Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Part 2 · Section 12 · Floating text 3 – Floating text 4

Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times · Part 2 · Section 12 · Floating text 3 – Floating text 4

p. 391The Solemn League and Covenant.

WE Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, … gesses, Ministers of the Gospel, and Commous of all … in the Kingdoms of Scotland …England, and Ireland, by the P… vidence of God living under one King, and being of one Reformed Religion, having before our Eyes the Glory of God, and the Advancement of the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Iesus Christ, the Honour and Happiness of the King's Majesty, and his Posterity, and the true Publick Liberty, Safety, and Peace of the Kingdoms, wherein every ones private Condition is included: And calling to mind the tr…atherous and bloody Piots, Conspiracies, Attempts and Practises of the Enemies of God against the true Religion and Professors thereof in places, especially in these three Kingdoms ever since the Reformation of Religion, and how much their Rage, Power, and Presumption are of late, and at this time increased and exercised, whereof the deplorable Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Ireland, the distressed Estate of the Church and Kingdom of England, and the dangerous Estate of the Church and Kingdom of Scotland, are present and publick Cestimonies: We have now at last (after other means of Supplication, Remonstrance, Protestations and Sufferings) for the preservation of our selves and our Religion from utter Ruine and Destruction, according to the Commendable Practice of these kingdoms in former times, and the Example of God's People in other Nations, after mature Deliberation, resolved and determined to enter into a Mutual and Solemn League and Covenant: Wherein we all Subscribe, and each one of us for himself, with our Hands lifted up to the most high God, …o swear:

1. THat we shall sincerely, really and constantly, through the Grace of God, endeavour in our several Places and Callings, the Preservation of the Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, against our Common Enemies: The Reformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, in Doctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government according to the Word of God, and the Example of the best Reformed Churches. And shall endeavour to bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms, to the nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, Directory for Worship and Catechizing. That we and our Posterity after us, may, as Brethren, live in Faith and Love, the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us.

2. That we shall in like manner, without respect of Persons, endeavour the Extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (that is, Church-Government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commistaties, Deans, Deans and Chapters, Arch-deacons, and all other Ecclesiastical Officers depending on that Hierachy) Superstition, Heresie, Schism, Prophaneness, and whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound Doctrine and the power of Godliness, lest we partake in other mens sins, and thereby be in danger to receive of their plagues: And that the Lord may be one, and his Name one in the three Kingdoms.

3. We shall with the same sincerity, reality and constancy in our several Uocations, endeavour with our Estates and Lives, mutually to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of the Parliaments, and the Liberties of the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesties Person and Authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms: That the world may bear witness with our Consciences of our Loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to diminish his Majesties just Power and Greatness.

p. 3924. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all such as have been, or shall be Incendiaries, Malignants, or, evil Instruments, by hindring the Reformation of Religion, dividing the King from his People, or one of the Kingdoms from another, or making any faction, or Parties, amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant, That they may be brought to publick Trial, and receive Condign Punishment, as the degree of their Offences shall require or deserve, or the Supream Iudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively, or others having power from them for that effect, shall …udge convenient.

5. And whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms, denied in former times to our Progenitors, is by the good Providence of God granted unto us, and hath been latlely concluded, and setled by both Parliaments, We shall each one of us, according to our place and interest, endeavour that they may remain conjoyned in a firm Peace and Union to all Posterity; and that Iustice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof, in manner expressed in the precedent Article.

6. We shall also according to our Places and Callings, in this common Cause of Religion, Liberty, and Peace of the Kingdoms, assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant, in the maintaining and pursuing thereof; And shall not suffer our selves directly or indirectly, by whatsoever Combination, Perswasion or Terrour, to be divided and withdrawn from this blessed Union and Conjunction, whether to make defection to the contrary part, or to give our selves to a detestable indifferency, or neutrality in this Cause, which so much concerneth the Glory of God, the Good of the Kingdoms, and Honour of the King; But shall all the days of our Lives zealously and constantly continue therein, against all Opposition, and promote the same according to our power, against all Lets and Impediments whatsoever; And that we are not able our selves to suppress or overcome, we shall reveal and make known, that it may be timely prevented or removed: All which we shall do as in the sight of God.

And because these Kingdoms are guilty of many Sins and Provocations against God, and his Son Iesus Christ, as is too manifest by our present Distresses and Dangers, the Fruits thereof, We profess and declare before God and the World, our unfeigned desire to be humbled for our own Sins and for the Sins of these Kingdoms, especially that we have not, as we ought, valued the inestimable benefit of the Gospel, that we have not laboured for the purity and power thereof, and that we have not endeavoured to receive Christ in our hearts, nor to walk worthy of him in our lives, which are the Causes of other Sins and Transgressions so much abounding amongst us, And our true and unfeigned purpose, desire, and endeavour for our selves, and all others under our power and charge, both in publick and in private, in all Duties we owe to God and Man, to amend our Lives, and each one to go before another in the Example of a real Reformation; That the Lord may turn away his Wrath, and heavy Indignation, and establish these Churches and Kingdoms in Truth and Peace. And this Covenant we make in the presence of Almighty God, the Searcher of all hearts, with a true intention to perform the same, as we shall answer at that great Day when the Secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed; Most humbly beseeching the Lord to strengthen us by his Holy Spirit for this end, and to bless our Desires and Proceedings with such Success, as may be Deliverance and Safety to his People, and encouragement to other Christian Churches groaning under, or in danger of the Yoke of Antichristian Tyranny to ioyn in the same, or like Association and Covenant, to the Glory of God, the Inlargement of the Kingdom of Iesus Christ, and the Peace and Tranquility of Christian Kingdoms and Commonwealths.

p. 393The Oath and Declaration imposed upon the Lay-Conformists in the Corporation Act, the Vestry Act, &c. are as followeth:

The Oath to be taken.

I. A. B. do declare and believe, That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever, to take up Arms against the King; and that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person, or against those that are Commissioned by him. So help me God.

The Declaration to be Subscribed.

I. A. B. do declare, That I hold there lyes no Obligation upon me, or any ot her Person, from the Oath commonly called, The Solemn League and Covenant; and that the same was in it self an unlawful Oath, and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom.

All Vestry Men to make and Subscribe the Declaration following.

I. A. B. do declare, That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever, to take Arms against the King; and that I do abhor that Traiterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person, or against those that are Commissioned by him: And that I will Conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England, as it is now by Law established; And I do declare, That I do hold there lyes no Obligation upon me, or any other Person, from the Oath commonly called, The Solemn League and Covenant, to indeavour any Change or Alteration of Government either in Church or State; and that the same was in it self an unlawful Oath, and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom.

The Declaration: thus Prefaced in the Act of Uniformity; [Every Minister —after such reading thereof shall openly and publickly before the Congregation there assembled, declare his unfeigned Assent and Consent to the use of all things in the said Book contained and prescribed, in these words and no other.

I. A. B. do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book, Instituted, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the use of the Church of England; together with the Psalter or Psalms of David; pointed as they are to be sung or said in Churches; and the Forms or Manner of Making, Ordaining, and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons.

The Declaration to be Subscribed.

I. A. B. d… declare, That it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever, to take Arms against the King; and that I abhor that Trayterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person, or against those that are Commissionated by him; and that I will Conform to the Liturgy of the Church of England as it is now by Law established: And I do declare that I do hold there lyes no Obligation upon me, or any other Person, from the Oath commonly called, The Solemn League and Covenant, to endeavour any Change or Alteration of Government, either in Church or State; and that the same was in it self a… unlawful Oath, and imposed upon the Subjects of this Realm, against the known Laws and Liberties of this Kingdom.

p. 394The Oath of Canonical Obedience.

EGo A. B. Iuro quod praestabo Veram & Canonicam Obedientiam Episcopo Londinens… ejusque Successoribus in omnibus licitis & honestis.

§ 302. II. The Nonconformists, who take not this Declaration, Oath, Subscription, &c. are of divers sorts, some being further distant from Conformity than others; some thinking that some of the forementioned things are lawful, and some that none of them are lawful: and all have not the same Reasons for their dissent. But all are agreed that it is not lawful to do all that is required, and therefore they are all cast out of the Exercise of the Sacred Ministry, and forbidden to preach the Word of God.

§ 303. The Reasons commonly given by them are either, 1. Against the Imposing of the things forementioned; or, 2. Against the Using of them being imposed. Those of the former sort were given into the King and Bishops before the Passing of the Act of Uniformity, and are laid down in the beginning of this Book; and the Opportunity being now past, the Nonconformists now meddle not with that part of the Cause, it having seemed good to their Superiours to go against their Reasons. But this is worthy the noting by the way, that all that I can speak with of the Conforming Party, do now justifie only the Using and Obeying, and not the Imposing of these things with the Penalty by which they are Imposed: From whence it is evident, that most of their own Party do now justifie our Cause which we maintained at the Savoy, which was against this Imposition (whilst it might have been prevented), and for which such an intemperate Fury hath pursued me to this very day. 2. But it is the Reasons against our full Obedience to the Imposition of this Conformity, which I am now to rehearse: but I must desire the Reader to remember, that my bare Recital is no sign of my Approbation of all that I recite, though I be one of those that dare not Conform.

§ 304. And first there are divers general Reasons which keep some of them more than others from Conformity, and drive them further, even from joyning with them in Liturgy or Sacrament.

1. Some of them look upon the Principles and Lives of many of those who fall in with the establisht Church, as furnishing them with a sufficient Plea against Conformity: For, say they, it's easie to observe how the Prophane and Vitious and Debaucht and Scandalous (which makes up but too great a part of the Nation), fall in with that Party in the Church that are for Prelacy and Liturgy, &c. and for oppressing those who differ in their Sentiments from them about these Matters. Now how say they, can we safely joyn in with that Body of Men, that harbours so many open Enemies to all Religion, as the prophane part of the Nation comprehends? But some who are more considerate, reply, That this is no other than what is the usual Attendant of a National Establishment; it being a common thing for all those in a State, who are really of no Religion, in appearance to fall in with that Mode of Religion that is favour'd by the Law, and most encouraged by the Prince.

§ 305. 2. The same Persons say, That by Conforming they shall own and strengthen Usurpers; who have made a New Office which Christ never made, and to the great wrong of Christ, and the peril of the Church, have made themselves Lords of God's Heritage: And as he that obeyeth the Pope's Law, is guilty of his Usurpation, so is he that obeyeth the Prelates Laws, though the Matter commanded were lawful in it self.

But the moderater Nonconformists are not for this Reason; because, say they, it is but Counsel as it cometh from the Convocation; and it is the King and Parliament that make a Law of it, whom we must obey in lawful things. And they say further, That we must not forbear a Duty, for fear of Encouraging Men's Usurpations.

§ 306. They say also, 3. That these Impositions are done by the Prelates in meer design to root out godly Ministers and Christians: And that when they feared that the old Conformity would not serve turn, they have added such new Materials of set purpose, which keep out a Thousand at least that would have yielded to p. 395the Old Conformity: And what they aim at further, when they have thus driven out all the able, faithful Ministers, God knoweth. But if we set in with them, and use the very means which they have …bricated for this very end, to destroy the Interest of Godliness, though the Act commanded were indifferent, we are made guilty of their Sin.

But the moderate Nonconformists say, That such Reasons as these are good Seconds where the Matter is first proved evil: but 1. That Mens Designs are late…t in their hearts, and the strongest Conjectures will not serve instead of Proof. 2. If that it were known to any one of us, not by the Evidence of the thing, but by some other Discovery, that a lawful thing is Commanded with a pernicious design, that will not excuse us from our Obedience, unless it be probable that the Church, is like to be saved from ruine, by our forbearance to obey: And we may do the thing commanded without any participation of the Guilt of Mens private malicious Intentions.

§ 307. 4. Also they say, That we have Covenanted to endeavour a Reformation, and had begun it, and therefore shall be Covenant-breakers and Backsliders, if we yield to any thing which was to be reformed.

But here the more moderate have many Distinctions, between things unlawful and things only inconvenient, and between those that have opportunity to do better, and those that have not, and between seldom Communion, and most ordinary. And they say that things unlawful must not be done, whether we have covenanted against them, or not: But for things only inexpedient or evil by a superable Accident, they become our Duties, and no Covenant disobligeth us from our Duty: and that the Covenant never was intended to oblige us to prefer no Worship before that which is defective, but only to prefer that which is better before it: And that it may be a duty to Communicate sometime with a very faulty Church, in order to our Catholick Communion with the whole, so be it our ordinary particular Communion be in the purest Church and Order (caeteris paribus) that we can have.

§ 308. 5. And another Reason given is, That the Aggravation of the Sin of these Imposers is very great, that they have been Persecutors heretofore, and seen and felt God's Judgments for it, and have been convinced and intreated to return to Charity, and yet they have, with renewed Malice, set themselves to the debauching of the Consciences of the Kingdom, and to the extirpation of Natural Honesty, and have branded all their Party with the Mark of Perjury, Perfidiousness, and Persecution, while they brand the Consciencious with the Name of Puritans; And therefore they are a Generation ready for perdition, and certainly near some heavy Curse: And for us to joyn with them that are in the way to Wrath, is the way to be partakers of their Plagues.

But the moderate say to this, 1. That the Extenuation as well as the Aggravation of their Sin must be considered: And that it must be remembred, that among the Nonconformists there is a Party of Sectaries, that Rebelled against all the Governours that were over them, and cut off the King's Head, when they had conquered those that are now against them, in the Field, and sequestred their Estates: And that such great Provocation may not only sublimate Malice where it findeth it, but greatly exasperate even temperate Men. 2. That it's true that we must partake with no Men in their Sin, as ever we would escape their Plagues: but when that which is the Imposers Sin, is become the Subjects Duty, God will not plague us with them for doing our Duties. 3. That it is dangerous to presume to forete… on whom God will bring his Judgments in this Life, and to pre…ume that we are safe, and they are near perdition; while all things come alike to all, and the differencing Day of Judgment is not yet come. Therefore it is dangerous on such Prophesies, or Presumptions, or Fears to go out of the way of any Duty, or to avoid any lawful Communion with the Church.

