The Defense of the Nonconformists Plea for Grace, Part · Chapter 21 – Chapter 24
CHAP. XXI.
§ 1. YOu entitle the next Section, of the Chancellor and his Office, and reading Excommunications, and the Order and Discipline in the Church of England. And, 1. You tell us of them that would have Unordained Ruling Elders in every Parish. But, 1. If that be ill, how will it justifie Lay-Chancellors? 2. Cannot many with the Pastor better govern one Parish, than one Chancellor can many Scores, or Hundreds? 3. Some give Lay-Elders only a part of the Magistrates work, and some only to be Delegates for the People to do but what they may do, who cannot be oft present, and to be occasional Arbitrators; and some that give them any use of the Keys, take them not for Lay-men, but Ministers separated to that Ecclesiastical Office?
§ 2. You tell us of thirteen parts of Discipline among us: To which I said enough before. 1. No Atheists, Infidels, or Pagans then must be refused Baptism, if communicating God-Fathers (how bad soever) present him who never take him for their own, and we doubt can neither give or prove his Title: And that we are disabled to keep the unworthy from the Communion, I have proved; and the Excellent, Learned, Pious, Parish Priests of London, tell you by Practice.
2. Few Communicants are Confirmed, and Sacramental Capacity is not required to Confirmation: And if it be not used, or worse, by Bishops duplicate page duplicate page who only have the power, what satisfaction is that to the Parish Priest and Church?
3. There is no sufficient means to Convict, and keep away scandalous Sinners.
4. The Sinner hath power to forbid you private Admonition by refusing to speak with you, or come near you.
5. What is Family Power to the Church? We thank you for nothing. But were not Parents formerly disabled from keeping Children and Servants from spending much of the Lord's Day in Dancing? &c. And doth not the Canon yet disable them from bringing them to hear a Sermon at the next Parish Church, when they have none at Home?
6. The Lawyers that I speak with, take all for meer Falshood that you say of the Priests power, of publick admonition of sinners by name, not censured by the Ordinary. You say, Where is it forbidden? I ask you, Where is the Priest authorized to do it? If not, the Man will have his Action against him, and Ruine him; and the Bishop may suspend him for Usurpation. And, 2. Of all the worthy Parish Incumbents in London, who did you ever hear once do it? I never one heard one do it, nor heard of one that did it in my life, except a Non-conformist, or a hot Parson point at a Puritan in the Church for some Non-conformity in a Circumstance. Reverse then your charge of Hypocrisie, if you find it must fall on all the worthy London Incumbents: For they all speak for Discipline, though not for more.
7. If there be half as many bad Ministers as the Country saith there is, it's a small honour to the Church, to reproach the Fathers that admit them as sinning against Church, Law, and Conscience; and a small relief to Peoples Souls to tell that some Body had power to have provided better. But the People had no such power, to save themselves from a bad one; though the Church for 700, if not more Years, took him to be no Bishop but an Usurper, that came not in by the consent of the Flock, and election of the Clergy, of which more elsewhere.
8. Do or can Bishops by Visitations know the People and their Cases of a thousand, or many hundred Parishes, so as to hear and judge them? Would they not have ten thousand scandalous Sinners sometime to try and exhort to Repentance in one, or few Days?
9. and 10. We are glad that the old prohibitions of Afternoon Sermons and Lectures, are not yet revived: But how few Parishes have such Lectures comparatively? and how few have Catechizing? And they that have none, may not go to another: If you think that it will save the Peoples Souls, that the Priest might have instructed them if he could and would, and that the Bishop should have made him do it, I dissent.
11. I have seen no Visitation Articles of late, but in the old ones of 1634, 1635, 36, 37, 38, 39. the Church-wardens were to swear to persecute Men for so many things which they thought their Duty (as the foresaid going from a Non-preaching Minister, keeping private Fasts, and such like) that many Men that feared an Oath and Persecution, suffered because they durst not be Church-wardens.
