An Apology for the Nonconformists Ministry, Treatise · Part 1 · Objection 3
3. Obj. We confess the peoples necessity, and that there is a difference of Teaching: But your Teaching will not supply this necessity; yea, it doth more harm than good.
1. Some of you preach sedition and faction. 2. And others of you disaffect the people towards the Parish Ministers. It is you that have put all the scruples into their heads, and then you pretend that their weakness and partiality doth necessitate your Preaching. How came it into their heads to think ill of Bishops, and to scruple Ceremonies, and Corporation-Oaths, but by you? 3. And when you have done, you rather cherish all this, than plainly seek to cure them of it. Go preach for Conformity, and you may have liberty.
Ans. Whether all this be true or not (being matter of fact) and because it hath been published of my self by name, and because they judg of the rest of the Puritans and Presbyterians (as they will needs call them) by me, I take it to be my duty as for my self and others, to answer this more Historically than otherwise I should think convenient.
1. Is it justice to charge men with seditious Preaching that never were accused or convict of any such Doctrine before any competent Judg? If any man preach sedition, heresie or schism, convict him, and let him suffer for it. The Law is open, and the Judges are not partial for Nonconformists. And you may have more witnesses against us by how much the more publickly we are allowed to Preach.
2. Do you think that men cannot differ from your opinions, unless we put it into their heads? I know not how to consute you but by experience: 1. I must needs assure you, that upon my experience above thirty years, the people are much proner to Separation, and to think very hardly of the Liturgy and Ceremonies, than the Ministers be. Insomuch that it hath been my wonder many a year to observe it, that when we have but awakened the Consciences of ignorant and sensual persons to repentance, shortly, e're we are aware, they fall on scrupling Ceremonies, and disliking the Liturgy, when we know of none that put them on it. But the openest cause that ever I could observe (if you can bear publick Historical truth) is this: As soon as they repent of an ungodly worldly life, and begin to have serious thoughts of another world, they are apt in their ignorance to judg of things by persons; and when they are convinced of a great difference between a life of faith and of sense, and between the sober, righteous, godly, and the intemperate, unrighteous and ungodly, they presently mark what way these several people go in the matters of Worship which are past their own understandings. And when they have seen in most places the deboist and vicious people to be great haters of strictness, and so of Puritans, and of Religious Exercises in any way but by forms, and see them so much for Bishops and Common-prayer, and then see some severities exercised against those that have lived most strictly, they presently suspect that Bishops are the suppressors of the most Religious, and the encouragers of those that need reformation, and that Forms and Ceremonies are but the means to quiet the ungodly in their want of the truth and life of Godliness, and to make them think themselves religious. These are the ways of the peoples receiving prejudice against you, as far as ever I could discern, which I write not in approbation, But Historically. And I ever found that those Bishops and Pastors that most encouraged serious Godliness, such as Bishop Hall, Potter, Davenant, Morton, &c. were reverenced by the people. And the names of Jewel, Abbot, Grindal, Parry, Babington, Pilkington, and many more such, are still venerable among the Puritans, as you call them.