§ 309. 6. Again it is said, That these Impositions being the Engines of Division in the Church (as Mr. Hales himself affirmeth), we shall be partakers of the Schisms if we use them.

But the moderate say, That indeed if we partake in the Imposition, we partake in the Guilt of the Division caused by it: But when they are Imposed, we may do that which in it self is lawful, without any consent to the Imposition at all: Yea, and that which as imposed tendeth to Division, may, upon supposition that it will be, and is imposed, be practised sometimes as the way to Unity, and to avoid Division.

p. 396§ 310. 7. Lastly it is said, That the Necessity which is pretended for this Conformity, is none at all: For, 1. As to a Necessity of Communion with the Church Catholick, it requireth not Personal, Local Communion with each particular Congregation; but that at a distance we own them so far as they are to be owned. 2. And for the Escaping of Punishment from Men, there is no necessity of it, nor yet of our Personal Liberty to preach the Gospel, when we cannot do it upon lawful Terms.

But to this the moderate Nonconformists say, That 1. our Catholick Communion requireth that we in Judgment or Practice separate from no Church of Christ which forceth us not to sin, but hold Communion with them as we have a Call and Opportunity. And that we must not separate from one, upon a Cause that is common to almost all. 2. That though there be no Necessity of our escaping Persecution, nor any absolute Necessity of our Personal Preaching, yet there is of this last an ordinate Hypothetical Necessity laid upon us by God himself; and wo to us if we preach not when we may. So that you see that these general Reasons which some Nonconformists extend to all, the moderate allow only as Seconds against those things which first are proved unlawful.

§ 311. I. For the particular Controversie about Diocesans: 1. Some of the Nonconformists are against all Bishops, as distinct from Presbyters, by any other than a Temporary Presidency or Moderatorship. But the most of them of my Acquaintance are for the lawfulness of some stated Episcopacy; that is, that there be fixed Presidents or Bishops in every particular Church they take to be lawful, as of Humane Constitution and Ecclesiastical Custom, contrary to no Law of God. 2. That there be more general Overseers of many of these Bishops and Churches, as the Apostles were (though without their extraordinary Call and Priviledges) they think also lawful, if not in some fort of Divine Institution: 1. Because Church-Government being an ordinary standing work, in that the Apostles were to have Successors. 2. Because they think it incredible if the Apostles had been against particular Primitive Episcopacy, that no Church or Person would have been found on Record to have born witness against it, till it had been so universally received by all the Churches.

But they are all agreed that the English Diocesan Frame of Government, and so the Popish Prelacy, is unlawful, and of dangerous tendency in the Churches. And that this Controversie may be understood, the English Frame must here be opened.

§ 312. There are in England two Archbishops, and under one of them four Bishops, and under the other One and twenty Bishops: In all Five and twenty Bishops, with Two Archbishops. Every Bishop hath a Cathedral Church which is no Parish Church, nor hath any People appropriated to it as Parishioners: But a Dean with a Chapter of Prebends or Canons, are the Preachers to it, and Governours of—I know not whom. In some Bishopricks are Three hundred, some Four hundred, some Five hundred, some One thousand, some Twelve hundred Parishes, and some more. In the greatest Parishes of London are about Threescore thousand Souls (as Martyns, Stepney, Giles Cripplegate): in others about Thirty thousand (as Giles's in the Fields, Sepulchres): in others about Twenty thousand; and in the lesser Parishes fewer. Usually the greater Country Parishes in Market Towns have about Four thousand, or Three thousand, or Two thousand Souls: and the ordinary Rural Parishes about One thousand in the bigger sort, and Two hundred or Three hundred in the lesser; some more, and some less. In these Parishes the Ministers who have watched over them, (and of late times instructed and catechised every Family and Person, young and old, apart in many places) do find that the number of those that are ignorant of the Person and Office of Christ, and the Essentials of Christianity, and of all Religion, and of those that are ordinary Drunkards, Whoremongers, Prophane Swearers, Cursers, Railers, or otherwise notoriously Scandalous or Ungodly, is not small. For the Government of these (besides preaching to them, and exhorting them, and giving them the Sacraments), the Parish Minister hath no power: He hath no power of judging whole Children he shall baptize; but must refuse none, though the Parents be professed Heathens or Infidels, if Godfathers and Godmothers bring them to be baptized (who yet never adopt them, nor meddle more as Owners of them with their Education, and perhaps know not what Baptism or Christianity is themselves). They have no power to judge what Persons of their Parish shall be confirmed, or admitted into the number of Adult Communicants: so that all their Flocks are imposed on them. They have no more power than any private Man, to admonish the Scandalous before Witness or to admonish them before the Church, or pray for p. 397their Repentance by Name, or to judge who is to be cast out of the Communion of the Church, or to be Absolved, nor to deny the Sacrament to any, unless for a particular time, when he is just going to Administer it, he see any there that are notoriously guilty, and he take them then aside, and they will not so much as say, We will do better: And it is uncertain whether he may. Suspend any of these, but the Malicious that will not be reconciled: So that the Ministers may read Prayers and Preach, and may read an Excommunication or Absolution when it is sent them, and may, if they please, joyn with the Churchwarden as Informers, to present some Men to the Bishops Court, but Church-Government is denied them.

The Government then of all these Churches, and Exercise of Holy Discipline, belongeth to the Bishops in Title; but the Bishops do and must Exercise it in their Courts or Consistories. In every Diocess there is one of these Courts, where the Ordinary Judge is the Bishop's Chancellour, a Lay-man, and a Civil Lawyer (though in many Cases the Bishop may fit himself if he please): The Court hath also a Register, and Proctors to plead Mens Causes, as Counsellers in Civil Courts: And they have some Fellows called Apparators, who are their Messengers for Citation, besides the Churchwardens Presentments, who bring them in Custom. This Court is to hear all considerable Causes, and determine them by Excommunications or Absolutions, and to send their Excommunications or Absolutions written to the Parish Priest, who is to read them. But pro forma when the Lay-Chancellour hath resolved who shall be Excommunicated, they have a Clergy-Presbyter present to speak the Sentence in the Court, who yet hath no power, but of meer Pronunciation, but is a Ceremony to put off the Odium from the Lay-Judge. And if he have power as a Presbyter, why do the Bishop appropriate it to themselves? If one that is no Bishop may exercise it when a Bishop bids him, then is it not a thing appropriate to the Bishop's Office. Besides these there are Arch-Deacons, who by themselves, or their Officials, hold some kind of Inferiour Court, which dealeth in lesser Matters: Some Diocesses have one Arch-Deacon, some two, some few three or four. The Bishops should go visit once a year, and the Arch-Deacon oftner: When they visit they go to some chief Town in the County, and call all the Ministers to meet them, where they hear a Sermon, and Dine together usually. They yearly compile a Book of Articles which Churchwardens are sworn to enquire after, and to present the Names of the Offenders accordingly to the Bishop's Court. In brief, this is the Frame of our Diocesan Government. To which I only add, That Fees and Money for Commutation of Penance are much of their Officers Maintenance; and that such as they Excommunicate in most Cases, are by a Writ De Excommunicato Capiendo to be laid in the Jail, till upon their Repentance they have made their Peace, and are absolved.

§ 313. Having told you what our Government is, let me tell you what the Execution of it is. The Books of Articles are fitted somewhat to the Canon, by those Bishops that are most moderate and cau…elous, and therefore by the English Canons: they may be known: some of them usually are against Drunkards and Fornicators; but the main bent of them is against those that wear not the Surplice, that Baptize without the Cross, that omit the Common Prayer, that refuse to Baptize any Infant; or that deliver the Lord's Supper to any that kneel not in receiving it; or that so receive it without kneeling; that stand no… up at the Gospel, that bow not at the Name Iesus, (though they may sit when the same words are read in the Chapter, and are not required to how at the Name [Christ, God] &c.) Also about the Repair of the Church, the Surplice, the Books; that none piss up to the Church-wall, &c. with many such things. It is a rare thing for the Churchwardens to present any, except Nonconformists, that use not Ceremonies, &c. Swearers, Drunkards, and Whoremongers are seldom presented, lest Neighbours be displeased: but Puritans have some one or other that is more eager in looking after them. When any Scandalous Person is presented, he hath no other Spiritual Conviction or Exhoration to Repentance, tending to Convert his Soul, than at any Civil Court; But telling them that he is Sorry, and paying his Fees or Commutation Money, he comes home: But when Conscientious Nonconformists are before them, whose Consciences will not let them say that they are Sorry (viz… for praying or exhorting others in their Houses, for giving the Sacrament to them that stand or sit, &c.) they are usually Excommunicated. I have been in most parts of England, and in Fifty years time I never saw one do Penance, or confess his Sin in publick, for any Scandalous Crime; nor ever heard but of two in the Country where I lived (that stood in a White sheet for Adultery) (except in the space when Bishops were down, and then I have heard many that have penitently confessed p. 398their Sin, and begged the Prayers of the Congregation, and been prayed for): In a word, their Courts are meerly as Civil Courts, for Terrour, but not at all to convince Men of Sin, and bring them to Repentance and Salvation, further than such Terrour is …it to do it. And note here, That the Discipline of the Church is not to be judged of by the King's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs, which was never executed before it was void, in these respects: Nor yet by some of our Reformers or Chroniclers, who tell you how it was exercised quickly after the Reformation in King Edward's or Queen Elizabeth's days: As Hollingshead, e. g. who telleth you of many Suffragans, and of the Piety and Diligence of their Courts, and of Exercises called Prophesying held up at the Arch-Deacons Visitations (against the Subverters of which he thundereth): But as it is in England at this day, and hath been this Sixty or Seventy years by-past.

§ 314. Now concerning this Diocesan Frame of Government, the Non-Subscribers (called Puritans by many) do judge that it is sinful and contrary to the Word of God, both in the Constitution and in the Administration of it. And they lay upon it these heavy Charges, the least of which if proved, is of intolerable weight.

§ 315. 1. They say, That quantum in se it destroyeth the Pastoral Office, which is of Divine Institution, and was known in the Primitive Church: for it doth deprive the Presbyters of the third essential part of their Office: for it is clear in Scripture, that Christ appointed no Presbyters, that were not subservient to him in all the three parts of his Office, as Prophet, Priest and King, to stand between the People and him in Teaching, Worshipping and Governing: And though the Actual Exercise of any one part, may be Suspended without the Destruction of the Office, yet to the Office it self (which is nothing but Power and Obiligation to exercise) one part is as essential as the other: so then they say, that [That which destroyeth an essential part of the Pastors or Presbyters Office, destroyeth the Office as instituted by Christ]. But the Diocesan state of Government destroyeth, &c.—Ergo—.

The Major will not be denied: The Minor hath two parts; 1. That governing Power and Obligation (over the Flock) is essential to the Office of a Pastor or Presbyter as instituted by Christ. Which they prove thus; 1. The very Name of Presbyter and Pastor denoteth the Governing Power, and was then used in that sence (as Dr. H…mmond Dr. Hammond. Annotat. in 1 Cor. 20. 28. Lit. g.hath well proved) 2. There is no such thing found in all the New Testament as a Presbyter that had not the Power of Governing his Flock as well as Teaching it. He that can find it, let him: Dr. Hammond hath gone over all the Texts in proving it. 3. The Church long after knew no such Presbyters as had not the Spiritual Government of the Flock. 4. The Papists confess that they have the Power of the Keys in foro interiori to this day; which is the Spiritual Government.

2. The second part of the Minor, That the Diocesan Form denieth this Governing Power to the Presbyters, appeareth 1. By their own Confessions … 2. By the Actual Constitution, disabling them, and placing the Power elsewhere. 3. By the instance of the …orementioned Particulars, and many more: They have not the power of judging who shall be taken into their Churhes as Members by Baptism, or Confirmed, or who shall Communicate, or who is to be publickly Admonished, Censured, Excommunicated, Absolved; buried as a Brother dying in Christ, &c. no nor what Chapter to read in the Church, nor what Garment to wear, nor what words of Prayer to put up to God: in all which they are meer Executioners of other Mens Judgments, as a Cryer or such other Messenger.

§ 316. 2. The second Charge against this Diocesan Prelacy is, That it introduceth a New Humane Species or Presbyters or Spiritual Officers, instead of Christ's, which it destroyeth: that is, a sort of meer Subject Presbyters, that have no power of Government but meerly to Teach and Worship. That this is a distinct Species, is proved in that 1. It wanteth an essential part which the other Species hath. 2. From the Bishop's own profession, who in the beginning of the Book of Ordination (Subscribed to) do declare it plainly determined in Scripture, viz. That Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are three distinct Order… which word Orders is the common term to signifie a Species of Church Officers distinct from a meer degree in the same Order or Species.

That this Office is New, is proved 1. In that Scripture or Antiquity never knew it. 2. Dr. Hammond Annot. in Act. 11. and in his Latin Book against Blondell (Dissertat.) professeth that it cannot be proved that the word Bishop, Presbyter, or Pastor, signifieth in all the Scripture any other than a proper Bishop; or that there was any p. 399such as we now all Presbyters in Scripture times. And in his Answer to the London Ministers, he saith, That for ought he knoweth, all his Brethren of the Church of England are of his mind: So that Presbyters that had no Governing Power, were not in Scripture times. And though he says that the other sort came in before Ignatiu's time, yet 1. He saith not that this sort had no Government of the Flock, but that they were under the Bishop in Government; so that yet they are not the sort that we are speaking of. 2. And he doth not prove any more.

