Laws that all the Kings Subjects shall be extirpated that will not subscribe There is not one word in all the Statute Book or the most Learned Law-Books contrary to the Word of God and that the London Dispensatory hath no errour in Medicine and that no Licensed Book hath any errour in Divinity Verily if the Bishops and Clergy of England cannot give us better proofs of their infallibility or that their publick imposed Books are as free from errours as Adam was before his fall than by making all subscribe or swear or declare in the Church that it is so cowards may say your Lordships and Reverences have never an erroneous word but few men will believe it ever the more yea it will be the less believed that needeth such a proof as this Even as men would take him to be never the more an unerring Philosopher Lawyer or Physician who could force all the apprentice boys and women in the Town to swear that he is such Try first to make all the Kings Subjects of one opinion in all points of Learning Law or Trading and of one degree of wit and of stature and complexion and then hope to make them all of one measure of understanding not only in the substance of Religion but in all the little things that Bishops call indifferent and do or may impose L. But you run upon the Errour that all must have so great knowledge according to our rules as to know the Lawfulness of all Lawful things We know no Church-men reach so high But the way to Concord must be by obeying the Church in all cases that are doubtful to the Subjects M. 1. It 's well that you limit it to doubtful cases But what if I am past all doubt e. g. that it is a sin to make our sort of God-fathers the vowing Covenanters in Baptism excluding the Parents to cast out all from Christian Communion that scruple kneeling in the reception to deny Christendom to all that refuse our God-fathers and Crossings to pronounce all in England at Burial saved except the unbaptized excommunicate and self-murderers to profess that It is certain by the word of God that Infants excepting none baptized and dying before actual sin are undoubtedly saved To assent to a false rule to know Easter-day with many such What must I do in such undoubted cases 2. Tell us plainly Is it all doubted cases or some only in which you say we must obey If not all till you tell us which and how to know them you talk in vain If all what if men doubt whether Polygamy Lying Fornication c. be lawful Or what if a Papist doubt whether King-killing be lawful and the Clergy command it must it therefore needs be done 3. And I pray you tell us where and when it is that men must obey this rule Was it a duty in England in the days of Thomas Becket Anselm Dunstan c. or in the Reign of all the Kings that were Papists Is it a duty now in France Spain Italy Bavaria Austria c. or in the Dominion of the Turks Persians Tartarians China c Must all Subjects every where do all commanded them If they have but ignorance enough to be in doubt themselves sure they are bound to receive God's Light to overcome those doubts and in errour it is not obedience in Evil but seeking truth till they find it that is their duty But If you limit this Rule to Christians is it to all Christians If to Orthodox Rulers are the Subjects any fitter to judge whether their Kings and Bishops are Orthodox or not than whether the things imposed be good or bad If you dare say That all Subjects are bound to be of the Religion which their Kings or Bishops say is right speak out and you will need no confutation It 's granted by all sober men that as Rulers have the judgment of publick decision so every reasonable man must judge by private discerning whether his Actions be agreeable to God's Commands or not It is not Brutes and Infants but Men that have the use of reason that Kings and Bishops rule 4. But if you are stiff in the contrary opinion that all men must implicitely believe the King and Prelates in all that ignorance can but make them doubtful of I hope you have more brains than once to dream that ever you shall bring all the Kingdom to unite in this opinion and to lay by their reason and confess themselves Ideots or Brutes that must not labour to know whether they keep or break God's Supream Law or if you must rule men on these terms you must keep them in fetters and not at liberty And I pray you dishonour not the King so much as to make him a King of Beasts and Ideots and not of Men or Christians or at least expose him not so much to the Power of Usurpers as to say that his Subjects are not the Discerning Iudges who is their True and Lawful Soveraign and who not and if they must judge whether all their actions be agreeable to the Kings Laws or not lest they be hang'd or punished allow them also to judge whether or no they be agreeable to God's Law lest they be damned If men once believe that God is not their Supream Governour no wonder if they believe that Kings have no Governing right nor any are bound in conscience to obey them for who can give Governing Authority or who can bind Conscience to obey it but the absolute Soveraign the Almighty God L. Experience confuteth all that you have said what Countries live in greater Vnity than those that have