But I cannot speak so certainly of any ones case as my own: I will give you the true Narrative of my Education, and leave it to you to judg, what put the Principles of Nonconformity into my head. I was never bred up under any Nonconformable Minister; from the age of six till ten, I had four School-masters, Curates of the place successively, that read Common-prayer; two never Preached, the other two seldom; but the two more learned drank themselves into beggery and left us. I came then to live at the habitation of my ancestors. There I fonnd one Sir William Rogers about fourscore, Parson of two places twenty miles distant, that never Preaehed (they told me) in all his life; when his sight failed, he said the Common-prayer by rote; and he that read all the Scriptures was a poor day-labourer of the place; and the next year when he gave over, a Taylor read it. After him a pretended Minister, Grandchild to the Parson, took the whole Cure, but never Preached once. The Son of the old Parson also was there sometimes a Minister, that is a Reader, and a famous debauched Stageplayer. At this time a Son of the next Neighbour turned Minister, and exceeded them so far that he undertook to Preach, and had a Benefice a great way off, whence after many years scandal he fled upon a discovery that one of the forementioned had forged his Orders. The next Curate (that did all that there was done) and my School-master, was another Neighbours Son, who being set to be a Lawyers Clerk drunk himself into such necessity that he was fain to turn Curate. When ever he came in drunk, we knew it by our smarts, being sure to be whipt. He never Preached in my time there but once, which was the terriblest Sermon that ever I heard, to hear a man drunk in the Pulpit (or else he had not ventured to Preach) to talk a deal of stark nonsense upon so terrible a Text, as Mat. 25. Come ye blessed and go ye cursed. Our next Parson was no Nonconformist neither. And then I was taken into the tuition of a grave and eminent man, of high esteem among great men, who expected verily to have been a Bishop. He loved me well; but so far frustrated my expectation, that in almost two years time he neither read to me, nor instructed me one hour, but discoursed usually of the unlearned factious Puritans. In his study (which was all my help) I remember not one Greek Book but the Testament, nor one Father but Austin de Civitate Dei, nor any of the Councils but ordinary English and Neoterick Divines; and he studied little all the year but Bishop Andrews Sermons. Hitherto I had no Nonconformists Principles. And if you suspect my own Father, it is enough to say, that he only read the Scriptures in his house, and scarcely any other Book, and I never heard any prayer (out of the Pulpit) but a form till I was about seventeen years of age. But because my Father would not drink and swear with them, and restrained us from the dancing-place on the Lords-day that we might read the Scriptures that while, and sometimes would speak of God and Scriptures, and the life to come, he was by the drunkards and rabble of the place reviled by the names of Precisian and Puritan, as bitterly as any Nonconformist now, though he never scrupled any point of Conformity, nor spake against it. And hearing all the drunkards revile that which I knew to be good, as Puritanism, I liked that name no whit the worse. But lest you think that the experience of such Priests did disaffect me, I shall add, that though there was another such an old Reader that never Preached in the same Parish at another Church, and very many Parishes round about us had the like, yet three neighbour-Ministers, venerable for age, (dying two above eighty years a piece, and the third near it) and very worthy godly Conformists, who were my most profitable acquaintance, did keep me from the principles of Nonconformity. Of whom (though they had all much rather have been rid of it, and so were before they died) one was a learned great disputer for Conformity, and was my chief Tutor, and did so engage me in reading Dr. Burgess, Mr. Sprint, Bishop Downham for Episcopacy, Mr. Hooker, &c. that I was not at all in doubt of the matter; and with this satisfaction I was Ordained and did subscribe. But I had never read any thing on the other side, nor ever read the Book of Ordination, nor exactly weighed what I subscribed to: But being satisfied that Episcopacy was the only Government, and that Ceremonies and Liturgy were lawful, I thought I was not bound to seek after objections and difficulties, and to fill my head with scruples, but to go on quietly as I begun. But when I came into another County, I met with divers private poor men that were very zealous Nonconformists, against whom I was so forward a Disputer, that the first Controversie that ever I wrote on, was against a Minister of one of theirs, which condemned Kneeling at the Sacrament, which I confuted so as to silence the opponents. (Mr. Paybody having fully satisfied me in that.) But yet they brought me to resolve to read the writings of both sides impartially, especially Dr. Ames his Fresh Suit; so that setting upon the Controversie again with my most serious studies, I setled in the judgment which I never since changed, about Liturgy and Ceremonies, expressed after in my 5 Disput. of Church-Government; but still I was absolutely for Episcopacy as it is with us, till 1640. when the new Canons came out with the &c. Oath, and that was the very thing that occasioned such Nonconformity as I am guilty of at this day. For when my mind was before quiet, in the way that I was in, (being at Bridgnorth, where six Parishes were under an Ordinary and Court of their own, exempt from the Bishops Jurisdiction, so that I never used Cross or Surplice, having liberty to forbear them), when I saw that I must swear, the reverence of an Oath excited me to an exacter scrutiny. I thought, as in subscribing I wrote but my opinion, which did not provoke me to so strict a search, so when I must swear, That the Government by Archbishops, Bishops, Deans, &c. was that which ought to be, and that I would never consent to change it; Without so much as excepting, If the King himself would have a change; it was time for me well to understand what I did. For I supposed that he that feared not an Oath, feared not God; and that he that would venture on perjury, would stick at no sin in the world as sin, and was unfit for humane converse. Whereupon we appointed a meeting of the Ministers about it; and Mr. Cartwright (afterwards of York) disputing for the Oath, did not satisfie me, but I resolved now to hear what both sides said, before I would bind my self by an Oath for all my life ensuing. Whereupon I got Gersom Bucer de Regimine Eccles. & Altare Damascen. and Paul Bains Diocesans Trial, and Parker de Polit. Eccles. and others. And on the other side Saravia, and Bilson, and Andrews, besides Hooker and Downham before mentioned. And the effect of my most impartial study was, that there is an Episcopacy of venerable antiquity, and desirable in the Church, if not of Divine Institution; but so far unlike the present frame of the English Hierarchy, that they are neither the same, nor yet consistent; as I exprest my thoughts in the foresaid Disputes.
