those temporal penalties which the Law punisheth disobeying the Ordinary with In the mean time the Fanaticks are owned by them upon all occasions And not only the Schisme of the Congregations is passed over for a weakness of tender consciences but that damnable error of assurance of salvation without assurance of Christianity the fry that hath spawned all the Congregations of Enthusiasts and Fanaticks must go for a frailty of the Godly in professing the true consequence of common Principles And seeing all severity of Penalties which may restrain the License of such Conventicles must needs insinuate an invitation of returning to Communion with the Church for those who would avoid them It is much to bee considered that they who shall return without disowning their Schisme which is of it self always notorious Or the perverse doctrines which have been notoriously owned for the ground of it do manifestly bring with them their profession into the Church For returning only that they may avoid the temporal Penalties which it inferreth they are at liberty in point of reputation as well as of conscience to practice the Maxime which Michiavel teacheth to make themselves of that party which they intend to overthrow as not having engaged with the Church upon profession of conscience It is not for nothing that the Rules of the Church from the beginning have made them Haereticks and Schismaticks as to the Church that communicate with Haereticks and Schismaticks It is not for nothing that they admit them not to return without disowning their Schismes or their Haeresies It is not for nothing that they admit not the Clergy that have been involved in them in their own Orders But render them incapable of that trust for the future The reason for all is the same The profession of the mouth intitleth to the visible privilege of the Church in communion with it the sincerity thereof in the heart to the invisible privilege of Christianity with God And though there bee great reason to hope that communion with the Church and the daily use of it may bee a mean to restore the heart into a right relish of that which the distance that hath been causeth men to distaste beyond measure yet is there nothing but the solemnity of profession to render such a change visible And therefore it will not serve to justifie the common cause till time render the effect notorious In the mean time the reason of the distance which wee hold Yet are wee not therefore chargeable with Schism by the Church of Rome with the Church of Rome remains the same and therefore the measure of it The abuses which created the necessity for parts of the Church to Reforme themselves without the Whole remain the same Only wee are left without hope of amendment seeing the Council of Trent received without it So no terms of reconcilement but those of conquest which how should this Church and Kingdom bee obliged to accept of to the betraying of all the souls which must needs perish by those abuses And therefore allowing the due value of that sin which Schisme signifieth in the party that causeth it wee shall not need to fear the charge of it though both parties are visibly in the state of it For the Unity of the Church being next in consideration and weight to the substance of Christianity which the being of the Church presupposeth The Faith which only justifieth is seen in making good that profession which intitleth us to bee members of the Church But that Charity whereby that Faith is brought into effect is seen in the first place in maintaining the Unity thereof Which a private Christian maintaineth onely by continuing a member of it So a Christian as a Christian fails of his salvation by failing of that which a Christian professeth as a Christian But a Christian as a member of the Church fails of his salvation by failing of that which a Christian professeth as a member of the Church namely by forsaking the Unity of the Church But a man cannot seem to forsake the Unity of the Church by pursuing the integrity of that Christianity upon which it is founded If the corruption thereof bee so great as may seem to render the communion thereof ineffectual to the salvation of them that use it it will bee Charity to joyn for the restoring of it to so good an effect though a breach succeed by the misunderstanding of those who refuse to joyn for that purpose Though divers mistakes bee committed in a work of so great
have not received the Order of Priesthood shall pretend to celebrate it For the Scripture interpreted by the un-interrupted practice of the Church allows no man under the Order of a Priest to celebrate the Eucharist Not as if those who call themselves Ministers did commit this Sacrilege in consecrating the Eucharist For though the name of Ministers signifies no more then Deacons and that it is truly Sacrilege for Deacons to celebrate the Eucharist Yet they whom they call Ministers if Ordained were Ordained Priests with power to celebrate the Eucharist For they call them Ministers to impose upon the World an opinion which they cannot prove by the Scripture That they are the only Ministers of the Word and Sacraments The second because they know not nor acknowledge the Consecration that is requisite to the celebration and being of this Sacrament by the same Scriptures understood according to the un-interrupted custome and practice of the Church For the whole Church of God allowing the elements consecrated to bee the Body and Bloud of Christ mystically or in the Sacrament alloweth this change to bee made by the consecration before which they were only Bread and Wine Not as if after the Consecration they were not so but because they are then become that which they were not afore to wit the Sacrament of Christs Body and Bloud or the Body and Bloud of Christ spiritually and mystically that is in the Sacrament This Consecration being exactly maintained by the Church of England they that presume to celebrate the Eucharist without acknowledging the same and pretending to destroy the Law by which it is exercised must bee presumed not to acknowledge the necessity thereof to the being of this Sacrament And therefore they and their complices in the Communion thereof to bee guilty of the Body and Bloud of Christ as not distinguishing a sign of mans institution from a Sacrament of Gods appointment and Ordinance As for the Office of Preaching and Praying which they pretend to in behalf of the Church I will mark you out two monstrous Impostures in all the Sects of this time The first is this ground of the now pretended Reformation of Religion in England That the Church is not to assemble for the Service of God but when there is Preaching This seems to stand upon a very gross mistake of those passages of the Apostles writings which declare the necessary means of salvation to consist in hearing the Gospel preached As if they were meant of Sermons in the Pulpit which are onely made to those that are already Christians not of publishing the Gospel to those that knew it not afore convincing them that it is true and instructing them wherein it consists Or as if those that are already Christians wanted any thing necessary to salvation supposing them to persevere in the Christianity which they have professed Not as if their Christianity did not oblige them to hear Sermons when the authority of the Church assures them to bee without offense But because the Offices of publick Prayers and the Praises of God especially in celebrating the blessed Eucharist are the end of all that instruction in Christianity which Christians receive from the Church and therefore all Preaching subordinate to the same as the means to the End And because they may bee daily so frequented without offense and to the increase of the reverence due to Christianity as the experience of our time shows that Preaching cannot bee The second is that the first day of the week called Sunday is the Sabbath by force of the fourth Commandment A mistake so gross that it may well serve for an instance what Faction can do with men that are sober otherwise That God by commanding the Jews to keep the seventh day of the week to wit that day on which hee ended the Creation of the world and for that very reason commanding it should bee thought to command Christians to keep the first day of the week on which hee began the Creation and our Lord Christ arose from the dead That is that the same words of the same Commandment in writing should oblige Jews to rest on the Saturday which oblige Christians to rest on the Sunday is a thing which when this fit of frenzie shall bee past us will scarse bee believed that ever any man would believe True it is this first day hath been observed in and ever since the Apostles time but not by virtue of that Law which their Office was to declare expired and out of date but by the Act of their own authority whereby they gave Laws to Christs Church Let us now only compare the daily morning and evening Sacrifice of Prayer and the Praises of God established by the Order of the Church of England together with the more solemn service of Lords days and Festivals with a bare Sermon upon Sundays ushered in and out with a Prayer of every mans own conceit setting aside the Haeresie and false Doctrine the Faction and Schism the Blasphemy and Slander the ridiculous Follies which this Sermon and Prayer may and which wee have known them contain I say comparing these together the Reformation pretended is and ought to bee accounted the abomination of desolation in comparison of that Order which it destroyeth And therefore upon this account alone those who not being invested with that ordinary Power by which the Church is inabled to correct abuses in the Church shall usurp the Power of the Church to introduce this disorder are thereby Schismaticks themselves and those that acknowledge them for their Pastors complices of Schismaticks It will bee said that these Laws will bee amended as it was many times said awhile since that the Parliament would settle a Ministery To this I say that those who shall bee sent you by virtue of these Laws have every way as good authority as any the Power that made these Laws joyned with a Parliament can give to them that are not otherwise qualified by the authority of the Church That is that this Power and the power of a Parliament together though advising with Divines can do no more then this Power with advise of those Divines which it useth hath done Because both are Secular and able to make men their Ministers to maintain the Interest of that Government which their Power constituteth but not Ministers of the Church to maintain the Interest of that Faith and Service of God which it is trusted with If it bee said that in most parts of the Reformation those from whom the Ministery is propagated had not received by their Ordination Power to ordain others For answer I suppose That the abuses crept into the Church were so great that particular Churches that is part of the whole might and ought to reform themselves without consent or concurrence of the whole I suppose that though there bee in the Church a succession of persons indued with authority in behalf of it as well as of Faith and of Rules or Laws Yet the
succession of persons is of less consideration being subordinate to the succession of Faith and Laws as the means to the end And then I say that supposing a necessity of Ordaining because they who refused the Reformation would not Ordain to that purpose And supposing the Reformation to bee that which God requireth There is cause to presume that the intent which those that agree in it declare supplies by Gods goodness that nullitie which the want of Power to Ordain would otherwise infer For those mistakes of less consequence which humane weakness must needs commit in a work of such weight as it were malice in man to justifie so it may well bee thought mercy in God to excuse This presumption there is that the Churches thus constituted are true Churches And the Offices ministred by persons thus qualified effectual to convey the Grace of God to Christian people But wee suppose in our case that Presbyterian Ordinations tend no more to the exercise of true Christianity then of that which the Church of England hitherto professeth And wee see with our eyes that the authority that maketh them destroyeth it self by destroying the authority of their Bishops from whom it claimeth And therefore to imagine that an Assembly of Divines by being lawfully Ordained to the office of Priests or Deacons according to the Laws of the Church of England can by Commission from the Secular Power make Ordinations which the Laws under which they were Ordained forbid is to imagine that God can inable man to sin or that a Sovereign Power can authorize the Subject to rebell against it self And therefore though the qualities of persons to bee sent you for Pastors may bee otherwise limited by Acts which Parliaments may make yet these qualities not being derived from the authority of the Apostles founding the Church by any act of the Church but from Secular Power and Commission issued from it make them no more Ministers of the Church that are made by Assemblies of Divines and Presbyteries then those that are made by Commission of Triers and for ejecting scandalous Ministers That is both of them being by their creation Schismaticks and their profession not clearing them of misprision of Haeresie they can no more bee acknowledged by those that pretend to adhere to the Church of England then Belial by Christ or darkness by light Hereby then you may conclude how to receive those whom the Presbyterians may send you for Pastors by any change in the Secular Power For I charge not them that they do not believe the Church which they would bee themselves I acknowledge that they secure you from all Sects but themselves But in as much as they maintain Predestination to life onely in consideration of what Christ hath already done or suffered for the Elect in so much I say that they do not nor can Baptize into the Cross of Christ that is to say into the hope of Salvation in consideration of the Covenant of Baptisme For that which is absolutely due as salvation is due to the elect by the gift of Gods Predestination cannot bee burthened with any condition of Christianity afterwards Nor can hee who is once sure to bee saved without that condition which Baptism inacteth bee bound to fight against the flesh the world and the Devil for the keeping of Gods Commandments under the profession of the Christian Faith for the obtaining of that which hee is sure of before And therefore their Baptisme is no effectual Baptisme before God if Baptisme received in the Church of England bee such that is to say it is no Baptisme but by Equivocation of words in as much as the obligation of a mans Christianity is not declared or understood to take hold of him by virtue of it For seeing the hope of salvation which Christians have by their Baptisme is grounded upon the condition of their Christianity that Baptisme which promiseth salvation without providing for this condition is no Baptisme but by equivocation of words I say further that the change which they call Reformation visibly tends to introduce that monstrous imposture of two Sermons every Sabbath in stead of the daily and ordinary service of God together with the more solemn service of God upon Festivals and Lords days and other extraordinary occasions which the Church of England with the whole Church of God from the beginning hath maintained so far as there was means to maintain it I will not here insist upon the order of Bishops and their chief power in their Dioceses as of Divine Right that is instituted and introduced by the Apostles Let the Presbyterians think themselves privileged to erect Altar against Altar upon so desperate a Plea as now they insist upon that the Presbyteries are rather of divine right then the chief Power of Bishops in their Dioceses I insist now only that this Power of the Bishops was not against Gods Law which every man must grant me that acknowledges a Church in England from the Reformation till now In this case they who to introduce this Christianity and this publick exercise of it transgressing that authority to which they were called by the visible act of the Church of England take upon them to share that Power from which they had their authority among themselves and to execute it by consent among themselves in their several precincts cannot bee said to constitute a Church by virtue of any act of the Apostles or any authority derived from such act but by virtue of their own act as all Apostates and usurpers do That is to say that they do not constitute such a Church by being a member whereof a man may reasonably assure himself of salvation upon any principle of Christianity but such a Church as is indeed no Church unless it bee by equivocation of terms but a conventicle of Schismaticks with the misprision of the Haeresie aforesaid And therefore their Priesthood is no Priesthood their Eucharist is no Eucharist unless it bee by equivocation of words but Sacrilege against Gods Ordinance Besides that what is requisite to the consecration of the Eucharist or wherein it consists they seem to bee as secure of and as little to regard as the most ignorant of those Sects into which the once common name of Puritans stands divided at this time Neither is it in any Secular Power though never so unquestionable to cure these nullities and incapacities in the pretense upon which they take upon them to bee a Church Though for the present they are not so much as authorized to the world by any privilege or penalty enacted by any Secular Power but only protected by that which now possesseth Whereby the world may see that there is nothing but their own usurpation and the consent of those whom they have debauched to their Schisme for them to subsist by under the pretense of a Church And that they will by virtue of their Original bee as malignant to any Secular Power that shall not maintain and
overthrow the foundation of Christianity standing upon this supposition that the Old Testament is the figure and shadow of the New and that Christ hath the key of the writings as well as of the house of David For seeing Christ and his mysticall Body the Church are all one the meaning and intent of the Psalms cannot concern Christ but it must end in his Church But seeing the Church is but shadowed in the Psalms being part of the Old Testament I can expect no dispute of the necessity of other Hymns composed under Christianity in the solemnizing of Gods publick service And seeing the question on foot concerns the setling of the form of Gods service by a Law of the Kingdom there can remain no dispute concerning the necessity of a setled Order in reading the Scriptures and using the Psalms and Hymns of the Church Nor do I know any man sincerely professing the Reformation that could which not wish with all his heart that the whole order and form to bee setled with the circumstance of the same might bee according to the primitive simplicity and naked plainness of the antient Church supposing the difference between the state in which the Church lived under persecution and now that being protected by the secular Power it receiveth all the World to take part in the service of God For what difference this will infer in the Order and Rule of Gods service to bee inacted by a Law of this Kingdom common reason and the perpetual practise of Gods Church together with the precedents recorded in Scripture must bee admitted to Witness These things supposed no man doubts that the form of service now in force by the Law of this Land may bee acknowledged capable of amendment without disparagement either to the wisdom of the Church that prescribed or of the Nation that inacted it For what positive Law of man is there that is not Nay what arrogance can it bee in a particular person having bestowed more consideration upon it then it is possible that thoâ—e who had the framing of it should have leisure to do to think that hee knows some particulars in which it might bee mended For neither doth it follow that it is better to endanger the spoyling of it by calling it in question then to let it rest as it is And that particular person whosoever hee is that should think his own opinion necessary to bee followed without compromising it to the publick would justly incur the mark of arrogance Since therefore that this is the time for such a debate if any change bee pretended and that the reasons mentioned afore are of sufficient consideration to oblige all sides to prefer unity before prejudice what remains but that either it bee left intire in that State wherein it stands or that nothing bee changed without sufficient debate of reason upon the whole what is fit to bee changed what not But one thing I must here expresly stand upon because the form of Gods service which hath been usurped during the Schisme protesteth against the Law in force I acknowledge that the whole Reformation protesteth against the insufficience and defects of the Church of Rome in the course which it taketh for the instruction of Christian people in the duties of their Christianity against the abuses there practised in celebrating the Eucharist without any pretense of a Communion in private Masses and in serving God in a Language which the people understand not For these abuses are a principal part of the ground for that change which wee justly maintain to bee Reformation The boldness of those that opposed it being come to such a height as openly to maintain that it concerneth not Christian people to know or to mind what is done at the Mass being the ordinary service of God for which they come to Church or what is said But that the intention of the Priest is enough to apply the sacrifice of Christ to all that are present which they think it doth no less to them that are absent and therefore leave us unsatisfied why people should come to Church who need do nothing but say their Paters and their Aves These abuses I do acknowledge But bee the World my witness and all that know what hath passed for the mater of Religion in the World was it ever protested by those who demanded Reformation in the Church that the Eucharist ought to bee celebrated but four times or twelve times in the year That by Gods Law there ought to bee two Sermons every Sunday in every Church That other Festivals beside the Sunday and set times of Fasting ought not to bee solemnized with the service of God That the Church doors ought not to bee open but when there is preaching Take the primitive practice of the Church along with the Scripture and they shall tell you another tale that Prayer and the praises of God is the more principal end of Christian Assemblies then Preaching The reason is unanswerable For the one is the end the other the means That the celebration of the Eucharist is the most principal Office of Gods service under Christianity is no less evident For other Offices are common to Judaisme this consisting most in Prayers consists of those Prayers which are proper to Christianity that is to those causes wherein our Salvation consisteth And can there bee question how frequent it ought to bee Shall not the practice of the whole Church from the beginning decide the question if any remain The single life of the Clergy prevailed for this end that they might bee always ready to celebrate the Eucharist say the Fathers and the Canons which I alleged afore It is a question in Gennadius de dogmatibus Ecclesiasticis whether every man ought to communicate every day or not But therefore no question that it ought to bee celebrated every day that who so would might communicate In conscience would they bee bound to Preach every day that are so much for Preaching After the reading of the Scripture follows the Sermon and after that the Eucharist This is the primitive order of the whole Church at that solemn service when the Eucharist on Fasting-days in the Evening on other days before Noon was Celebrated After the Scriptures were read the people were taught their duty out of them A thing necessary and possible Not that every Curate should bee bound to declame by the Glass But that hee should bee bound to instruct his Parish out of the Scriptures which are read If hee bee tyed to Preach as often as the Church door opens the Church door must bee shut because no sides can hold out so oft as Christians ought to meet for Gods service I call the World to witness Is it not as much a work of lungs and sides as an Office of Gods service which takes up the time of their Church Assemblies Is not the way opened by this means to declame of publick Government in Church and State to intertain the Hearers For