procured and kept it by violence and do endure no Dissenters as Spain and Italy M. It seems you know not what you say 1. The Pope and Spaniards and Italians allow greater differences by many degrees than those that you condemn Dissenters for their Iesuits and Dominicans Thomists Scotists Nominals Durandists c. differ so much from each others in Doctrinals about God and Grace and Free-will and Providence and the Cause of Sin and many other Points that the Volumes they have written for their several Opinions make up huge Libraries which employ the hard studies of the most Learned men in the World and are as far as ever from being ended 2. The Iansenists and Iesuits differ not only in such Doctrines about Predestination Redemption Grace Free-will Perseverance c. but also about abundance of Doctrines commonly called Moral as about Murder Perjury Fornication Stealing c. as you may see in the Books lately published by the Iansenists against the Iesuits And though approved general Councils have made the doctrine of Deposing Excommunicated Princes and Absolving their Subjects from their Allegiance and giving their Dominions to others to be a very part of their Religion yet are not the Papists agreed in it but the Germans in the days of the Emperours Frederick Otho Henry 4th and 5th c. and the French to this day are
to work in Bed or go abroad Naked Men that need Marriage must Marry and then liberis operam dare but not to do this before they Marry So Persons that are unfit for the Sacrament must be fit and then receive it but not before they are fit Now if you can force them by a Gaol out of Ignorance unbelief and ungodliness it will be a very charitable work Otherwise you force them upon Sacriledge and Profanation to their Damnation Why else doth the Common-Prayer Book perswade the Blasphemers and hinderers of God's Word and the uncharitable not to come to that Holy Table lest the Devil enter into them as he did into Judas and fill them with all unrighteousness to the destruction of Body and Soul. L. But they that are forced to come will be liker to take preparing Care than if they be let alone M. Look over the foregoing instances Will you make a Law among Heathens that all shall be baptized that this may draw them to believe Or will you Command all Students to Administer the Sacraments that this may draw them to Study and be Ordained c. We disswade you not from forcing all to Hear and Learn But do you think that it is so easie and small a Matter to bring a Man to Repent and Believe and give up his Heart and Life to Christ and prefer Heaven before Earth and a holy Life before a fleshly and worldly Life as that it is but say Do it or thou shalt go to Iail What need a Saviour a sanctifying Spirit a teaching Ministry c. if it be so easily done at a Command Will the fear of a Jail make Men believe the Gospel or Love God Oh how little doth this way savour of any true Knowledge of the State of Man or what Faith or Sanctification is L. Wherein lyeth the Sinfulness of such force M. 1. It seemeth to make a New Gospel-Condition or contradict Christ's Christ saith That none can be his Disciple except he forsake all and follow him This Course saith Thou shalt be saved by Christ if thou hadst rather Communicate than lose all and lie in Jail The Sacrament is an Investing delivering of Pardon and right to Christ and Salvation And none but those that desire them above all the World are capable of these And to give them to the forced and unwilling is contrary to the Gospel 2. It seems to put a Lie on Christ as if he had ever made any such gift 3. It tendeth to deceive poor Souls 4. It forceth them on Sacriledge Hypocrisie Prophanation and Damnation 5. It may distract those Persons with terror who are conscious of their unfitness or those Melancholy Christians that under Temptation tremble for fear of taking their own damnation 6. It polluteth the Church and confoundeth the Infidels Catechumens and Fideles 7. It thereby filleth the Church with such wicked men as prove worse Enemies to the godly than those without 8. In all Elections the Major part of wicked forced Communicants will carry it to chuse Ministers like themselves and carry Church Matters according to their wicked minds 9. Good men seeing this are ready to be frightned out of the Church to Separation as men run out of a ruinous House lest it fall on their Heads or fly from a noisome place with loathing 10. And then the Crowd that thus get Church possession will revile them as Schismaticks and Sectaries and Hypocrites and persecute and destroy them if they can Are not all those sad effects of turning a Church into a Prison and forcing men to seem to take that which Christ professeth he doth not give them And of casting holy things to Dogs and Pearls before Swine and cramming and drenching those with the Body and Blood of Christ who have no right till they desire and beg it and can sell all to buy this precious Pearl We dare not Assent Consent or Swear to such a Course as this nor publish an Excommunication against such men on this account It 's an odd thing to cast men out because they will not come in And I pray you how can Ministers in great Cities and Parishes perform