And thus I have told you who put these scruples into my head. Had you not driven me to swear, I had never been like to have so scrupled. And I am confident if men were not driven so much to subscribe and swear as they are at this day, and their Consciences thus awakened to search, and scrupulosity, but the Agenda of Religion might be only Agenda, and the doing of them might serve the turn, you would have had much fewer scruplers and Nonconformists.
But you'l ask, How came those Lay-men to scruples, whom I before mentioned, if not from Ministers? I must still answer you Historically. There were but two Nonconformists in all those Countrys then. One was one Mr. Atkins, my neighbour, who would never talk either for it or against it, but almost always talk so seriously of Heaven, and a Heavenly life that you could scarce get him to talk much of any thing else. The other was that most excellent Disputant John Ball; to whom some of the men that I speak of went purposely to be strengthened by him against some arguments used by the Conformists. And he perceiving their humour to be set towards faction and Ceremonious disputes, did so School them, and rebuke their factious humour, that they would never come at him more. And I my self still perceived in some of the younger hotter sort, so much inclination to censoriousness, and siding and self conceit, that I almost still opposed them when we met, and set my self to repress their confidence, and to bring them to better thoughts of the Conformists. And so much to that part of your charge, that it is we that put these scruples into their heads, when I confess, I think, It is you.
But you chide us because we perswade them not to conformity?
Ans. Either you mean so much of Conformity as we can conscionably yield to our selves, or that which we judg our selves to be unlawful. The later no sober man can expect from us till our own judgments are changed. And verily it must be reasoning that hath more cogent evidence than yet you have shewed us, that must do that (though for confidence and contempt of dissenters we desire no more in you) We are men as well as you, and we study as hard as you, and though you deny it, we think as impartially. And which side hath more to byas them, is not hard to judg. You think we are byassed by mens applause. But I pray you forget not (for here it concerneth you esse memores) what a few contemptible people you think it is whose applause doth byas us? And that it is not the richer or greater sort, or the greater number as you think. And remember, if we were hypocrites, how poor and dry a reward we should have in such mens estimation. And that poverty and reproach, and jealousies, and voluminous defamations, and Prisons, are put with these poor mens estimation into the Scales to byas us. And whether any man in England believe, that Bishopricks and Lordships, Honour and Wealth, with the reverence of so great and so many as you suppose do reverence you, are not a stronger byas to sway an hypocrite to betray his Conscience, than ours is? Alas, that obloquy should live upon such airy food, and uncharitableness glory of so thin a cloak!
But if it be separation and things that we judg unlawfully, that we should unteach the people to do you service, or to serve the Church, I will not say as they that tell you, that it is somewhat hard usage to perswade us by poverty, and prisons, and silencing, to lose our friends to gratifie them that thus abuse us; and to take pains to exchange kindness for cruelty, and to strive hard to leap out of the ashes into the fire. But I will tell the truth to the world and you; we do what you desire of us, or reasonably can desire. I constantly Preached till the Goal restrained me, against Separation, and much more against sedition and rebellion. We do it openly and plainly. I am the man that am reproached in Print for want of this. And the same hand so far justified me, as before the Kings Majesty, and Lords, and before the Right Reverend Bishops, to say of me and my Disputes of Church-Government, about the Ceremonies, &c. No man hath written better of these things. And can we speak louder than by the Press? Or can they prove that we preach not as we write! O wonderful! that ever the world can degenerate to so much unrighteousness as to condemn men upon such defamations as these! Besides that Book, many a year before and since, I have still written to the same purpose: I have Preached to the same purpose. But thinking it more seasonable in private Conference, I have an hundred, and an hundred times more pleaded for the like in private. And my Disputes before mentioned are accused by many offended persons, as having made a hundred Ministers at least conformable. And had they not been written in the very height of Usurpation before the Kings return, I should have been taken for the vilest temporizer. This is our course; and yet if wrath and partiality, and ill will, do but dream that we do infect the people, and cherish them in Separation, and do not contradict but flatter them in their extreams, against our own judgments, the world must ring of all these dreams, and they think it fit that we be used as if all were certain truth. We have need to bless our selves against dreaming neighbours, if we must be estimated, and used, and described to the world, according to their dreams.