§ 317. 3. A third Charge which they bring against our Prelacy is, That it destroyeth the Species or Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ: The Churches which Christ instituted are [Holy Societies associated for Personal holy Communion under their particular Pastors]: But all such Societies are destroyed by the Diocesan Frame—Ergo it is destructive of the Form of particular Churches instituted by Christ.

The distinguish between [Personal Local Communion of Saints, by Pastors and their Flocks] and Communion of hearts only; and Communion by Delegation or Deputies: 1. We have Heart-Communion with all the Catholick Church through the World. 2. Particular Churches have Communion for Concord and mutual Strength, in Synods by their Pastors or Deputies. 3. But [a holy Communion of Souls or individual Persons, as Members of the same particular Church, for publick Worship and a holy Life] is specifically distinct from both the former, as is apparent, 1. By the distinct end; 2. The distinct manner of Communion, yea and the matter of it.

And that this Form of Churches (or Species) is overthrown by this Prelacy, they prove: [The Churches of Christ's institution were constituted of Governing Pastors, and a Flock governed by them in Personal holy Communion, every Church having its proper Pastor, or Pastors]. But such Churches as are thus constituted are destroyed by our Frame of Prelacy: Ergo—

The Major is confessed de facto by Dr. Hammond (ubi supra) as to Scripture times, and sufficiently cleared in my Treatise of Episcopacy. Ignatius his Testimony alone might suffice, who saith, That [to every Church there was one Altar, and one Bishop, with the Presbyters and Deacons his Fellow Servants]. A Church of one Altar, and of a thousand Altars; A Church that is for Personal Communion, and a Church that hath no Personal Communion with her Pastor or Bishop, or with one of a hundred of her Fellow-Members, a Church which is a Church indeed, and that which is no Church, but only a part of a Church, are more than specifically distinct; for indeed the Name is but equivoeally applied to them as distinct Natures or Societies. Every Church (univocally so called in sensu politico, as a governed Society) hath its pars guberna…s and pars gubernata to constitute it: But so have not our Parish Churches as such: indeed, as Oratories and Schools (as instructed and worshipping Societies) they have their Parochial Heads; but as governed Societies they have no Heads proper to themselves, nor any at all as Churches, but as parts of a Church: For the Diocesan is Head of the Diocesan Church as such, and not of a Parochial Church as such, but only as a part of the Diocesan Church. And as it is no Kingdom which hath no King, so it is no Political Church which hath no Governour or Pastor. So that Diocesans destroy particular Churches, as much as in them lyeth. Unless any will say, that as one King as he is persona naturalis, may be three, or twenty Kings, as persona civilis, as related to several Kingdoms; and so one Bishop, as persona naturalis, may yet be a thousand Ecclesiastical Persons, as Pastor of so many Churches: But this being ridiculous, and yet said by none that I have heard of, I shall not stand to confute it.

But were it so, yet a Pastor that never seeth or speaketh to his People, nor hath any personal Communion in Worship with them, and this according to the Constitution it self, is not of the same sort with a Scripture Pastor, 1 Thess. 5. 12, 13. Hebr. 13. 17, &c. which labour among them, and preach to them the Word of God, and watch for their Souls, &c. And consequently the Churches constituted by them are not of the same Species, It is one Office personally to Teach, Oversee, Rule and Worship with them; and another to do none of these to one of a thousand, but to send the Churchwardens a Book of Articles.

§ 318. 4. A fourth Charge is, That it setteth up a New Church-Form which is unlawful, instead of that of Christ's institution; that is, a Diocesan Church consisting of many hundred Parishes (which none of them are Churches according to the Diocesan Frame, but parts of one Church): It hath been shewed that this Diocesan Church is of another Species than the Parochial, one being for personal Communion, p. 400which the other is uncapable of; the far greatest part of the Members never seeing their Pastor, nor knowing one another any more than if they lived in several parts of the World. And that this Church Form is new, is proved already; that is, that there was no Diocesan Church having many stated Congregations and Altars, (much less many hundreds) and all under one only Bishop or Governour, either in Scripture time, or two hundred years after, excepting only that in Alexandria and Rome, some shew of more Assemblies than one under one Bishop, appeared a little sooner.)

Here note, That it is not an Archbishop's Church that we are speaking of, who is but the General Pastor or Bishop, having other Bishops and Churches under him; but it is a Church infimae Speciei, commonly called a particular Church, which hath no other Churches or Bishops under it. And that none such was in Scripture times, Dr. Hammond hath manifested (there being then no Presbyters distinct from Bishops, as he faith on Act. 11.) And that there was none such of long time after, is abundantly proved in my Treatise of Episcopacy.

§ 319. 5. The fifth Charge against the Diocesan Form is, That it extirpateth the ancient Episcopacy: which they prove, by what is said already: The ancient Bishops were the Heads of the Presbyters and People of one single Church only: To every Church, saith Ignatius, there is one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters, and the Deacons my Fellow Servants. There was then no Bishop infimae Speciei as distinct from an Archbishop, that had more than one Altar and Church: But now all these Bishops of particular Churches are put down, and no Church of one Altar hath a Bishop of its own, but only a Church consisting of many hundred Worshipping Churches. In the ancient times every City that had a Congregation of Christians had a Bishop: But now every Bishop hath many Cities under him, which have all but one Bishop. For all our Corporations, called Oppida, Towns, or Burroughs, were then such as the word foreign signified, though we have appropriated the English word [City] to some few, that have that Title as honorary in favour from the Prince.

§ 320. 6. The sixth Charge is, That instead of the ancient Bishops, a later sort of Bishops is introduced, of a distinct Species from all the ancient Bishops: for then there were none but meer Bishops of particular Churches, and the Archbishops, Metropolitans, and Patriarchs that had the general oversight of these. But ours are of neither of these sorts: They are not Bishops of particular worshipping Churches that have one Altar; but have hundreds of such: Nor are they Archbishops; for they have no Bishops under them: But they are just such as the Archbishops or Metropolitans in those days would have been, if they had put down all the Bishops that were under them, and taken all the Charge of Government on themselves, leaving only Teaching Priests with the People: Even as the Papists feign Gregory to have meant, when he so vehemently denied the Title of Universal Bishop, as putting down the Inferiour Bishops: Now any Man that thinketh the Species of Episcopacy described by Ignatius, and used in the Primitive times, to be of Divine, or Apostolical Institution, must needs think that a Species which having deposed them all, doth stand up in their stead, is utterly unlawful. And therefore this Argument against Diocesans is not managed by the Presbyterians as such, but by those that are for the Primitive Episcopacy.

§ 321. 7. The seventh Charge against the Diocesan Form, (and that which sticketh more than all the rest) is, That it maketh the Church Goverment or Discipline which Christ hath commanded, and all the ancient Churches practised, to be a thing impossible to be done, and so excludeth it; and therefore is unlawful: For to dispute Who shall be the Governours of the Church, when the meaning is, Whether there shall be any Government at all (of that sort which Christ commandeth) is the present practise. For the clearing of this, these Questions are to be debated.

Quest 1. Whether Christ hath instituted any Church-Discipline?

2. What that Discipline is which he hath instituted?

3. How many Parishes there be in a Diocess, and Persons in a Parish, who are to be the Objects of this Discipline?

4. Who they be that in England are to exercise this Discipline?

§ 322. 1. And for the first Question, It is agreed on by all Protestants that I know of, except some of those that are called Erastians; I say, some of them: for I think there are very few even of the Erastians that deny it. Dr. Hammond hath written a Treatise for it, Entitled, Of the Power of the Keys: yea the Papists differ not from the Protestants in this point. It will therefore be labour in vain to prove it.

p. 401§ 323. 2. And as to the second Question, [What this Discipline is?] It is considerable, 1. As to the Matter; 2. As to the Persons; 3. As to the Place; 4. As to the Manner; and 5. As to the End.

1. As to the Matter; We are agreed that it consisteth in receiving Persons into the Church; in preserving and healing those that are in the Church, and in casting out those from the Communion of the Church which are unfit for it, and in Absolving and Restoring the Excommunicate when they are penitent. And therefore it is called, The Power and Exercise of the Keys: By these Keys, the Door is first opened to Believers and their Seed, and the Bishops judge who are fit to be let in by Baptism. When any are lapsed into scandalous sin, they are to be proceeded with as Christ hath directed, Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17. We must first tell men privately of their private Faults, and if they hear us not, we must take with us two or three; if they hear not them, we must tell the Church; and finally, if they hear not the Church, they must be to us as Heathens and Publicans. And whatsoever is thus bound on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever is loosed on Earth shall be loosed in Heaven, vers. 18. The Church is the Body of Christ, his Spouse, his Family, his Garden; It is a Communion of Saints which is to be held in it: It is commanded to put away wicked Persons from among them, and not to keep company, if any that is called a Brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such a one no not to eat, 1. Cor. 5. 11, 13. And we are to withdraw our selves from every Brother that walketh disorderly, and to note them, and to have no company with them, that they may be ashamed; 2. Thess. 3. 6, 14. If any come to us, and bring not sound Doctrine, we must not receive him into our houses, nor bid him good speed, lest we be partakers of his evil deeds, 2 John 10. 11. A Man that is an Heretick, must, after the first and second Admonition, be avoided, as Self-condemned, Tit. 3. 10, 11. And the penitent must be restored and re-admitted. All this is agreed on.

§ 324. 2. And as to the Persons who are Parties in this Transaction, we are agreed 1. That it is such Persons as desire Communion with us, that are to be admitted, (being fit), and such as having Communion with us, become unmeet for it that are to be cast out, &c. so that it is to be exercised on Persons, so far as they are to have Communion with us, and not on those that are uncapable of that Communion. 2. That sententially it must be done by the Pastor or Governour of that particular Church, which the Person is to be admitted into, or cast out of: And by the judgment of the Pastors of other neighbour Churches, when they also, as Neighbours, are to refuse Communion with him. 3. That executively it is to be done by every one in their places, the Pastors giving or denying the Sacraments, &c. and the People holding or refusing Communion or Company with Men according as they are judged by the Church. I think there is no Controversie among us about these.

§ 325. 3. And therefore the Work will resolve us of the place; viz. That the Execution must be in that place where he had or desired Communion, or was capable of it: And therefore that the Iudgment should be by those that being upon the place, have fullest opportunity to know the Persons and the Case: Even by those Pastors who labour amongst the People that are over them in the Lord, 1 Thess. 5. 12, 13. who have the rule over them, and preach to them the Word of God, Hebr. 13. 7, 17, 24. and not by those that are strangers to them.

§ 326. 4. And as to the Manner, all Divines are agreed, That it is not to be like the proceedings of a Civil Court, where there is no more to be done, but examine the Cause and pass the Sentence, and execute it by Corporal Penalties and Mulcts: But, 1. That it is to be managed by grave Divines, the Physicians of Souls, for the saving of the Sinner, if it may be, with great seriousness, and light, and weight of Scripture Argument, convincing the Erroneous, terrifying the Secure with the terrours of the Lord, reproving and admonishing and perswading the penitent Offender, and all this with Love and Compassion and due Patience; and restoring the Penitent with Tenderness and Consolation and necessary Caution. From all which it is evident, That one single Person thus dealt with in case of Heresie, may hold the Pastor or Bishop many days time, and one gross Sinner may hold him many hours time, before this Work can be done as the Nature and Ends of it do require. 2. And it is to be done by the meer Keys of the Kingdom of Christ, by managing God's Word by particular Application to the Case and Conscience of the Sinner, and not by outward Force of Penalties.

p. 402§ 327. 5. And all this is apparent in the Ends of it; which is, 1. That Church…Communion may be a Communion of Saints, 2. That the Sinner may be saved, and converted to that end; 3. Or however, that others may be warned by his sad Example. 4. And that the unbelieving and ungodly World, may see the Excellency of Christian Religion, and not be hardened in their Infidelity and Impiety… 5. And so that Christ, and the Father by him, may be honoured in his holiness among the Sons of Men: These are the Ends of Church-Discipline.

§ 328. 3. And as you see what the Discipline is that is to be Exercised, so the Number of Persons on whom it is to be exercised, may be gathered from what is said in the beginning: where is shewed, 1. How many hundred Parishes are in a Diocess. 2. How many hundred or thousand Souls in a Parish: (unless the very smallest). 3. And how many Hereticks, Atheists, Papists, Infidels, or Swearers, Cursers, Railers, Drunkards, Fornicators, and other scandalous Sinners there are proportionably in most Parishes, I leave to the judgment of every faithful Pastor that ever tried it by a particular knowledge of his Flock.

§ 329. 4. And lastly, who they be that are to Exercise all this Discipline, I have shewed before; even one Court or Consistory in a whole Diocess, with the inconsiderable subserviency of the Arch-Deacon's Court: (For the Rural Deans do nothing in it, and are themselves scarce known: and the Pastor and Churchwardens do nothing but present Men to the Courts, and execute part of their Sentences.)

§ 330. All this being laid together, the impossibility of Christ's Discipline in our Churches is undeniable: 1. Because by this Computation there must stand at once before the Court many thousand Persons to be at once examined, convinced, reproved, exhorted, or a great Multitude at least: whenas they can speak but to one at once. 2. Because the second Admonition which should be before two or three, is there before an open Judicature; which is not suited to the appointed End: so that really our Controversie with the Diocesans is the same in effect, as if it were controverted, whether a thousand or six hundred Schools shall have as many governing School-masters; or whether one only shall govern all these Schools, and the rest of the School-masters have only power to …each, and not to govern? (were it only whether one should have a general Inspection over the rest, that they may be punished for Malc-administration, we should not be so far disagreed: for though we might question whether Christ ever made or allowed any such Officer, besides the Magistrate, yet if the Work were but done by any, we should judge it more tolerable.) Or the Controversie is as if it were questioned, whether all the Diocess should have any more than one Physician, that should have any power to prescribe any Government to the Patients, and all the rest should only read general Lectures of Physick to them, and be his Apothecaries, to carry them his Prescripts and Medicines; which were to question, whether most shall have any Physician or none? and whether the People shall have their Lives sacrificed to the mad Ambition of some one Man that would be their only Physician. Shifting may deceive the unexperienced, but let any Minister in England be but so faithful as to know all his Flock, and regard their Souls, and he can never deny that this is the true Case. For my own part, the Lord knoweth that I did with too much remisness exercise some Discipline a few years (when I had liberty) in one Country Parish, upon one of the most Reformed People in the Land, and that with the help of many Fellow-Ministers, and of many of the People in their places, and the countenance and presence of three Justices of the Peace; and yet I found the burden too great for me, and that one half of that Parish would have been enough. It is in this, as in Military Discipline, or Navigation, The Judgment of that Man that never tried it, is of very little value in the Case. Do but try the Government of one Parish, in the Scripture way, and we shall not differ.