this Canonical Obedience to give in to the Bishop or Chancellor the names of all that Communicated not at Easter when they know not the hundredth part of the Parishioners in some places I do believe that in the two Parishes that I last lived in there are above fourscore thousand Souls And is it like that the Ministers know twenty thousand of these I have been at their Communion even at Easter and Whitsuntide and I never saw five hundred there And if they gave in the names of but twenty or forty thousand Non-communicants tho' it 's like there are nearer two hundred thousand in this Diocess what work would the Bishop and Chancellor have Cannot you easily imagine what their Discipline would be and how they would exhort each Person one by one to Repentance and plead with them for conviction and resolve their doubts Doth not this one thing tell you what the English Diocesan Episcopacy is that giveth one man the Disciplining of many hundred Parishes L. You talk as if you would have a Church of Saints and seem to make Religion too serious a business It is well if we could have a Church of Civil Men and Peaceable Subjects that will use Religion for the Civil Interest as far as will serve the will of Governors and the Common Peace M. I am sure St. Paul wrote to no Church but such as he called Saints and I am sure Christ will save none but Saints An unsanctified Christian and a Church not holy are contradictions in adjecto Christ came not to set up a meer worldly Kingdom and to devise a Religion to serve the Will Ambition or Interest of worldly men nor meerly to promote Civility Wealth and Peace If this be all that you would have go to Aristotle Plato Seneca Plutarch Cicero c. You need not be Christians for this But yet we pretend not to know mens Hearts It is visible Saints that the visible Church consisteth of and with whom we must have visible Communion And it is not left to the will of every Pastor whom he will take for a Saint for then Churches would be of as many sorts or degrees as Ministers strict or loose Opinions are But Christ hath himself made the Articles Essential to Christian Faith and Practice and the Baptismal Covenant and required us to take those into the Church who seriously profess Belief and Consent till they null that Profession by a contrary Profession or Conversation which must be proved against any man before he is rejected For the Church is not a Society to be arbitrarily made or unmade at every Ministers or Bishops will but hath from Christ the fixed Laws of its Constitution and necessary Administration better than our 141 Canons But indeed you have toucht our sore For my part I am past doubt that we should all
care that no Parish want a fit Teacher whom the willing may hear 2. And that the negligent and unwilling be forced to hear either them or some other allowed or justly tolerated Teacher But I never said that 1. Because the Catechumens may be forced to hear their Parish Teacher who are Free-men therefore those that are Wives Children and Servants may be forced to go to one Church when the Husband Parent or Master commands them to go with him to another 2. Nor yet that those Masters that are Communicants and not Catechumens may be forced from hearing their own Pastors approved or tolerated It 's enough that they be forced to hear either And Men ought not to be deprived of the due Government of their Families L. Is not the Patron as fit to chuse a Teacher or Pastor for your Wives Children and Servants as you are M. No 1. A Mans Interest in and power over his Wife and Children is earlier and greater than a Patrons is It is natural and by a Law which no Men have power to abrogate Self-government and Family-government are antecedent to Princes or States Government and they have no right to dissolve it 2. I shall gain or lose more by the welfare or misery of my Family than the Patron will. 3. Nature hath given me a greater Love to Wife and Children and bound me to a greater care for them than it hath done a Patron 4. I know them better and therefore know what they need and what Teacher and Communion is fit for them better than a Patron that never saw them or me 5. Supposing that I am allowed to chuse my own Pastor and Communion it will be inconsistent with Family-government that my Wife Children and Servants be forced to go to another place where I can have no account of them what they do and how they behave themselves 6. If no Man may justly chuse for my Children a Tutor a Trade a Physician or Diet or Cloathing rather than my self much less a worse when I chuse a better nor may impose Husbands or Wives on them much less may any chuse for them against my will and choice an Office on which their Salvation is so specially concerned L. But if you may force your Wife and Children to what Pastor you chuse for them it seems then a Man may be forced to one Pastor rather than another And then why may not the Magistrate force you as well as you may force your Family M. You mistake me I do not say I may force my Family to any Pastor I say if they that are not Communicants but Catechumens may be forced to one Teacher itâ—s meeter for me to force them than for a Patron or any other 2. But as to Communion