Keyes viz. that of loosing but bind not as pronouncing absolution without injoyning of Penance The discipline of Geneva they magnifie indeed as they find it described by Bodine in his method of Histories But they distinguish not whether they mean the civil discipline which the Laws of that State inforce or that which the Power of the Keys exercised there according to Calvine doth constitute For the Civil Law of a Christian State especially no bigger then that of Geneva may settle such a discipline over the outward man as may restrain from the outward act of sin without mortifying the inward man to the inward love of God The late Usurpers Army wee have seen well disciplined against the ordinary vices of the Camp Who appearing now to have been then enemies to their Country are thereby discovered not to have followed the reward of Christiens but of Souldiers And the Laws of Christian States by the means of Christianity which they maintain may reach to the mortifying of sin and the quickning of righteousness at the heart But of themselves being Civil Laws and proposing no further reward or punishment then that good which a mans Country signifies they reach no further then the outward man for the better or for the worse Nor is it of any greater consequence to Christianity that the outward act of sin or virtue is repressed or incouraged by the rewards and penalties of Civil Laws But when the discipline of the Church takes place hee who forfeiteth his Christianity by gross sin that is notorious forfeiteth also Communion with the Church and recovereth it not till the presumption bee no less notorious that hee hath recovered his Christianity Now Communion with the Church is the consequence of our Baptisme which intitleth us to life everlasting Therefore it is not duly forfeited without forfeiting the effect of Baptisme our right to life everlasting So our right to heaven depending upon the Communion of the Church the discipline of the Church must needs reach the inward man as effectually as any outward application can reach the heart which is invisible For the presumption is grounded upon visible works of Penance the effects of that invisible disposition without which they could not bee constantly brought forth Whether or no this discipline bee visible at Geneva I will not pronounce This I undertake that comparing the Doctrine of Calvine with their Orders they need not set a value upon the Power of the Keys exercised according to his Doctrine in comparison of the same exercised according to their own Orders So that supposing not granting that the Laws of the Church of England being the Laws of the primitive Catholick Church are to bee changed for conformity with the Reformed Churches it followeth not therefore that they are to bee changed for those of the Churches reformed according to Calvine Certainly the receiving of the Communion kneeling having been one of the Orders of their Reformation from the beginning and so stifly insisted upon by them in Poland they that pretend to change the Law of England in that point for conformity with the Reformation think they have not men but beasts to deal with The Church of England in the Commination against sinners hath declared a great zeal for the renewing of that antient discipline of Penance which was in force in the primitive Church And certainly the Church of England is not the Church of England but in Name till the power of Excommunication bee restored unto it which there was not nor ever can bee sufficient cause to take from any Church But the discipline of Penance though depending upon the Power of Excommunication is as much to bee preferred bâ—â—ore it as it is more desirable to bring men to the Church then to shut them out of it If prejudice and faction have not more to do in the pretenses of this time then the truth of Christianity and zeal to advance it it is a point that cannot bee neglected in any deliberation of Reforming the Church I cannot render a more visible reason why so godly a zeal in those that first prescribed our Reformation to the restoring of Penance hath not been improved by their successors then the partialities which sprung up in it like tares in the wheat and have now prevailed to choke even the power of Excommunication wherein the being of a Church consisteth And though many sinnes of this Nation may bee alleged for the cause why God hath taken this sharp revenge upon us yet can no reason bee so proper why hee should permit the hedge of the Church to bee cast down for all Sects to devour and tread his Vinâ—yard under foot by suffering the power of Excommunication to bee taken from it as the neglect of improving it in and to the discipline of Penance True it is not only all capital but all infamous crimes whereof men are convicted by Law are thereby notorious and require this discipline no less then those which the Law of this Land punisheth not otherwise then by Penance And if the Church did make a difference among those that dye by publick Justice owning only those who approve their desire to undergo regular Penance in case they might survive then were this discipline visible no visible crime escaping it For all capitall and infamous crimes that are not actually punished with death must by that reason remain unreconciled to the Church though free of the Law till Penance bee done And seeing crimes that are not known cannot bee cured upon easier terms then those that are would not the judgement of the Law authorizing the Church in the cure of known sins move even them that believe their Christianity no further then it is authorized by Law to submit invisible sinnes to the same cure For what is it but the slighting of this cure that makes mens sinnes fester and rankle inwardly and break out into greater and greater excesses And therefore to debate of Ceremonies and words in the service and May-poles and Sabbath days journeyes not considering the Power of the Keyes upon which the Church is founded and the restoring of the same is to neglect a consumption at the heart pretending only to cure the hair or the nails Now if any of our Sects insist upon a pretense that deserves to bee insisted upon far bee it from us to cast off the consideration of it because they have unduely separated from the Church for it Our Anabaptists it is known infist upon two points The baptizing of Infants and that by sprinkling not by dipping In both they have neglected St. Peters Doctrine That Baptisme saveth us not the laying aside of the filth of our flesh but the answer of a good conscience to God For were the profession of Christianity celebrated by the Sacrâ—â—â—nt of Baptisme believed to bee that which saveth us men would not go to baptize them as not baptized who by their profession which they acknowledge by seeking the Communion of the Church are under that bond which intitleth them to the Salvation of Christians Nor can there bee any greater presumption then the voiding of Baptisme so celebrated that they expect Salvation upon other terms But in making void Baptisme ministred by sprinkling alone without dipping they neglect St. Peter again when hee maketh the Baptisme that saveth not to consist in cleansing the flesh but in a due profession of Christianity signifying this to bee the principal that onely the accessory Ceremony which it is solemnized with And therefore they are to acknowledge this difference by acknowledging Baptisme so ministred to bee good and valid not void But this being acknowledged well may they insist that it is unduely ministred For it is evident that neitheâ— the Scripture nor the practise of the whole Church can by any means allow the sprinkling of water for Baptisme though the pouring on of water in case of necessity bee allowed Nor doth the Law of the Church of England allow any more then pouring water upon a Child that is weak commanding therefore dipping otherwise And therefore this Law being much weakned by the tenderness of Mothers and Friends supposing all Infants weak which the Law supposeth not and by undue zeal for Forreign Fashions ought to bee revived and brought into use by all Ordinaries that there may remain no colour for such an offense And therefore reparation is to bee made for the sacrilege of the late Wars in destroying the Fonts of Baptisme in Churches and bringing in Christening out of Basins by force I cannot say that I have touched all that is fit to bee touched But I hope I have said nothing but that which followeth upon the ground which I have justified That which is proposed and is not so justified seems to demand the consent of those who propose it as able to hold the Church divided if they bee not contented But that calls to mind a reason on the other side that men use to get a stomack with eating in such cases The due measure is not the satisfying of mens appetites but the improvement of our common Christianity FINIS Faults Escaped thus Amended Pag. 7. line 2. mistakes Point mistakes p. 40. l. 32. none read now p. 49. l. 16. Church p. Church p. 60. l. 36. Lawes r. Land p. 79. l. 14. of the Judgement r. of Judgement p. 84. l. 34. Trihes r. Tribes p. 90. l. 10. Praedestinarians r. Praedestinatians l. 12. West p. West p. 108. l. 33. Bishop Priest and Deacon p. Bishop Priest and Deacon p. 112. l. 14. Service p. Service p. 134. l. 12. all these r. those p. 143. l. 34. he performing r. the p. p. 145. l. 15. Hierachy r. Hierarchy p. 157. l. 24. prescribled r. prescribed l. 29 30. the the Power r. the P. p. 158. l. 6. Memoral r. Memorial p. 173. l. 37. Order r. Orders p. 179. l. 29. leave r. bear p. 189. l. 31. which r. with p. 201. l. 25. Church p. Church
CHAP. XV. The ground that determines the Form of our Service The Offices of which the Service is to consist Of the Vse of the Psalms Of reading the Scriptures commonly called Apocrypha What Preaching it is that the Scripture commendeth There may bee Preaching without Sermons and Sermons without Preaching The difference between the second Service in the Antient Church and our Communion Service The general Preface and the Prayers of the Church at the Eucharist The Prayer of Oblation instituted by St. Paul and the matter of it The Lords Prayer at the Eucharist The place for the Common Prayers 97 CHAP. XVI Difference in the state of Souls departed in Grace before Judgement The antient Church never prayed to remove them out of Purgatory To what purpose they were remembred at the Eucharist The Saints departed pray for the Militant Church Of prayers to the Saints departed No Common Prayer in the Pulpit by Gift but in a set form at the Communion-Table Apostolical Graces subject to Order Of the Graces of the Spirit in St. Paul and the Original of Litanies The Prayers of the Eucharist how prescribed by the Apostles Prayers of the Reformed Churches in the Pulpit but by a form The effect of the Long Parliament Prayers by the Spirit 105 CHAP. XVII The Lords Day observed by the Authority of the Church Therefore other Festivals and times of Fasting are to bee observed How places and persons become qualified for Gods Service Preaching not convertible with Ministring the Sacraments Times places peâ—sons and things consâ—crated to Gods Service under the Gospel Câ—reâ—oâ—ieâ— signifying by institution nâ—â—â—ssary in Gods Service What kind of signification requisite Not enough for the Presbyterians to allow Cerâ—monies 112 CHAP. XVIII Offices which the Fathers call Sacraments for their Ceremonies Why the Bishop only Confirmeth The effect of Ordination requireth Ceremony in giâ—ing it Why the Ordinations of our Presbyters are void The necessity of Penancâ— The observation of Lent and the Vse of it The necessity of private Penance for the cure of secret sin Of anointing the sick according to St. James Mariage of Christians not to â—ee Ruled by Moses Law Instituted Ceremonies are Sacraments with the Fathers The Ceremonies of these Offices justifie Instituted Ceremonies 118 CHAP. XIX The worship of the Host in the Papacy is not Idolatry Christianity would sanctifie kneeling at the Eucharist though it were What Images the second Commandment forbiddeth Reverencing of Images in Churches is not Idolatry Of honouring Images and of having them in Churches Mutual forbearance which St. Paul enjoyneth the Romans not enjoyned elsewhere Tender consciences arâ— to submit to Superiors 125 CHAP. XX. The Declaration of V. Eliz. enableth Recusants to take the Oath of Supremacy What further ambiguity that Oath involveth What scandal the taking of it in the true sense ministreth That this Oath ought to bee inlarged to all pretenses in Religion that abridge Allegiance The extent of secular Power in Reforming the Church 131 CHAP. XXI The pretense of Infallibility makâ—s the breacâ— unrâ—concileable So doth the pretense of perspicuity in the Scripture The Trial must suppose the Catholick Church The Fanaticks further from the truth of Christianity then the Church of Rome The consequence of their principle worse then that of Infallibility The point of Truth in the middle between both How sâ—lvation is concerned in the mater of Free Will and Grace Salvation concerned in the Sacraments upon the same terms The abuses of the Church of Rome in the five Sacraments The Grace of Ordination The Reformation pretended no less abuse on the other side The point of Reformation in the mean between both The Superstitions of the Church of Rome The Superstitions of the Pâ—ritans Why the Pope cannot bee Antichrist How it is just to Reform without the See of Rome 136 CHAP. XXII The present State of the Question concerning our Service The Reformation pretended abominable Such Preaching and Praying as is usual a hindrance of salvation rather then the means to it What Order of Service the continual Communion will require What form of Instruction this Order will require Of that which goes before the Preface in our Communion Service of the Prefaces and the Prayer of Consecration Of the Prayer of Oblalation and the place of it Of the Commâ—â—â—oration of the dead in particular Why the Communion Service at the Communion-Table when no Eucharist A secondary Proposition according to present Law 150 CHAP. XXIII How the Law distinguishes Moral Precepts from Positive How the spiritual sense of the Decalogue concerns Christians The meaning of the First Commandment in this sense The extent of the Second Commandment Of the Third Commandment What the sanctifying of the Sabbath signifieth The meaning of the Fifth as to Christians The meaning of the five last according to Christianity 164 CHAP. XXIV That no Clergy man ought to bee of more Dioceses then one Of inferior Orders in the Clergy and their Offices The conversation of the Clergy and the use of Church goods The ground for promotions to higher degrees The Vniversities may bee serviceable to some part of this Discipline Reasons for it Publick fame of sin to bâ—e purged by Ecclesiastical process Sinners convict by Law not to communicate before Penance The Cure of notorious sin the Bishops Office The Church not Reformed without restoring Penance Publick or Private What means there is left for the restoring of it 172 CHAP. XXV Gods mercies and judgements require the perfecting of the Reformation which wee profess The restoring of the Ecclesiastical Laws is not the restoring of the Church Yet are wee not therefore chargeable with Schisme by the Church of Rome What Schisme destroys the Salvation of what persons by instances in the most notable Schismes Difficulty of Salvation on both sides the Reformation remaining unperfect An instance hereof in the Cure of souls departing by the Order in force A Supplication for a full Debate of all maters in difference The ground of Resolution one Catholick Church the first and chief point of the Debate The consequence of it in Vniting the Reformed Churches An instance in the having of Images in Churches An Objection for the Church of Rome answered That which excuseth the Reformed Churches excuseth not our Schismaticks 184 A Letter concerning the present State of Religion amongst us Vnder the Act of Establishment prosecuted by the Ordinances constituting the Triers and Commissioners for ejecting of Scandalous Ministers 207 The due Way of composing the differences on Foot preserving the Church According to the Opinion of Herbert Thornedike 223 JUST Weights Measures CHAP. I. If the Church of Rome bee a true Church Reformation is the restoring of that which hath been If the Pope be Antichrist and the Papists Idolaters the Church of Rome no true Church If no Visible Church then no sinne of Schisme Antichrist may bee an Idolater but cannot be the Head of a Church Though it were Idolatry to worship the Host yet to
against Churches and Synods against Synods in the cause Always that Council decreed nothing for St. Austine against the redemption of all mankind and the will of God that all bee saved And Prosper his Apologist and the Author de Vocatione Gentium much more writing about the same time have asserted both Condemning thereby the late zele of Jonseinus for St. Austine if not his hatred of the Jesuites who thinking to overbear all Dispute in the point by his authority and reasons hath not been afraid to maintain him in those Articles And therefore hath given the Dominicans whom his opinion seems to comply so much with just occasion to joyn themselves against him with the Jesuites But his opinion will prove a nihil dicit That of Arminius as it necessarily opposes absolute Predestination to Glory so it stands very well with absolute Predestination to Grace Because it derives the Efficacy of Grace from that Congruity which as Gods foresight discovers so his Providence uses And therefore the discreetest of his adversaries at the Synod of Dort the English and those of Breme owned the redemption of mankind and the will of God that all bee saved Those that will not do the same must resolve upon Predetermination And that I grant is not destructive to Christianity in the Dominicans though of it self it bee destructive Because holding free will they contradict themselves in it and so have an Antidote against it But in our Fanatickes that take justifying Faith to bee the assurance of Predestination and the Covenant of Grace a meer Promise of God to those that have that assurance it is down-right Haerefie And though the Presbyterians do not profess to hold it yet so long as they distinguish not themselves from the Fanatickes but Communieate with them they will bee Haeretickes themselves by the perpetual Rule of the Church which makes them Haeretickes to the Church that Communicate with Haeretickes and Schismatickes that Communicate with Schismatickes CHAP. XIV Duty of a Christian as a Christian and as a Member of the Church How Anabaptists deny the Faith how they are to bee reconciled with the Church Their Error in rebaptizing for want of dipping What concerns Salvation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist How the Elements are consecrated into the body and bloud of Christ according to Gregory Nyssene The consequence hereof in the Errors concerning the Eucharist How the Eucharist a Sacrifice and yet no ground for private Masses The Eucharist not the Sermon the Chief Office of Gods service IF it bee part of a mans Christianity to bee a Member of Gods Duty of a Christian as a Christian and as a Member of the Church Church then is a Christian sometimes concerned as a Christian sometimes as a Member of the Church For that which concerns him as a Member of the Church arises from the Constitution of the Church as the effect of that power which God hath endowed his Church with Whereas that which concerns him as a Christian concerns him before the being of the Church Though the consent of the Church in it bee the means to bring it into evidence Whatsoever is necessary to bee known for the salvation of all Christians is of this kind And whatsoever proceedeth from the power of the Church as the effect of it is not necessary to bee known for the salvation of all Christians It is necessary for all Christians to know that they are to live and dye Members of Gods Church And therefore to conform themselves to the order of it But that this order is for the best it neither concerneth them to know nor to enquire provided it bee sufficient for the salvation of all and enjoyn nothing destructive to the salvation of any This is the next obligation to that which concerneth a Christian as a Christian The Sacraments of Baptisme and of the Eucharist were instituted How Anabâ—ptists deny the Faith how they are to bee reconciled with the Church by our Lord in person before hee left the World So was also the Power of the Keys consisting in admitting to them and excluding from them Upon this Power hee founded his Church leaving the forming of it to his Apostles whom he trusted it with by virtue of the same It seems therefore that these Sacraments concern Christians as Christians and not only as Members of the Church I have shewed how Baptisme concerns the salvation of all Christians Whereby it appears what presumption of Haeresie there is in the Sect of the Anabaptists For did they think the profession of Christianity to bee the condition in consideration whereof all that are baptized are saved they could not take that Baptisme of the Church for void whereby there can bee no doubt that a Christian is obliged to the profession of a Christian Because they believe not the condition of salvation to bee the Covenant of Baptisme therefore they make it void being received before knowledg Whereas the greater question is whether the Church bee obliged to take their Baptisme for Baptisme or not For though the School make good all Baptisme ministred in due mater and form of words yet the Church never declared this general reason why it alloweth the Baptisme of those Haeretickes whom it did not rebaptize Because they were baptized with the due form of words But only appointed such and such Haeretickes to bee baptized as voiding the Baptisme which they received from Haeretickes others to bee received with imposition of hands Now of those Haeresies whose Baptisme the Church alloweth to bee valid though unlawful none did ever question the Article of one Baptisme for remission of fin which they that own not Christianity for the condition of salvation do destroy So did the Gnostickes and their Baptisme ought to bee void They who agree in their opinion though not in the grounds of it how is the Church tyed to allow their Baptisme But because the Church is not tyed to make it void and to baptize them again returning to the Profession of the true Faith Let it suffice that it appeareth hereby how necessary this found profession is for the restoring not only of Anabaptists but of all other Sects that distinguish not themselves from them to the Church They have indeed another pretense for rebaptizing For Their Errour in re-baptizing for â—aâ—â— of dipping that they may dip the whole body they will leave the Church to Baptize in Rivers Would they do this did they think the profession which is made with a good Conscience to bee that which saveth in Baptism as the Apostle teacheth The order of this Church requireth dipping so it bee warily done And certainly if it bee not the cleansing of the flesh it is not the indangering of life that saveth Now when sprinkling is used instead of dipping without regard to the danger of the Child in regard to a wrong opinion in the point or to the causeless tendernerness of Mothers and Friends especially of the womankind though
