The Defense of the Nonconformists Plea for Grace, Part · Chapter 2 – Chapter 8
CHAP. II.
§ 1. YOu begin with Reordination. And, 1st. I told you how the Church in all Ages hath commonly abhorred it: The Canons, called the Apostles, depose both the Ordainer that doth it, and the Ordained. Gregory Magnus, equalleth it with twice Baptism (which perhaps you may think lawful too) you are for it upon reason Toties quoties. You tell us how loth we should be as to Condemn that which so many worthy Men held as were the old Conformists: And may not I tell you that you should be more Cautelous how you contradict all Ages of the Church, even to this Day.
§ 2. Had you heard as great a Man as I have done, declare that he could not take them for Ministers, or take the Sacrament of them that had not Episcopal Ordination; and had you heard my L. Chancellor Hide give such Reasons openly for Reordination as I did; and had you seen the Writings of so Learned a Bishop as I have seen, to prove such no Ministers as are Ordained but by Presbyters, and heard such Men, and so many Argue for it as I have done, you could not have thought that the judgment of those that impose Reordination, was, or is, that Men are true Ministers of Christ that are Ordained by Presbyters only? So that your sense of the Imposition is feigned.
§ 3. It is a known thing that the Church of England is not of your singular opinion for Reordination: You may as well feign them to be for Rebaptizing: They all renounce it with our Consent: Therefore they that require Men to be Ordained by Bishops, must needs hold that they had no true Ordination before; or else they should be for that which they abhor. So that it's past doubt, you talk of you know not what, when you make this to be but the singular Opinion of one Mr. Dodwel, disowned by all; though much in his Book besides, be by most disowned: And it is not every later Bishop that made the Law, or altered the Liturgy,
§ 4. You say that [ Ordination once validly done by eminent Presbyters, and grave substantial Ministers, it doth to all intents and purposes make him a compleat Minister. ] And elsewhere you maintain the Validity of Presbyters Ordination: and say, That it is a taking God's Name in vain, when it is done without urgent Reasons.] I have moved to you, that the present Imposers suppose the contrary, (and I think, considering how much the King and Parliament left to the judgment of the Convocation) the present Settlement proveth what was the Convocations judgment, who are the present Church of England's representative.) They that are against Reordaining, and yet call men to be ordained, certainly judge them unordained before: And you are to take your Ordination, and speak the words in the known sense of the Imposers; or else you equivocate: And what Reasons have you to deceive them? At least it is notorious scandal to seem to do it in an ill sense. And when you pretend that your Ministry else must be forsaken, we say, No: It is but to save you from suffering for your Ministration, as long as you can use it on suffering terms: And you have not escaped suffering, nor saved your Ministry by Conforming. If you would rather suffer, than not Preach to Non-Conformists when you had an allowed Church of Conformists, should not we rather suffer than by our Reordination submit to that which is the Churches or Laws publick professing that we were no Ordained Ministers of Christ before? when after that we have never the more liberty for our Ministry, unless we conform to all the rest. I remember three Worthy men reordained one fourteen, and two seventeen years ago, that had never the more liberty to Preach.
§ 5. You say that [Ordination by eminent and Senior Presbyters is Episcopal Ordination, though not in the vulgar sense. For a Bishop and Presbyter in the sense of Scripture are the same.] Ans. Remember this when you subscribe to the distinction of Order. And I believe you cannot name two Bishops in England (if one) that had a Vote in Parliament and Convocation for making the imposing Laws that were of your mind: Nor two that will now say, that it is lawful to be twice ordained Presbyter: And remember 1. That it is the Act of Uniformity that requireth this last Ordination. 2. That the Bishop of London, of Lincoln, of Hereford, came into their places since; and were none of the Legislators.
§ 6. You say [If the Presbyters excel those Bishops, Ordination by them is more excellent than by these.] Ans. And yet can you assert that they are distinct Orders, when the Power of Ordaining is made the chief part of the Bishops Order? I that am against you stick at this somewhat more than you, when the Law and Canon make the Bishop of the Quorum. And as I was ordained by a Bishop; so I never joyned with Presbyters in ordaining any man, nor did venture to lay hands on any in an Ordination.
CHAP. III.
