you set not up wholly for your selves that speak so 3. And they will worship God with the Sect of the Diocesan Prelatists in the Parish-Churches also as far as will stand with the due exercise of their proper Ministery But will not promise you to give over Preaching to become your constant Auditors or Disciples Sect. 6. You understand neither the Men that you talk of nor their Cause they take not the Independents Assemblies to be the Tents of Enemies they leave terms of Enmity among Brethren to those that have enmity in their hearts Nor do they tamely deliver up the Cause The most Nonconformable Ministers of my acquaintance whose judgment I ever asked of that matter do seem to think as I my self do that the Episcopal Pretbyterians Independents and Erastians have each of them some Truth and Good which above the rest they do defend and each of them some special mistake where they err above the rest And if we could know it we would take the Best from among them all and leave the worst And not maintain Church-quarrels under pretense that we must not flie to the Enemy and give up the Cause Sect. 7. O the confidence of this Adviser in his own understanding that dare say That he is sure that the Presbyterians have no reason to engage in a way of publick Worship contradistinct to our Parochial Congregations 1. That is contradistinct which is not opposite or adverse but either co-ordinate as one Parish to another or subordinate as a Chappel 2. And what man Is a Vow and Dedication to Preach the Gospel no reason to Preach it elsewhere when its forbidden us in your Assemblies Is the alienation of Consecrated persons no Sacriledge Is the notorious need of many hundred thousand Souls no reason Is the exercising of a Worship and Discipline more agreeable to Gods Word than yours we are ready to give you the proof when we have leave no reason Is the relieving of many godly Christians who are cast out of your communion because they dare not Conform no reason Had we had leave to have conted the silly reasonings of Mr. Fulwood and some such other Pamphleteers produced against the Nonconformists we had long ago shewed you cause to repress such self esteem which dare say I am sure they bave no reason Sect. 8. And this man that is sure they have no reason for it could instance in no greater than the Objection that It will seem an undervaluing their liberty and ingratitude to the King 1. We have no reason to be ungrateful to the King nor to undervalue our Liberty 2. But did that move the London Ministers and others to Preach all this while before the Declaration 3. When you have proved that Greater Hurt than Good will follow our Preaching and Ministry and when you have proved that though all the Papists in England do use the liberty of the Toleration in the Declaration yet the Nonconformists must not but silently leave our sufficient Conformists to do all the work against Ignorance Infidelity Popery and Sensuality themselves I say when you have proved this well you may again bless the people with our silence and perswade us to silence our selves when you cannot do it otherwise Sect. 9. But he saith p. 6. Their ingenuity and gratitude to God and the King will be better expressed by their Conformity and Loyal obedience to the known Laws than by the use of the Liberty permitted to the contrary Answ He knoweth that we must not give him our Reasons against Conformity He cannot but know that many that Conform nor in all the matters of Subscriptions Declarations Oathes Discipline c. not medling with other mens Consciences do think it would be in them a composition of such hainous crimes as they do forbear to name them for fear of seeming to be accusers of others and to be unpeaceable And if he think that such toys as Mr. Fulwoods Mr. Stilemans and Mr. Hinkleys c. should satisfie them he thinks contemptibly of their understandings And he that by such poor temptations as those will yield to what their Consciences fear can scarce tell what he may not yield to before he dieth Let him procure us leave but to publish ours Reasons against Conformity and then let him tell us that we were better Conform when he hath answered them It 's easie to talk when none must confute him and to brave it against one whose tongue is tyed Sect. 10. His next Supposition is that the matter of this Liberty is evil I am glad it is not evil for the Conformists to Preach and Worship God lest it would have been lawful to none at all We are glad that Christ is Preached even by them that do it contentiously in envy and strife to add to our Afflictions and Bonds But we will not our selves give over Preaching Praying nor the rest of the Christian Religion because such men can call it evil He that saith our Preaching is evil may tempt men to think that the Gospel which we Preach is evil or that Infidelity Atheism Sensuality and Wickedness which we Preach against is good or harmless Is it good in you and evil in us to Preach the same Gospel If you turn to them that Calumniate us of Preaching Errour or Sedition the Law is open our Writings and Doctrine are easily tryed If we say evil bear witness of the evil If not take heed of calling it evil Isa 5. 