§ 331. And the Nonconformists further prove, that our Prelacy maketh this Discipline morally impossible, thus: Were it not morally impossible, some one godly Bishop in England would have executed it, as Christ appointeth: But no one godly Bishop in England doth, or ever did, so execute it: Ergo—

The Major will not be denied, of a Moral Impossibility, or at least of a difficulty next it: That which no one Man, no not the wisest or the best ever did, may well be called morally impossible, or neer it. And that England hath had some such Bishops, we are not so uncharitable as to question, when we remember Hooper, Farrar, Latimer, Cranmer, Ridley, Iewel, Grindall, Hall, and many more. And I never met with the Man that would assert, or did believe, that the fore described Discipline was ever exercised by any Man of them throughout his Diocess, no nor p. 403in any three Parishes in it, if in one: Bishop Edward Reignolds of Norwich was one that went along with us to the last in our Desire, and Treaties for Discipline and Reformation: And who heareth of any such Discipline exercised by him? who doubtless would do it if he could. Nay, I am confident that he will say himself, that he hath not exercised it on a tenth part that are the due Objects of it, in any two Parishes in his Diocess: Nay, in his Diocess there are as many hundreds of godly People Excommunicated or troubled (by Sentence at least) for Nonconformity, as in any Diocess that I hear of in England; and the poor Bishop looks on, and cannot hinder it. Could it be done, some one would do it: But none doth it. Ergo—

§ 332. 8. The eighth Charge against our Prelacy is, That having cast out Christ's Church-Discipline, prescribed in the Gospel, it setteth up, instead of it, an unlawful kind of Church-Discipline: And the unlawfulness they shew in these Particulars.

§ 333. 1. In that the Judges of the Courts, as well as the rest, are meer Lay-me… (the Bishops Chancellors) who ordinarily Admonish, Excommunicate and Absolve: For though the King's Declaration concerning Ecclesiastical Affairs; did speak against this, yet that was dead before it took place, and the old Course is now taken in all their Courts: And what the Tongue of Man can rationally say, for Lay-mens exercising the Power of the Keys, most essential to the Sacred Pastoral Office, it is beyond my reach to know. The common Answer is, that Lay-Elders are as bad: As if one Man's sin would justifie anothers, and warrant all Men to Subscribe to it. But yet they know, 1. That Church-Elders are not accounted Lay-men, but Sacred Officers, by those that are for them. 2. That they meddle but with one Parish, and that but as Assistants to the Pastors; whereas the Chancellors meddle with many hundred Parishes, and that as the sole Judges in the Court (when the Bishop is not there, which is the ordinary Case). Indeed, I hear that pro forma they use to get some Priest or other, to pass the Sentence in Court, when the Lay-Chancellor hath determined it. But this a meer jugling mockery: And if they were serious, it would confute themselves; who say, That a Presbyter hath not the power of Excommunication: And they justifie the Cause of the Presbyterians who claim it (as is aforesaid).

§ 334. 2. As to the Matter of the English Discipline, it consisteth not in the foredescribed Convictions, Reproofs, Exhortations to Repentance, praying for the Sinner's Repentance, telling him before two or three, or telling the Church; but in a Citation, and such a Course of Process as is in Civil Secular Courts.

§ 335. 3. And for the Manner; it is not with holy Seriousness and Patience as may tend to the melting of a Sinner's heart into true Contrition, nor as may tend to awake him from his Security with the Terrours of the Lord, nor is it at all fitted to work upon the Conscience: (who can expect that Lay-men, and such Men, in a Publick Court, and such a Court, should do it): Nor do I believe that any Subscribing conscionable Minister will say that he ever heard a Chancellor convert a Sinner, or say that which was like or apt to bring him to true Repentance. But on the contrary, they work on them by Terrour of Corporal Penalties and Mul…ts, and harden them into a hatred of those that thus vex them: so that a Pastor that ever hopeth to do good on his Parishioners, will take heed how he presenteth them to one of these Courts, left by so much he seem to be their Enemy, and they never regard his Doctrine more: whereas Christ's Discipline is Paternal, by Love and convincing Reason, and to the very last extremity, is to be done with so much Fatherly Kindness and Compassion, as tendeth to melt and win the Sinner.

§ 336. 4. And for the Adjuncts; your Discipline of Excommunication is all enforced with Imprisonment and the utter ruine of the Excommunicate, upon a Writ de Excommunicato capiendo: If you say that it is the Magistrate's Action, and not ours, I answer, 1. You are the Judges, and make the Magistrate your Executioners. 2. You take the very Life of your Discipline to lye in it! How ordinarily do you say, That were it not for the Sword and Corporal Penalty, who would care for Excommunication? And your Confession hath in it much of Truth, as to your Excommunications: But hereby you corrupt the Discipline of the Church, and lamentably corrupt the Church it self. It is a great Truth which the Churches welfare lieth on, That no Man is fit for the Communion of the Church, that so far despiseth it, as not to be moved by a meer Excommunication. Shall he have the Communion of the Church, who will rather be cast out of it than repent? when, of old, Penitents long begg'd the Churches Communion prostrate, or at the Church p. 404Door, before they were re-admitted: And now if Ten thousand Men scorn the Churches Communion, and will stand out a bare Excomunication, you will drive them into the Church, and to a feigned Repentance by the fear of a Jail: And so all Men shall be Members of your Churches, that do but so far love their Skins, as rather to endure the Church than the Prison: (of this also the Scots Presbytery hath been guilty in part): And what Churches these are, it is easie to judge. And you cannot say that this is only Male-administration; for it is the very Constitution of your Government.

§ 337. 5. And your Discipline is exercised by Strangers upon Strangers, at many Miles distance, where the Church that the Sinner is to hold Communion with, heareth not the Process, nor knoweth of the Matter, nor perhaps the Minister that should be his Governour, but only they receive a Paper from the Court, containing the Sentence; which the Parson must read, and then in despight of him must admit the vilest to the Churches Communion, and read his Absolution if the Court require it, let him never so well know the Sinner to be impenitent.

§ 338. 6. Lastly, Let any Man of Charity, free from Faction, judge by the Canons, Whether the Discipline of Excommunication be not exercised upon many godly upright Persons (for fasting, and praying together, and such like) who are unfit for such Severity. And let him that readeth both Liturgy and Canons, judge, Whether the Communion of the Sacrament be not denied to holy Persons, if they do but fear Idolatry in kneeling before the Bread; who are not worthy of so great a Penalty. So that in a word, a kind of Secular Courts are set up instead of the Discipline of Christ, and the edge of their Severity is turned against those conscientious People, that be not of their Opinions in Ceremonies, or such things. If it be said that the Magistrate may set up Civil Courts who may judge Circa Sacra: I answer, but 1. These judge de Sacris, and Excommunicate and Absolve. 2. They do it under the Name of Church-Discipline, and the Power of the Keys. 3. And instead of Christ's deposed Discipline.

§ 339. 9. The ninth Charge against our Prelacy is consequential, That it bringeth on us a multitude of grievous Calamities, and ill Consequences, by this abolition of true Discipline, and the aforesaid Corruptions. As for instance—

1. That it giveth up our Cause to the Brownists, quantum in se, who say that our Churches are no true Churches, and our Ministry is no true Ministry: For if we have true Churches and Ministers, it is either the Parochial, the Diocesan, or the National. But 1. for the Parochial, they say that they are no true Churches or Ministers: for a true Church, in sensu politico, is constituted of the Governing part and the Governed part: But a Parish Church, hath no Governing part (as such): For the Diocesan is not the Head of it as a Parish Church, but as a part of his Diocesan Church. (Otherwise one Man should be a Thousand Heads and Political persons). And the Parson or Vicar, though perhaps called Rector, is only the Teacher and Priest, and denied all Government: Egro he is no Pastor, as wanting an essential part of that Office, nor the Church a true Church. And for my part, I know not how to confute these Men, but by telling them, that the Pastor of that Parish-Church must be judged of by God's description, and not by the Bishop's: which I doubt not is a true and satisfactory Answer.

And for a Diocesan Church, the Brownists say that it is not only no Church of Christ's institution, but contrary to it: and therefore not to be acknowledged.

And for the National Church, unless you speak equivocally, they know no such thing: for what is it that is the Constitutive Head of it? The King is the Civil Head: But the Constitutive Head of a Church must be an Ecclesiastical Head, or a Clergy-man, or Society of Men: It cannot be an Archbishop, for neither of the Archbishops pretendeth to it, having but a priority of place, and not any Government over one another (Canterbury over York) or in each others Provinces. And the Convocation it cannot be, because the Canon Anathematizeth them that take it not for the Representative Church of England: And if it be but the Representative, it cannot be the Constitutive Head: For either it representeth the Governing part of the Church, which is indeed the Head, or the Governed part, which is the Body: If it represent the latter only, then as such it can have no Governing power at all! For as Representative it can have no more power than those that are represented: But the Governed party as such have no Governing power: Ergo neither have their Representers as such. If they represent any higher power, What is it? It must be either in a single Person, or a Collective Body, which is one Political Person: But the former is not at all pretended, nor can be: If it be said that they represent all the Pastors of England, I answer, no doubt that is the meaning of the Canon: p. 405and yet no Man affirmeth that the real Body of all those Pastors in conjunction is one Collective Political Head of this Church: For Parish-Ministers are only Heads of their several Parishes (if so much) but not of all the rest of the Parishes in the Nation, any otherwise than of those in other Land's: Wherefore it is most evident that there is no such thing as a Church of England in a Political Formal sence, as it hath one Constitutive and Ecclesiastical Head: but only in an improper larger sence, either as the Pastors of many Churches, met in a Synod, do make binding Agreements by way of voluntary Concord and Consent (as many Kings may do in a voluntary Meeting, which doth not constitute a Political Society): Or else as they have one accidental Civil Head (the King: who is Head of all Religious Societies in his Dominions, Papists, Anabaptists, &c.) But these are none of them Denominations à formâ. But hence it may be noted, 1. That as Bishop Usher said, Synods are not properly a Superiour Governing power over the particular Bishops, but only for voluntary Concord. 2. That the Bishops must, against their wills, grant that all Parish-Ministers are de jure Church Governours: or else how come their Representatives to be part of the Governing-Church, even in Canon-making for common Government (as they judge). As for the Democratical conceit of them that say that the Parliament hath their Governing power as they are the Peoples Representatives, and so have the Members of the Convocation, though those represented have no Governing power themselves, it is so palpably Self-contradicting, that I need not confute it.

§ 340. 2. A second evil Consequence is, that by neglect of Discipline (or excluding it) the Vicious want that remedy which God hath provided to bring them to Repentance and Salvation: That God hath appointed Discipline, is proved from Lev. 19. 17. Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17, 18. 1. Cor. 5. Tit. 1. 13 & 2. 15. & 3. 10. 1 Tim. 3. 5, 15. & 5. 19, 20, 21, 22, 24. 2 Tim. 3. 5. & 4. 2. 2. Thess. 3. 6, 14. And as neglect of Preaching, so neglect of Discipline tendeth to the hardening of Sinners in their sins. And when in the Application of Baptism, Confirmation, the Lord's Supper, Absolution, and all Church Consolations to them, they are all used by the Church as pardoned Sinners, and judged to be such (how vicious soever) they will the easilier believe they are such indeed, and reject all passages in Sermons that would convince them, and all that would perswade them of the Necessity of a Change. So that no doubt but many Thousands are hindered from Conversion and Salvation for want of Discipline.

§ 341. 3. And it tendeth to propagate the Sin, as Impunity from Magistrates or Parents would do: which made the Apostle say, 1. Cor. 5. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump: many will be encouraged to do that which undergoeth no more censure.

§ 342. 4. It keepeth up the Credit of Sin it self, and gratifieth Satan, while the Church is deprived of the Publick Means appointed by God, for putting Sin to open shame, and bruising the Serpent's Head, by a solemn Condemnation of his Works of Darkness.

§ 343. 5. It depriveth Holiness and Obedience of the honour which God hath appointed for it, by this publick differencing Judgment of the Church, which being, as Tertullian calleth it, praejudicium futuri judicij, doth represent the Justification and Condemnation of that Day; and wonderfully tend to the publick honour of Godliness and Honesty, and consequently to the Conversion and Establishment of Mens Souls.

§ 344. 6. It greatly tendeth to the dishonour of the Church by its pollution: whenas Christian Societies shall be conspurcated with those Vices which are the shame of Infidels and Heathens; and those of our Communion are in their Lives no better than the Unbelieving World! All Men will think that that is the best Society which hath the best People, and will judge rather by Mens Lives than their Opinions.

§ 345. 7. And hereby it greatly dishonoureth Christianity it self; and when the Church is as full of Vices as the Mahomiran Societies are, or the Heathen, it is a publick perswading the World that our Religion is as false or bad as theirs.