And therefore there is no ground for private Masses by granting the Eucharist to bee in this nature a Sacrifice But can any man say that it is not the principal Office of The Eucharist not the Sermon the Chief Office of Gods Service Christian Assemblies That it ought not to bee frequented upon all the chief occasions for the Assemblies of Gods Church That the ordinary work for which wee meet all Lords days and other days if on other days wee ought ordinarily and solemnly to meet is a Sermon with an arbitrary Prayer before or after it That they who take the pains to minister the same are to bee excused of celebrating the Eucharist or ministring the prayers of the Church which it is to bee celebrated with unless it bee three or four times a year and much more of reading the Scriptures or praising God upon Davids Psalter and the Hymns of the Church I confess Calvins Reformation is much after that form And all the arâ— of the Blessed Reformation here pretended hath been to impose it for a Law upon this Kingdom without once pleading that it is for the best But so grosly prejudicial to the Service of God and the Common Christianity that it were injurious to fear that a Christian Kingdom can suffer such an Imposture derogating far more from the perpetual Custome of Gods Whole Church then it can from the present Law of this Kingdom That therefore I may make way to the determining of that which remains most questionable amongst us What is the best form of Service which the Church of this Kingdom can worship God with I must in the first place lay down that Rule by which all Reformation of Lawes Ecclesiastical is to bee directed together with the ground of it CHAP. XV. The ground that determines the Form of our Service The Offices of which the Service is to consist Of the Vse of the Psalmes Of reading the Scriptures commonly called Apocrypha What Preaching it is that the Scripture commendeth There may be Preaching without Sermons and Sermons without Preaching The difference between the second Service in the Ancient Church and our Communion Service The general Preface and the Prayers of the Church at the Eucharist The Prayer of Oblation instituted by S. Paul and the matter of it The Lords Prayer at the Eucharist The Place for the Common Prayers THat ground upon which the form of our Service is to bee The ground that determines the Form of ouâ— Service determined is to determine all that remains to bee determined in matter of Religion by Law of this Kingdom The true sense of the Scripture is not to bee had but out of the Records of Antiquity especially of Gods ancient people fâ—â—st and then of the Christian Church The obligation of that sense upon the Church at this time is not to bee measured against the primitive practice of the Whole Church The Reformation of the Church is nothing but the restoring of that which may appear to have been in force especially since Christianity hath been protected by the Lawes of the Empire Because the greatest difference between the primitive time of Christianity and this is the difference between the state of Persecution and of Protection by the Law of this Kingdom It is therefore necessary that both sides professing the Reformation should agree upon the true ground of Reformation and so upon the Rule which that ground will maintain and evidence that is to submit all that is in question to the visible practise of the primitive times before those abuses were brought in which the Reformation pretendeth to restore For if God have founded a Visible Church which all this supposes then cannot the Pope bee Antichrist nor the Church of Rome Idolaters for any thing which the practise of the Primitive Church justifieth And seeing the Church is Visible by the Lawes of it there can no Church bee visibly one with that which was from the beginning but by ruling it self by the same Lawes so far as the state of the Bodies for which they are made is the same That which shall bee said concerning the form of our Service is an instance hereof The sense of the Scriptures which have been alleged shall appear to agree with the primitive order of Gods Church The reviving of the order is the point of Reformation in this particular allowing for avoiding just offense in altering the Law of the Kingdom without necessary cause as the wisdom of Superiours shall find requisite I must now suppose that the Offices of Gods Service for The Offices of which the Service is to consist which the Church of God assembleth ordinarily and solemnly are the praises of God the instruction of the people in the duties of their Christianity whether by reading the Scriptures or by handling the same And lastly the Common Prayers of the Church especially those which the Eucharist is to bee celebrated with And this Order which I put them in here is that which the Church from the beginning hath always observed The Psalter of David in the first place hath been so generally Oâ— the use of the Psalms frequented by the Whole Church for the Instrument to make the Praises of God sound forth that it ought not now to bee questioned as questioned it is visibly enough by any that would pretend to bee of Gods Church The order of reading the Psalms which the Law of this Kingdom requires is admitted because they are part of the Scripture But all endeavours used that no devotion of the people bee exercised by it The Psalms in Rhime must engross that Wee have seen a Civil War in the time whereof these Psalms in Rhime being crowded into the Church by meer sufferance and so used without order of Law have been employed on both sides to brand the adverse party with the marks which the Psalms set upon the enemies of David and of Gods People that is of Christ and of Christians More freely by them who sang them at the head of their Armies to that purpose I hope those ways do not please at present And therefore say freely that the disorder ought not to continue Some of our Fanaticks I know have torn them out of their Bibles They thought themselves not concerned in them though David were The Jewes though they allow many of them to belong to the Messias would not have them belong to our Lord Christ But the Church uses them supposing them all fulfilled in Christ and Christians whether particular souls or the body of his Church Upon this Account they are the exercise of Christian Devotions But not the Psalms in Rhime The musick of them hath proved too hard for the people to learn in an hundred years And yet no way more commendable then the Rhimes themselves are And repeating a little in much time The tunes used in Cathedral and Collegiate Churches are easie to learn and serve that Order which Law setleth for Devotion not for reading
them as Scripture The order for reading the Scripture appears necessary by the Of reading the Scriptures commonly called Apocryphâ— jealousies of this time For were it arbitrary how obvious would it bee to deprave publick or private proceedings by Lessons chosen on purpose That the Books called Apocrypha are not the Writings of Prophets inspired is agreed Though those Writings are properly called Apocrypha which the Church authorizeth not to bee read Whereas these being always read in the Church are therefore properly called Ecclesiastical by Rufinus The chief objections against them resolve into some passages that seem not to agree with the Doctrine of the New Testament But so that the like are found in the Old The Fact of Razias the Proceeding of Judith the Lye of Tobits Angel are the greatest blocks of offense Not considering the Fact of Jael or that of Sampson or the Lyes that seem to bee rewarded under the Law If offense bee taken at them why not at these But it is no offense to good Christians because good Christians do not presume the Law and the Gospel to bee both one And therefore are content to know their duty under the Gospel letting that which agreeth not therewith in the Old Testament pass without offense In the mean time it is evident that the Doctrine of Christianity beginneth to bee discovered in them more clearly then it stands discovered in the Law and the Prophets Hereupon the Wisdom of the Primitive Church imployed them for the instruction of the Catâ—câ—umeni that were yet but learners of Christianiny And therefore wee are to insist upon the use of them for edification of the Church in the better understanding of the manners and good works of Christians much abased by those who would put these Books to silence But the whole Church having always used them to lay them aside now were not to restore the Church but to build a new one As concerning the necessity of preaching so effectually set What Preaching it is that the Scripture câ—mmendeth forth by the Scriptures there is utterly a mistake in the meaning of them That preaching which the Scripture maketh absolutely necessary to salvation is the publishing of the Gospel to those that know it not The instruction of Christians in their duty is called teaching in the Scripture I have made evidence of this difference The Apostles Commission is to teach them whom they have baptized all that the Lord had commanded them The Kingdom of God is not in word but in power But if wee call the teaching of Christians preaching then it must bee such for mater and for manner both as may indeed convict Christians of the duty of Christians and that not in the opinion of him that preacheth but according to the Doctrine of the Church Whosoever thinketh himself tâ—ed to Preach that which the Church tyes him not to Preach not tyed to Preach that which it tyeth him to preach is in a fair way to edifie the people to ruine by improving an undue zeal to the dividing of the Church In the mean time the Church preacheth without Sermons by There may bee Preaching without Sermons and Sermons without Preaching the Psalms and the Scriptures and by that order in which it provideth that they bee read Besides all those Forms in which it prescribeth the Offices of Gods Service to bee performed Which if they contain all that is necessary generally and probably to the salvation of all Christians supposing them duly Catechized in those things which the salvation of all and which their particular estate requires they that never heard many Sermons may have heard more and better preaching then hundreds and thousands of Sermons dangerous if not destructive to salvation a thing which experience proves more then possible can furnish them who shall do nothing but run from Sermons to Sermons I grant it was a just complaint at the Reformation that the people were not taught their duty But I do not grant either that they cannot bee taught their duty without two Sermons every Lords day Or that they are like to bee taught their duty by two Sermons every Lords day It is not possible to have men for all Churches fit to preach twice a day to the edifying of the people It will not bee possible to maintain their preaching such as may bee accompted an Office of Gods service In the antient Church for divers hundred years all that The difference between the second Service in the antient Church and our Communion Service were admitted to stay all this while that is till the Sermon were done were not to bee present at the Eucharist were not to communicate As Converts not baptized as the relapsed as the possessed by unclean spirits in which ranck the Lunaticke the Epilepticke the Frantick were accounted And reason good for they were not to communicate at least till death And yet they were not to bee dismissed without the prayers of the Church Prayers fitting their several estates for their proficience or for their recovery that they might come to communicate I will not here undertake that all which remained did always communicate though I doubt not I may undertake that the rule of the Church required them always to communicate For when the world was come in to the Church the Rule that prevailed in time of persecution there is no marvel that it could not then prevail By St. Chrysostome alone it appears sufficiently that the Rule was well enough known but not in force even in his time So when they that might not communicate were dismissed they that would not communicate remained nevertheless For the Eucharist was not to bee set aside for their negligence This is the difference between the first and second Service which is not the same with our Communion Service For the first Service ended when the prayers of the Church began Our Communion Service is that which is properly called the Liturgy in Greek Namely the Office which the Eucharist is to bee celebrated with That which goes before the Offertory belongs not properly to the second Service according to the Primitive Form For the presenting of the Elements was always every where the beginning of it The prayers of the Church began with Thanksgiving to God The General Preface and the Prayers of the Church at the Eucharist for making man and setting him over the creatures for taking care of him after his Fall teaching the Patriarches giving the Law sending the Prophets and when all this did not the effect required for sending our Lord Christ From this Thanksgiving both the Action of the Sacrament and the consecrated Elements are still called the Eucharist And it is called a Preface in a very antient African Canon to wit to the consecration of the Elements which followed Which as I said before is nothing else but a prayer that God would send the Holy Ghost upon the present Elements and make them the Body and Blood of Christ that
they who should receive them worthily might bee filled with his Grace The common prayers of the Church that is of those who were admitted to Communion with the Church were always made at the Altar or Communion-Table in the action of the Sacrament Reason good How can Christians think their prayers so effectual with God as when they are presented at the Commemoration of the Sacrifice of Christ crucified the Representation whereof to God in heaven makes his Intercession there so acceptable Especially by those who maintain the Covenant of their Christianity contracted at their Baptisme by communicating in the Eucharist Here then that is at the celebrating of the Eucharist prayers The prayer of Oblation instituted by St. Paul and the â—ater of it supplications and intercessions were made for all estates in the Church and for their respective necessities For the averting of all Gods Judgements for the obtaining of all his blessings For publique Powers and their Ministers for the Governors and Ministers of the Church high and low for publique Peace and prosperity for the Seasons and Fruits of the Year for the Sick and Distressed for the helps of Gods Grace in all parts of that Christianity which wee profess passing by daily offenseâ— for particular occasions of interceding with God which each particular Congregation may have And there bee good and sufficient witnesses the Author of the Commentary upon St. Paul to Timothy under St. Ambrose his name the Author de Vocatione Gâ—ntium St. Augustine and Pope Caelestine in his Epistle ad Gallos that this was the practice of the whole Church and that in obedience to St. Pauls instructions to Timothy 1 Tim. II. 1-6 And this confirmes my opinion that St. Paul ordering prayers supplications intercessions and thanksgiâ—ings for Kings and all in authority means that prayers supplications and intercessions bee made for Kings and the rest at Thanksgiving that is when the Eucharist is celebrated For that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the sense of antient Christians signifies the celebrating of the Eucharist I have produced plentiful evidence However the antient Chuch manifestly signifieth that they did offer their Oblations out of which the Eucharist was consecrated with an intent to intercede with God for publique or private necessities And that out of an opinion that they would bee effectual alleging the Sacrifice of Christ crucified then present which renders Christs intercession effectual for us And this is the true ground why they attributed so much to this Commemoration of the Sacrifice which makes nothing for the effect of it in private Masses but more then will bee valued for the frequenting of the Holy Eucharist The Consecration ended always with the Lords Prayer The Lords Prayer at theâ— Eucharist Which confirms my opinion that St. Paul when he saith How shall the unlearned say Amen to thy thanksgiving 1 Cor. XIV 16. means that Amen which came after the Lords Prayer taking Thanksgiving there for celebrating the Eucharist For there is nothing so generally evident in Antiquity as the beginning of the Consecration at Sursum corda or lift up your hearts And the ending of it with the Lords Prayer and the Doxology which in my opinion being so frequented upon this occasion by the licentiousness of Copyists in time came to bee crouded into the Text of the Scripture For it is manifest enough that the most considerable Copies do not own it But the Common Prayers for all estates as it seems sometimes The Place for the Common Prayers went before the Consecration sometimes came after it For I am to seek for evidence in the Records of the Latine Church importing that they came after the Consecration And yet I have made it evident that they were used of old by the Latine Church at celebrating of the Eucharist though now not found in the present Latine Mass And the Liturgy of the Church of Alexandria and the Aethiopick depending upon that Church have them before the Consecration But the best and most Greekish Forms and Authorities agreeing therewith make them come after it CHAP. XVI Difference in the state of Souls departed in Grace before Judgement The antient Church never prayed to remove them out of Purgatory To what purpose they were remembred at the Eucharist The Saints departed pray for the Militant Church Of Prayers to the Saints departed No Common Prayer in the Pulpit by Gift but in a set form at the Communion-Table Apostolical Graces subject to Order Of the Graces of the Spirit in St. Paul and the Original of Letanies The Prayers of the Eucharist how prescribed by the Apostles Prayers of the Reformed Churches in the Pulpit but by a form The effect of the Long Parliament Prayers by the Spirit ONe point of these prayers I must speak to here in particular Difference in the state of Souls departed in Grace before Judgment To wit the Commemoration of the dead for which the Mass is now pretended by the Church of Rome a Sacrifice for quick and dead to what effect the Scripture expounded by the practice of the whole Church may bee thought to allow it I have shewed out of the Revelation that the souls of Mâ—rtyrs appearing before the Throne of God in the Court of the Tabâ—rnacle to wit in the Jerusalem which is above The Throne appears to St. John indeed but is to bee understood in the Holy of Holies and therefore is not seen in the Couâ—t of the Tabernacle But those 144000 that were sealed and preserved from the destruction of Jerusalem appear not in the Court of the Tabernacle but on Mount Sion a place of inferior holiness And sing not the Martyrs song but are only able to learn it which no body else could do Sufficient Arguments of difference in the State of blessed souls though all beneath that which the Resurrection promiseth which all of them earnestly desire Suppose the place bee the third Heavens suppose that it is called Paradise because of necessity it answers the Figure of the earthly Paradise suppose that in respect of the Saints that dyed under the Law it is called Abrahams bosome There may bee inferior Mansions in the mean time before the Rusurrection for souls of inferior holiness though they depart in the State of Grace For how oft do the Apostles signifie a sollicitous expectation of the Day of Judgement in those whom they suppose to dye Christians A thing which can by no means stand with the estate of those that are before the Throne of God praising him day and night in the Court of the Tabernacle And therefore St. Ambrose and St. Augustine had great reason to follow the fourth Book of Esdras written without doubt by a very antient Christian though not authorized by the Church placing the generality of souls departed in the state of Grace in certain secret receptacles signifying no more then the unknown Condition of their estate For the practice of the Church in interceding for them at the