20. CHAP. IV. Whether to gather themselves into distinct and separate Congregations is unlawful in the judgment of the Presbyterians themselves Sect. 1. THe proving the Affirmative is his work pag. 7 c. But the Presbyterians do not love confusion nor to dispute such blindly-stated Questions They distinguish 1. Between bare Local distinction and separation and that which is eminently called Separation in England and denominated from the Separatists which is separating from the parish-Parish-Churches Ministry Worship as being no true Churches Ministry and Worship or at least such as no Christians may lawfully Communicate with in Doctrine Prayer and Sacraments when they can have no better In the former sense as is said one Parish-Church is separate from another And if there be any difference in their Forms or Modes of Worship so was there between Basil at Caesarea and the Church at Neocesarea and between Rome and Millane and between almost all the Catholick Bishops for many hundred years And so now one Parish-Minister prayeth freely in the Pulpit after Sermon and before another by a Form a third biddeth prayer before and a fourth prayeth not afterward at all And yet these are not separated Churches any otherwise than Locally and in such Modal differences 2. They distinguish between a Parish-Church that imposeth nothing on the Ministers or People that God forbiddeth and one that doth 3. And between a Parish-Church that is Reformable in that which notoriously needeth Reformation and one that solemnly Covenanteth against Reformation 4. They distinguish
between a Parish-Church that is such and owneth it self for such And a Parish-Congregation that hath no proper Bishop nor Pastor who hath the power of the Keys of Government but is called by its Rulers only a part of a Church Diocesan and the Minister but the Diocesan Bishops-Curat 5. They distinguish between a Parish-Church where the Ministers in question are forbidden to preach and the People to have the Sacrament or their Children to be baptized unless they will say and do such things as they dare not do for fear of God's displeasure And a Parish-Church that driveth none such away from Ministry or Communion And now will this Adviser prove that what any Presbyterians ever said in one case must reach to all others that are so different Sect. 2. He next questioneth 1. Do you not allow our Parochial Churches to be true Churches Answ Yea those of them that have true Pastors but no others in a political or organized sense 2. Quest And will you not account such Congregations as shall be gathered to your allowed places to be true Churches also Answ In some places we will and in some we will take them but as parts of the Parish-Church And in some we will take them but for temporary Assemblies waiting for a fixed better state And in some we will take them for Churches secundum quid but not simpliciter Even as the case of each particular place requireth Sect. 3. And hence follows the cry of Schism Independents Brownists rank Separatists c. As if the Ministers of Christ did know no difference between noise and sense Yea we are told of Schism from the Church of England when I would give him all the money in my purse to make me understand what the Church of England is 1. I know that the King is the Civil-Head or Governour of it But it is a Constitutive Ecclesiastical Head that must denominate it as an essential part 2. I take it for granted he speaks of a Church organized in a proper political sense as constituted of a Pars regens and a Pars subdita and not as an ungoverned Community 3. I take it for granted that we have two Archbishops and they tell me that one is not under the Government of the other And if that be true we may have a Church of Canterbury and a Church of York but no one Church of England as denominated from one of them as Head 4. I take it for granted that the Convocation is not the Constitutive-Head 1. Because it is so seldom in being that then we should seldom have a Church of England For the Essence ceaseth with the essential part 2. And the Canon thundreth against them that deny the Convocation to be the Representative-Church of England If it mean of the whole Church Pastors and People then the People rule and make Canons by them as the Separatists hold And it is the Head of the Church only that we enquire after If they mean the Clergy then the Representative-Church or Head must be somewhat distinct from the Real represented If it be the whole Clergy that is the Real Represented-Church or Head then we are Popular or Presbyterian for the Presbyters are the major part by far And what Rulers are they that never rule the Church as one by themselves but only by Representatives I confess easily that many Churches united under one King and living in one Kingdom and having thereby special opportunity for Synods and Correspondence and Concord may be called one Church by a denomination 1. accidental 2. and humane not used in Scripture And we will not be so quarrelsome as to avoid that language where men will needs use it But it is the Thing and not the Name that we enquire of What is that One Essential Constitutive-Head which maketh the Churches of England to be all one Church in a proper political sense that is as a Governed-Society None question the Civil-Head none question the need of Communion and Agreement among all these Churches But the Question