An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry, Treatise · Part 1 · Objection 1 – Objection 2
1. Obj. Your own preciseness and censoriousness maketh the common people seem mostly ignorant and prophane to you; and then you pretend a necessity of your Preaching, when you do but feign it, by setting your selves more above your neighbours than there is cause.
Ans. 1. I confess that many of the Separatists are truly guilty of what you here object. For when they have Unchurched whole Parishes of men whom they know not, nor ever heard speak for themselves, we that have come after them have found abundance of the people much better than they imagined. But one error or extream will not justifie another: Remember that we are not now talking of mens qualifications for visible Communion in the Church, but of their necessity of being taught. And we censure none beyond such cogent evidence as is not in our power now to be ignorant of. I beseech you deal openly with us, and answer us these few Questions, and all the matter will be ended.
1. If men do not know who Christ is, or what he came into the world for, nor what he hath done for us, nor what the Holy Ghost is, nor what he is to do for us, nor what a Saviour or a Sanctifier is, nor what is the plain sense of most Articles of the Creed, or Petitions in the Lords-prayer, have such men need of Teaching to save their souls, or not?
2. If men follow the world eagerly all the week, and talk of it on the Lords day, and love not to hear any talk of another world, or how they must be pardoned and saved; but swear, and curse, and rail, and many of them are drunkards, gluttons, or fornicators; and if they never teach their children or families, or pray with them any more than Infidels, and shew no Religion but going to Church, or perhaps sometimes say the Lords-prayer and the Creed without understanding; and if we advise them to prepare for death, and the life to come, and tell them the need of a Saviour, a Sanctifier, and of faith, repentance, and a holy life, they tell us, that they will trust God with their souls, and not trouble their heads with things so high; they shall speed as well as their neighbours. Have these mens souls any need of teaching?
3. If any of the people so much love their drunkenness and fornication, and other gross sins, that they hate the Minister that seriously, though gently, reproveth them, and like Cain would see their brothers blood if he offer God a more acceptable sacrifice than themselves, or slander and hate the most conformable Minister that is but strict and seriously Religious, and is talking against them on all occasins; have these mens souls any need of exhortation, or not?
4. If many of the people be weak in judgment that mean well, and have only a glimmering confused knowledge of most of the greatest matters of Religion; and though we hope well of their sincerity, they have abundance of mistakes and sad miscarriages in their lives, and are inclined to most of the real errors which the Debate maker reciteth, and in danger of being carried into any opinions, which are offered by men who by nearness or plausibility of perswasion, come to them with any great advantage, yea and are like to be troublers of the Church, have these men need to be taught or not? Let us but be once agreed, that the true belief, consent and performance of our Baptismal Covenant is necessary ordinarily to mens salvation, and that without faith it is impossible to please God; and that except a man be regenerate of the Spirit as well as of water, and except he be converted and become as a little child, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; and that he that hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his; and that they that are in the flesh cannot please God, because the carnal mind is enmity against him; and that without holiness none shall see the Lord; and that if the Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; and how can they hear without a Preacher, &c. Agree but to this, or any of this, and sure our case is fair for a good issue. Mark 16. 16. Heb. 11. 6. Joh. 3. 3, 5, 6. Mat. 18. 3. Rom. 8. 6, 7, 8, 9, 13. Heb. 12. 14. 1 Cor. 4. 3. Rom. 10, &c.
5. And for the matter of fact, may a man that hath conversed among such people all his life-time, and been familiar with them daily, and that can hardly get a servant into his own house that is much better, or hardly in a years time get a servant to understand his Baptism, or a quarter of his Creed; or a Minister that hath made it his work every week to discourse about these matters with all the families in his Parish, may such a man believe his own ears and eyes, or may be not? If not, he is capable of being a Papist, and believing Transubstantiation: If yea, the business is determined so far as his acquaintance reacheth.