Fathers call it under those precepts which God gave Noah after the Flood as the Jews will have it And therefore it tended not only to figure Christ to come but to maintain the service of God and that reverence which it ought to bee performed with What colour can there bee that the Consecrations that were in force by the Law were figurative of Christ to come And the Sacrilege of Judas as well as of Ananias and Sapphira remain unquestionable because the subsistence of the Church upon Oblations consecrated to that purpose from the beginning is as visible as the Church As for the sense of the Catholique Church from the beginning hee that believes the Unity thereof cannot question it They therefore that have the Impudence to make that Superstition which the people of God both before and since Christ have always used for the service of God do they not commit Idolatry to their own Imaginations which they prefer so far before all the world besides Indeed the solemnity of Consecration requires a further question of Ceremonies in the service of God whether or no they be for the advantage of Gods service whether or no it bee in the power of the Church to determine them for that purpose For the solemnity of Consecrations passes not without Ceremonies Wee have this character of the Presbyterians published for Ceremonies fignisying by institution necessary in Gods service their advantage That they allow the natural expressions of Reverence and devotion as kneeling and lifting up of the hands and eyes in prayer as also those meer circumstances of decency and order the omission whereof would make the service of God either not decent or less decent but Ceremonies of instituted mystical signification they allow not But are not the mysteries of Christianity the Incarnation Death Resurrection and Ascension of Christ things instituted by God not determined by nature Is not the signifying of them whereby they come to Remembrance the means to procure and to encrease that Reverence and Devotion which wee are to attend the service of God with and the inward affection which it expresseth And why not then Ceremonies instituted to signifie things which Gods Grace not nature determineth Shall it be Christianity to believe the Institution of things above nature for our salvation by Gods Grace and shall it bee prejudicial to Christianity to institute the means of procuring that Reverence and Devotion which the Remembrance of them in the publick service of God requireth shall the worship of God by Christians be tyed to signifie no more then nature directeth Jews Mahometans and Pagans to signifie by it Compare this new Gospel with the perpetual practice of Gods people whether before or after the Law whether before or after Christ And you shall easily see that it cannot bee accounted Superstition but by those that commit Idolatry to their own Imaginations Let the signification bee that which natural reason is able to What kind of signification requisite interpret in all sorts of Christians and whether they allow it to bee called Mystical or not they must allow it as properly Religious that is as tending to advance that Devotion which the Religion of a Christian signifieth in the point of Gods service And truely I do not nor doth this Church to my knowledg allow the Ceremonies of the Church of Rome the siâ—nification whereof is not to bee understood by all sorts of Christians but require books of learning to interpret their significations They that serve God in a Language unknown to the people do accordingly when they serve him with Ceremonies which they cannot understand Allowing it Reformation to serve God in English I allow it Reformation to cut off the Superfluity of such Ceremonies as stealing the nourishment of Devotion from the heart wherein God hath placed his service And therefore I think it reason to submit to this Issue whether or no the Ceremonies in question bee according to the use of the Primitive Church which the Reformation pretendeth or should pretend to restore For I find that in the Primitive and Good Times of Christianity the Church was far enough from seeking such abstruse and far fetched significations And that is a visible Rule which the common profession of Reformation determines But I allow no man to allege the use of the Primitive Church grown out of use long before the Reformation in bar to any Ceremony now setled by Law not weighing by the same Weights nor meting by the same Measures in all other things It is neither good conscience in them nor would bee in the Publick to change a Law of the Land upon a pretense which they that allege will not stand to in another Case But is it enough for Presbyterians to allow Ceremonies which Not enough for the Presbyterians to allow Ceremonies nature teacheth to allow order and decency in circumstances Have they debauched this wretched people to such horrible prophaness and irreverence that they can think fit to pray sitting on their seats to such barbarous confusion that they can think every mans own fansie the best order to exercise the Liberty of Christians in Gods service and now think to satisfie with allowing the contrary What shall the Church gain by reconciling them if having contributed so much to the destruction of order they contribute not more then so to the restoring of it but that must bee the care of Superiors I will only mention the sign of the Cross a Ceremony of so much reverence and so general use in the whole Church of God from the beginning that nothing but the difficulty of recalling it preserving Unity among our selves can excuse this Church for not restoring it in many other Offices But to put it out of the Office of Baptisme would bee to condemn the Whole Church of God without giving satisfaction to them who having obtained the silencing of it in Consecrating the Eucharist according to the Liturgy under Edward VI. have thereby been encouraged to demand so much more CHAP. XVIII Offices which the Fathers call Sacraments for their Ceremonies Why the Bishop only Confirmeth The effect of Ordination requireth Ceremony in giving it Why the Ordinations of our Presbyters are void The necessity of Penance The observation of Lent and the Vse of it The necessity of private Penance for the cure of secret sin Of anointing the sick according to S. James Mariage of Christians not to bee Ruled by Moses Law Instituted Ceremonies are Sacraments with the Fathers The Ceremonies of these Offices justifie Instituted Ceremonies BUt for the justifying of Ceremonies why should I allege Offices which the Fathers call Sacramenâ—s for their Ceremonies any thing but those Offices of the Church which the Fathers have called Sacraments as well as Baptism and the Eucharist I conceive I have alleged so sufficient a reason for the difference between those two and the rest that slaunder it self cannot undertake to blast my meaning in that point For things
must needs honour them with the honour proper to God though in so doing they honoured indeed the Devil that brought in Idols Nay the Council it self though it acknowledg that the Image it self is honoured by the honour given to that which it signifieth before the Image yet it distinguisheth this honour from the honour of our Lord. And therefore teacheth not Idolatry by teaching to honour Images though it acknowledg that the Image it self is honoured when it need not For indeed and in truth it is not the Image but the Principal Of honouring Images and of having them in Churches that is honoured by the honour that is said to be done to the Image because it is done before the Image The Furniture and Utensils of the Church were honoured in the Spotless times of the Church as consecrated to Gods service though the honour of them being uncapable of honour for themselves was manifestly and without any scruple the honour of God But Images so long as they were used to no further intent then the Ornament of Churches the remembrance of holy Histories and the raising of devotion thereby as at the first they were used by the Church came in the number of things consecrated to Gods service And that Council was never of force in the West till the usurped power of the Pope brought it in by force Nor did the Western Church when it refused the Council discharge the having of Images in Churches upon those reasons and to those purposes which I have declared So far they remain still justifiable For hee that sees the Whole Church on the one side and only Calvin on the other side hath hee not cause to fear that they who make them Idolaters without cause will themselves appear Schismaticks in the sight of God for it For what are they else who please themselves in a strange kind of negative superstition that they cannot serve God if they serve him with visible signes of reverence who hate the Images because they hate the Saints themselves and their Christianity And therefore that it bee not thought that we are tyed to those terms of distance which ignorant Preachers drive their Factions with It is necessary to declare the grounds of truth though it displease St. Paul writing to the Romans that were partly Jews Mutual forbearance which S. Paul enjoyneth the Romans not enjoyned elsewhere partly Gentiles converted to Christianity as appears by the whole Epistle forbids them to condemn or despise one another for making conscience of things meats and times hee expressâ—th forbidden by the Law or for using them without difference Hence it is now argued that nothing can bee imposed upon any Christian which out of tenderness of conscience hee may think it against Gods Law for him to do The Answer is by denying the consequence And the reason because it is a particular order of St. Paul to that Church for the present estate of it at that time And therefore it doth not follow that the Church can make no Law For it could make no Law if it were enough to discharge any man that it is against his conscience to obey The evidence for this reason is this because it appears that the Apostles did order otherwise in the same cause when the case was not the same For it is manifest that the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem had made an Act in Council commanding the Gentiles that were converted to Christianity to abstain from Fornication and things offered in sacrifice to Idols from things strangled and from blood In fine from those things from which strangers that were licensed by the Law to live in the Land of promise were hound to abstain And might not those converted Gentiles have scrupled whether or no it were lawful for them to bee so far Jews had not the authority of the Apostles been sufficient to put an end to their scruples But it is manifest likewise that when St. Paul differed with St. Peter at Antiochia about the necessity of compliance with the Jews for Gentiles turned Christians hee did forbid and must needs forbid his followers to shew this compliance lest by that means hee might hold them in an opinion of the necessity of the Law for the salvation of Christians Here were contrary Provisions with force of Law in that very case wherein St. Paul commands only mutual forbearance at Rome in that estate wherein he writ his Epistle And if St. Paul were in the right which they who take his writings for Scripture do not doubt then were St. Peters followers bound to obey him notwithstanding any tenderness in their consciences And hee commands Tit. I. 10-15 to stop the mouths of those Deceivers of the Circumcision that would not have all things pure to the pure because their own consciences were defiled Notwithstanding that they must needs have followers that were touched in conscience to think those things unlawful which the Law allowed not And their teachers mouths being stopped were the hearers at their choise whether they would follow them or not Whereby it appears that Inferiors are to follow the Judgment Teâ—der coâ—sciences are to submit to Superiâ—urs of Superiors in matters subject to the power of Superiors notwithstanding the scruples of their own consciences to the contrary And that the reason why the Romans are forbidden to condemn commanded to forbear one another is because St. Paul thought it not meet to order any thing else in the business during that estate Seeing that hee ordereth otherwise in it for other estates So that all that remains is whether the matter in question â—ee within the power of Superiors or not In which there can bee no doubt amongst us the matters in question being acknowledged indifferent in themselves And therefore capable to signifie that which Christianity not only alloweth but requireth And certainly there is no Law whether Ecclesiastical or Civil that errour may not scruple at as inconsistent with a good conscience Why should not I beleeve that a Quaker is really touched in conscience that hee ought not to pay his Tithes though in obedience to the Law of the Land as well as a Presbyterian that hee ought not to receive the Communion kneeling For I see many of the Church of Rome suffer for denying the Right of a Prince excommunicate by the Pope though it bee matter of Civil Law Therefore if hee that graspes too much is in the way to gripe nothing then an exception that lies against all Law will do no effect against a few Ceremonies of this Church CHAP. XX. The Declaration of V. Eliz. enableth Recusants to take the Oath of Supremacy What further ambiguity that Oath involveth What scandal the taking of it in the true sense ministreth That this Oath ought to bee inlarged to all pretenses in Religion that abridge Allegiance The extent of secular Power in Reforming the Church THe Usurpation of temporal power by the Pope upon the The Declaration of V. Eliz.
would bee were the Pope Antichrist and the Papistâ— Idolaters Though to those that believe them so because they believe them so the measure and the bounds of Reformation will never appear to stand where indeed they do But let them look to the consequence of their own imaginations This one must needs render them Schismaticks to God abhorring communion upon imaginary reasons But will render us with them Schismaticks both to God and to his Church if wee make all that to bee Reformation which their imaginations tainted with such a prejudice would have to bee Law to this Church and Kingdom CHAP. XXII The present State of the Question concerning our Service The Reformation pretended abominable Such Preaching and Praying as is usual a hindrance of salvation rather then the means to it What Order of Service the continual Communion will require What form of Instruction this Order will require Of that which goes before the Preface in our Communion Service Of the Prefaces and the Prayer of Consecration Of the Prayer of Oblation and the place of it Of the Commemoration of the dead in particular Why the Communion Service at the Communion Table when no Eucharist A secondary Proposition according to present Law I conceive I have by this time shewed a reason for that The present state of the Question concerning our Service which I said in the beginning that there is so much in question between us and the Puritans comprising in that name all the parties into which it stands now divided as if it were decided for them would give the Papists the advantage against the Protestants Now as for the great question amongst us concerning our Service if it were truly stated it would soon be at an end If it may bee once considered that the question is indeed and in truth whether Sermons shall drive the Communion out of the Church or not whether or no arbitrary Prayers in the Pulpit shall chase out of the Church those which St. Paul commanded to bee made and the Church by his command hath frequented ever since I conceive the Dispute would bee easily decided And that is the thing in question indeed and in effect how little soever it appear Certainly if there were never any common Prayers made in the Pulpit if there were always common Prayers made at the Altar they who had no common Prayers but at the Eucharist had the Eucharist as oft as they had common Prayers Not as if the Church did never assemble but when the Eucharist was celebrated But because their desire and endeavour was to celebrate the Eucharist once every day and that in the morning unless it were a Fast and always at dismissing the Assembly as the principal Office of it For hence the Eucharist came in time to bee called the Mass which had formerly been the name of the Assembly it self from the dismissing of it And they who endeavoured to celebrate the Eucharist every day were not like to let Lords days and Festivals pass or think them solemnized as they should bee by Christians without it Since therefore I claim that this came by Tradition of the The Reformation pretended abominable Church from St. Pauls order I will infer no less then I have proved That to change the Communion every Lords day and Festival together with Morning and Evening Prayer every day in the Church and that with the Litanies upon Wednesdays and Fridays which the Law of the Land hitherto requireth for two Sermons every Sabbath with arbitrary Prayers afore or after them would not bee Reformation but Apostasie For it is manifest that at the Reformation the Eucharist was in possession in all Churches though the Communion had been surceased Nor was it ever excepted that the frequenting hereof had in it any colour of abuse or abatement to that very Christianiâ—y which wee receive from our Lord and his Apostles The abuse was in private Masses It was also a just complaint that the people were not taught their duty out of the Holy Scriptures and that the instructing of them by preaching was neglected beyond all reason and conscience But was it ever pretended that the reforming of the abuse in private Masses consisteth in two Sermons a Sabbath for wee must speak like Jews if wee will not offend tender consciences with the Prayers of the people such as the Minister shall please before or after it which is the Reformation now pretended Had it been said that this is Reformation when abuses were so visible that the name of Reformation was popular it had been easily answered that this were to bring the chief Office of Christianity to little or nothing And therefore if this bee the form that was called Reformation in some places it must bee said that it was easieâ— to see what ought not to bee then to settle what should bee But for a Christian Kingdom having upon deliberation setled an order whereby the Eucharist is to bee celebrated all Lords days and Festivals for Reformations sake to leave Ministers of tender consciences free not to celebrate it above thrice a year and that having a competent number to communicate which may bee not once in seven years as now is demanded I hope it shall never bee said in the streets of Gath that it past undetested It is necessary for him that is come to the state of salvation Such Preaching and Praying as is usual a hindrance of salvation rather then the means to it as a Christian to learn how hee is to live as a Christian and to grow every day in the knowledg of his duty that hee may discharge it But shall hee bee able to do this by hearing two Sermons every Sabbath and as many more as if hee did nothing else Or may hee not bee able without it Certainly that which their Preachers now do is so far from being necessary that it is no fit means to the salvation of the generality of Gods people They may easily make it a trade never to fail to while out an hour or two in the Pulpit in discoursing the meaning of their text in framing Doctrines out of it and proofs of those Doctrines more plentiful a great deal when they are so manifest that they need not then when they are so obscure that they cannot bee proved to the generality of Christians and upon these Doctrines and Proofs Exhortations Invectives Instructions Reproofs such as the driving of Faction shall require and yeâ— hee that would learn his duty shall bee as far to seek after many thousands of such Sermons as afore And yet it shall bee an act of no less charity to Preach a Sermon of Christian instruction and exhortation in and to the known duties of all or the generality of Christians then it hath always been reputed by Gods Church But let not a man therefore think if hee have any doubt in some difficult point of Doctrine in some nice case of Conscience in the meaning of some leading text of
bee but a Church in name that shall bee Ruled by the fansies of those whom it is to Rule And when the interest of publick peace so visibly concurreth with the interest of saving souls it will hardly become the profession of a Christian Kingdom not to trust God for the success of that which is designed upon so Christian considerations This is the place where the first Service ended and the second Of that which goes before the Preface in our Communion Service began in the antient Church The Creed follows after the Sermon in Dionysius who writing a little before the Council at Chalcedon is the first that mentions it in the Service Hee calls it an Hymn and wee may call it the Catholick Hymn glorifying God for the substance of Christianity with his whole Church That which wee call the second Service following immediately hereupon was nothing but the Eucharist and the prayers of the Church which it is to bee celebrated with And that is the reason why I do not think our Communion Service sufficient for those Assemblies in which the first is too long to hee used For the Office ought to consist of Psalmes and Lessons with Hymnes interposed of an instruction and of the Eucharist with the prayers which it is celebrated with Now it hath been always the use of Christs Whole Church even from the Apostles to offer at the Eucharist both the Bread and Wine which it is to bee consecrated of and also what their hearts moved them to contribute for the maintenance of Gods Service And therefore the Prayer for the whole state of Christs Church is here proper in regard of those that offer to that purpose the rest that offer not concurring with their prayers to that effect for which they offer The confession of sins afore the Eucharist is seen in some of the antient Liturgies nor do I find it questioned on any hand as either unseasonable or not requisite in this Action The Decalogue and Answers which since Q. Elizabeths time wee begin the Communion Service with seem more proper to be placed here to branch forth the particulars of those sins which wee confess For the Commandments are certain heads to which men may refer the sins for which they ask pardon and grace to avoid them But there is great reason why they are not found in the Service of the antient Church The reason is because the Decalogue is proper to the Law and unproper to Christianity and it is a sad effect hereof which wee see For it is certain and manifest that the Sabbatarian error hath had the rise or increase from the construction which ignorant Preachers have made of the prayer for remission of sins against this fourth Commandment which the Church prescribeth Nor have I ever found any authority of the Church for using the Decalogue for the Rule by which the sins of Christians are to bee ranked but only in some late Offices of those ages which wee who profess the Reformation are not to own After the confession of sins the General Preface which follows Of the Prefaces and the Prayers of Consecration after Sursum corda would bee inlarged with thanksgiving to God for making the World and man for not forsaking man having forsaken him when hee was made Lord of his Creatures but first sending the Fathers to reclaim their several Ages then giving the Law and the Prophets to instruct his own people in his service And when these means took not the effect which hee sought for sending his Son to redeem and reconcile us to him by the death of his Cross After this the Proper Prefaces and the Seraphims Hymn are of too antient and general use in the Catholick Church to bee omitted without a mark of Apostasie from the devotion of it which they express The Prayer which wee consecrate with seemeth agreeable to the intent of Gods Church but more agreeable in that form which the first Book of Edward the VI. revived by the Scotish Liturgy prescribeth And that Memorial or Prayer of Oblation which is there prescribled to follow immediately after the Consecration is certainly more proper there then after the Communion ending with the Lords Prayer and the Peace after that For this is the form of the whole Church so constant and so uniform that I am thereby perswaded that the close of it For thine is the Kingdom the the Power and the Glory for ever and ever being alwaies frequented by the Church either in terms or in substance in this place upon that occasion afterwards came to bee put into the Copies of St. Matthews Gospel For it is well enough known how many antient Copies and Commentaries have it not But there is not any of the antient Liturgies that hath not some form of Doxology in this place either in the same terms or to the same purpose And seeing it is manifest that the Kiss of Peace is an Apostolical custom and used in the Western Church before the Communion though before the Consecration in other places though the Ceremony bee set aside in regard of the change of times and customs it should not seem burthensome that the Christianity is remembred which it expresseth But if my Opinion might pass I would not rest contented Of the Prayer of Oblation and the place of it herewith I would enlarge this Memoral with all the Principal heads of our Litanies which might seem to comprize the necessities of all estates and conditions in the Church according to that measure which the Time would allow For this would bee the offering of Christs sacrifice upon the Crosse for the necessities of all Christian people which the whole Church of Christ hath alwaies frequented from the beginning without any pretense of sacrificing him again no reason requiring any more then to commemorate that sacrifice And here would there bee room for all private and publick necessities as well of the Church and Kingdom of the Diocese Province and Country and the respective Governours thereof as of the Congregration and of any particular member of it and that according to such Order as the Ordinary may find cause to give in cases that do indeed require a provision for the Time The antients celebrating the Eucharist every day had by that means daily opportunity of interceding for particular necessities according to St. Pauls order for such intercessions the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth They that consider not the defect which follows upon the decay of this order are ready to impute the defect that is found of forms of intercession for particular occurrences to the prescribing of set forms by the Church not allowing the arbitrary fansies of Curates But hee that hath known the manifold folly malice that our London Pulpits have vented taking upon them to intercede for what occasions they think fit in what form they please will find it absolutely necessary to redeem the scorne that our profession suffers from such disorders by