is only of the one Ecclesiastick Constitutive Head And if you will have the Question to be de nomine pardon us for holding that forma denominat But if you will denominate many Churches One from One Accident instead of One Individual Form or Essence and if you will use terms in Divine Matters which God never so used in his Word we contend not against you but only desire to understand you when you charge us with Schism from the Church of England We have observed what hath been the effect of such another enterprize in the Roman Empire It was thought meet by Princes that where the Empire was One the Church should be in some sort One also which was under them Whereupon Rome had the chief Patriarchate But in time 1. this Humane-Unity name and thing is pretended to be Divine 2. And this One Imperial Church under one Emperour is taken to be One Vniversal Church as if the Indians Persians and all other Christians even the Abassian Empire had been part of it and the Orbis Romanus had been Orbis Universalis 3. And then no man is a Christian that is not baptized into this Papal Church and made a Subject of the Pope Tell us what you mean by our Schism from the Church of England We divide not our selves from the King or Kingdom or from the particular Churches as concordant in any necessary thing If it be only that we agree not with the Major Vote in all Subscriptions Oaths Discipline or Ceremonies No more did the Bishops in the Roman Empire who had various Liturgies nor Gildas with the Britains nor Ambrose and Martin with the French and Italian Bishops nor the Episcopal party in Scotland heretofore with the Presbyterians when they were the major part Is every difference in things unnecessary from the major part a Schism from them The Bishops thought not so in England fifteen years ago We do not go so far with you as Gildas with his British Clergy who pronounced him non eximium Christianum no excellent Christian that called them Priests or Ministers and not rather Proditores Traitors as he himself did Nor do we make such a Schism as Martin seemed to do who renounced Communion with the Bishops and their Synods all his life who had prosecuted the Priscilianists with the Secular Sword Yet neither of these holy men are called Separatists or Schismaticks But perhaps it is our Disobedience to the Church that is our Schism from it 1. But every one that maketh himself an Ecclesiastical Governour over other Pastors and Churches is not therefore their rightful Lord. The King we know and his Officers we know but we know not all that call themselves our Lords or Masters Not but that obedience is the easiest course of life to a quiet humble mind But fidelity to our King commandeth the disowning of Usurpers 2. We confess that we do not actually obey the Civil unquestionable Power in every particle
about Gods Worship which hath been commanded us I need not tell you why No more did the Christians for three hundred years after Christ nor the Orthodox Bishops in the dayes of Constantius Valens c. nor the Protestants now in France nor the Calvinists now in Sweden Denmark Saxonie nor the Lutherans under Calvinist Governours c. We compare not our Rulers to any of these in any other respect but only as Rulers but if you your selves are resolved to say and subscribe and swear and do whatever lawful Rulers bid you its possible that before you dye you may shew that indeed you are not of our minds 3. But who ever took every act of disobedience in a Circumstance in a Family or Kingdom to be a Schism from that Family or Kingdom Do you rule by such a Law of Works or Innocency which cuts off men for every disobedience and censureth him that obeyeth not perfectly in all things 4. And methinks this should not be your meaning because by Nonconformity we more disobeyed our Rulers before their Toleration than since and yet it is our preaching after that you call our Schism from the Church You see what trouble you put men to to understand you because you speak unintelligibly and confusedly If you tell me that the Presbyterians owned a National Church in Scotland I answer 1. So do I as before described that is as denominated 1 From an accident and not from an Individuating Form and therefore equivocally and improperly 2 And humanely and so unnecessarily 2. And if Scots or any Presbyterians do it otherwise that 's nothing to me who am no more bound to their Opinion than yours And sure the Church of England is not called One in the Presbyterian sence as an Aristrocracie or as Headed by the whole Clergie conjunct Sect. 4. The rest p. 8 9 10. need no other answer then 1. That the old Puritanes never held it unlawful for them to preach in houses even when they had no Toleration 2. As they held it lawful to hold Lay-communion with Parish-Churches that have true Ministers so do we 3. They never said it was unlawful to hold communion with any besides the Parish-Churches no more will we What Law tyeth us to be such Schismaticks as to renounce communion with all other Churches except Parochial and Conformists or what Nonconformists ever held it 4. Whose conscience should sooner accuse him of Schism A Conformists that will hold Communion with none but his own party but separateth from all the other Churches in the Land Or ours that resolve to to