§ 1. YOur second Section is of our Assent to the words in the Book of Ordination of the Notoreity of the Antiquity of the three distinct Orders. And 1. You justifie it by telling us that [difference of Holiness, Wisdom, Usefulness may be said to make different Orders.] But this is too lusory in a serious business. Words of Art or Science are to be understood according to the use of the men of that Art or Science: And the many old School Disputes, and Controversal Writers tell us long ago, how they understood the word [Orders] as Offices in Specie differing from Degrees in the same Species. In your equivocal sense you say true, that there are more than three Orders, or threescore: Yea, in the usual sense of old they had seven Orders, and yet they held Bishops and Presbyters to be but one of the seven; as I shewed you out of Spelman in Aelfrick's Canons of this Church of England, in the very times of Popery.
§ 2. You say you make it not an Article of your Faith, that this sense of Episcopacy is evident to all men that diligently read Scripture and Antient Writers.] But the question is, Whether you Assent to it, (or more?) If not, how can you say you do? The Bishop of Hereford in Naked Truth hath given you some reasons of dissent, and Bishop Usher, and many such have done so before him.
§ 3. Whether you hit their sense or not, gather by what I said to your former Point of Reordaining.
CHAP. IV.
§ 1. YOu next choose to speak of our Assent and Consent to the Bishop's Oath [to subject himself in obedience to the Arch-Bishop, and to his Seat or Metropolitan Church, and to his Successors.] And you tell us that all men are bound to subject themselves one to another: This again is too gross equivocating. Do you believe that this is the Species of subjection, which is meant in the Book and Oath?
§ 2. You better tell us, that being Episcopus primae sedis, he may be reverenced as the Fore-man of a Iury.] But is this obeying him, and his Church and Successors? Is not this also Equivocation? Do they swear Obedience to the Fore-man and his Successors?]
§ 3. Your best answer is, It is enjoyned by Authority.] And if it were but obeying them in Civils, or circa sacra, in matters determinable by the King; this answer had much in it: B… when it is intended to be in the exercise of the Word, and Keys, and Matters which Christ hath predetermined, those Non-Conformists that are not for the Divine Right of Arch-Bishops, cannot assent and consent to it: And those of them that are for it, do (with you) hold that there should be Parochial Bishops, or to every Church; and that those that you call Diocesans are indeed Arch-Bishops: And they are not for Arch-Bishops over Arch-Bishops, lest it lead you to a Pope, (as he was in the Empire at least.)
§ 4. And Successions so often prove unhappy, that we like not setting up one Church over another to the end of the world, when we cannot justifie it at all. They that are (contrary to the Carthage Fathers) for a Bishop of Bishops, would yet have him their Ruler but as an Arch-Bishop, as General Officers in an Army over the Colonels, but not that our Church shall be set over many others; much less to swear to unknown Successors.
§ 5. And I told you divers old Councils condemned Bishops swearing inferiours to them, as the cause of many mischiefs; and sad experience taught them to make that Canon.
CHAP. V.
§ 1. NExt you speak of the Oath or Covenant of Canonical Obedience: And you 1. Doubt whether it be an Oath. In the Act of Ordination it is but a Covenant: But (what they do now) I know not; but heretofore it was also imposed as an Oath. You tell me of my Concessions: I grant that …o far as they exercise but such power as belongeth to Officers of the King, we may obey him in covenanting to obey them. But it is in the exercise of the Keys proper to Christ's special Officers, that the Book meaneth, which you assent to; even in matters of sacred Guidance, Excommunication and Absolution. And you say nothing to satisfie 1. Those that are under obtruded and unlawful Bishops, that come in so contrary to Christ's and the Old Churches Order, as that the Old Canons decree them to be no Bishops▪ 2. Nor to satisfie those that think Chancellors use of the Keys to be unlawful. 3. Nor those that think that Officials, Surrogates, Commissaries, Arch-Deacons, being no Bishops, have no just power but what the King may give them, and not a superior Power of the Keys (see Dr. Hammond's Explication of it.)
§ 2. But after you think that none but the Bishop is the Ordinary; but the Church-Laws and common use contradict you, and call all these, when Judges of the Court, your Ordinaries.