6. And if the same man live in many Counties, and travel over most of the land, and find most places, as far as he can perceive, to be worse than the Parish which he had thus tried? and if all the painful Pastors that he talketh with, that ever tried it, and all the most judicious Christians of all Countries, tell him that their experience is the same; yea, if the great Divines of the Church have long made the same complaints in their Printed Sermons, may any of all these be believed or not?
7. If at this day the Divines that are angry with us for Preaching, do make almost as sad complaints even of the people that we Preach to our selves, or of the Puritans or Nonconformists: and if the most grave and reverend of the Conformable Divines do now in their Sermons to the people, describe them as aforesaid, and much worse; yet may we not believe that they have need of teaching?
If all this, and all that is said be nothing with you, we have nothing to say. But if it be, we are agreed, or at least you yield the cause to us, that know these things.
A man of fourscore years old in the Town where I was Teacher, being asked what God the Father was, said, He was a good man in Heaven. And being asked what God the Son was? said, He was the Sun, and pointed to the Sun that shined. And being asked what the Holy Ghost was? said, the Moon. A wise and worthy neighbour-Minister told me, That the oldest man that ever he knew, judged about sixscore (having fled thither in his youth from another Country for some crimes, and the old men of the Parish never knew him but an old grey-headed man) being in sound understanding before his death, and being asked by this Minister, Whither he thought to go when he died? answered, To the Church-yard I believe they will carry me. And when he was asked what he thought would become of his soul? he answered to this purpose, as not knowing whether he had any soul or not; but if he had, whether it would go to the Moon, or what would become of it, it was not for him to know.
The Parish from which I was sent to Goal, (for exhorting them, and not swearing) can witness, that they have heard their ancient grave and reverend Pastor, and a Dean, &c. tell them in the Pulpit, That he thought they were all Heathens, and there was no Religion amongst them, and despairing of Catechising them, (because some came not two or three days) gave it over many years ago. To say nothing whether some were well Excommunicated for not Communicating with such a Church of Heathens, I only ask, Whether such a people had no need of teaching?
Obj. We grant that all have need enough of Teaching: But what can your teaching do more than other mens? You think so highly of your selves, as if men cannot be saved unless they be taught by you? Do not we teach them the saving truth?
Answ. 1. This is sufficiently answered before: The best School-master in England that hath a thousand, four thousand, ten thousand Scholars, will have need of help; will you say thus in any other case? Why may not one Physician or Apothecary in a City, one Soldier in an Army, one Seaman in a Ship, one Magistrate in London, &c. serve turn as well as many? Many may do more than one alone; and it is not mens anger that will hide the disparity of grace or abilities, by which one man is fitter than another.
2. Judg but by your own experience: Do you not see that the people are yet ignorant and uncured? Hath your Ministry done that which maketh the help of others needless, yea or no? If it have not, why should you hate assistance, or think that help will do no good? If a Physician have tried his best remedies, and yet his Patient is visibly uncured, he will sure be willing that another shall try also, and do his best, rather than leave his Patient desperate.
3. But if you are but willing to know the truth, you may be presently thus convinced, that it is not as Nonconformists at all that we are followed or valued by those that I am now speaking of, or that we expect success with. In one of those Parishes where we complain of raw and lifeless Preaching, let but a clear, convincing, able Teacher come and Preach, and let not the common people know whether he be Conformable or not, and you shall see that they make as great a difference as I am talking of▪ Let him be a Conformable man also, and let them know it, except those partial persons that I am not now speaking of, the common hearers will applaud him above the Parson of the Parish that is cold and dry. This differencing of Preaching among your selves sheweth, why it is that the common people do so willingly, where they have liberty, hear the Nonconformists. Alas, they have no prejudice against you antecedently, nor no such mind for Nonconformity as to be partial for them, (for they know not well what it is); why is it in London that the Congregations are so crowded, where Bishop Wilkins, Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Tillotson, Mr. Wells, Dr. Outram, Dr. Gifford, Dr. Horton, and such other Conformists Preach? The soul of man will have a rational gust, and will not think all that they hear to be equally convincing, clear, effectual and good, when men have done all that they can against it.