12. I confess more manners of Church-censures are in use among us, than we desire. The Canons will tell them to you: Else so many hundred Non-Conformists formerly and lately had not been forbid to Preach, nor all forbid to admit Non-conforming Christians to Communion; nor had they been ipso facto excommunicate (though Ant. de Dom. Spalatensis say so much to make odious all excommunicating ipso facto (who, they say, first devised the name of a Doctrinal Penitence.) And Bishop Ier. Taylor saith so much against it.
And I confess that there is the Magistrate's sword to back all this; by which about two thousand of us were silenced, and you fly out of your Country from the Writ de excommunicato capiendo.
§ 3. My belief of your unfeigned honesty makes one at last pity you, and wonder when you add [What more would you have?] what it was that could tempt you to contract the guilt of defending things of such publick and sad an Aspect and prospect, against such light, and after such experience of the effects, and in such a time! 1. Do you believe in your conscience, that the Bishop of York, Norwich, Lincoln, London, or the rest, with a Chancellor, and his Officials and Arch-Deacons, can possibly exercise that Discipline, or the hundredth part of it, which Christ hath appointed, were they never so honest? 2. Do you believe that a Lay-Chancellor, who you confess hath not the power of the Keys, doth or can well execute them? 3. Do you not know how little of the Parish-Government against scandals is exercised by the Bishop; and how almost is done by this Chancellor and Officials? 4. Do you not know how unlike their Courts are to fit a sinner for absolution by true Repetance? 5. Did you ever in your life know a sinner brought to a repentance seemingly unfeigned by them? 6. Did you ever hear such worthy men of greatest honesty and Learning as Dr. Lloyd, Dr. Stillingfleet, Dr. Tillotson, Mr. Sharp, &c. name any in the Pulpit or Church by way of publick admonition and invitation to repentance, who was not first censured by the Ordinary? 7. Do you think none of them would do it, if they thought it a duty, and the lawful and safe way of Discipline? 8. Do you think their Parishes have no scores or hundreds of Brutists, Atheists, Drunkards, Fornicators, or other scandalous sinners? 9. Do you think they can possibly know any thing of their peoples gross Ignorance, Infidelity, Atheism, yea, or Scandal, who can know so few of the persons? (much less can the Bishop.) 10. Do you think that it is exercise enough of this Discipline, when about 5000 in a year only communicate to leave 20000 or 30000 more, as members of the Church in that Parish, that use not to communicate, or else may come when they will extraordinarily to save them from the Law, though utterly unknown to the Minister? (And so proportionably in Parishes half as big.) And how is it possible this can be amended rebus sic stantibus? And would not so many good men amend it, were it possible? Oh draw not the guilt of so many and such things on your self without cause! Were it as small a thing as the Israelites High Places, if you cannot amend it, do not become the open defender of it. Iudas himself at last accused the Pharisees and High Priests, and justified Christ. I do not think he would have written a Confutation of Christ's reproofs, recited in Matt. 15. and 23, &c. How can you pray for a Reformation of that which you think needeth none? And hath the Church and Cause of holy Discipline lost so much of your prayers too? If you say to God, as you do to us, [What more would we have?] I am glad that God hath a firmer people that will pray for more.
§ 4. You say [As to the Chancellor and his Office, it is less matter by whom Excommunication be done, so it be honestly and soundly done. He is a Christian, he is a man of Knowledge and Learning; he is authorized by the Laws of the Kingdom; his Office is incorporate into the Government of the Nation. Though he may not bind and loose as a Pastor, he may as a Christian, authorized by the King. See Matth. 18. 15, &c.
Ans. This is a great business. 1. Why said you before, that the Power of the Keys belongs to the Pastors, &c? But you meant [not only to them.] 2. Is it the same sort of Excommunication and Absolution which belongs to the Pastor and to a Lay-man? If not, you say nothing to our business. For our Laws, Canons and Church pretend here no difference. I confess that there are three acts of separation, which the Magistrate may do. 1. He, may command Bishops and Pastors to do their Office faithfully in excommunicating notorious impenitent criminals. 2. When they are excommunicated, he may forbid them intruding into the Church. 3. He may judge the flagitious to be stigmatized, or be taken as out-lawed, and forbid men to be familiar with them.