§ 3. And I told you (which you pass over) that this is condemned by the Decrees of Antient Councils as a mischievous thing.
§ 4. You say, It binds us not to obey the Canons, else the Oath of Allegiance would bind us to it, and all the Statute-Laws.] Answ. This hath more seeming strength than the rest. But 1. If it did hold, it removeth but one branch of the difficulty. 2. And indeed he that sweareth Obedience to the King, doth swear to obey him according to the Law: And so he that sweareth Obedience to the Bishop, may mean more, and include Mandates; but he cannot reasonably mean less, and exclude the Governing Laws. But yet as we never meant that the King's Laws are all blameless, or that we will obey them if they command us to sin against God, but only will shew our submission by suffering: So I confess our Oath to Bishops, as such, can mean no more. But then, were I under a King, whose very frame of Laws were unlawful, as tending to extirpate Piety, I should doubt whether I might simply swear to obey him as my Governor. How far the Canons are more unmeet instruments for true Church-Government than our Laws are for Civil Government, I will not here enquire.
CHAP. VI.
§ 1. YOur fifth Section is about the words [Receive the Holy Ghost, &c.] in Ordination. 1. Two things you include in the sense: 1. Inward Qualifications. 2. Investiture. But I told you 1. Inward Qualifications are presupposed, and the person examined accordingly. 2. I never heard or knew of any that received them by Ordination. 3. By Investiture it is the Ministerial Office that is given them: To none of this do you answer.
But you say, Christ used the words, and no extraordinary thing then conferred, &c.] Ans. 1. If Christ intended their after-reception of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, it followeth not that we must use such words, that can promise or give no such spirit. 2. There were five several sorts of Mission or Commission then given to Christ's Ministers.
1. Christ sent out the twelve and seventy temporarily to Preach, do Miracles, and return; and gifted and blessed them accordingly.
2. He chose twelve as related to the number of the Tribes, and ordained them stated Apostles to the Jews, or Circumcision; and he qualified them accordingly by his Spirit.
3. He ordained them Apostles to all the world (indefinitely) and accordingly renewed their Commission: For this he qualified them with ordinary gifts of his Spirit initially now at his resurrection, together with their new Commission, and more fully and miraculously at Pentecost: You know how ignorant the Apostles were of Christ's Death, Sacrifice, Resurrection, Ascension, &c. till he was risen: And then Christ opened their understandings in these Articles, and gave more Faith (and answerably we must conceive other grace was given) than they had before. This cannot be denyed: And is not this giving of the Holy Ghost more than man must now pretend to imitate?
4. Besides these, there were after-missions of particular Apostles (as Paul and Barnabas) or particular messages in particular Provinces.
5. And there was the Ordaining of Bishops or Elders as fixed Guides of particular Churches: And these being ordinary Officers, were ordinarily to be qualified before they were ordained, and not to receive their Abilities by their Ordination: And this is the Ordination that we have to do with.
CHAP. VII.
§ 1. YOur sixth Section requireth pity, rather than reply: The Church that a Bishop is ordained to, is many hundred Parishes; the Bishop of Lincoln hath many Counties. You know by whom the Bishops are Chosen, and where Consecrated: The words were originally used to the Church over which the Bishop was placed. And is it serious dealing to send word to none of them of your Time, or Place, and then call to Men in a Church in London, or a private Chappel, to come forth and speak their Exceptions? If you can prove that this may be Assented and Consented to, you have a stronger proving Faculty than I have.
CHAP, VIII.
§ 1. I See nothing satisfactory to the Objections which I made about the Damnatory Passages in Athanasius's Creed. And I had reference much to a Manuscript, in which Mr. Dodwel is the Objector, and the Bishop of Lincoln supposed the Answerer; which he doth with great Learning and Impartiality. But to his Argument, That we are not to Assent to the truth of the Passages excepted against, because we read the Apocrypha, and yet the Church intendeth not to bind us to believe some Untruths in it (which he nameth;) I Answered, that Athanasius's Creed is part of the Book which we must assent to, but the Apocrypha is not. I make less my self of this Scruple than the rest, because I have reason to believe Athanasius meant it well; when I have not the same assurance of the meaning of the Authors of some late Impositions.