banishing those Prayers out of the Pulpit And because the Communion will not bee renewed so frequent as to meet with all those occasions which in the Antient Church it did serve for It must needs bee a Christian design to enlarge the first and daily Service with such forms as may serve for most of such occasions preventing the offenses which have been For the hope of prevailing with God for that which presseth particular persons is the charity of the Congregation in equally desiring the necessities of all Christians When the Eucharist was celebrated upon some particular occasion according to the custom of the antient Church it appears that the general form was throughly observed the particular occasion only mentioned The Eloquence whereby the Church hoped to prevail which God was the devotion and unity which it celebrated the Sacrament with But I must by no means leave this place till I have paid Of the Commemoration of the dead in particular the debt which I owe to the opinion which I have premised and openly profess again and again that wee weigh not by our own Weights nor mete by our own Measures if believing one Catholick Church and enjoying Episcopacy and the Church Lands upon that account wee recal not the memorial of the Dead as well as of the living into this Service There is the same ground to believe the communion of Saints in the prayers which those that depart in the highest favour with God make for us in the prayers which wee make for those thaâ— depart in the lowest degree of favour with God that there iâ— for the common Christianity namely the Scriptures interpreted by the perpetual practise of Gods Church Therefore there is ground enough for the faith of all Christians that those Prayers are accepted which desire God to hear the Saints for us to send the deceased in Christ rest and peace and light and refreshment and a good trial at the day of Judgement and accomplishment of happiness after the same And seeing the abating of the first form under Edward VI hath wrought no effect but to give them that desired it an appetite to root up the Whole what thanks can wee render to God for escaping so great a danger but by sticking firm to a Rule that will stick firm to us and carry us through any dispute in Religion and land us in the haven of a quiet conscience what troubles soever wee may pass through in maintaining that the Reformation of the Church will never bee according to the Rule which it ought to follow till it cleave to the Catholick Church of Christ in this particular Why the Communion Service at the Communion Table when no Eucharist I am not to expect that this Proposition will take effect because some points of it will seem to bee only one mans opinion though it shall never bee that one mans opinion further then it appears to be the visible Order of the whole Church from the beginning or the necessary consequence thereof in this estate For the Church of Rome obliging all to hear Mass all Sunday and Holyday-mornings and the Reformation of the Abuses which wee protest against in the Mass consisting in restoring the Eucharist the Reformation will not bee able to justifie it self in this point till there bee a provision that all may communicate as they ought to do And for the commemoration of the dead in the Oblation though the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth do silence it yet under Edward the VI. it was retained And they who were gratified afterwards by silencing it do now demand as for Reformation that the Eucharist bee not imposed upon tender consciences for fear they should not have room enough for their arbitary Sermons and Prayers which they can never secure the Church that they shall agree with the Profession of it What they will demand next for Reformation how shall it appear For the standard of tender consciences is as invisible as that of Venners spirit that made the rising for King Jesus And having a visible Rule in the consent of the Whole Church it will bee either want of skill or want of charity not to distinguish the remembrance of the dead which the Whole Church hath alwaies frequented from the opinion of Purgatory and the custom of praying to the Saints which succeeding Ages have added But in the mean time the reason is visible why the Communion Service is to bee said at the Communion Table notwithstanding tender consciences which perhaps many that mean well do not perceive If Christian people being seduced by perverse Teachers cannot bee made sensible of their duty in frequenting the Communion the Church is not to forbear calling them to it and putting them in mind of it Weesee there are those who will needs bee Ministers of the Word and Sacraments that have ministred no Communion to their Churches in so many years Instead of taking shame upon them for such abominable contempt of Christianity this mischief is now imagined for a Law when a Law is demanded by which tender consciences may not bee tied to celebrate the Eucharist once in many years Take away the Communion Service from the Communion Table and what mark shall remain of the duty that lies upon the publick to reduce the Law of the Catholick Church which is Gods Law into force What hope of reducing it if the mark bee once blotted out So much it concerns to hold up a daily Protestation of the Right and Duty of the Church and a Contestation with all publick persons in the Church and State to bend the utmost of their endeavours to redeem such an inconsequence and indecorum in Gods Service as the silencing of the principal Office in it And wee are alive at this day by Gods goodness to call God and man to witness that if Order bee not taken in so great a concernment the fault will bee chargeable on those that do not their parts towards it at the great day of Judgement But if my Proposition may not hope for effect in the next A secondary Propâ—sition according to present Law place I shall wish that all Curates would agree in that which by Law they may do so far as I know the Law Or rather that all Ordinaries would agree to impose it upon them That is to divide the Service of God on Sunday and Holiday Mornings into two Assemblies as it stands divided into two Services That all Housholders may stand accountable for their whole Families to see that they serve God in the Church all Sunday and Holiday Mornings as before the Reformation all people were obliged to do For though by the present Law there is not provision for all Christians to communicate Yet is there Order for the Service of God by Psalms and Lessons mixed with Hymns and by the Common Prayers of the Church perfectly summed up in the Litanies And they who shall have performed it shall have celebrated the Lords day or Festival with
it though not so like a Christian as had hee been at the celebrating of the Eucharist The Communion Service might serve as it is for the second Assembly provided that it bee for the reasons premised at the Communion Table The Homily or Sermon after the Gospel comprising that Instruction or Exhortation which is necessary for all Christians would easily come within one quarter of an hour were Curates by the wisdom and diligence of their Ordinaries restrained from impertinencies and held to their duties The Common Prayers of the Church which are perfectly summed up in the Litanies if they were used at this Assembly also they would make the Service of God as compleat as the absence of the Eucharist would allow being the principal Office of it And this is no more then is required by the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeths Injunctions For as the Litanies being used after the Consecration as that Injunction requireth would bee the compleat Prayer of Oblation according to that which hath been said So when the Eucharist is not celebrated the Common Prayers of the Church for all necessities of all estates of Christs Church would bee as compleatly offered to God by the Litanies as they ought to bee offered when the Eucharist is not celebrated And this course would take away some appearances of inconvenience arising from the change of time and the difference which it hath produced in the use of those Services of which our Office consisteth which because common reason understands not therefore the people may check at And yet Superiours may not perhaps find sufficient cause to make any change for the removing of them The extream length of the Office as now it is used is to bee counted in the number of these Besides in that case there would bee no necessity of a Prayer before the Sermon which now bringeth this visible inconvenience that the Prayer for all states of Christs Church which is to follow next after the Sermon goeth before the Sermon also For that Prayer which the LV. Canon enjoyneth is to the very same effect with that which is to follow after the Sermon for the whole state of Christs Church As for other arbitrary prayers before or after Sermons wee are all witnesses what a Trumpet they were of the late Civil War what a means to prepare the minds of people to it And therefore if after so fresh experience the State shall suffer the Church to leave any room for them in the Order of Gods Service the State as well as the Church must bee felo de se in doing it And they that shall insist upon such demands do neither more nor less then ask leave to do the same again Indeed it is easie to foresee an appearance of inconvenience that An Objection in it answered might be objected if this course should bee put in practise For when the Eucharist is not celebrated the Litanies then must follow next after the Prayer for the whole state of Christs Church The substance whereof is the same that is repeated again in the Litanies as containing more briefly the sum of that which in them is branched out into more particulars The practise of the ancient Church furnishes the answer The XIX Canon of Laodicea ancienter without doubt then any form of Liturgy extant prescribes two Prayers to bee made just before the Consecration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to say The Deacon bidding the people pray for the necessities of the Church which hee did name to them from point to point That this is the meaning of the Canon wee understand by all the Eastern Liturgies For there is none of them in which the same Prayer is not repeated again and again the Deacon inditing to the people the particulars which they are to pray for sometimes more briefly sometimes more at large And in one of them namely the Latine Copy of S. Basils Liturgy they are expresly called the first the second and the third Litanees Thus ancient is the Custome of bidding Prayer in the Church For S. Austine also for the Latine Church remembers it when hee says Cum Communis Oratio vâ—ce Diaconi indicitur When Common Prayer is bidden by the Deacons voice Epist CVI. And hereby it appeareth that it was then thought no inconvenience that those Common Prayers of the Church should bee repeated more then once For being the chief act of their Assemblies and the end for which the Eucharist was celebrated To wit that by the memory of Christs Sacrifice upon the Cross all the necessities of his Church might be rendred recommendable to God It is no marvel that they insisted upon them more then once And therefore if in this decay of Christianity the continual Celebration of the Eucharist cannot bee revived in the next place it remains that these Common Prayers bee maintained and frequented with as much devotion as in so wretched times as wee see can bee obtained I have said nothing of that which is commonly called Preaching or of any provision for it Because I say nothing of the First Service and of the use of it at other times besides Sunday and Holiday Mornings But it is easie for mee to say that there will bee as much opportunity for it in the afternoons as the abilities of the generality of Preachers can bee thought competent to imploy with that which shall bee fit to entertain the people I know the general opinion inclines to imploy that time with the Exposition of the Catechisme But the Doctrine of the Catechisme is the work of that time when mens wits are at the best And if the Exposition bee not prescribed as well as the Catechisme more inconvenience may soone bee found in that course then in the Pulpit CHAP. XXIII How the Law distinguishes Moral Precepts from Positive How the spiritual sense of the Decalogue concerns Christians The meaning of the First Commandment in this sense The extent of the Second Commandment Of the Third Commandment What the sanctifying of the Sabbath signifieth The meaning of the Fifth as to Christians The meaning of the five last according to Christianity NOw since this secondary Proposition leaves the Decalogue Hâ—w the Law distinguishes Moral Precâ—pts from Positive and Prayers of it in the place which now it holds in our Service I will not leave this point without expounding the Decalogue in that sense which the Principle upon which I maintain the agreement of the Old Testament with the New requires For upon that Exposition depends the true meaning and intent of that Prayer whereby the Church enjoyns the people to ask pardon of God for their transgressing of the several Precepts the mis-understanding whereof hath occasioned the Errour of the Sabbath which only England of all â—â—ristendome is disquieted with Most Divines do so reason of the Decalogue because the most of the Precepts thereof are Moral as if the difference between Ceremonial Judicial and Moral and much more between Moral and Positive were expresly
the Synagogue derived from the terms of this precept But according to the correspondence between Christianity and Judaism God is our Father and our Mother is the Church And therefore as in temporal and civil things hee is a rebell that honours not the King so in matters of Religion hee is an Apostate from the Church that honours not the commands of it within those bounds which the command of God limiteth And thus the sive first Commandments according to the method of Christianity abridging an infinite number of Jewish Observations into one very weighty precept enjoyn every one of them the whole duty of a Christian to God the acknowledging and worshipping of the only true God extending it self to living as a Christian to resting from the works of the old Adam and to the honour of God by keeping his Commandments as they are delivered to us by his Church The four Precepts that follow are under one and the same consideration The meaning of the five last according to Christianity in this place Murther Adultery Theft and false Witness are things that either take away or abridge the interest of particular Jews in the Land of Promise And if the publique were accessory to the multiplying of them accordingly the publique interest thereof in Gods promises must needs become questionable Among Christians seeing these are crimes which cannot consist with any interest in the world to come the very first motions of them are commanded to bee suppressed and mortified And certainly whosoever was inwardly a Jew in spirit did understand himself bound to abstain from them not for fear of punishment but for love of goodness which love the love which Christ hath prevented us with advanceth to that height which Christianity professeth But this obligeth us to assign the last Commandment a meaning by it self distinct from all that which is prohibited by the former precepts And truly hee that finds not the peculiar Law of the Jews in the prohibition of coveting another mans wife must bee strangely transported with prejudice For Adultery being prohibited afore coveting another mans wife cannot bee understood but by sowing seeds of dissentions and other ways of inticing whereby a man may seek to make another mans wife his own by the Law of the Jews which allowed a man to put away a wife that pleased him not And therefore the rest of the precept must bee weighed in the same Balance to forbid any way of fraud or force whereby a man may make his neighbours goods his own Therefore the mater of this precept is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mark X. 13. And the Jews reduce the precepts of not coveting or lusting under the title of rapine and oppression as you may see in Maimoni And therefore whether you restrain St. Pauls thou shalt not covet Rom. VII 7. to that which this precept forbiddeth or enlarge it to that which is forbidden by the other four Christians are by this precept forbidden to entertain any motion of lust towards that which is another mans And St. Austines observation that the sum of the Law is comprized in the first precept commanding the love of God and the last forbidding concupiscence is fully verified understanding the love of God to bee commanded by all the five precepts comprising all of them the whole duty of a Christian to God But the Love of a mans Neighbour by the other five forbidding any lust toward a mans own advantage by another mans disadvantage And so you see what a Christian prays for in praying to God to have mercy upon him for any thing wherein hee hath offended against any precept of his Law for the past and to give him Grace to keep it for the future In particular for the fourth Commandment that if hee will pray as a Christian should pray hee must pray to God to have mercy upon him in whatsoever hee hath not rested from the works of the first Adam begging Grace to do it for the future CHAP. XXIV That no Clergy man ought to bee of more Dioceses then one Of inferior Orders in the Clergy and their Offices The conversation of the Clergy and the use of Church goods The ground for promotions to higher degrees The Vniversities may bee serviceable to some part of this Discipline Reasons for it Publick fame of sin to bee purged by Ecclesiastical process Sinners convict by Law not to Communicate before Penance The Cure of notorious sin the Bishops Office The Church not Reformed without restoring Penance Publick or Private What means there is left for the restoring of it I Have yet two particulars to mention both much to bee desired That no Clergy man ought to bee of more Dâ—oâ—eses then one for the justifying of that Reformation which wee profess The one is an express Canon of the Whole Church concerning the discipline of the Clergy The other is an evident consequence of the like Canon in this estate when Religion is setled by the Law of the Kingdom concerning the discipline of the People The former is the Restoring of that Canon of the Whole Church which confineth all Orders of the Clergy to their respective Churches In the Language of this time it signifieth the voiding of all Privileges to hold Church preferment in more Dioceses then one It is the evident consequence of that Order which the Whole Church hath derived from the Act of the Apostles themselves constituting several Cities and the Territories thereof the seats of several Churches and their Dioceses It is manifest that this Order was in force though in a diverse measure in divers Countries from the beginning all over Christendom And that with the like respect to the Churches of Mother Cities in all Provinces It is also manifest that the Canon grounded upon this Order was in force till the Usurpation of the See of Rome seeking Benefices for their creatures all over Christendom authorized the dissolving of it by privileges the greatest benefit whereof themselves enjoyed So that the surceasing of it being an abuse of the Papacy our professing of Reformation requires the restoring of it But the restoring of it will signifie more then the terms of Of inferior Orders in the Clergy and their Offices it express It will infer the restoring of some part of that antient Discipline of the Clergy upon which the credit and authority thereof with and over the People from the beginning of Christianity was grounded It is well enough known how very antiently how very generally inferior Orders of Clergy were instituted by the Church under the Hierarchy founded by the Apostles for a sense to St. Pauls Rule that no Novice should bee Ordained For when Christianity was propagated all over then those that had lived meer Lay-men all their lives might as well bee counted Novices in Christianity compared with them that were grown up from their youth in these inferior Orders as those that were newly converted to Christianity in St. Pauls time The imployment