But the Power of the Church is a power of judging what individual persons are fit or unfit for Baptism, the Eucharist, Church Entrance, and Church Communion, is the Church is the Porch of Heaven, and as a preparation to the final judgment. And it is not another sort, but this sort which the Lay-Chancellor pretendeth to exercise in the Bishop's name.
I have been thought by some to give my self too much to Magistrates in Church-matters: But I am far from your mind, for the reasons following.
1. It is notorious, that in Scripture Christ hath instituted a special Office to use these Keys, and do this work, which he would not have done, had he left it common to any others.
2. The Power of the Keys is so much of the essential comprehensive title of that Office, as that it is nullified when it is made common.
3. If this part may be done by the Lay-men or Magistrate, no man can give a reason why any of the rest may not, even not only to be the stated Teachers of the Church, and their Guides in Worship, but also Baptizing and administring the Lord's Supper. As it is more to be the Law-makers than the Cryers, and the Judge, than the Marshal; so it is more to decree who shall have the Sacraments, than barely to deliver it them, which the Deacon may do. And so we shall have not only Lay-Baptizers, but Lay-Preachers, Lay-Administers of the Lord's Supper, or by contradiction, Lay-Priests.
4. You plead for Conformity, and may easily know that the Church of England abhorreth this Opinion.
5. When King Henry the Eighth was called Head of the Church, to avoid the Papists calumnies, Queen Elizabeth and King Iames have published their disclaiming of that power of Word and Sacraments, called that of the Keys; and if my Ears deceived me not, I have heard our present King profess the same.
6. The judgment and practice of the Churches of all Ages and places since Christ, is against you; I think Helvetia it self not excepted. And should this be nothing to you, who call on us to reverence the Old Conformists?
7. The reason of the Institution fully satisfies me. It was not meet so great a trust should be placed in unfit men: As in case of Ordination, it must be men that are able to try the persons, as to skill and life, that must be trusted with so weighty a business; and also such that can have leisure to attend it; and therefore as an Office are empowered for it, and separated to it, lest it miscarry; so as to Baptism, Absolution, Excommunication, it must be done by men, 1. That are capable of full acquaintance with the person, witnesses and cause. 2. And that can try and judge of it. 3. And especially of the persons Faith and Repentance; (for it is on these that the sentence must pass:) No Baptism without Faith: No Excommunication without obstinate Impenitence: No Absolution without Repentance.) 4. It must be by men fit to exhort them to Faith and Repentance, and confute their Errours, and pray for them that God would give them Faith and Repentance. 5. And it is so great a part of the world, and all the Church of Christ, that this, or much of this must be done for, that reason shewed it needful, that it be made the work of a great and special Office. And if so, then those men that do it, 1. Must be tryed as Ordained Ministers be: 2. And Ordained to the Office of doing it: 3. And profess to do it as such Officers: 4. And not lacerate that Office, and change it, by taking a part of it, and leaving the rest: And so they must be no Lay-men.
I could with that you had studied and consulted better, before with such more than Erastian singularity you had pleaded for so dangerous a thing as Church-Levelling, or so much overthrow of the necessary sacred Office, and set your self against the judgment and practice of the Christian Church. But all men have their hour of temptation; and all do not overcome.
§ 5. You say, The Excommunication is of no force till published by the Parish-Minister, who hath power, if he please, to make it his Text, and declare the nature, use and ends, &c.
Ans. 1. I had rather have a better Text. 2. It is of force if another publish it. 3. It's part of the true Charge of the Minister himself, and will, trusting another with it, discharge him. 4. We fear being guilty of the Lay-man's Usurpation, and the Church-Confusion. 5. But worst of all, it is people fearing God that the Canon excommunicateth ipso facto, and that the Chancellor is to excommunicate. Had it been my duty to pronounce you excommunicate, because the Chancellor decreed it? 6. Where you say, If I know the sentence to be void, unjust and illegal, I am not to publish it.