hold communion seasonably with all true Christian Churches among us that teach not Heresie nor preach down Holiness Love or Peace and deny us not their communion unless we will sin Let the impartial judg which of us is the Schismatick and Separatist 5. Do you not hold it lawful for a Minister to remove from one Parish to another and for any man for his souls edification to remove his dwelling into another Parish where is a better Minister And what if forty Families do so who calleth any of this Separation And what if it had been into the Parish of Dedham Ashby Whitmore Preston when John Rogers Arthur Hildersham John Ball John Dod all Nonconformists were allowed to preach there without Conformity Had this been Separation and Schism or not If yea what Law of God or Man forbad it What Church did they divide from If nay why then is it Schism to joyn with such men in other places Where lyeth your Point of Schism or Separation Is it for going out of their own Parishes 1. So Men in London have ever done to other Parish-Churches 2. And who ever made a Parish and a Church Synonymal Jure Divino Shall mutable conveniencies be turned into immutable necessities What then Is it for going to a Nonconformist so did those before mentioned Is it for going to a private house 1. So did many Episcopal Pastors fourteen years ago 2. And some in London since the Fire 3. And it s an ill argument against them that would fain Preach in the publick Temples if they could have leave As far as I discern this dust of Schism which you would cast into other mens eyes obligeth you to wink hard lest it be blown back into your own Sect. 5. The love of peace and the fear of frightning any further from Parish-communion than I desire do oblige me to forbear so much as to describe or name the additional Conformity and that sin which Nonconformists fear and fly from which maketh it harder to us that desire it to draw many good people to communion with Conformists than it was of old But when both Law and Love of Peace and Concord forbid us so much as to name the Causes it is disingenious for the culpable to take that advantage against us and to urge us to do that which they themselves cannot bear Sect. 6. But with full sail of self-conceitedness he next comes upon us with this as an undeniable proof that our Members are taken out of true Churches Who would gainsay a man of such understanding But 1. Do not those as aforesaid that remove from one Parish Church to another remove from true Churches 2. How many Bishops have written that the Church of Rome is a true Church as Halls Collection against Burton sheweth you and must no Churches therefore be gathered out of them 3. What advantage then hath every foolish Superstitious Priest above God and over all good Christians God bids us worship him according to his Law and to do all things in order and decently and to edification And must not God be obeyed No if the Priest will not consent For if he will worship God foolishly with non-sence undecently disorderly against edification you cannot help it his followers may be a true Church still and then no man must remove to worship God better than pleaseth the Priest He that is fallen under such drunken Readers as I was bred under in my youth that were drunk many times oftner than they preached I am ready to prove it for they never preached but were drunk oft this poor man and his Family must venture their Souls on this sottish Drunkards conduct because it is a true Church and they must not go from a true Church What a trick hath the Devil found to bind men to constancy in his service so it be done in a true Church Alas poor England whose Teachers talk confidently at this rate because they can say that they do it in a true Church did not the Parliament take a Church out of a true Church when they separated Covent-Garden from Martins Parish And so it is when Parishes are divided into two one part is separated from the other Sect. 7. But factious Disputers see but on one side You thought not that you your self were all this while proving your selves Schismaticks I undertake to prove that Pastors and People are the Constitutive
like the rest It sufficeth us to tell you that we preach not for Riches and we will not cease through Poverty Talk at this rate to one another Sect. 6. When you say that a Toleration may reduce the common sort to an indifferency in Religion I answer Get your friends together then that have brought it to that pass as that It must be this or worse and bring them to weep over their sins before God That if a miserable Nation may not be saved from the Fire that you have kindled your Souls yet if possible may be saved Sect. 7. But pag. 29. you too boldly make your selves the Stewards of God's Blessings and as Magisterially without proof pronounce that we are out of his way and in opposition to his Church and contrary to his Word Answ For my self I have long been of an opinion which one day you will pardon that Perjury Perfidiousness and Persecution proud contending who shall be greatest and covenanting never in certain points to obey Christ against the World and the Flesh is not the way of God If you take me for singular there is no remedy 2. And what Word of God is it that we contradict I reade in the Rubrick of something about