I will not force them to it at all nor to this or that Pastor But because different Places and Pastors for Communion signifieth different minds and will be a great distracting inconvenience to a Family I will use all my reason and loving interest in them to bring them all to one place for Communion And it s very strange if I prevail not having better advantage to satisfie their reason and to perswade them than a stranger hath so that such Breaches will be very rare But if I be as injurious to them as some Patrons are and would draw them to chuse an intolerable Pastor or false Teacher it is their Interest and Duty not to be perswaded by me to their hurt L. What confusion will this make in the World when all people even Wives and Servants may chuse on what Pastor they will depend and where they will Communicate M. It were a happy World if you or any did deliver it from differences yea or confusion But perfect concord is no where but where is perfect knowledge holiness righteousness and love If it breed confusions in the World that every Man chuse his own Dwelling Trade Diet Cloathing Wife Servants Travels Company Physician Counsellor Tutor Master Books c. And so that their Life Death and Souls be more in their own power than anothers there is no remedy If you would devise any other Chuser for them of all these you would cure that disorder with madness and destruction who is it that should chuse all these for all other Men He that chuseth for them must answer for them and must be accordingly saved or damned for them If God had appointed some Pope that he would always make wise and good to chuse for the Kingdoms of China Pegu Tartary Iapan Sumatra and all the rest of the World what Religion they should be of and what they should love and hate speak and do it would have brought the World to a happy state if all would stand to that Mans choice But who can teach God how to Rule the World and say Thou shouldst have made Man otherwise Will you mark this Either it is only to command Men what to chuse or else to make them chuse by efficient determination of their wills or else to move them by force without or against their wills that you would have the World saved from sin and confusion There is but these three ways And I. To move them against or without their wills is natural motion or violent and will make none of their actions good or bad in a Moral sence Nil nisi voluntarium est morale Thus a Horse a Watch a Ship is governed And you may lay them in what order you will when they are dead II. To make them good by Physical efficient determination of Mens wills God can do it and doth not at least with most Man cannot do it It 's madness to pretend to it And I hope you will not accuse God who only can do it for not cureing the sin and confusions of the World this way III. It is therefore only the Moral way of Cure that remaineth by Laws Rewards and Punishments And hath not God made better Laws for Religion than Man can make More infallible and perfect with more aweful Power and with ten thousand fold greater Rewards and Punishments And now what mean you by saying that every Man must not be left to chuse what Religion he list 1. Every Man is a rational voluntary Agent and not a Stone or Brute 2. Every bad Man is left undetermined by efficiency of God or Man in all the evil that he doth 3. Every one in the World is left by God and Man to chuse Salvation or Damnation in the means and to speed as he chuseth 4. No Man is left Lawless to chuse what he will without the Obligation of a perfect Divine Law. L. But Men that believe not a God and a Life to come must be moved by temporal punishment which they can feel Let them stay till death and they will deride Religion and live in wickedness M. You are too confused while you talk against confusion 1. Do you think Men that believe not a God and a Life to come are fit
by Church-Government it is by the Magistrate's Sword and not by ours by the Keys 7. And is it not then ridiculous contradiction to dispute so hard about Church-Power and against the Presbyters claim when you confess that it is an useless shadow that you dispute for and it 's not it but the Sword that doth the deed 8. Is it not an odious defacing of Princes and Magistrates to say That they are bound to Imprison and Ruine a man as a meer Lictor or Executioner of the Judgment of the Clergy or of a Chancellor without ever hearing or trying his Cause and to punish him again because they punisht him before or because he hath not got their pardon 9. If Excommunication be grosly unjust as against Christs Members for doing their duty or for common humane infirmity they do well that set by it no more than it deserveth and pretend not to repent when they do not nor cannot nor ought to repent L. Though you call it no Punishment to keep all the Non-Communicants from publick power and trust I think it will pass for a notable Penalty M. I grant them as much as I can as knowing how little they will yield to and indeed it 's my opinion that to deny all Non-Communicants Magistracy and publick Trust would be to Reform the Common-Wealth in the Foundation if the Keys were but justly exercised But then by this I exclude none but the