§ 346. 8. And hereby God himself and our blessed Redeemer are greatly dishonoured in the World: As his Saints are his honour, so when the Communion of Atheists and Prophane Persons, and Oppressors and Deceivers, and Fornicators and Drunkards, is called by us, The Communion of Saints, it tendeth to make the Church a Scorn, and to the great dishonour of the Head of such a Body, and the Author of the Christian Faith.

p. 406§ 347. 9. And it lamentably conduceth to the hardening of the Heathens and Infidels of the World, and hindering their Conversion to the Christian Faith: It would make a Believer's heart to bleed (if any thing in all the World will do it) to think that five parts in six of the World are still Heathens, Mahometans and Infidels, and that the wicked Lives of Christians (with Popperies, Ignorance and Divisions) is the great Impediment to their Conversion! To read and hear Travellers and Merchants tell, that the Banians and other Heathens in Indostan, Cambaia, and many other Lands, and the Mahometans adjoyning to the Greeks, and the Abassines, &c. do commonly fly from Christianity, as the Separatists among us do from Prelacy, and say, God will not save us if we be Christians; for Christians are Drunkards, and proud, and Deceivers, &c. And that the Mahometans, and many Heathens have more, both of Devotion and Honesty, than the common fort of Christians have that live among them! O wretched Christians! that are not content to damn themselves, but thus lay stumbling blocks before the World! It were better for these men that they had never been born! But if all these notorious ones were disowned by the Churches, it would quit our Profession much from the dishonour, and shew poor Infidels that our Religion is good, though their Lives be bad.

§ 348. 10. Lastly, it galleth the Consciences of the Ministers in their administrations of the Sacraments to the openly ungodly and grosly ignorant: It hindereth the Comfort of the Church in its Communion: It filleth the Heads of poor Christians with Scruples, and their Hearts with Fears; and is the great cause of unavoidable Separations among us, and consequently of all the Censures on one side, and wrathful Penalties on the other, and uncharitableness on both sides, which follow thereupon. If the Pastors will not differ between the precious and the vile, by necessary regular Discipline; tender Christians will be tempted to difference by irregular Separations; and to think, as Cyprian saith, That it belongeth to the People to forsake a sinful Pastor: They will separate further than they ought; and will take our Churches as Sinks of Pollution, and fly from the noisomness of them; and come out from among us, for fear of partaking in our Plagues, as men run out of a ruinous House lest it fall upon their Heads. And then they will fall into Sects among themselves, and fall under the hot displeasure of the Bishops, and then they will be reproached and vexed as Schismaticks, while they reproach our Churches as Hypocritical and Prophane, that call such Societies, the Communion of Saints: This hath been, and this is, and this will be the Cause of Separations, Sects, Persecutions, Malice and Ruins in the Christian World: And it will never be cured, till some tolerable Discipline cure the Churches.

§ 349. 10. The tenth and last Charge against our Frame of Prelacy is, That by is use of Civil or Coercive Power, it at once breaketh the Command of Christ, and greatly injureth the Civil Government. Both which are thus proved by the Nonconformists.

§ 350. 1. It violateth all these Laws of Christ: Luke 22. 24, 25. And there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the greatest: And he said unto them, the Kings of the Gentles exercise Lordship over them, and they that exercise Authority upon them, are called Benefactors: but ye shall not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. That is, it is a Ministerial Dignity, and not a Magistratical, which you are called to: that which is allowed to Kings here, is denied to Ministers, even Apostles: But it is not Tyranny or Abuse of Power, but Secular Magistratical Power it self, which is all owed to Kings: Ergo it is this which is forbidden Ministers. This is the very sence of the Text which is given by Protestant Episcopal Divines themselves, when they reject the Presbyterians sence, who say that it forbiddeth Ecclesiastical Superiority and Power of one Minister over another, as well as Coercive. Therefore the old Rhymer said against the Prelates,

Christus dixit quodam loco

[Vos non sic] nec dixit joco:

Dixit suis: Ergo isti

Cujus sunt? non certo Christi.

So 1. Pet. 5. 1, 2, 3. Feed the Flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint but willingly; Not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind: Neither as being Lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the Flock. But our Bishops take the oversight of those that are not among them, and whom they feed not; and they p. 407rule them by constraint and not as voluntary Subjects, not by Ensample (for one of an hundred never seeth or knoweth them) but as Lords by Secular Force, Dr. Hammond taketh the word [Constraint] here Actively, not Passively; not as forbidding them to Bishops against their own Wills, but to Rule the People by constraint against the Peoples wills.

It would be tedious to recite all those Texts, which command the People to imitate the Apostles as they imitated Christ, (who never used Magistratical force; nor did any of his Apostles) and say that the Weapons of our warfare are not carnals and that he that warreth entangleth not himself with the Affairs of this Life, and that the Servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle, &c.

§ 351. 2. And that this Coercive Church Government is an heinous Injury to Christian Magistrates, even where it seemeth to be subordinate to them, appeareth thus.

1. Though they do mostly confess that they can exercise no Power of Coercion of themselves, but by the Magistrates consent, yet do they take it to be the Magistrates duty to consent to it, as if he were not else a tender Nursing Father to the Church: and so they lay his Conscience in Prison, till he trust them with his Sword, or serve them by it.

2. They call their Magistratical Government by the Name of Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Government; And so by the Name, they seduce Mens minds, to think that this is indeed the use of the Keys, which God hath put into the Churches Hands.

3. Hereby they greatly encourage the Usurpation of the Pope and his Clergy, who set up such Courts, for probate of Wills, and Causes of Matrimony, and rule the Church in a Secular manner (though many of them confess that directly the Church hath no forcing Power): And this they call the Churches Power, and Spiritual Government, and Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction; and say that it belongeth not to Kings, and that no King can in Conscience restrain them of it; but must protect them in it: And so they set up Imperium in Imperio, and, as Bishop Bedle said of Ireland, The Pope hath a Kingdom there in the Kingdom, greater than the Kings: (Against which Ludov. Molinaeus hath written at large, in two or three Treatises): So that when the Papal Power in England was cast down, and their Courts subjected to the King, and the Oath of Supremacy formed, it was under the Name of Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Power that it was acknowledged to be in the King (who yet claimeth no proper Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power): so greatly were these Terms abused; and so are they still as applied to our Bishops Courts: so that the King is said by us to be Chief Governour in all Causes Ecclesiastical, because Coercive Power in Church Matters (which is proper to the Magistrate) was possessed and claimed by the Clergy. And in all Popish Kingdoms, the Kings are but half Kings, through these Usurpations of the Clergy. And for us to Exercise the same kind of Power, mixt with the Exercise of the Keys, and that by the same Name, is greatly to countenance the Usurpers.

§ 352. If it be said, That the Church claimeth no Coercive Power, but as granted them by the King, or that it is the Magistrate that annexeth Mulcts and Penalties, and not the Church: I answer, 1. They perswade the Magistrate that he ought to do so. 2. Force is not a meer Accident, but confessed by them to be the very Life of their Government: It is that which bringeth People to their Courts, and enforceth all their Precepts, and causeth Obedience to them; so that it is part of the very Constitution of their Government: And as to Fees and Commutation of Penance, Pecuniary Mulcts are thus imposed by themselves. 3. Their very Courts and Officers are of a Secular Form. 4. The Magistrate is but the Executioner of their Sentence: He must grant out a Writ, and imprison a Man quatenus excommunicate, without sitting in Judgment upon the Cause himself, and trying the Person according to his Accusation. And what a dishonour do these Men put on Magistrates, that make them their Executioners, to imprison those whom they condemn, inuudita causa, at a venture, be it right or wrong.

So much of the Nonconformists Charges against the English Prelacy.

§ 353. By this you may see what they Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists, As,

1. To the willing Conformists, who plead a Iur Divinum, they say, That if all that Gersom, Bucer, Didoclavius, Blondell, Salmasius, Parker, Baines, &c. have said against Episcopacy it self were certainly confuted, yet it is quite another thing that is called Episcopacy, by them that plead it Iure Divino: If 1. Bishops of single p. 408Churches with a Presbytery under them, 2. and General Bishops over these Bishops, were both proved Iure Divine, yet our Diocesans are proved to be contra jus Divinum.

2. To the Latitudinarians and involuntary Conformists, who plead that no Church-Government, as to the form, is of Divine Institution, they answer; 1. This is to condemn themselves, and say, [Because no Form is of God's Institution, therefore I will declare that the Episcopal Form is of Divine Institution]: for this is part of their Subscription, or Declaration, when they Profess, Assent, and Confent to all things in the Book of Common Prayer and Ordination: And one thing in it is in these words, (with which the Book beginneth) [It is evident to all Men, diligently reading holy Scripture, and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons: which Offices were evermore had in such reverend estimation, &c.] So that here they declare that Bishops and Priests are not only distinct Degrees, but distinct Orders and Offices, and that since the Apostles time, as evident by Scripture, &c. (when yet many of the very Papists Schoolmen do deny it). And the Collect in the Ordering of Priests runs thus, [Almighty God, giver of all good things, who by the holy Spirit hath appointed divers Orders of Ministers in the Church]. So that in plain English they declare, That [Episcopacy even as a distinct Order, Office, and Function (for all these words are there) is appointed by the Spirit of God; because they believe that no Form is so appointed.

2. That which Mr. Stillingfleet calleth [A Form] is none of the Substance of the Government it self, nor the Offices in the Church: He granteth that 1. Worshipping Assemblies are of Divine appointment; 2. That every one of these must have one or more Pastors who have power in their Order to teach them, and go before them in Worship, and spiritually guide or govern them. But 1. Whether a Church shall have one Pastor or more; 2. Whether one of them shall be in some things subject to another; 3. Whether constant Synods shall be held for concord of Associated Churches; 4. Whether in these Synods one shall be Moderator? and how long? and with what Authority? (not unreasonable), these he thinks are left undetermined: And I am of his mind; supposing General Rules to guide them by as he doth. But the Matter (and Manner) of Church-Discipline being of God's appointment, and the Nature and Ends of a particular Church, and the Office of Pastors (as well as the Form of the Church Universal), it is past doubt that nothing which subverteth any of these is lawful. And indeed, if properly no Form of Government be instituted by God, then no Form of a Church neither: for the Form of Government is the Form of a Church (considered in sensu politico, and not as a meer Community). And then the Church of England is not of God's making: Quest. Who then made it? Either another Church made this Church (and then, what was that Church, and who made its Form, and so ad Originem) or no Church made it: If no Church made the Church of England, quo jure? or what is its Authority and Honour? If the King made it, was he a Member of a Church or not? If yea, 1. There was then a Church-Form before the Church of England; And who made that Church usque ad Originem? If the King that made it was no Member of a Church, then he that is no Member of a Church, may institute a Church Form; but quo jure? and with what Honour to that Church? But it is certain that a particular Congregation with its proper Bishop or Pastors is a Church-Form of Christ's Institution.

§ 354. II. The Second Controversie is about the Obligation of the National Vow or Covenant: And here there is a Law made, That every Man shall forfeit all his Estate, and be perpetually imprisoned, who affirmeth, [That there is any Obligation on him, or any other, from this Vow, to endeavour any alteration of Government in the Church]. So that those that think there is such an Obligation dare not affirm it: And therefore almost all that write or speak on the other side against the Obligation, remain unanswered (save what Mr. Crofton, Mr. Cawdry, and some others lightly have done), because they must be answered at so dear a rate. I suppose the Reader will not take my words as Assertory, but as Historical herein, acquainting you what it is that sticks with the Nonconformists, and maketh them that they dare not say this Oath bindeth none, for fear of God, as they will not say that it bindeth any for fear of Confiscation and Imprisonment.

§ 355. And here first they premise these General Suppositions, which should make all Men exceeding tender of venturing further than they are sure the ground is firm.

p. 409§ 356. 1. That Perjury is confessedly one of the most heinous sins that can be committed by Man: and if this Subscription should prove perjurious, or a justifying of Perjury, it would bring upon them the Guilt and Misery following.

1. It is an Atheistical Denial of the Omniscience or Justice of God, and a taking of his Name in vain, and making him the Favourer of a Lie.

2. It is a treacherous Breach of Promise to him.

3. It is a Sin that deeply woundeth an awakened Conscience, and may drive it to despair.

4. It overthroweth Humane Societies, and maketh a Man unfit for Humane Converse. For mutual Trust is the Foundation or Bond of Societies: And he whose Oath is not to be trusted, is not at all to be trusted any further than his Interest commandeth it.

5. It exposeth Kings to the Fury of all that dare venture to do them hurt: For if once Subjects be taught that Oaths oblige not, what is there to keep them from Treasons and Rebellions, but their Carnal Interests! And if they be once taught that Princes take not themselves to be obliged by their Oaths and Covenants, such Teachers tempt them to think that they are bound no more to their Princes, as being uncapable of Trust. So that the Doctrine of Perjury, that disobligeth Men from under Vows and Covenants, is the most traiterous pernicious Doctrine.

5. It exposeth the Kingdom, Church and Religion, which is guilty of it to reproach; yea, the greatest reproach of all its Adversaries; making them worse than many Heathens.

6. It bringeth the Judgments of God on a Nation: For God will not hold them guiltless that taketh his Name in vain. Saul's Posterity must be hanged before the Famine could be stayed, because Saul had broken the Vow made to the Gibeonites by Ioshua, 2 Sam. 21. And this heavy Judgment on England at this day, which falleth on London and many Corporations, terrifying many that read the Corporation Act, which casteth all out of Trust and Power, who disclaim not absolutely all obligation of the Vow or Covenant as on themselves or any other.

7. And how can one that entereth into the Ministry by publick owning Perjury and Falshood, ever look for any acceptance of his Ministry by Men, or blessing on it (or himself in it at least) from God? Hath God need of Lies and Perjury to his Service? Shall we offer such a Sacrifice to him that is most Holy, and this under pretence that we desire to serve him by the preaching of his Gospel? With what face can we preach against any Sin to the People, when our Declarations, Subscriptions, and Publick Actions have first told them that Perjury it self may be committed? I say, if this should prove to be perjurious, the Covenant being obligatory, then would these terrible Consequents follow.