of these Order in Reading the Lessons in singing the Psalms in attending on the person of the Bishop and the Orders of their Superiorâ— in the ministry of Ecclesiastical Offices was most commonly but an exercise for the time The exercise of their humility their meekness and patience their sobriety and content in a mean condition living upon some small pittance which the stock of the Church was able to allow without prejudice to the poor was that which made them fit to bee advanced to higher degrees The study of the Scriptures was the imployment of the time that remained to spare from their attendance upon these Ministeries For as for other studies while Idolatry continued in credit in the World it was generally suspected for scandalous to study the learning which Idolaters had brought forth True it is many of them not being book-learned or otherwise content with so Religious a poverty and living sometimes by The conversation of the Clergy and the use of Church goods their hand-work that they might charge the Church the less as well as upon their pittances looked not after higher degrees Others imbracing a Religious life and having means for their support thought it a scandal to their profession to receive any thing from the Church knowing that what they spared must come to the poor And generally innumerable of all Orders especially Bishops and Priests taking upon them their Orders gave up their estates to charitable uses For it was scandalous for those that gave them not up to live otherwise then those that had nothing to maintain them but the allowance of the Church did live But to increase their estates out of Church goods was a thing which the Canons not only prohibited but made void For all Canons from the Canon of the Apostles to those at this day in force in the Church of Rome disable the Clergy to dispose of Church goods by last Will and Testament The authorizing of the Clergy to Marry brought in upon consideration of very great necessity must needs derogate from the obligation of this Rule in point of Conscience For it must needs infer a Right to provide for Wives and Children which the Church alloweth out of Church goods But it can by no means abrogate the same without altering the State of the Clergy professing retirement from the World beyond other Christians without extinguishing the Interest of the poor in the goods of the Church both of them subsisting by Gods Law and therefore by no means to bee extinguished And therefore it is requisite that the Maried Clergy content themselves with a sober maintenance and provision for themselves and the disposing of their Children in the World without converting the goods of the Church to raise them estates For it is utterly a mistake to think that Church goods were provided to the end that the Clergy might equal the port of their parallel Rankes in the Laity in expense It is much against the intent of the Canons that the Clergy should maintain familiarity with the Laity by correspondences in entertainments or other occasions of promiscuous conversation such as their Office bringeth not forth For that Hospitality which Parsonages and other Benefices are chargeable with is not the entertainment of their equals among the Laity but the providing for the distressed wayfarers or those that are from home upon such occasions as charity requireth to support besides the casual necessities of the poor either at home that would attend upon the service of God but that their honest labour will not bear them out in it or abroad that appear to bee in present distress whatsoever the occasion may bee that puts them to try the charity of Christians In fine there is nothing more contrary to the profession of the Clergy then too great indifference in conversing with the Laity of what rank soever For the authority which ought to bee in them for the advising exhorting instructing and reproving of all sorts of People whom their ranks may call them to converse with upon occasions which their Office either breedeth or alloweth stands upon this ground that voluntary familiarity engages them not any way to approve those actions which they should rather discountenance And this was the ground for the Rule of promoting the The ground for promotions to higher degrees Clergy to higher degrees and in fine to the Bishopricks of their respective Churches For it is true by the leave of the Bishop being dismissed they might hold their degree in another Church But the expectation of being promoted lay in the trial that they gave of themselves and in their merit from their own Church No man could pretend any thing to it in any other Church Regularly How much the translating of Bishops is against the Rule of the Primitive Church appears by Constantines commending Eusâ—bius of Caesarea for refusing the See of Antiocbia by the reproaches extant of the other Eusebius the supporter of Arius for removing from Berytus to Nicomedia True it is it was dispensed in upon great occasions But every privilege is an exception to a Law Always the service which every one did his Church was that which intitled him to the nomination of the Clergy to the suffrage or approbation of the people to the consent of the Suffragant Bishops and especially of the Metropolitane This was and will bee always the Catholick form of electing Bishops The interest of the Crown is well enough consistent with it providing a Negative for it that any man may bee refused whom the Crown shall not approve The dependence of the People upon their Bishops which the interest of Christianity necessarily requires cannot bee maintained otherwise The means to bring this education of the Clergy and by consequence the discipline grounded upon it out of use is The Universities may be serviceable to some part of this Discipline said to bee the erecting of Universities in these Western parts of Christendom For this was without question a far shorter way to the knowledge of the Scriptures the Canons and the Rites and Customs of the Church But it was the way also to loose that gravity that sobriety that abstinence and meekness upon which the credit of the Clergy with the people had been raised And by that time or rather long before corruption in the chief Guides of the Church must needs have rendred inferior degrees conformable It is not my meaning to insist upon the restoring of the antient Discipline which nothing but the wisdom of Gods Spirit and Tradition from the Apostles could have furnished the simplicity of the Primitive Christians with The Discipline of the Universities may bee serviceable to the Church may it be recovered from that licentiousness and disobedience which Anarchy hath privileged in youth I insist upon that which I have proposed already though no heed is given to it The general Rule of the Church to found Bishopricks in Cities was not every where observed in England Some Dioceses are so
large that the Cathedral Churches cannot bee made serviceable under the Bishop to the Government of the Whole Diocese If Colleges of Presbyters were erected in all the Head Towns of Counties the youth of the Counties that pretend to the Clergy restoring this Canon must bee under the inspection of the same If before their going to the University they were listed under them as expecting imployment and maintenance under them that is within the County then must they make account to approve their conversations and studies to them as having no other way to live in that estate to which they addict themselves As for the course of finding imployment and maintenance for them I will go no further to particulars then I have done It is enough that the intention should bee the restoring of the Primitive Canons as the estate of this time will require or allow It would bee no small gain that by restoring this Canon Reasons for it the complaint of pluralities would bee silenced For that persons whose abilities and trust are approved to the Bishop by information of the said Presbyters should have the care of more then one Church would bee no more inconvenience then that those Presbyters have a care of the County the Bishop of the Diocese Always supposing that the incumbent upon the Cure and the rate of his maintenance bee allowed or rather constituted by the Bishop to whom that right originally belongs I will say no more to justifie this Proposition but this That hee who is obnoxious to several Churches that is to several Dioceses either as to the duty of Governing or of being Governed can by no means bee accountable to both according to that account which the constitution of the Catholick Church requireth of every Order and Degree of the Clergy And again that seeing all exemptions privileging against the Ordinary Rule and Government of the Church are the effects and consequences of the Papacy and the Usurpations thereof that the Reformation which wee profess cannot bee justified in it self though in comparison it may abate of the abuse which went afore without restoring a Rule of such consequence Buâ— all this while it is no part of my intent that those who are presently possessed by the Law of the Land should bee presently destituted But that a course bee prouided for the future to which the world may bee disposed by degrees In the second place for the justifying of our Reformation Publick fame of sin to bee purged by Ecclesiastical process and towards restoring the Discipline of Penance it is requisite that all Malefactors convicted by Law of capital or infamous crimes or others of as great malice to God though not so destructive to Civil Society should stand Excommunicate when their lives and liberties are saved till they satisfie the Church of their conversion to God The Law of this Land providing no other trial for sins of uncleanness but that of the Ecclesiastical Courts hath hitherto enabled them to proceed to the trial of publick scandals by deposing witnesses ex officio Which according to the rest of the ignorance and malice of the blessed Reformation hath been construed for an Usurpation upon the liberties of Christian people For it is manifest that under the Old Testament the Rulers of Gods antient people were able every one within the Sphere of his authority to oblige all men to answer upon Oath in any thing wherein they should adjure them to answer For upon this account our Lord himself beeing subject to the Law answered the adjuration of the High Priest And the Levitical Law prescribeth a trespass Offering for him who being adjured to speak his knowledge in any business should conceal it This the Jews extend to the adjurations of private persons if made in open Court But there is no question that the Princes and Judges of that People each in the mater of his Office obliged their Inferiors to answer their knowledg So that they were perjured ipso facto concealing that which they knew of any mans cause Under the Gospel it is evident that the Bishop in Consistory with his Presbyters did try all scandals in the Church by summoning all persons within the Diocese to witness their knowledge And that to this effect That if any man were detected to have concealed his knowledge hee became thereby liable to Penance as for a heinous sin And Constantine the Great authorizing by an Act of the Empire yet extant the Sentences of Bishops in all causes that should bee brought to them by consent of parties gives this reason for it Because their authority was able presently to discover that which Civil Courts could not bring to light by tedious suits Whereby it appeareth that all Christians found themselves tied to answer the truth which their Pastors summoned them to declare for discharge of their conscience Christianity being corrupted by the coming of the World into the Church it might become requisite that the generality of this authority should bee restrained within such bounds as emergent abuses might oblige the Law to provide But when a Power so neerly concerning Christianity is cried down for an Usurpation upon the Church it appeareth that Christianity is at a low ebbe if they who understand so little in the Scriptures or in maters concerning the Church dare undertake to Reform it Adultery is one of the sins which the antient Church in some places durst not warrant forgiveness And therefore did not restore Aulterers to the Communion no not at the point of death If the Law therefore provide no other trial for it but by the Christian Court to take away that means of trial which the Church inheriteth of Gods antient people is in some measure to authorize adultery in a Christian Kingdom That is to call down Gods vengeance upon it Rather it should bee provided that inquisition after all scandals upon publick fame might bee authorized upon terms fit to prevent abuses though not for civil punishment which the Christian Court should have nothing to do with yet for the bringing of sin under Penance And therefore much more that sinners which are become â—â—torious Sinners convict â—y â—â—w nâ—â—â—â— Communicate bâ—fore Penance by conviction in Court according to the Civil Law of the Land ought not to bee admitted to the Communion wiâ—hoâ—â— satisfying the Church by performing fit Penance that God is satisfied And the Curate indeed seemeth to bee enabled by the present Law to refuse all such the Communion much more If hee bee able to refuse those that seem scandalous till they bee tried And if hee do not what he is able to do must answer God for the soul which hee poysoneth by giving him the Eucharist who barres himself the effect of it His Repentance not being manifest as his sin is But if the Law will not leave out the Curate in refusing him till hee have satisfied The choice is hard for him that hath a family to forfeit his Benefice by
reduce the severity of the antient Canons which the Church of Rome it self hath abated to secret Penance And yet supposing the premises it will bee necessary to follow them in such a form as the World at present may bear Not referring the measure of trial to bee required for the verifying of a mans conversion to the discretion of a Curate or a Parish but referring it to the Bishop and to those whom hee shall discharge his burthen upon in the Cathedral Church in those Colleges which I have proposed or in the Diocese And yet it seems necessary to refer the witnessing of the effect to the Curate and to the Parish For what can bee more reasonable then to presume of a good effect when they that see a mans daily conversation attest it As for the measure it will bee a great work for the Synods of the Provinces to agree upon such a form as the Legislative Power of the Kingdom may find cause to authorize and put in force Which were it effected it would not seem unreasonable to trust particular Ministers with the cure of secret sins having a Rule before their eyes to direct their proceeding I say it would seem reasonable supposing the premises supposing the Clergy lived in that respect to their Superiors in that exercise of their Deacons degree in that sobriety furnishing discretion in valuing mens actions which their people may have ground to trust their souls with For at the present the blessed Reformation having so far perswaded the People that the Minister hath nothing to do but to preach till they bee sure of their salvation who will marvel that they regard not those who detest such impostures Nor would this bee less benefit to the publick Peace and the quiet of Superiors even the Sovereign Who must bee content to have their actions scanned in the Pulpit till there bee a course whereby their people may bee conducted in those things which the Pulpit cannot nor ought to decide The Scottish Presbyters have made us understand how well they understand the bounds of Ecclesiastical Power how much they desire to attempt upon the Secular as well in the Pulpit as in the Consistory And where this great Ordinance for the cure of sin and the salvation of souls is not duly maintained just is it with God to make the neglect of it the seed of publick troubles The maintenance whereof would contribute as much to the publick Peace as to the salvation of souls CHAP. XXV Gods mercies and judgements require the perfecting of the Reformation which wee profess The restoring of the Ecclesiastical Laws is not the restoring of the Church Yet are wee not therefore chargeable with Schisme by the Church of Rome What Schisme destroys the Salvation of what persons by instances in the most notable Schismes Difficulty of Salvation on both sides the Reformation remaining unperfect An instance hereof in the Cure of souls departing by the Order in force A Supplication for a full Debate of all maters in difference The ground of Resolution one Catholick Church the first and chief point of the Debate The consequence of it in Vniting the Reformed Churches An instance in the having of Images in Churches An Objection for the Church of Rome answered That which excuseth the Reformed Churches excuseth not our Schismaticks Gods mercies and judgments require the perfecting of the Reformation which wee profess IT will not become a good Christian to think much that these things are called upon at this time before this Church bee restored to the benefit of the Laws which the Order thereof is to bee established and inforced It will not become any such to say That the same complaint might have been made while the Church of England was the Church of England and before the late breaches in it And therefore might bee spared when all ought to thanke God that wee may bee as wee were For the incomparable mercy that God hath shewed in restoring the Laws with the Crown and the Church with both would leave a mark of ingratitude upon him whosoever having nothing to say against the truth nothing against the great weight and high consequence of the premises should not think it worth the pains for all Estates of the Church and Kingdom to endeavour the redressing of them Especially the profession of Reformation obliging all that think Christians bound to stand to that which they profess not to rest in that which our predecessors had obtained by the first attempt of it For notwithstanding the great difficulties which the extream factions of Papists and Puritans in Church and State had cast in the way of all right endeavours to perfect the Reformation begun according to the true ground and measure of it Wee see what a severe account it hath pleased God to take of all Estates in the Kingdom for laying aside the thought of perfecting that which in so high a point as that of Penance they had acknowledged to bee defective I do not intend to say that the Sacrileges committed under Henry VIII had no hand in this account For there is no such mark to glorifie Gods providence with as when it is visible that the punishment springs out of the sin Nor is there any mean more visible towards the advancing of that confusion which wee have seen then the applying of the endowment of Churches to common uses being found at the dissolution by the irregular Power of the Papacy in the hands of Monasteries But of that guilt the Crown and Kingdom seems to stand in a good measure discharged by restoring that part which the Church stood invested of by the same title as wee see they have done to the due property in such a rate as the publick peace might indure As for private persons that stand invested of the like goods by the like Title there is reason to hope that their account redoundeth not to the account of the Kingdom in the sight of God notwithstanding that the Law alloweth them to use their own conscience in owning or disowning their Title For where the Unity of the Church seemeth to bee concerned it hath been always the practice of the Church to forbear the use of the Keys and to admit those to the Communion whose actions it intendeth not to warrant leaving them to answer God for the same knowing that the Church warranteth them not The Church of Rome in Q. Maries days followed this patern reconciling this Kingdom to the Communion thereof without restitution of that wrong which it claimed to bee done under Henry VIII But if the Kingdom bee liable to an account for the sin of particular persons in detaining Church goods and by that means hindring the salvation of Christian people Shall wee not think that the neglect of perfecting the Reformation begun though obstructed by the difficulty which I have alleged is and ought to bee taken for the ground of that reckoning which God hath made with us And therefore that wee are not
of the difference must needs occasion the Ioss of infinite souls by hindring them of the means that is truly necessary for the salvation of Christian This is that which I said afore that Schisme as War may Difficulty of salvation on both sides the Reformation remaining unpersect bee unjust on both sides The charge of which injustice as it will lye upon those which are actors in it and causes of it having power to abate it and not imploying the same to so good a purpose so it leaves a possibility of salvation for both sides And that is no more then hath been said from the beginning of our Reformation by all that allow the Church of Rome a true Church But that difficulty of attaining salvation on both sides which the Schisme inflameth will bee imputable to those that maintain the extreams taking offense at the due ground and termes of composing it And this I confess câ—eates a question upon that which remains for our Ecclesiastical Laws to redress For if they inforce not the due use of the Power of the Keys so great a part of the conduct of Christian souls to salvation and that it is not to bee inforced without restoring Discipline in the Clergy How shall it bee visible that a simple Papist sins in being a Recusant How shall hee that invites him to bee no Recusant assure him of means of salvation visibly sufficient How shall the State bee enabled to inflict upon him the legal penalties of his Recusancy upon other crimes For it is manifest that from those whom the Civil Law of the Land qualifies for the Cure of souls without any ground of pretense that they do concur to the true intent of the Church in ministring the power of the Keys there is not the least appearance for any hope of that help which the Office professeth Indeed alleging on the other side those abuses in private Penance that neglect of publick Penance which the Church of Rome alloweth wee allege a sufficient reason for a change without the authority of it And a possibility of salvation notwithstanding a defect in redressing the same But this possibility will consist in the more then ordinary diligence of private Christians considering the snares which division multiplieth and labouring to supply themselves in that wherein the publick Order of the Church provided by God to supply them of it saileth of the effect which God intendeth A consideration which though the late distraction made it more visible yet will always remain in force till the due ground and measure of Reformation take effect It will bee worth the while to instance this in the Cure of An instance herâ—of in the Cure of sâ—ulâ— departing according to the Order in force souls departing this life according to the Order in force In the beginning of Christianity some sins were questionable in some parts of the Church whether curable by the Keys of the Church or not The Schisme of Novatianus pretended for the ground of it the re-admitting of Apostates As that of Montanus in part the re-admitting of Adulterers But before all were come to agreement in it the same severity had been practised in the Church without Schisme They lest such persons to Gods mercy They engaged not the Church in warranting them pardon The Council of Nicaea seems to have put an end to all difformity in the case There is no mention of denying the Eucharist upon the bed of death after that But supposing publick sinners admitted to publick Penance thereby to give proof of the sincerity of their repentance And binding them over to the remainder of their Penance escaping death Some Canons go so low as to release sin without revealing it upon condition of undergoing the Penance it shall require being revealed in case hee survive The Church of Rome chargeth all Priests of absolve all at the point of death which it alloweth not all to do otherwise As for the Reservation of Penance they who require Penance not to qualifie for pardon but to satisfie the debt of temporal pain that remains after pardon I suppose doe upon that account turn it over to Purgatory But they from whom as I said afore there is no appearance for any hope of that help which the Keys of the Church ministred according to the Order of the Church do hold forth what can wee expect of them towards the preparing of him that lies on the bed of sickness for his passage For the comfort which all pretend to give in that estate may bee imagined to consist in assuring salvation to all that once were assured of it to all that think themselves sure of it by believing it not by their Christianity without which there is no assurance of it If men bee not â—o much Fanaticks perhaps hee assureth them of pardon trusting in the merits of Christ for it Let him see his sin let him renounce his own merits let him trust in the mâ—ritâ— of Christ which hee is sure are of more virtue and value then his sin and the business is done Not considering what the Gospel requireth to give a man interest in the merits of Christ What it requireth of him who shall have forfeited that interest by grievous sin What hee hath done for the mortisying of that concupiscence for the appeasing of that wrath of God for the preventing of that sin for the future whereby hee may formerly have committed that forfeiture Certainly it is no good sign in this Case that our people are so willing to have the Minister pray by them but so unwilling to hear of the Communion because they know it requires them to take account of themselves Nay it is oddes that it is condescended to at the warning of the Curate who must needs let slip the anthority of his Office in requiring account of him that expects comfort from him by offering all that hee is able to give before the account is tendered In the mean time how shall hee who prays onely by the sick and leaves him so as prepared for his passage who absolves him of all sin without being satisfied that hee hath mortified that hee will mortifie any in case he survive rest satisfied that hee hath done his Office and not dismissed his patient insufficiently prepared for so terrible a voyage Especially being satisfied that there are two Keys in the Church as to Christians That it is to loose no sin but that which it bound afore loosing him that appears to bee alive because it bound him when hee appeared to bee dead afore That the Blessing of the Church the Communion of the Eucharist and the Burial of Christians ought to siâ—nifie some reasonable presumption in the Church that they depart in Gods peace to whom it alloweth the same But where is that presumption when hee that is convicted of a capital crime shall bee able to demand the Communion of his Curate without further satisfaction And perhaps have his action of the Case against him
