The Defense of the Nonconformists Plea for Grace, Part · Chapter 26
CHAP. XXVI.
§ 1. YOu next undertake to prove, that the Act of Uniformity is no part of the Book to be Consented to. The Contents say it is: You say it is not. Are these Contents part of the Book? If so, Then they are false: If not, How shall we know what is or is not part of the Book? Your Proofs are no Proofs.
1. You say, The Act it self nameth the Book as distinct from the Law. Ans. And what then? No more followeth but that the word [Book] is sometime taken in the full sense, and sometime more narrowly. So the Body is oft distinguished from the Head, and the Kingdom from the King: Will you therefore infer that the Head is no part of the Body, nor the King of the Kingdom, fully taken? The Preface is usually distinguished from the Book, and so is the Index, or Contents, Margin, Title, &c. And yet Preface, Index, Contents, Title, Margin of the Book, are all parts of the Book. Your second Proof is of the same sort.
§ 2. Your third saith, The Book must rather (if either) be a part of the Act, because it is subjoined. Would you by this rate of Argument convince us? Is the Book part of the Preface, or Contents, or Index, if these go first? Is the House part of the Porch, or the Porch part of the House? Is the Body part of the Head? or the Kingdom part of the King? or the Family part of the Porter?
But you say, It is absurd to say that the thing to which the Appendix is annexed, is part of the Appendix. It is so; therefore say not so your self. But is not the Appendix part of the Book? And doth the Acts, being placed first, make it no Appendix? And were it put in the end, were it not the same thing?
§ 3. Your Fourth is no better, viz. [The Old Act of Uniformity is a declared part of the Contents, and bound up with the Book; and if this be part, we must subscribe contradictions, to use two Common-Prayer-Books.
Ans. Is that old Act, the old Book? Is subscribing to that Act, subscribing to the old Book? Why obtrude you on us such things unproved? 2. Do you not know that the New Act not only confirmeth the Old, but also altereth the sense of it, and tells you that henceforth it shall be understood, as meaning this New Book? And as Bishop Taylor truly tells you, Laws are not the Laws of the dead, but of the living, who therefore give them what sense they please. And yet shall so sober a man tell us, That subscribing the Old Act, is subscribing the Old Book? I begin to be weary answering such reasonings as these.
§ 4. Your fifth and sixth Reasons are from the general sense and opinion of all Divines, as for you: And you say, Never any to this day did think that the 36th Canon and Subscription included the Act.
Ans. You now practice what you plead for. Can you tell what every Subscriber to this day thought? He is yet living that at the Savoy undertook to prove it an Act of Mercy to them to put all from the Sacrament that did not receive it kneeling. And you know that All the Bishops in the Lords House had their part in making that Act of Uniformity, with all its penalties. And as certainly they did consent to the making and imposing of it; so what should make you sure that they never meant (no not one of them) that any others should be bound to the same, when they put it into the Book, and put in the words [All things contained] and when it is so natural to such men to desire that all men approve of what they do? I should think it ten to one, that they that think it their duty to do such a thing, as the silencing of two thousand Ministers on those terms (or five thousand if they had not conformed,) will be very much concerned to have their act approved: And that they that will not endure us to speak in the praying Desk, or at either Sacrament to God in any one word but what they write down for us to say, are likely to desire that we may be also bound to approve of their Sanctions of this Law. But I am sure you speak that which you know not to be true.
§ 5. To your Seventh I answer, What would have plainer than the express Assertion of the Contents themselves?
§ 6. In your Eighth you say, [Many Conformable men think Nothing in the Book is to be assented to, but what is ordinarily to be read, and the Ceremonies to be used.] Ans. Put this down then as one point of our Nonconformity, which deserveth silencing; and ruine that, when we cannot profess to [Assent and Consent to all things contained and prescribed in the Book] and mean by [All things, only the Ceremonies, and so much as is ordinarily to be read.] But again, teach not Papists to expound the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy at this rate.
§ 7. You say, 1. That the Title is no part of an Act of Parliament. 2. Nor any but the Mandatory is part of a Law.
Ans. But you might have known that we will not believe you: Why then should you thus put us off with your bare word? Though the word [Law] (as all words) be equivocally oft used, and taken for the chief part, yet as properly taken, and pertinently to our question, we will yet believe whatever you say, 1. That the prefatory Reasons, and the penal and premiant Sanctions, are parts of the Act and Law. 2. Yea, that the Title is part of the Act, if it be made and prefixed, and promulgate with it by the Legislators.
But I will tell you how you may know: If you openly deprave all the rest of the Law or Book, and some one indict you for it, the Judge may satisfie you better than I can.
§ 8. But you are never so confident as where you are most overseen. You say, Our strongest reason from the Contents doth most strongly confute it self. This Title is not only part of your proof, but all that I can see. For that which you take for your proof, that [Then the Old Act of Uniformity, and consequently two Books, are consented to, and our Governours speak non-sense] is either worse than non-sense, or I understand not sense from non-sense. I have called before for your proof, that [Two Acts are two Common-Prayer-Books] when the latter establisheth the former expresly, as binding only to the New Book! The words are [Be it enacted—That the several good Laws and Statutes of this Realm, which have been formerly made, and are now in force for the Uniformity of Prayer, &c. shall stand in full force and strength, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, for the establishing and confirming of the said Book entitled, &c. herein before mentioned, and shall be applyed, practised, and put in use for the punishing of all offences contrary to the said Laws, with relation to the Book aforesaid, and no other.] And they have caused the Act of Elizabeth, to be bound with this Book, as it was with the Old: And doth this infer two Books from two Acts, &c? Alas Brother! that we should trouble and wrong the world at this rate of unadvised confidence. This old Canonical Subscription is also continued; and yet it is here enacted, that it shall mean only this New Book, and no other.
You add, If the Printer, or any other through oversight bind up the Apocrypha, and put in the Contents of the Holy Bible, is it a part of it?
Ans. 1. It is not the Printer's act, but the Law-maker's that we have to do with.
2. If the Law-maker cause the Printer to put the Apocrypha in the Bible, and call it a part of it in the Contents, I will say that he declareth it to be a part, though I believe him not. And I will call God's Word his Word, if Aesop's Fables be bound with it; and I will subscribe to God's Word. But if the Law-maker bind other Books with it, and in the Contents call them part of the Book, and then bid me declare Assent and Consent to all things in that Book, I will not obey him.