§ 357. 2. And then they say, That such enormous Crimes as these should be avoided with much more fear than lesser sins: as a Man will less venture upon the danger of the Plague, than of the Measles; or upon a desperate Precipice than an easie Fall; and will avoid more a wound at the Heart, than a prick of the Finger: And therefore no Rational Man can expect that here they should be venturous.

§ 358. 3. And they add, That seeing Affirmatives bind not ad semper, and Positive Duties are not Duties at all times, therefore to a Man that is rationally fearful and in doubt of so great a sin as Perjury, the preaching of the Gospel can be no Duty, till those Doubts be sufficiently removed: And therefore they wonder to perceive that abundance are brought to Conformity by this Argument, [I am sure it is a Duty to preach the Gospel: but I am not sure that it is a sin to conform: therefore Uncertainties must give place to Certainties]. For it is not a Duty to one of many hundreds to preach the Gospel! but only of Ministers: Nor is it any more a Minister's Duty that cannot do it without sinful Conditions, than it is a Womans Duty. Therefore so far as any Man doubteth whether the Terms be lawful, he must needs doubt whether it be his Duty (yea, or lawful) for him to preach: No Man can be surer that it is his Duty to preach, than he is sure that the Conditions of his preaching are lawful. But on the other side, a Man may for some time well judge that preaching is no Duty to him, though he be not sure that the Condition is sinful, if he have but rational cause of doubting: especially when it is no less than Perjury that he feareth.

§ 359. 4. But they say, If it should prove that the Covenant is obligatory, it would prove such a sin as is hard to be matched. 1. For a Minister of the Gospel to be so guilty: 2. And this upon pretence of Serving God: 3. And this upon deliberation. 4. And to declare the justification of three Kingdoms from so great a p. 410guilt, even from the highest to the lowest: and so to hinder them all from repenting; and to Subscribe to it, that their Vows oblige them not, and the violation of them is no sin. And if Perjury be a damning sin, hereby to endeavour the damnation of so many thousands, and all the Plagues and Miseries on the Land that Perjury may bring. 5. And to declare against so needful a Reformation, that it is no Duty at all for Rulers or Subjects to endeavour it; no not if they have sworn to do it. 6. And to put down all this under my Hand, as some Conjurers have done that have covenanted with the Devil, and given him their Hands to it. All this is exceeding terrible, if this Vow prove obligatory.

§ 360. 5. In this Case they suppose that it is dangerous for Men to go against the concurrent Judgments of Casuists, yea, of their own Casuists, in the Case of Vows: And they know not how to save Subscription, from the enmity of the determinations of Dr. Sanderson, and all other ordinary Casuists. And these are the general Reasons of their fear.

§ 361. But I shall hear tell you what they grant about the obligation of the Covenant.

1. They assert that it can bind no Man to any thing that is sinful.

2. No nor to any thing that may hereafter be sinful, nor from any thing that may be a Duty, when it cometh to be such: though it were neither Sin nor Duty at the making of the Vow.

3. That it bindeth no Man therefore against Obedience to the King, though the thing be in it self indifferent, and was not commanded by the King when they vowed: For if a Man might prevent the Commands of Prince or Parents by his own Vows, he might free himself from his Obedience. The Command of God, to obey Kings and Rulers is antecedent to our Vows, and above our Vows, and cannot be evacuated or avoided by them. Therefore if there be any indifferent thing in the Covenant, I will obey the King if he command or forbid it, contrary to the Covenant.

4. That we take our selves bound by the Covenant to nothing, but what is our Duty if there were not such Covenant: Not that a Vow doth not bind a Man to things before indifferent: We confess it doth: But because this Vow included and intended nothing meerly indifferent: For it is the Judgment of Protestants, and so both of the Framers and the Takers of it, that the use of a Vow is not to make new Dutus to our selves which God never made, but to bind us to that which God had made our Duty before. Else it is a taking of the Name of God in vain. All the doubt therefore is but whether it be a secondary Obligation to that which God had before obliged us to. So that there is no one Action materially, whose doing or not doing we take to depend upon the Covenant's obligation primarily or alone; nor do we imagine any thing to be our Duty, which would not be so, if the Covenant had never had a being.

5. That if the Covenanters did then suppose that they were bound to defend and obey the Parliament in that War, and to bring a contrary Party to punishment, yet now there can be no place for any such Imagination; because the Parliament is not in being, the War and Difference of Parties is ended; Cessante materia c…ssat obligatio, & cessantibus personis & rerum statu: It is now past doubt that we are bound to obey the King, and that there is none to stand in competition for our Obedience: so that as a League with those persons it ceaseth with the persons.

6. That if we had been allowed but to Subscribe, That [there is no Obligation— to endeavour unlawfully] or [by any unlawful means] We had not scrupled so disclaiming any Obligation, as on our selves or any other Subjects. Thus far there is no Controversie among us about the Covenant.

§ 362. I come now to the Non-Subscribers particular Scruples, which are such as these.

1. They say, That all Men confessing that an Oath or Vow is obligatory, they must see good proof that this particular Vow is not so before they can exempt it from the common force of Vows: But such proof they have never seen, from Mr. Fullwood, Mr. S…man, Dr. Gauden, or any that hath attempted it, and on whom it is incumbent: but rather admire that Men of so great Judgment and Tenderness of Conscience should ever be satisfied with such halting Arguments; which they had long ago more fully confuted, if the Law had not forbidden them. They herein argue as the Bishops in another Case: Uncertainties must give place to Certainties, caeteris paribus: But they are certain in general that Vows are obligatory, if materially lawful: and they are uncertain that this Vow it materially unlawful, and so not obligatory: Ergo they dare not say that no Man is obliged by it.

p. 411§ 363. 2. They say, That all the World confesseth that a Vow obligeth … necessariâ, to that which is antecedently a Duty: but they propound it to consideration, whether all these things following, which are in the Covenant are certainly no Duties antecedently.

1. [To endeavour in our several Places and Callings, the preservation of the Reformed Religion.]

2. [The Reformation of Worship, Discipline, and Church-Government according to the Word of God, in England.]

3. To bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in Religion].

4. [To endeavour the extirpation of (not Episcopacy, but) Prelacy, that is, Church-Government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellours, Commissaries, &c.] that is, the fore described Frame: Whether that Frame be so blameless as to be allowable, I leave to their Judgments who have weighed what is before said.

5. [The Extirpation of Popery].

6. To endeavour [the Extirpation of Superstition]

7. And [of Heresie]

8. And [of Prophaneness]

9. And of [whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine and the Power of Godliness].

10. [To endeavour with our Estates and Lives to defend the King's Majesty's Person and Authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms? and [not to diminish his Majesty's just Power and Greatness,]

11. [To be humbled for our own sins and the sins of the Kingdoms,]

12. [To amend our Lives, and each one to go before another in the Example of a real Reformation].

If all these be not Duties, let the question be, Whether any one of them be a Duty? And then, Whether that which is antecedently a Duty by Divine Obligation, be not further so by Self-obligation, when it is vowed with an Oath? Or whether a Vow bind not to a Duty? But this is but by the by, about the sence of the Imposers of Subscription exprest in the Corporation Act. But it is only [the … of Church Government] which the present Controversie is about: And if all that was said against our Prelacy on the first Controversie prove it a Duty to endeavour an alteration of the Church-Government, then the Controversie is at an end.

§ 364. 3. They say, That all Men confess that an Oath and Vow is obligatory in a lawful matter, though it were not antecedently necessary: But whether [in their Places and Callings] to endeavour an alteration of the Church-Government be not lawful, is the question. Here 1. let it be observed, what the matter of the Vow is: 2. Who be the Persons whose Obligations are in question. 1. The matter of the Vow was not to extirpate Episcopacy in general, nor the Primitive Episcopacy in particular, but only the fore described English Diocesan Prelacy, in Specie: which I prove beyond all denial: 1. Because that which was not in being in England could not be extirpated out of England: But it was not the Primitive Episcopacy, or any other sort, but the present Diocesan Prelacy which was in being in England: Ergo no other could be extirpated. 2. Because when the Covenant was debated first in the Synod at Westminster, abundance of Divines who Subscribed the Covenant, did openly profess that they were not against Episcopacy; and would not consent to it in any such sence. 3. Because the said Divines upon that profession, caused the Description of the word [Prelacy] to be exprest in a Parentheses, which is only the Description of our Diocesan Frame: which is to be seen in the words of the Covenant. 4. Because when the House of Lords (who imposed it) did conjunctly and solemnly take the Covenant, Mr. Tho. Coleman who preached and gave it them, did openly declare at the giving and taking of it, that it was not all Episcopacy that they renounced or vowed by this Covenant to extirpate, but only the Diocesan Prelacy there described. All this, with the words themselves, I think is sufficient Evidence of the matter of that Clause.

§ 365. 2. And for the Persons, here are especially three sorts in question: 1. The King, 2. The Parliament, 3. The People. The first question is, Whether the People (in the number allowed by the Act) may not by humble petition endeavour a reforming Alteration of the Prelacy? 2. Whether Parliament Men may not lawfully speak and vote for it? 3. Whether King and Parliament may not alter it, by altering the Laws? If all these Actions be the endeavouring of a Duty, or of a lawful Thing in their several Places and Callings, and that be the very thing which, the Vow obligeth them to, then the question is, Whether hereto it do not bind them?

p. 412§ 366. 1. To say that the People may not so much as petition for a Thing so much concerning their Felicity, is to take away, not only that Liberty which the King hath in many of his Declarations against the Parliament, professed to maintain, but also such Liberty as Lawyers say is woven into the Constitution of the Kingdom by the Fundamental Laws, and cannot be taken from them but by changing the Constitution, yea, and reducing them to a state below that of a Subject.

§ 367. 2. To say that a Parliament Man may not speak or vote for such an alteration, seemeth to be against the old unquestioned Priviledge of Parliaments, which was never denied by the King who opposed them in other things. And this Opinion also by such an Alteration of Parliaments, would alter the Constituted Government of the Land.

§ 368. 3. To say that the King and Parliament may not alter Prelacy by altering the Law, doth seem to be the highest Injury to Soveraignty, by denying the Legislative Power.

§ 369. If it be a thing which the People may not petition for, nor Parliament vote for, nor speak for, nor King and Parliament alter, then either because the Law of God disableth them, or the Common Good forbiddeth them, or the Laws of the Land restraineth them from: But it is none of these: Ergo—

1. It is before shewed, That no Law of God hath established the English Form of Prelacy; nay, that the Law of God is repugnant to it.

2. And that the Common Good forbiddeth not the Alteration, but requireth it.

3. And that no Law restraineth in any of the three formentioned Cases is plain, in that there is no Law against the Peoples Petitioning as aforesaid, nor can be without alteration of the Government: And the King with his Parliament are above Laws, and have power to make them, and to abrogate them. So that it seemeth a thing that may be done; and a Vow turneth a may be into a must be, where it is of force. And thus far they think that there is no great difficulty in the Controversie.

§ 370. Before I tell you their Answers to the contrary Reasons, I may tell you that not only Dr. Sanderson granteth, but all Conformists that ever I talkt with hereabout, do agree with us in these following Points.

1. That we must here distinguish between the Actum Imperantis, the Actum Iurantis, and the Materiam Iuramenti: the Act of the Parliament imposing it; the Act of the Persons taking it; and the Matter of the Oath or Vow.

2. And also between the Sinfulness of an Oath (the Act of the Swearer) and the Nullity of it.

3. And that if the Imposers Act be sinful, and the Taking Act be sinful, yet the Oath is obligatory if the Matter vowed be not unlawful, and the Actus Iurandi were not a Nullity as well as a Sin.

4. That if there be six Articles in a Vow, and four of them be unlawful, this doth not disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part: Otherwise an unlawful Clause put in, may free a Man from a Vow for the most necessary Duties.

5. That if a Nation take a Vow, it is a personal Vow to every individual Person in that Nation who took it.

6. That if there be in it a mixture of a Vow to God, and a League, Covenant or Promise to Men, the Obligation of the Vow to God may remain, when as a League or Covenant with Man ceaseth: unless when the Vow is not co-ordinate, but sabordinate to the League or Covenant, as being only a Vow or Oath that it shall be faithfully performed.

7. That if a Vow be imposed in lawful proper Terms, it is not any unexpressed Opinion of the Imposers, that maketh the Matter unlawful to the Taker.

8. That if the Imposers be many Persons naturally making one collective Body, …o …ence of theirs is to be taken as explicatory, but what is in the words or otherwise publickly declared to the Takers: Because they are supposed to be of different … among themselves, when they agree not in any Exposition.

9. That though a Subject ought to take an Oath in the sence of his Rulers who impose it, as far as he can understand is; yet a Man that taketh an Oath from a Rob…e… to sive his Life, is not alway bound to take it in the Imposers sence, if he take it not against the proper sence of the words.

10. That though a Subject should do his best to understand the Imposers sence, for the right taking of it, yet as to the keeping of it, he is bound much to the sence in which he himself took it, though possibly he misunderstood the Imposers.

p. 413§ 371. Now to their Answer to the Reasons of the Conformists.

Object. 1. The End was evil; to change the Government of Church and State with… Law, which was setled by Law: The Bishops were a part of the House of Lords, and therefore could not be cast out but by their own consent, and the whole Parliament's with the King.