bee surceased in Churches And accordingly I do acknowledge that comparing the benefit reasonably to bee expected from the use of them with the abuse to which experience hath discovered them to bee subject I see no cause why the use of them might not bee forborn upon such a reason as might bee effectual to unite us in a Rule bounding the Reformation which wee profess upon the ground of the common Christianity in all particulars The reason is because the having of them is not a necessary mean to that instruction or devotion which is proposed for the end of them and on the other side is acknowledged by all the Reformation to have been the occasion of abuse the preventing whereof will require that care and diligence which the forbearing of them will spare But seeing it hath appeared no breach upon Christianity to have them in Churches and that the abuse which may reasonably bee apprehended by having them to the purposes specified is of no consequence in comparison with that benefit which the Unity of the Church procureth It will never bee lawful to enjoyn this forbearance without declaring that it signifieth not that they are held unlawful Or that wee hold our selves bound to depart from Unity with the Church rather then indure them For seeing the Lutherans do use them in a great measure for the reasons specified If the uniting of us with the rest of the Reformation upon the due ground and terms hitherto required should depend upon a reasonable compliance in that particular it is manifest that it would bee a sufficient reason to oblige us to the same And therefore much more if a general re-union with the Church of Rome should come to depend upon such a compliance The consequence of this instance may bee the means to inform those that are capable what the reason of Unity may oblige us to abate of that which wee take to bee for the best in maters of less consequence that the unvaluable benefit of it may bee obtained in this estate when the protection of Sovereign Powers renders the Unity of the Church so necessary so effectual to the salvation of all For on the other side the interruption of it is that which renders that same salvation questionable by the difficulty which it createth of observing the duty of a Christian as a Christian by the impossibility rather then the difficulty which it procureth of observing the duty of a Christian as a Member of the Church which the breach of Unity alloweth not due conduct to understand To fortifie the necessity of the proposition that I An Objection for the Church of Rome answered make I will here propose an objection in behalf of the Church of Rome against the validity of our Ordinations which I have always taken to have weight and difficulty in it though others do not seem to value it For the answering of this Objection will help to justifie the Offense to bee taken and not given that may come by the liberty which here I use The succession of our Bishops deriveth it self by Ordination of three Bishops which the Canon of the Apostles authorizeth but the Canon of Nicâ—a requireth farther the consent of the Bishops of each Province Whereby it appeareth that Ordination by two or three Bishops is allowed by the Canon of the Apostles upon presumption that the Suffragants of each Province concur in allowing the Act of their fellows Which presumption ceaseth in our case Because it is manifest that the greatest part of the Suffragants did not consent to the Consecration of our Bishops but declared against it being therefore displaced by the Power of the Sword deciding for the lesser part against the greater which the Rule of the Church inableth not to do Whereupon it is argued that the Secular Power was not able to authorize our Reformation as Patron of the Church and the Canons of it To fortifie the Objection I allege the case of Novatianus who was consecrated Bishop of Rome by three Bishops and yet his Consecration was Schismatical because against Cornelius Consecrated by sixteen So the Ordination of Majorinus that was first consecrated Bishop of Carthage against Caecilianus for a head to the Schisme of the Donatists was justly counted Schismatical though it was made by a number more then sufficient of Bishops duely Ordained Which I doubt not may bee found in other Schismes I answer that the Novatians had nothing to charge the Church with but the readmitting of those that had fallen away in time of persecution upon Penance The Donatists nothing but that they who had ordained Caecilianus were Apostates Though they were proved to bee otherwise by several trials which they would never rest satisfied with As for all the rest though both Sects followed the Faith and the Orders of the Catholick Church yet they both rebaptized all those whom they reduced to themselves from the Communion of it as counting all the Church Apostates for communicating with those whom they counted Apostates Is this our case do wee find no fault with the Doctrine or with the Laws of the Church of Rome wherein Sovereigns might find themselves bound to right both themselves and their Subjects notwithstanding the dissent of the Church of Rome For though the Rule of succession by Ordination of Bishops bear them not out in it though the Unity of the Church regularly depend upon the force of that Rule yet seeing the Unity of the Church fails of the end for which God ordaineth it unless it preserve the Christianity which it supposeth intire as well in the publick service of God as in the profession and conversation of Christians it ought not to bee taken for a departure from that Unity that it is restored without that authority which regularly is provided to preserve it For the consent of all other Estates of the Kingdom in that ground and upon those terms which are to take place before the authority of those that dissent will abundantly justifie the validity of those Ordinations which declare an intent of ministring the Office according to the due ground and terms which they suppose And therefore it will not bee so visible when that ground and those terms are not so visible And upon these terms are the Christian people of this Kingdom bound to own and to authorize them in their Orders notwithstanding that the greater part of the Suffragants refused them their concurrence to the same And if the change that is made bee such in maters of greatest weight the case will bee the same though it fail of the Rule in some maters of less consequence And upon these terms I admit the plea of the Reformation That which excuseth the Reformed Churches extendeth not to our Schismâ—tickâ— that succession of Doctrine is of more consequence then succession of persons Not allowing their mistake in thinking the Order of Bishops the supporters of Antichrist For it is evident to him that will use his five senses that the
man to believe that hee is predestinate to life and that Christ died for him is that faith which alone justifieth a Christian Whether of these opinions is the better or the worse or what is the difference between them let the parties dispute This I say that allowing the merits and satisfaction of Christ to the Elect for remission of sins and a title to everlasting life in no consideration but of their persons it is more reasonable to say that they can never become guilty of sin then that the remission of their sins and their right to life should depend upon the knowledge of their predestination revealed by Faith For nothing is true because it is believed but believed because it is true And therefore I say that both of these opinions are destructive to that foundation of faith which the Church of England teacheth when in the Office of Baptisme and the beginning of the Catechisme it requireth all that are baptized not only to profess the Faith of Christ but to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to fight with them till death for the keeping of Gods Commandments assuring them hereupon that they are regenerate and adopted Gods children by his Grace in Christ For hee that is saved by undertaking and persevering in this cannot bee saved by believing that hee is absolutely predestinate to life without it For I must say that it is one thing to bee absolutely predestinate to life another thing to bee predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere till death For hee that is predestinate to life by being absolutely predestinate to persevere in the Covenant of Grace till death is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace in which hee is predestinate to persevere And whether a man can bee absolutely predestinate to presevere in it of his own free choise or not is that which remains in dispute among Divines which I suppose not here to bee either true or false But to say that a man is absolutely predestinate to life and to say that hee is predestinate to life in consideration of the Covenant of Grace which must bee the act of his own free choice is to say express contradictions And to say that a man is predestinate to life without consideration of the Covenant of Grace is to destroy the Covenant of Grace and the hope of salvation which is meerly imaginary if not grounded upon it Seeing then that the trial upon which these Commissioners proceed is their marks of predestination whether they bee true or false not supposing the Covenant of Grace the undertaking of it and persevering in it I say that you are no way secured by these Laws that the Triers themselves much less those whom they shall send you are not complices of this damnable Haeresie I must not forget to advise you that Dell one so far of this Haeresie that he is thought to have written the Book called the Doctrine of Baptismes against Baptisme it self is now and is acknowledged by these Commissioners Master of a Colledge in the University whereof several fellows have been notorious Preachers of this Haeresie who cannot bee acknowledged a member of the Church by any good Christian The like I allege in regard of the Sect of the Anabaptists In which point I must suppose two things First that the Christian Faith supposeth Original sin Secondly that without Baptisme there is no cure for it And this depends upon the premises that there is no absolute predestination without consideration of the Covenant of Grace which Baptisme executing cureth it For whatsoever our Lord meant when hee said unless ye bee born again of water it is manifest that though no man can become a true Christian without the operation of the Holy Ghost yet the habitual gift and indowment of the Holy Ghost dwelling in a man is not granted but in consideration of his entring into the said Covenant and that this gift is the only cure of Original sin There is then no necessity of shewing an express precept in Scripture that all Infants bee baptized or that the Church from the Apostles time did Baptize all while they were Infants If the Christian Faith suppose Original sin if no cure for that but by the Covenant of Grace if no execution of that Covenant but the Baptisme of the Church unless where the outward act is prevented by inevitable necessity after the inward desire thereof was sufficiently resolved and declared then is this necessity a constraining precept and hath been so reputed by the Church ever since the Apostles Which always hath taken order not that all should bee baptized Infants but that no Infant should die unbaptized For the diligent watch over all occasions that might carry Infants out of the world unbaptized observed by the Church from the beginning though neglected since demonstrateth no legal assurance of the salvation of such as should die unbaptized Whatsoever might bee presumed of Gods goodness over and above what hee declareth But as for those that shall become obliged and engaged to the Covenant of Grace by being consecrated to God through the act of the Church thereby obliging it self to shew them the truth of Christianity which obligeth all to whom it is shewed the necessity aforesaid together with the practise of the Church is a legal presumption of the cure of Original sin and the opening of Paradise which it only shutteth If therefore our Anabaptists do not believe Original sin they are Pelagian Haereticks If believing it they believe notwithstanding that it is cured by Predestination without the Covenant of Grace they fall into the Haeresie premised And voiding the Baptisme which they received of the Church they seem to renounce the Christianity which it inacteth but manifestly they render their own Baptisme void of effect towards God For they who rebaptize upon a ground that allows Salvation by Gods Predestination revealed by Faith without undertaking and persevering in the Covenant of Grace cannot pretend to baptize into the Covenant of Grace that is into the profession of the true Faith and of fighting against sin until death under the same Seeing then that the necessity of Baptisme cannot bee denied but upon such a ground as voideth the Covenant of Grace and seeing the Triers are either Anabaptists themselves or complices in the same Commission with Anabaptists whereof there are divers in these Commissions it is evident that by these Laws you are no ways secured of having Anabaptists for your Pastors who are expressly Schismaticks forsaking the Church for that which the Church always did and by consequence of the premised reasons Haereticks As the Baptisme of those men whom they pretend to send you for Pastors is by this reason void of effect So the Eucharist which they may pretend to celebrate will bee void of the effect of a Sacrament toward you but not void of the crime of Sacrilege towards God The reasons are two The first because those who
authorize them as ever they were to that which they have destroyed to introduce this shadow of a Church If it bee objected that your Estates will bee liable to penalties that may bee enacted against those that withdraw from the exercise of the Religion publickly held forth To this I have no answer but that wee are to obey God rather then man to prefer the next world before this and to bear Christs Cross if wee expect his kingdom Only thus much I must observe that these Laws proceed from a profession that it is not lawful to force mens Consciences in matter of Religion by penalties And therefore though the Praelatical party are not protected in the exercise of their Religion yet cannot they bee punished for it but by denying that which is declared upon the publick Faith Besides acknowledging the Christian Religion contained in the Scriptures and professing-faith in God by Jesus Christ they are as much qualified for protection as those that are protected by the Act of Establishment And not to allow the exercise of that Religion the profession whereof is not disallowed seems to bee to forbid men to bee Christians who are not forbidden to bee such Christians and to expose them to popular tumult contrary to the publick peace whom no Law punishes If the Papists continue nevertheless liable to former penalties perhaps it is because they are reputed Idolaters But because these laws and the profession from whenâ— they proceed may change I must confess you cannot follow my advise but that your estate may become questionable Neither would I give it could I assure you of the kingdom of heaven otherwise If you demand what means I can shew you to exercise your Religion withdrawing from the means which these Acts provide I answer that there are hitherto every where of the Clergie that adhere to the Church who will find it their duty to see your infants Christned your children Catechised the Eucharist communicated to all that shall withdraw from Churches forcibly possessed by them whom you own not for Pastors And if they cannot continually minister to you so dispersed the ordinary Offices of Gods Service you have the Service of God according to the Order of the Church you have the Scriptures to read for part of it you have store of Sermons manifestly allowed by the Church to read you have Prayers prescribed for all your own necessities and the necessities of the Church To serve God with these in private with such as depend upon you and are of the same judgement with you leaving out what belongs to the Priests Office to say I do to the best of my judgement believe an acceptable sacrifice to God which you cannot offer at the Church in such case And though I censure not my brethren of the Clergie that think fit to complie with the power which wee are under in holding or coming by their Benefices I suppose in respect to their flocks rather then to their fruits yet if they believe themselves and their flocks to bee members of the Church of England they must needs believe those flocks that acknowledge such Pastors to bee members of no Church and therefore acknowledge you and own your departure and declare themselves to their own flocks and instruct them to do the like when the like case falls out And so the refusing to hear the voice of strangers will unite us to make a flock under those whom wee acknowledge our lawful Pastors I have found my self pressed to Print Copies hereof for mine own use thereby to declare thus much of my judgement to you and to the rest of my friends because the consequence of owning such men for your Pastors will bee to make us members of several Churches Which must disable me to do any office of a Clergie man towards you unless it bee the prosecuting of this by shewing you further reasons to justifie what I say here and to reduce you to it Though it shall alwaies bee my studie faithfully to serve my friends in all Offices of civility And I hope they will consider what appearance there is that any thing should move me to make my self liable to so much harm as the publick declaring of this opinion will make me liable to but the discharge of my conscience to God and them as the case shall require me to discharge it The due Way of composing the differences on Foot preserving the Church According to the Opinion of HERBERT THORNDIKE I Have found my self obliged by that horrible confusion in Religion which the late War had introduced to declare the utmost of mine opinion concerning the whole point of Religion upon which the Western Church stands divided into so many parties And now finding no cause to repent me of doing it can find no cause why I should not declare the consequence of it in setling of that which remains of our differences For middle waies to so good an end are now acceptable meerly as middle waies and tending to drive a bargain without pretending that they ought to bee admitted How much more an expedient pretending necessity from reasons extant in publick and not contradicted The chief ground that I suppose here because I have proved it at large is the meaning of that Article of our Creed which professeth one Catholick Church For either it signifies nothing or it signifies that God hath founded one Visible Church that is that he hath obliged all Churches and all Christians of whom all Churches consist to hold visible communion with the Whole Church in the visible offices of Gods publick service And therefore I am satisfied that the differences upon which wee are divided cannot bee justly setled upon any terms which any part of the Whole Church shall have just cause to refuse as inconsistent with the unity of the Whole Church For in that case wee must needs become Schismaticks by setling our selves upon such Laws under which any Church may refuse to communicate with us because it is bound to communicate with the Whole Church True it is that the foundation of the Church upon these terms will presuppose the intire profession of Christianity whether concerning Faith or Manners For otherwise how should those Offices in which all the Church is to communicate bee counted the service of God according to Christianity And this profession is the condition upon the undergoing whereof all men by being baptized and made Christians are also admitted to communion with the Church as members of it But nothing can make it visible to the common reason of all men what communion they are to resort unto for their Salvation but the visible Communion of all parts of the Church which having been maintained for divers ages of the Church is now visibly interrupted by the Reformation and before by the breach between the Greek and Latin Church And therefore though it bee visible to reason rightly informed what communion a man is to imbrace for his Salvation yet it is not now