Ans. Well set together. But if you know it to be unjust, and yet legal, according to the Canon, you must publish it, or be a Non-Conformist, and may be suspended: And are all the Canons Decrees just?
CHAP. XXII.
YOU speak next of the Surplice; of which I gave you no occasion. But we that know that the true meaning of the Liturgy is, that all must use it that shall be suffered to officiate, 1. Will not believe you, if you tell us the contrary hereafter, and lay it only on the Canon, and think it nothing that you are obliged to consent to, and aprove. 2. Nor will I yet believe that you will undertake to justifie the ejecting and silencing of all that dare not use the Surplice: Or if you will, you cannot. The 14th and 15th of the Romans cannot be confuted; nor the many proofs that I have given, that it reacheth our case, in my late Book for the Church's Concord. And why talk you of the Surplice, and omit the main Question, Whether we may consent to the Liturgy, Preface and Rubrick, which impose it as they do? You durst not consent to silence two thousand, or one that dare not use it.
CHAP. XXIII.
§ 1. YOur next Section is of the false Rule for finding Easter-Day. To this you say, [If really there be an Error, I assent not to it.] Ans. Nor I: Nor will I say I do when I do not. And to what purpose then do you write for Conformity, when one Lye must not be told to save our Liberty?
§ 2. But you say, It is not an Error in Divinity. Ans. What then? May I Lye about any other things?
§ 3. But you say, Some yet continue to affirm it is no Error. Ans. And what will not some Men affirm? You see how hard it is for a Non-conformist to be justified with some Men, when all the Almanacks in England cannot do it in such a point. I am too weak to deal with Men, that will not take such evidence as this.
You say, That it is questionable, whether this be any part of the Book to be assented to. Ans. You had some fair pretence to deny the act of Uniformity to be a part, though the Contents say it is, but if this be questionable, you may question (as the School-Men) so long till you leave us little unquestionable. This would increase my Resolution against Conformity, when we cannot be sure what it is that we must Assent and Consent to, and what not: How can you tell us which is or not of the Book, if this be not?
§ 4. You say, [For the time past none will lay it to the charge of the Conformists, and for the time to come it will be abated, those that shall Subscribe and Conform.]
Ans. How oft have I told you, that I am laying nothing to the Charge of others, but excusing our selves? But I cannot justifie them that will do they know not what. Especially it is sad that, when such a Convocation which is the Representative Church of England, shall all consent to draw up such things to be imposed on a Kingdom; and so great a Parliament require assent to it on the Penalties enacted and executed on so many, they should have no more honourable a defence than you make for them.
§ 5. And who it is that hath the power to abate us that which the Law so severely requireth, we do not yet know, unless it be the King, whose Mind you know not. It is the Bishop that you mean: But I doubt the Lawyers that have so lately questioned the Kings Power of Dispensation, will contradict you that give that to the Bishop which they deny the King.
CHAP. XXIV.
§ 1. THe next Section is about our Assenting to, Consenting to, and approving the many Disorders and Defects in the Liturgy. You confess there are such, and name many of them. And the sum of your Answer is, That you Assent and Consent to use the formes though disordered and defective, and the Assent and Consent is no otherwise to be understood.
Ans. Soon said, but where's the proof? 1. The words are, All things contained in, and prescribed by the Book. Is the mode and disorder none of the [All?] If I should say, I Approve, Assent, and Consent to something but not all; or the Matter, but not the Order and Manner, doth this answer the common sense of the universal words? What if the Book did say the Lord's Prayer, or Ten Commandments backward, or Baptized in the Name of the Holy Ghost, the Son, and the Father, or began as it ends, &c. may I declare that I Consent to, and approve all things contained in it, and prescribed by it?
§ 2. As to your limitation of the sense to the word Use, I have told you that the Parliament rejected it, and that it is a groundless Fiction, and that it makes your Cause no whit the better were it granted.