Answ. 1. It is not the ill ends of the Persons imposing that can disoblige the Taker, unless it had been the fi…is proximus ipsius Iuramenti essential to the Vow it self, and inseparable from it. The Ends of Parliaments may be manifold and unknown, which the People cannot know, nor are bound to search after. The words of the Vow it self are [in our several Places and Callings we shall endeavour]: And this was the expressed work and end: And this was not doing any thing against Law. If a discontented Person now should say, that the Parliaments End in the Act of Uniformity, and that against Conventicles, was Persecution and the Suppression of Religion, and therefore they are not to be obeyed, how would this hold, while Uniformity and Peace are the published Ends, and the rest are either uncertain or impertinent to us.

2. Whether indeed the Imposers Ends were ill, is a Controversie fit to be touched by it self. They thought such a Change of Church-Government was a good End: And for doing it against Law they put not that into the Swearers part, in this Clause; and pro…essed the contrary themselves. But if they did themselves purpose to do that against to Law, which others swear to do [in their Places and Calling] that is, according to Law, are those others therefore not obliged to do what they vowed to do according to Law, because the Imposers intended to do their part against Law?

3. I suppose all the King's Party who took the Oath at their Composition, had no ill end in it, and are they not then to interpret it by their own Ends, as it is their Personal Vow?

4. If we reach Men that the bad Ends of the Imposers do disoblige Men from performing Vows materially good, take heed left it follow that it will disoblige them much more from obeying Commands and Laws materially good: And then every Subject will take himself to be disobliged, who is but confident that Persecution, Oppression, &c. were his Rulers Ends. What if a Man for evil Ends command me to obey the King, or to worship God, or to give to the Poor: Or make me swear to do all this; Doth not my Vow oblige me, because he had evil Ends that drove me to it? Nay, if I had my self vowed to do all these for some evil end, though it is certain that I must not do it to that end, yet whether the change of my End, does disoblige me also from my Vow, as to the Matter, is a difficult question, which I think Casuists commonly resolve in the Negative. But if any Man did mistake their Design, and had good Ends himself, while theirs were bad, yea, and the End; commanded him were good, the Case is much plainer.

5. Who can say that the King had an ill End in taking it? Or that his Place and Calling did not impower him to do that which in a Subject would have been illegal; and that he may not lawfully endeavour accordingly?

And whereas it is said, That the very War it self expounded their meaning who imposed it, they being then in Arms against the King;] It is answered by the Non-Subscribers, 1. That they openly professed to take up Arms only against Delinquent Subjects according to Law. 2. That their misapplication made not good words to be bad to others. 3. That if they make me swear to do it in my Place and Calling, I am not obliged to expound this to be [out of my Place and Calling] because they go out of their Place and Calling.

And whereas it is said, That [the Bishops were part of the Parliament, and so of the Civil Government …; It is answered,

1. That the Parliament declared that they were no Constitutive, Essential, Unchangeable Part, without whom the Acts of both Houses were invalid: They were but part of the Lords House, where they might be over-voted.

2. The Scruple of the Non-Subscribers is not at all, whether they are obliged to endeavour to dispossess them of their Baronies or Places in Parliament, which is in the power of the King to give them; but only about their Ecclesiastical Power and Government as here formed. And if it could be proved that the Covenant intended both the Ejection of them from their Church Power, and their Places in Parliament, it followeth not that it obligeth not to the lawful act; because it obligeth not to the unlawful…

p. 4143. Nor can it easily be proved unlawful for the King and Parliament, either to make a separation of these Powers, or to take both from them, and so set up the Primitive sort of Bishops, either with or without any Civil Authority: Abbots had once also a place in Parliament, and yet they are now taken down, it is supposed not unlawfully. The King himself doth lawfully make Members of both Houses, by making Earls and Barons, and by giving Corporations power to choose Burgesses, who before had none. And as the new making of these, so the excluding of some Members, may be without any change in the Form of Civil Government: Certainly many Fathers and Canons are against the Civil Government of the Clergy.

§ 372. 2. The second objection is [That the Authority of the Imposers was null as to that Act].

Answ. That is a distinct Controversie, which here I shall pass by: But granting it to be so, no more will follow but that the People were not bound by any Command of theirs to take it: But a Vow that is taken in my Closet, without any Man's imposition or knowledge, may be obligatory; or one that a Robber forceth me to by the High-way: The nullity of the Oblig…on to take it, is all that followeth the nullity of their Authority; which will not infer the nullity of the Obligation to keep it: for it maketh it but equal to a Vow which is made of a private Will without any Command of Authority at all.

§ 373. 3. The third Reason (which most nearly toucheth the Controversie) is, That the Matter vowed (to extirpate Prelacy) was unlawful, both as against the Laws of God and of the Land.

Answ. If this be proved, no doubt but the Obligation is void, and of no effect. But, 1. It is before proved to be far from being against the Law of God to alter this Prelacy by warrantable means: And also, that it is not against the Law of the Land, for Subjects mode…y to petition, or Parliament Men to speak, or the King and Parliament to change; which are the Actions which belong to their Places and Callings. And if it had been expresly part of the matter of that Vow [to do this by unlawful means] the question is, Whether this can disoblige the Swearer from the lawful part adjoying, which is [to do it in their Places and Callings]? Whatever other matter is, this matter is not yet proved to be unlawful.

§ 374. Object. But Episcopacy is Jure Divino, and the Covenant mentioneth the extarpatien of Prelacy, which is of the same Species with the other Episcopacy: And therefore it is to be understood as to the extirpation of all Episcopacy, and so not obligatory.

Answ. 1. It is before proved that our Prelacy is not of Divine Right, but against it. 2. And that it differeth even specically from the Primitive Episcopacy. 3. But that's nothing to the Covenant: For whether it differ specie, vel gradu, vel accidentibus, it is proved that the Covenant talketh not of the extirpation of any other Episcopacy but it alone. 4. But if it did, it followeth not that the Obligation against the unlawful Prelacy is null, because the conjunct Vow against all Episcopacy is null: If a Man Vow at once to do two things, of which one is lawful, and the other unlawful, he may be bound to the lawful part, when he is not bound to the unlawful. But it's plainly proved, that it was our Prelacy existent, as such, described expresly, (yea, the inclusion of Episcopacy openly disclaimed) which was the thing covenanted against.

§ 375. Object. The finis proximus is part of the matter of the Vow: for the several Act are vowed only as means to that end: And therefore the obligation to the end ceasing, the obligation to the means as such doth cease: Now the end was the maintaining a War against the King, and the illegal taking down of Prelacy: And every Clause in the Covenant receiving its sence from this unlawful End, is it self unlawful.

Answ. Though I hear none use this Reason, yet it being the strongest that I could devise, and all that can seem of any weight being comprized in it, I will not pass it by; (though it be for Substance the same with that first answered) And,

1. It is plain that the finis proximus of altering Prelacy, can be neither of these mentioned: Neither the War, nor the illegality of the Change: The finis proximus must be the cessation of Prelacy: The next End was a (real or supposed) case to the Nation by it; and a (real or supposed) Reformation of the Church by it: And so far are the two aforesaid things from being the nearest Ends, that they would be no Ends. For, 1. The nature of the thing sheweth it: It may much fitlier be said that the War was for the taking down of Prelacy (as is commonly … the … than that the taking down of Prelacy was for the Wars. And the War was long before Prelacy was taken down: And it is contrary to sence to p. 415say, That [the taking down of Prelacy] was [for the illegal manner of doing it], but liker that [the illegal manner of doing it] (if it were illegal) was [for the taking down of Prelacy]: The manner was for the work as its end, and not the work for the manner. 2. And there is no such end expressed in the Covenant, but contrarily all along, Reformation is the professed end. And it is not secret ends, but the ends expressed in the Covenant that the Takers were to look at.

If it be said, That these two were the unlawful Ends of Imposing the Covenant, though not the finis materiae, the End of extirpating Prelacy]. I answer, If that were proved, it is nothing to the Point; for it will only prove the Imposing to be unlawful.

If it be said, That it was also [the End of Mens taking it]. I answer, 1. He that saith it was the intended End of the Takers, must know all their hearts, and know that all their Ends were the same; which is impossible. 2. If it be only, [the commanded End] that is meant, I further answer, 1. It is visible in the Words of the Covenant, that there is no such End commanded: Reformation is the End expressed in the Covenant. 2. If it had been commanded, that was the sin of the Commanders, but proveth not that the Covenanters all took it to the commanded ends: And it bindeth according to the Takers sence. 3. If it had been certainly taken to a wrong end by every Man that took it (which is not proveable), this would only prove the Actum Iurandi to be a sin, but not the Materiam Iuratam to be evil; which is the heart of all the Controversie. There is great difference between the finis jurandi and the finis rei juratae; the end of swearing, and the end of the thing sworn. If the finis jurandi only be evil, it will only prove the actum jurandi to be a sin: but it will not prove the materia juramenti to be unlawful: and then the Oath may be obligatory (as shall be further shewed). 4. Nay, go to the highest, and if it had been the end of the matter sworn, (viz. of the extirpation of Prelacy) that was evil, yet (as I have said) most Casuists, I think, will determine that the matter is separable in most Cases from the end, (unless it be a meer relative Act which the finis proximus is essential to). If a Man swear Allegiance to the King to a wrong end, is he not therefore obliged to Allegiance by his Oath? If a Man swear to do many things in themselves indifferent, upon a mistaken supposition that they are Duties, and so for the pleasing of God; when it is discovered to that Man, that they were media inepta, or no means at all to that end (of pleasing God) but things indifferent, I suppose he is not therefore disobliged, though he vowed them only sub ratione mediorum: because the keeping of a Vow about things lawful, is pleasing to God, though the matter vowed were indifferent. And if this hold not true, then wicked men can scarcely ever be obliged by any Oath or Vow to God or their Superiours, because they have wrong Ends in all, or most things which they do. But this last part of the Answer is needless, because the former are of undoubted certainty.

§ 376. 4. The fourth Reason against the Covenant is, That it was sinfully taken.

Answ. 1. It may be sinfully taken of one (that had no sufficient Motives, or had evil ones) and not of another: This Objection chargeth sin on the King and all the Lords and Knights and Gentlemen of his part, who took it unwillingly; when none of them have been heard speak for themselves, nor have produced the Reasons that moved them to take it.

2. If this were all granted of King and Kingdoms (that they sinned in taking it) it proveth no more, but the actus jurandi was a sin, and not the materia juramenti evil; which is no proof of the nullity of the Obligation. Many a Man or Woman that sinned in marrying (for wrong ends, or without just cause, &c.) is yet bound by the Marriage Covenants. Many things are sinful that are not nullities. A rash, or ignorant, or causless Vow is sinful quoad actium, and yet obligatory if it be lawful quoad materiam, and be no nullity. When it is either really no Vow, or the thing vowed be forbidden of God, then it is not to be judged obligatory.

§ 377. The fifth Reason against the Obligation is, from Numb. 30. That it was nulled by the King's declared dissent. To which it is answered by the Non-Subscribers, 1. That the Text is nothing to the Point, or at least, no Man can be sure it is. For, 1. it speaketh only de materia non necessaria; but the Covenant is supposed by the Non-Subscribers to speak de materia necessaria. 2. The Text expresly limiteth the indulgence to a daughter in the family, or a wife, and doth not extend it to the stronger Sex. 3. It limiteth it to Families, where the Ruler is still at hand, and extendeth it not to Kingdoms. 4. It doth not prove the Obligation null from the beginning, but only dissolved afterward by the Father's or Husband's dispensation (as many Verses express). 5. Therefore to pretend a parity of reason, for a King's p. 416dispensing with his Subjects Vows, is a bare pretence, and unproved, and disproved. 6. If it would hold, then it is in the power of Kings to save all their Subjects from the guilt of Perjury, by dispensing with all their Vows. 7. This Law in Numbers is no further in force than it appeareth to belong to the Law of Nature, or of Christ: For as Moses's Law, it dy'd with Christ, and was nailed to his Cross: Though the general equity of it be still of force. 8. How many Thousands in this Land and Scotland never knew of the King's Declaration against the Covenant? How then could that dispense with their Vows, which they never knew of, nor possibly could know of, being in the Parliaments Garrisons or Quarters? 9. What's this to all those that took it when the King was dead, and therefore could not dispense with their Oaths? 10. What is this to the King himself, who took it long after his Father's Death, over whom no man had a dispensing Power? 11. What's this to all those that took it after the present King had taken it, and published a Declaration for it? Did not this then confirm the Obligation? (Though for my part I am one of those that think that the Scots did ill, unmannerly, disobediently, unlawfully, inhumanly, foolishly, in forcing the King to take the Covenant against his will, and to publish so harsh a Declaration against his Father's Actions, contrary to his own Iudgment). Yet it is his open Declarations, and not his secret Unwillingness, which his distant Subjects could take notice of. So that this reason seemeth strongly to make against the pleaders of it, because of the King's confirming Act.

§ 378. 6. The sixth Reason is, [That the People cannot lawfully endeavour the change of Church Government without the King] Answ. 1. Cannot the Subjects petition, and the Parliament speak and vote without him, and petition him also? 2. Cannot a Bishop lawfully advise the King to do it, if the King ask his Advice? 3. Cannot the Subjects endeavour it if the King command them? Are they all bound to disobey the King if he should command their Service for the Change of Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy? Their Place and Calling is to do it when the King commandeth them: And so many of them understood and took it: And it seemeth too near a kin to Rebellion, to say that no Subject must obey the King in such a matter, though he swear it. If you say, This is never like to be: I answer, No Man knoweth what Change the Mind of Kings, as well as other Men, may admit: And they that read the King's Declaration in Scotland, thought they had a visible proof of it. 4. And what's all this to the King's own Act, who took it himself; whom we must also by our Subscription disoblige?