visible to the common reason of all men that seek it If this bee true then no power of the Church can extend so far as to make any thing a part of the common Christianity which was not so from the beginning but it must needs extend so far as to limit and determine all maters in difference so as the preservation of Unity may require And therefore the Unity of all parts supposing the profession of Christianity whole and intire we shall justly bee chargeable with the crime of Haeresie if wee admit them to our communion who openly disclaim the Faith of the whole Church or any part of it For those are justly counted Haereticks as to the Church by the Canons of the Church that communicate with those who profess Haeresie though no Haereticks as to God not believing it themselves But the Unity of all parts being subordinate and of inferiour consideration to the Unity of the Whole wee shall justly bee chargeable with the crime of Schisme if wee seek Unity within our selves by abrogating the Laws of the Whole as not obliged to hold communion with it I confess I am convicted that as things stand wee are not to expect any reason from the Church of Rome and those who hold communion with it in restoring the unity of the Church upon such Laws as shall render the means of Salvation visible to all that use them as they ought And this and only this I hold to bee the due ground upon which wee are inabled to provide an establishment of Unity in Religion among our selves as heretofore a Reformation in Religion for our selves without concurrence of the Whole But if wee should think our selves at large to conclude our selves without respect to the Faith and Laws of the whole Church wee may easily bring upon our selves a just imputation of Haereticks for communicating with Haereticks but a juster of Schismaticks if wee abrogate the Laws of the whole Church to obtain Unity among our selves as declaring thereby that we are not content to hold Unity with the Whole unless a part may give Law to the Whole So far am I from that madness which hath had a hand in all our miseries of thinking the right measure of Reformation to stand in going as far as it is possible from the Church of Rome For were it evidenced as it neither is nor ever will bee evidenced that the Pope is Antichrist and all Papists by their profession Idolaters yet must wee either rase the Article of one Catholick Church out of our Creed or confess that the Pope can neither bee Antichrist nor the Papists Idolaters for or by any thing which is common to them with the Whole Church I know some will think it strange that the Pope should excommunicate us on Maundy-Thursdays that wee should swear in the Oath of Supremacy that no forreign Prelate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction or Authority Ecclesiastical in this Kingdom and yet wee bee subject to do such Acts for which the Church of Rome may justly renounce communion with us But the word ought in that Oath is Indicative and not Potential not deberet but debet For it were a contradiction for the Church of England to pray for the Catholick Church and the unity thereof and yet renounce the Jurisdiction of the whole Church and the General Council thereof over it self King James of excellent memory acknowledgeth the Pope to bee Patriarch of the West that is Head of the general Council of the Western Churches And the right R. Father in God Thomas L. B. of Winchester under Q. Elizabeth in his answer to the Seminaries Apology being demanded why wee own him not so in effect answereth bluntly but truly because hee is not content with the right of a Patriarch For should hee disclaim the pretense of dissolving the bond of Allegiance should hee retire to the privilege of a Patriarch in seeing the Canons executed the Schisme would lie at our door if wee should refuse it Now if they curse us while wee pray for the Unity of the whole Church is it not the case of the Catholicks with the Donatists For these rebaptized them whom those had baptized whited over the inside of their Churches when they became possessed of them scraped over their Altars being Tables of wood in detestation of them as Apostates and persecutors while the Catholicks called them brethren and acknowledged them rightly baptized and received them that were converted from that Schism in their respective Orders The Unity of the Church is of such consequence to the salvation of all Christians that no excess on one side can cause the other to increase the distance but they shall bee answerable for the souls that perish by the means of it And therefore not departing from the opinion which I have declared concerning the terms upon which all parties ought to reconcile themselves until I shall have reason showed me why I should do it I shall now go no further then the maters that are actually questioned among us not extending my discourse to points that may perhaps more justly become questionable then some of those which have come into dispute Professing in the beginning that I believe they may and ought to bee setled by a Law of the Kingdom obliging all parties beside Recusant But that the mater of that Law ought to bee limited by the consent and Authority of the Church respective to this Kingdom And withall that I think it ought to be held and shall for mine own part hold it an act meerly ambulatery and provisional for the time For though there is no hope of reconcilement with the Church of Rome as things are yet is there infinite reason for all sides to abate of their particular pretensions for the recovering of so incomparable a benefit as the Unity of the Whole If ever it shall please God to make the parties appear disposed to it Now the errors which wee are to shut out if wee will recover the Unity of a Visible Church that is of Gods Whole Church are two in my judgement First though some things have been disputed in other parts from whence the same consequence may bee inferred yet England is the place and ours the times which first openly and downright have maintained that there is no such thing as a Church in the nature of one visible Communion founded by God But it is maintained by several parties among us upon several grounds For some do not or will not understand that there can bee any Ecclesiastical power founded by that act of God which foundeth Christianity where there is Secular Power founded also by those acts of God whereby hee authorizeth and inforceth all just Sovereignties Though all times all parts all Nations of Christendom since Constantine profess to maintain the Church in that power in which they found it acknowledged by Christians when hee first undertook to maintain that Christianity which hee professed all this must bee taken either for meer
correspondent to the primitive forme tending to the Unity of the Whole But let no man think that for the love of such a correspondence I have any itch to call in question the Unity of the Whole The alteration is great and must needs produce a great motion to ingraffe it into the Laws of the Kingdom And therefore I am not of opinion to change the Law for hope of amendment with so much appearance of danger to the being of the Whole But I am of opinion that it would bee easie to erect Presbyteries that is Colleges of Presbyters in all Shire Towns which have no Cathedral Churches for the Ecclesiastical Government of the respective Counties with and under the Bishops And that so the Rule of the Church would bee set on work to the best effect and purpose For those Towns have commonly Churches altogether unprovided of means through the horrible sacrileges that have passed and yet in common reason agreeing with the wisdom of Gods Spirit from whence the Rule of Episcopacy issued ought to bee Nurseries of Christianity to the respective Counties And that intent cannot so well bee brought to effect as by planting the wisest and those that have most of the Clergy in their lives in the most eminent places with authority next to the Chief over their respective bounds By the ministery of such persons the Offices of Gods service might so bee performed in the chief places as might be a patern for their Country Churches to follow These Presbyters might grow up by education in that discipline of the Clergy which I have recommended upon the experience of the whole Church They might live a Collegiate life in common exercising a care and inspection over Inferiours together with the charge of instructing or seeing them instructed in the Scriptures The Canon of the whole Church confining all degrees of the Clergy to their respective Churches might bee revived by their means The superseding whereof being certainly one of the irregularities of the Papacy hath conduced much to the dissolution of Discipline in the Church For in conscience how can hee that is obliged to any Church give account of himself to another to which the first is not subordinate And therefore though the Presbyteries which I propose bee not Churches yet may they take account of their respective Clergy and render it to their Bishops The promotion of inferiour Orders belonging unto their account may procced upon the account which they give The censures that are requisite to pass in foro exteriori may pass them in the first instance and from them being transmitted to the Bishop bee either inacted or voided Always with right of appeal to the Synod of the Province in cases of weight and in the intervals thereof to their Deputies To which purpose and in which nature the High Commission ought to bee revived For as it is by no means to bee allowed that the Bishops negative bee any way questioned So is it no way fit that the consent of Bishop and Presbyters both bee concluded in one and the same instance As for those Dioceses which are concluded within only one County there I suppose I need not say that the Chapter of the Cathedral are by inheritance this Presbytery Now these Colleges of Presbyters consisting of those only that shall have run the whole course of their lives in the education and discipline of the Clergy is there any possible pretense of burthen upon them if the condition of single life should bee required to qualifie them for their places For this were not to tye any man to single life seeing who will may go forth and bee provided of a Country Church But it were to maintain the discipline of the Clergy in the most eminent places wherein there is a course proposed to them who imbrace it of ending their days in it And the course of a Collegiate life which I propose seemeth a sufficient means and advantage to overcome those temptations which in these days may seem too difficult for all the Clergy to undergo As for the means of supporting these Presbyteries wherein the Gure of all Parishes within the Shire Towns is provided for and included It is no difficulty to him that considers with conscience that originally the indowment of the Diocese was the Patrimony of the Mother Church and afterwards appropriated to Parish Churches by abating the right of the Mother Church upon particular contracts appearing to bee for the good of the parts For if the Mother Church have abated so much of her common right when it was for the good of the Parishes Is it not necessary that the Parishes now abate of their property in their respective indowments by Pensions to these Colleges now they appear to bee for the good of tâ—e Diocese And this I am now bold to profess though Superiors do not go before in it because I am confident that by this position I abate not a hair of that Power which the Bishops in England now use But I adde much to the strictness of discipline that is in effect of Christianity by requiring all Ordinations all acts of Jurisdiction in foro exteriori to pass both the Presbyters and the Bishop in several instances And further then this I extend not the opinion of a Divine to particulars but leave the rest intire to the wisdom of Superiors And this may serve to show that there is no cause why the difference on foot concerning the Government of the Church may not settle into a change conducing to the advancement of the common Christianity Which will hold till stronger in the other concerning the Service if men take their measures by the common interest of Christianity not by their particular prejudices For I conceive I may well suppose that the Sectaries pretense of praying by the Spirit is content to bee buried in oblivion and silence considering that the excesses are evident and horrible which that pretense hath brought forth Besides that no man now stands to that dangerous position That the Offices of Gods service are of no effect when they are ministred by such as are not in the state of Grace For I presume it is not nor can bee supposed on any hand that all whom the Church must imploy are indowed with Gods spirit that is are in the state of Grace I suppose further as not questioned on any hand that the publick service of God is to consist of the praises of God by the Psalms of David and other Hymns of Gods Church of the reading of the Scriptures of the instruction of Gods people out of them in fine of the Prayers of the Church and in the chief place of the Sacrament of the Eucharist and those prayers which it is to bee celebrated with Some of our Sects have been bold to pretend that the Psalter or Psalms of David are impertinent to the Devotions of Christians as concerning the particular condition of David and composed with regard to it Whereby they
alas should men confine themselves to that which the generality of their audience might edifie by in their Christianity the Trade would bee obstructed For let mee freely say the undoubted truth of the common Christianity which no Sermons ought to exceed because they pretend the edification of the generality of Christians is contained in so narrow a compass that no eloquence much less the eloquence of all that must come into the Pulpit can change the seasoning and serving of it so as to make it agreeable to mens palats without fetching in mater impertinent if not destructive to the common Christianity And the same is for more peremptory reason to bee said of arbitrary Prayers For the very posture of him that pretendeth to prefer the devotions of Gods people to the Altar which is above strongly impresseth upon the hearts of simple Christians an opinion that thereby they discharge to God the duty which hee requires at their hands Which if the mater of those Prayers be such as the common Christianity requires they may do indeed But if it be possible that Rebellion Slander Nonsense and Blasphemy may bee the mater of them as well as Christianity then is it not Religion but Superstition which such devotions exercise Nor can that Kingdom stand excused to God which shall gratifie that licentiousness whereof they see the effect before their eyes All reason of Christianity concurres with the practise of the whole Church to witness that the interest of Christianity requires the service of God to bee maintained and exercised daily yea hourly were it possible not only by particular Christians but by Assemblies of Christians so far as the business of the World will give leave and as there is means to maintain mens attendance upon it There may come abuse in the order the form the mater of that which is tendred to God for his Service But in stead of reforming those abuses to take away the means the Rule the obligation of such meetings is meer Sacrilege in destroying under pretense of Reforming Gods Church And though I charge no such design upon those who maintain the obligation of the Sabbath to consist in two Sermons yet I do maintain it is manifest to common reason that the form which that opinion introduceth necessarily tends to that effect Strange it is that a Nation capable of sense in an age improved by learning should bee intangled with the superstition of so vain an imagination that God by the same fourth Commandment should oblige both Jews to keep the Saturday and Christians the Sunday Especially no man daring to maintain that both were or are tyed to the same measure of resting And therefore though rather then cross the stream of such a superstition For let no man think that all superstition can bee shut out of Gods Church there may bee reason to live conformable to the Rules which such superstition produceth Yet provided that the Ecclesiastical Laws of England agreeing with the Laws of the Whole Church bee not abated so as to stick an evident mark of Schisme upon the Church of England For the Law that is recommending the celebration of the Eucharist upon all Sundays and Festivals but commanding the Service to bee used as well on Festivals and Fasting days as upon Sundays besides the week days at the publick Assemblies of respective Congregations To change this Order for two Sermons on the Sunday alone what is it but to renounce the whole Church for the love of those that have divided from the Church of England upon causes common to it with the whole Church They that would have the Reformation of the Church to bee indeed that which the Law of the Land calleth it should first provide a course to bee established for Law by which all Christian souls who have equal interest in the commonsalvation might serve God in publick all Sundays and Festivals For seeing there was a course in Law before the Reformation for all servants as well as others to bee at Mass all Sundays and Festivals And the Church was inabled to require account of it at their hands It will not bee Reformation to abrogate the abuses of the Mass till a course bee taken that all Christians may frequent that which shall appear to bee indeed the service of God instead of the Mass Let no Preachers flatter themselves with an opinion that they shall ever make Christians so perfectly Jews as to perswade them to dress no meat on the Sundays If Servants must stay at home to dress meat on Sundays and for other occasions they must stay at home besides that will not the way to repair that breach bee to injoyn several Assemblies in all Parish Churches upon all Sunday mornings that several Persons of several Estates and qualities may have opportunity to attend the publick service of God at several hours of the same Sundays and Holy-days For though I understand very well that this would impose upon the Church that is upon my brethren of the Clergy a greater burthen than an afternoons meal of a Sermon which all men know is furnished of the cold meat of the forenoon yet it is necessary that the World should bee cleared of this imposture that reigneth that two Sermons every Sunday is the due way of keeping the Sabbath among Christians or of advancing Gods publick service I will not here dispute that the Lent-Fast was instituted by the Apostles But this I maintain to bee evident that the Fast afore the Resurrection of Christ is and was as antient as the Feast of his Resurrection and that more antient then the keeping of all Lords days in the year being meerly the reflection of that one all the weeks of the year Nor will any man that knows what hee says ever question that the inlarging of it to forty days is a just Law voluntarily undertaken by the Whole Church not to bee condemned without the like mark of Schisme For since the World is come into the Church is there not manifest reason that more time should bee taken for the expiating of more sins which are the sins of more people to prepare as well the Elder to renew their Christianity by communicating at Easter as the younger to bee confirmed and come first to the Communion at Easter now they are baptized Infants Which in former ages was the time of their first coming to Baptism As for the Wednesdays and Fridays if wee shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless our Righteousness exceed the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees And if it bee evident as evident it is that the Scribes and Pharisees prescribed Mundays and Thursdays for days of less solemn Assemblies then the Sabbath How shall wee enter into the Kingdom of Heaven if in despite of the whole Church which hath hitherto used Wednesdays and Fridays in lieu of Mundays and Thursdays used by the Synagogues wee void the Law of England by which they are in force Of the Ceremonies the same
is to bee understood Not because it can bee within the compass of common reason to imagine that the same Ceremonies have continued from the time that the Church was persecuted into holes and caves of the Earth to this time in which the question is of setling Christianity by the Law of this Kingdom It were want of common understanding to think that the same could serve But because so few and so innocent as wee use cannot bee condemned without condemning not only Gods whole Church but also Gods antient people who will evidently bee found in the same cause One thing hath been cast forth in barre to all this which wee must not swallow whole unless wee mean to impose upon our selves It is the pretense of complying with the Reformed Churches For it is evident that there are four forms of Reformation extant One according to Luther another according to Calvine the third is that of the Church of England and in the last place though first for time because least known and protected by no Sovereign I name that the Union in Bohemia For wee are to know that the followers of John Husse having sent Deputies to the Council of Basil they accorded to reunite the Nation upon four Articles The chief whereof was the Communion in both kinds They that stood to the accord are to this day called thereupon Calixtini or sub utraque in Latine But another part of those that were at distance thinking themselves betrayed by their Deputies in that accord proceeded to settle themselves in a form of Religion and the service of God by that which they held the pure truth of God in all points that had been disputed The Emperour Ferdinand 1. King of Bohemia having subdued his subjects there that rose with the Protestants in Germany cast a good part of these out of the Country who finding shelter in Polonia and Prussia there planted and propagated their form till the troubles of our time when by the Emperours victory in Bohemia and the late troubles in Poland they seem to bee at a low ebbe though they impute it to the decay of their first discipline They that would reform the Church of England professing already that Reformation which it found best will they not first show us reason why wee are to leave Luther for Calvine For if they mean his form when they talk of conforming us to the reformed Churches because of the Scots Presbyteries they must have better arguments then either the learning or the Christianity of the Scottish Presbyterians will yield to perswade us They say those that framed the Reformation in England being bred under Melancthon among the Lutherans followed them much an end in the order and form which they prescribed But is that any reason for any change before it appear which is in the right I freely profess I find Melancthon the better learned and the more Christian spirit But the Church of England which in divers points differeth from both why should it bee thought to follow either for any reason but as either agrees with the Catholick Church And for that I prefer the Unity of Bohemia before both For they had the rule of Vincentius given them to take their measure by the consent of the Catholick Church and those things which have always and every where been professed and practised in it And had they done nothing but what is justifiable by that Rule I should not blame them for that which I blame in them most But where they agree not with Luther and Calvine wherein do they not agree with the Church of England In particular they sent all over the World to inform themselves of a visible succession of Bishops whose profession was such that they might derive the Ordination of Bishops for their Churches from their hands They took the superstitions of the Greeks to bee such that they could not own it from them In that think they were in the wrong For I doubt not the Greeks would have granted them Ordination only under the profession of the Catholick Church and that had been enough But thinking themselves in a strait of necessity they chose twelve by lots And hearing that the Waldenses lived in Austria under Bishops deriving their succession from the time of Constantine and therefore from the Apostles they sent them thither to bee Ordained protesting against their weakness in going to Mass for fear The protestation was admitted and the persons ordained Bishops Now I take not upon me to maintain the truth of that information concerning the succession of these Bishops whereupon they proceeded But they being reasonably perswaded of it and not knowing how to proceed otherwise through a mistake or an exigent which they could not overcome and setling themselves upon an innocent presumption why should the effect of these Ordinations seem questionable For under these Bishops they have subsisted from that day to this And with what conscience is it demanded for conformity to the Reformation that wee acknowledge them Priests who are ordained against Bishops If wee do not wee shall condemn those Reformed Churches which have no Bishops Is it the fashion that a man quit his cloke because his fellow hath none Or is it any thing else to renounce a good Title because they cannot plead it There was a good expedient in the antient Church to refer things to God which could not bee decided without a breach in the Church Let their zeal against the abuses of the Church of Rome bee counted pardonable with God which caused them to think the Order of Bishops a support of Antichrist when as the Papacy is visibly raised upon the rights of Bishops which it ingrosseth Let the difficulty of procuring Ordinations and having Bishops render them excusable to God Those that are ordained by Presbyters against Bishops on purpose to set up Altar against Altar how can wee count them ordained refusing the concurrence of the Church to their Ordinations They that would tye us to comply with the Reformation are first to show us that the Unity of Bohemia is no part of it And that their Reformation is not to bee preferred either before that of Luther or that of Calvine For can wee acknowledge the Ordinations of Presbyters against their Bishops and not condemn them that sought all over the World for Bishops to ordain them Bishops that the Bishops so ordained might ordain them Presbyters But not only in this prime point of our differences but also in the difference of the Clergy from the people in the three Orders of Bishops Presbyters and Deacons in the mater of Justification and the Eucharist of Confirmation and Penance of the Festivals and Fasts of the Church and of divers Orders and institutions of less consequence their profession agreeth with the antient Church and the Church of England where it departeth from both Luther and Calvine In the mater of Penance though with much humility they tell the Lutherans roundly they have but one of the