Infants Certain by the Word of God but I never heard in what Chapter or Verse it was 3. And which is Christ's Church which we oppose What Chapter and Verse saith that only Subscribers Swearers Declarers and Conformists are the Church of Christ and those that fear an Oath and Conformity are none of it CHAP. IX Of Inconvenience from our present Conformity Sect. 1. HE next confesseth that most of us have hitherto held some measure of Communion with the Church of England And now if we depart and fall quite away when we purpose to go no further from them but rather come nearer if they will give us leave then saith he You will publish to the World that your complyance with us before the Toleration was not out of sense of Duty or love of Peace and Unity or any other good end but meerly out of slavish fear of Punishment c. Answ 1. We will not reflect by recrimination because we would not provoke you more than needs 2. As far as I can promise we will judge of you no worse than we have done nor deny any Communion with you which we have used and can use without neglecting our own work As I constantly joyn in my Parish-Church in Liturgy and Sacraments so I hope to do while I live if I live under as honest a Minister at due times But what if I had leave without Conformity to preach in the next Parish-Church I cannot then be in yours at the same time He that preacheth not may hear you constantly But he that may preach himself must not cease his Ministry to be still one of your Flock We long ago published our Judgments that It is a sin not to joyn with a less-worthy Minister and a less-orderly Mode of Worship when we can have no better And that it is a sin to tye our selves ordinarily to such when we may have better lawfully that is consideratis considerandis upon terms whereon it will not do more hurt than good You see then on what terms we may vary our practices without the crimes recited by you If now when we are preaching our selves you will say that we are departing from you because we cannot be in two places at once and then come on with all these Calumnies we take but this to be your meaning 1. To tell us that you think we so value the honour of our Names and Reputations with you as that you can make us false to our Callings rather than be censured by you 2. That you have alwayes a Quiver full of such Arrows provided and resolve that if we will not give over our Ministry and be ruled by you you will make as many as you can believe that we never had sense of Duty love of Peace or Unity or any good end but meer slavish fear So men it 's like would say of Christ when sometimes he preached openly and sometimes departed from mens fury into the Wilderness or obscure places Or of Paul that was let down by the Wall in a basket and when he departed from the Jews Synagogues which he had before frequented or those that fled from one City to another It is a duty to preach when I can and no duty when I cannot And if others make the can and the cannot is it I or they that change my practice But if you teach men such apparently causless Censures and Reproaches you may have many Disciples but not very good ones And some will thus paraphrase your words If the King will not let us persecute them for preaching we are resolved we will slander them and make men believe on how hard terms soever they serve Christ that they do it all but as cowardly self-seeking Knaves What abundance have called me Rogue of late years that never knew me or spake one word to me before or heard one from me As to the rest That we proclaim our cowardise or a love of licentiousness or put on liberty for a cloak of maliciousness it all signifieth but what you have a list to say and calls to us to long for the judgment-day of Christ but yet to look well to the integrity of our hearts and try our way before we go it CHAP. X. Whether our Ministry by divisions will let in Popery Sect. 1. I Love this Author much the better because he speaks against divisions and because he seemeth willing to draw those men towards him whom others drive from them and because he seemeth careful of our Protestant Interest and desirous of some kind of unity to that end But alas have we so many years ago besought his party with all humble petition and importunity and disputed it with them that they would have pitty on the consciences of thousands fearing God that they would have mercy on the thousands of ignorant souls that need all our Teaching that they would not cast out so considerable a part of the Protestant Ministry that should hinder Popery and would not necessitate unavoidably those divisions which by weakning the Protestants would do the Papists work and under the sad denial of our petitions must we now hear that the Pope shall come on the Puritans back That word shall we have bin long hearing and feeling To be Masters of the Game is a great advantage for the disposal of other mens reputations in this World a little while but in the next the sport is spoiled Sect. 2. And really Will Popery come in ever the more for our Preaching do you think we shall Preach for it or ever the less if we renounce our Ministry Why then will not your silence too prevent it and so we may all be silent leâ—t we preach in Popery Sect. 3. But it is Divisions that will do it No doubt