Intolerable that Neither Communicate with the Approved or the Tolerated Churches L. But Rulers will turn this against you and shut out the Tolerated with the Intolerable M. I cannot help that Must I not tell men what is Right because they will do Wrong L. But you are for having all the Subjects forced to be Catechised and to be Auditors And do you think that this will not force Non-Conformists to hear against their Consciences M. I say not that they should be forced to hear in the Parish Church but either in a Parish Approved or a Tolerated Church How have they a Toleration that may not hear their Tolerated Pastors And he that is not for hearing at all is not to be Tolerated And indeed if those that are no Members in Communion of any Church but meer Catechumens or Auditors should be forced to hear in their own Parishes ordinarily if there be meet Teaching I oppose it not L. But is it noâ— as injurious to force men against their Consciences to Hear as to Communicate M. No the Case is greatly different Nature bindeth all men to learn that they may know what is good or evil to themselves Learning and Knowledge is the common Duty and Interest of mankind and though no man can be forced to Believe and Repent he that is forced to Hear may hear that which may make him Voluntarily Believe and Repent You must force your Children to Learn but not to Communicate I told you that to give a man the Sacrament is to give him a seal'd Pardon and Gift of Christ and Life which no unwilling man is capable of but he may be capable to Hear and Learn And this being only to those that are refusers of all Church-Communion or are uncapable and are in none either Approved or Tolerated what Conscience can such pretend against hearing or against being restrained from crimes and profaning holy things or reproaching Religion though they be not constrained to what they are uncapable of L. I am fully satisfied that your way of dividing all the Subjects into the Approved the Tolerated and the Intolerable is of absolute necessity And to conclude I am satisfied that you Non-Conformists have a Cause so good that you do well to suffer for it but were I in your case I know not what I should do my self The Flesh and World are strong and it 's easier to be convinced that one should be a Martyr than to submit to Martyrdom God be merciful to our weakness M. He trusteth not Christ that thinks he shall be a loser by him and he that will save his life from him by sin shall lose it and he that loseth it for him shall save it L. X. Your 10th for some Toleration will never be endured though the truth is your Reasons for it are unanswerable and your Limitations so strict as prevent most of the Objections that might be made against it M. God's Law requireth forbearing and forgiving one another and receiving the weak in Faith. And they that cannot Tolerate the Tolerable methinks should fear the thoughts of death lest then God will not Tolerate them but cast them out as they cast out his Children L. I confess you convince me that know what most Patrons in England are that it is unfit that all the Peoples Souls should be so far at the mercy of those Patrons that seem to care but little for their own as that no man must have any other or better Pastor than they will choose for him and that all mans duty to care for his Salvation and all the judgment of the Church of Christ from the Apostles dayes till a few hundred years agoe should wholly give place to the pretended right of any fellow that can buy an Advowsoâ— or Presentation And it were to be wisht that it were wholly taken from them and left to the Clergy and People alone the Magistrate being Iudge whom he will Approve or Tolerate But there is no hope that Patrons will let go their supposed right if an Angel from Heaven should speak against it but in all reason they should grant the Communicants that small consequent Vote of Consent or Dissent that you pleaded for but if they will not do that they should give them leave to go to another Parish or to choose a Tolerated Pastor whom they will maintain But men are so set on their own ways that they banish all sense of others case and of what conduceth to the common good M. We can but bring the truth to light and shew a self-wounding people the Balsam that must heal them and stay till God will give them a heart to use it L. But you are so careful not to offend them by â—otioning 〈◊〉 wide a Toleration that I doubt it will do little good For 1. some will scruple some of the Subscriptions or Oaths which you grant shall be imposed on them 2. If all the Tolerated must be responsible for their Doctrine and Ministration it 's two to one but the Rulers to whom they must give account will be so contrary to them that they will have no peace or safety M. How would you have these dangers and inconveniences be avoided An unlimitted Toleration of the Intolerable is it self Intolerable and you can devise no safer limitation The engagements which they are to take tell you the Terms of Toleration and if men will-Preach against those Terms that is against the Christian Faith or the Holy Scripture or their Allegiance to the King or if they use their Meetings to destroy Love and Peace