Nay, I will tell the world here the certain truth of our success and usage. I preach, I write, and I frequently and openly talk against Separation, and for the lawfulness of joining with the Church in the use of the Liturgy, and to rebuke mens extreams and censures of the Episcopal Clergy, and for an impartial love of all true Christians. I sharply reprove the weak reasonings of those that are otherwise minded; and by this I occasion the true Sectarians every where to speak against me; and yet even these Sectaries wish me well, and would do me no harm; and the generality of my hearers bear all this well, and seem to be of the same mind. And yet when I am loved by those that I plead against, I am reviled and abused by those that I plead for. Yea more, I must profess it before the world, that I plead your cause as far as conscionably I can, and its you that hinder me, and none like you. You would have us do your work with the people, and you would not let us do it. You use us, as I saw a man lately do by a Colt, who tyed him fast to a great tree, and lashed him most cruelly to make him draw. You make our work difficult if not impossible, and then think us worthy of your smarting wrath, for not performing it. Were it not for two things, we could do much to reconcile the people to you. 1. If you would not impose those Oaths, Subscriptions, and such like burdens, which we are our selves unable without fraud and falshood to defend. 2. If you would not silence their faithful Teachers, but would encourage Godliness and good men impartially, and would exercise LOVE as openly and largely as you exercise WRATH.
But we must tell the world and you, that we are unable, utterly unable to justifie the Corporation-Oath and Declaration, and to bring the people to like those Bishops whom they think are the chief cause of depriving of them of their long tried painful faithful Pastors, and setting over them such as in too many places are set. When our people are in Goals for meeting as they have done these twenty, yea thirty or forty years, only to repeat their Teachers Sermon, and pray and sing a Psalm together between the publick Exercises on the Lords-day (where they have reverently attended.) It is a hard task that you put on them to like you, but a harder that you put on us, that we must Preach them to it, even when we must not Preach at all. That we must go to the Gaols to them, or after they come out, to their houses to teach them to like the Bishops and their Impositions! They will tell us, VVe love them with a love of Benevolence, as we must our enemies; we wish them no harm, but the greatest good; but we cannot love them as such complacentially, nor think approvingly of their ways. Whether you do well or ill in promoting their sufferings, I am not now judging; I only tell you that it is the greatest hinderance to our reconciling them to you, and your ways, that you could easily have devised. I never saw that wooing speed well, that said, Love me, or I will send thee to Gaol. When I was a child I never thought any correction more unreasonable than whipping children to make them give over crying, when whipping was an unresistible means to make them cry, if they had not cried before.
While I am Voluminously reproached for not reproving the spirit of Separation or Nonconformty, (as afore limited) when I did it last, I was sent to Prison; and when I would do it by Preaching, I have not leave. And if your meaning be, Speak when we have shut thy mouth; and teach men to like us when they suffer our wrath, you increase our task when you have taken away our straw.
I conclude therefore with repeating it: you will not suffer us to serve you as we can, but are our greatest hinderers while you blame us.
And lastly, as to their scrupling the Corporation, Declaration and Oath, I can speak best for my self. The Bayliff, Justice, and all the twelve Capital Burgesses (besides inferior Burgesses) did refuse it, and were every one displaced, save one (now dead) that had been a Soldier in the Kings Army (what men were put in their stead, I am not now to tell you.) And they were so far▪ from being perswaded to this by me (at almost an hundred miles distance) that I never once spake to them, nor wrote to them one Letter or word about it. And it being no part of the old Conformity, how could this be put into their heads by me? especially when they know that I had kept the Covenant from ever being put upon that Town and Country.