§ 379. 7. The seventh Reason answereth this, [That the King took not the same Covenant mentioned in the Act of Uniformity, but another]. Answ. This is so thin a shift, that the King himself doth not own it, but saith, That his Enemies drove him to it against his will. As if [mutatis mutandis] the various Names and Cases of Persons made an Oath or Covenant not to be the same! Because it's said in the beginning [We Noble men, Knights, &c. and not [We the King and Nobles,] they suppose another Name or Person maketh it specifically another Covenant. Or because the Article of protecting the King's Person, belonged not to him to take.

§ 380. 8. Another Reason is, [That the King was forced to it]. Answ. The more to be blamed are they that did it, then: But all the World acknowledgeth that the Will of Man cannot be forced absolutely: and that a voluntary Act, though caused by necessity or terrour, is moral; and that a Promise made to Man (much more a Vow to God) in materia licita, though forced by a Robber that would take away ones Life, may yet be Obligatory. A Man that may choose whether he will vow or die, is bound by his Vow, if he choose it, before Death: Though yet the choosing it may possibly be his sin.

§ 381. 9. Mr. Fullwood's great Reason is, That the King was pre-engaged to take the Corporation Oath as Heir of the Crown, and consequently engaged to Episcopacy, and consequently he was not obliged against it by the Covenant.

Answ. 1. If he were not obliged to take the Crown, he was not obliged to take that Oath. If he were obliged under the Peril of a Sin to take the Crown, then Charles the Fifth, and other Princes that have laid down Crowns, or refused them, have sinned: (unless some peculiar Reason be here brought). But this is not affirmed by any, That a Prince may not lawfully refuse a Crown, unless when it would hazard the Happiness of the Kingdom.

2. He might have taken the Crown with an alteration of that Oath: Who ever said, That the King and Parliament have not power to change that Oath, who can change the Laws.

p. 4173. Who can prove that it is any violation of that Oath, or wrong to [the liberties of the Church] which the King sweareth to preserve, to change the Prelacy into the Primitive Episcopacy? by taking down Lay-Chancellors, and restoring Pastoral Power, &c. any more than it was to take down Abbots, and to cast out the Pope, and to subject the Clergy to the Magistrate, who before were much exempt: All these seem to be much more against the Liberties of that which was called the Church when this Oath was formed, than the shewing Mercy to Prelates and the whole Land, by reducing them to a lawful rank, can be.

4. Do any Casuists in the World teach such Doctrine, That a former Oath is null, because some Conveniencies required the taking of a later?

5. If this hold true, then God's Law, which is former and higher than all, having first made it (as many Non-Subscribers think) a sin to cherish the Diocesan Frame at all, and consequently to swear to do it, the question is, Whether the Obligation to swear the upholding of them, or the Obligation not to swear it, were the greater?

§ 382. To Mr. Fullwood's further Reason is, That [it is injustice to cast out so many Men from their possessed Dignities and Estates; and therefore no Vow can oblige any to it].

Answ. 1. If indeed it were so, then the Vow extending but to our Places and Callings, cannot bind us to it: But is it any Injustice to make a Law against Prelacy in Specie, and to let their Places and Honours die with them? The Government may be so altered without putting out any Man, if none be put in to succeed them when they die.

2. And what if the King continue them as Church-Magistrates (only to do what his own Officers may do, to keep the Churches Peace as Justices) and continue their Baronies and their Lands and Places in Parliament, and only reform the pretended Spiritual Power of the Keys: would not this have been a taking down of Prelacy without the wrong of any?

3. Or what if he had taken down all their Power, and given them a Writ of Ease, and therewith left them, durante vita, their Estates and Honours? Would this have been any injury to them?

4. If Prelacy be as sinful as the Non-Subscribers foregoing Arguments would prove, can it be injustice to save a Man from Sin and Hell? and to save all the Churches from such Calamity, for some fleshly abatements that follow to a few Persons?

5. Was it injustice to put down the Abbots? Or cannot King and Parliament do good by Laws to the Church or Commonwealth, whenever a single Person or a few do suffer by it?

6. Especially where the Maintenance is Publick, and given for the Work, and the Work is for the Publick Good? Doth any Prince scruple the removing of an intolerable Pilot or Captain from a Ship? Or an intolerable Minister from the Church? Or an intolerable Officer from the Court, though it be to his loss? For my part, I never accused them for casting out so many Hundred Ministers from their Livings or Benefices, upon supposition that it be no wrong to Christ and Mens Souls to cast us out of the Church; but should rather justifie it.

§ 383. 11. The last and not the weakest Reason against the Obligation of the Covenant is, That [if it were lawful before for subjects to petition, and Parliament Men to speak and vote against Prelacy, yet now it is not; because by this Act the Parliament hath made it unlawful.

Answ. 1. The Parliament doth only declare their sense of a thing past [that no Man is bound] and not enact by a Law that no Man shall henceforth be bound.

2. If it had been otherwise, all Protestants confess that neither Pope, nor any Earthly Power can dispense with Oaths and Vows.

3. They do not so much as prohibit all Men to endeavour an alteration of Government in the Church, but only forbid them to say, That they are bound to it, by the Covenant.

4. They have allowed Subjects to petition for the change of Laws, so they do it but ten at a time.

5. The Parliament is not by any Man to be accused of such a Subversion of Liberties and of Parliaments Priviledges, and of the Constitution of the Kingdom, as to forbid Subjects petitioning, and all Parliament Men speaking, and to disable the King and Parliament from changing a Law when they see cause: If they should do any of this, the Charges now brought against the Long Parliament, would teach and allow us to suppose all to be null.

p. 4186. If the Laws of God be against Prelacy, those oblige above all Humane Laws. And he that should forbid another to save him or his Neighbour when he is drowning, doth not by that prohibition make the saving of them unlawful before God.

§ 384. Now to the Latitudinarians addition of Reasons de modo & sensu. 1. They say that the Act extendeth not to the King at all, when it biddeth us subscribe, that [there is no Obligation on me, or any other person]: for Laws being made for Subjects, are to be interpreted only of Subjects, unless when the King is named.

To this it is easily answered, That they distinguish not between the King as the Subject of a Law, and the King as the Object of my Assertion or Belief. It's true, that the Law speaketh of Subjects only whenever it speaketh of the Duty of Subjects; and the King is no Subject: But it is as true, that the Law speaketh of the King only, whenever it speaketh of the Prerogatives of the Crown and Soveraignty; and as the Object of the Subjects Acts of Loyalty. The question is not here, Who is commanded by this Act? but who is obliged by the Covenant or Vow? And if I be commanded to say, that [no person is obliged] without any limitation, I can with no reason except the King, whom the Law excepteth not: Princes may be obliged by Vows as well as others, and their Obligations may be the Subject of our Assertions and Belief.

§ 385. 2. The second Reason is, Because the King's Government is part of that whose alteration is declared against, therefore be can be none of the [any other persons].

Answ. 1. So the Prelates are the Persons whose Government is here mentioned, and yet no doubt they are included in the [any other persons]; as their Chancellors, Commissaries, Deans, &c.

2. If the King may be included, when it is said, That no Man must extirpate Monarchy; no not the King; much more when it is said, That no Man may extirpate Prelacy; for there the reason of the Objection faileth.

§ 386. 3. They further say, That [the Act meaneth only that no Man is bound by the Vow to endeavour against Law, as by Rebellion, Sedition, Treason, &c. and not that Subjects may not petition, Parliament Men speak, or King and Parliament alter the Law: which they prove, because it was taking up Arms and illegal Actions only that the old Parliament was blamed for.

Answ. This one pretence hath drawn abundance of laudable Persons to Subscribe: but how unsatisfactory it is, may thus appear: 1. Why then could it never be procured to have the word [unlawfully] put into the Act? when it was know that in that sence none of us would have scrupled it.

2. All Casuists agree that Universal Terms in or about Oaths and Vows, must not be understood any otherwise than Universally, without apparent cogent Reason: On such Terms as these else a Man may take any Oath in the World, or disclaim any: The Parliament hath exactly tyed Subscribers to the particular words, and they long deliberated to express their own sence: And they say [neither I nor any other person]; and now cometh an Expositor, and saith, The King is not the [any other person]. What! Is he no Person? or is he not another Person? So they say [no Obligation lieth on us to endeavour], and the Latitudinarian saith, That I may endeavour it, and that they mean no Endeavour but unlawful. This contradictory Exception and Exposition is against all common Use and Justice, and such as will allow a Man to cheat the State, by saying or unsaying any thing in the World.

3. We have many a time told some Latitudinarians how this matter may be soon decided if they will: The Parliament hath past another Act with the self same words in it, making it Confiscation for any Man to say, That [he or any other person is obliged by the Covenant to endeavour any Alteration of Church-Government]: Let them write or say openly [Men are obliged by the Covenant to endeavour it by lawful means, but not by unlawful]: and let them give leave to another to accuse them in a Court of Justice for these words; and let it be there tried and judged, and then the sence of the Law will be declared: If they be in the right the Accuser shall lose his Costs, and no danger can befal them. If they be not in the right, they will be punished by Confiscation: And is not the hazard of such a Law Suit cheap enough for a Man to save himself and others from so great a Guilt, as the Justification of three Kingdoms in the Sin of Perjury (if it so prove)? And yet I could never hear of the Man that would hazard his Estate thus on the confidence of his Exposition of the Law; but multitudes venture their Souls upon it.

p. 4194. The Parliament, who is the Expounder of their own Laws, have given us their sence of the Subject of our Controversie, in a former Law, which puts all out of doubt: For in the Corporation Act all Men are put out of Power and Trust, who will not declare, that (absolutely, without any limitation) [There is no Obligation upon me or any other person, from the Oath called, &c.] so that all Obligation to any thing at all by that Vow, is in this most important Act denied, and the profession of this denial thus imposed. By which it is past doubt that the Lawmakers sence is against all Obligation absolutely.

5. And that it is so, is well know to those that know what was said in the Parliament, when among the Commons this Reason carried it; viz. That if any Obligation at all be acknowledged, even to things lawful, every seditious person will be left to think that he is bound to all which he conceiveth lawful, which with some will be to resist the King or commit Treason: Therefore all Obligation absolutely must be denied. I confess such Villains there may be, and they should be carefully restrained; but as I doubt this Act of Parliament will no whit change their belief of their Obligations (for they will think Parliaments cannot dispense with Oaths or with the Laws of God) so it is a sad remedy for such villanous Errours, to disoblige Men from the lawful part of Vows, for fear lest they take the unlawful to be lawful: As it is to teach Men to take nothing which God commandeth, to be their Duty, for fear least they should take ther Sin to be their Duty.

§ 387. Object. But what if the Bishop give me liberty to put in the word [unlawfully] or to Subscribe only in that sence; may I not then lawfully do it?

Answ. This was the only Expedient to draw in Nonconformists heretofore, and so it hath proved of late again. But I distinguish, 1. There is much difference between Subscribing the very words of the Act, with the verbal or by-addition of your own Explication, and the putting in of your Explicatory words into the Sentence which you Subscribe. 2. Between Subscribing this as the imposed Declaration in the Act, and Subscribing it only as another thing. 3. Between the secret and the open Explication of your Mind. For my part, if the word [unlawfully] had been joyned to [endeavour] by the Law-makers, I would not have scrupled to Subscribe that part of the Declaration. But 1. the Bishop is not the Law-maker, and therefore hath no more power than a private Man to expound the Law: Nor is he so much as a Iudge in this business (who may expound it in order to the decision of a particular Cause); but only a Witness that you Subscribe. 2. If you only Subscribe the very words of the Declaration, and speak your Explication, or write it in a by-paper, you do then provide an insufficient Plaister for the Sore: you do that which is evil in it self, and would cure it by an uneffectual accidental Medicine: You harden both the Imposers and Subscribers by your Scandal, while you are said to Subscribe the very thing imposed, whose sence is so plain, that your Exposition is but an apparent ludicrous distortion. As if I were commanded to Subscribe this Sentence [God hath no knowledge nor no love]; The Imposer understandeth it vulgarly and blasphemously: The words in the most strict and proper sence are true (which cannot be said in our Case): because knowledge and love are spoken primarily of the Creatures Acts, and are not in God formaliter, but eminenter, that is, somewhat more excellent which hath no other name, because we have no formal Conceptions of them, but must speak of God after the manner of Men, while Man is the Glass and Image by which we know him: yet would I not Subscribe this imposed Proposition, while the Imposer meaneth it blasphemously; because it is a heinous Scandal to be said to Subscribe and own such Villany, and so to encourage others to it; no though I might express my sence. 3. Especially I may express it but privately, where the Remedy against the Scandal will be ineffectual: But if you may Subscribe the whole Sentence with your own words therein, and that not as it is the imposed Declaration (which is otherwise expounded by the Law-makers themselves) but as another, and may make this as publick and notorious as your Subscription it self is, then I have less to say against it. There are no words utterable which a Man may not put a good sence on if he please: And yet I durst not so far play with Death, and comply with the Spirit of Impiety, as to Subscribe that [There is no God, or God is unjust, or unwise, or unholy, &c.] though I had liberty to say, I mean it in this or that sence which is true and warrantable.

§ 388. 4. Another Motive of the Latitudinarians to Subscribe is, That by [to endeavour any Change or Alteration of Government in the Church] is meant only [any change of the Species of our Church-Government, and not any Reformation of integral or accidental Defects, or Depravations.

p. 420Answ. 1. And yet these very Men do profess to believe, with Mr. Stillingfleet, That no Form of Church-Government is of Divine Appointment or Imposition: And if so, why is it not lawful for the King and Parliament to change that which God hath not made necessary? Or for Subjects to endeavour it by Petition?

2. It is agreed on by Casuists (and their Bishop of Lincoln Dr. Sanderson, with the rest) That Oaths are to be taken sensu strictiore, and so are Laws, and those especially which determine of the Obligation of Oaths: But it is an unwarrantable audacious liberty for any Subject unnecessarily thus to turn an Universal Enunciation into a Definite and Particular; and when the Law saith [any alteration of Government] to say that [some alteration] is not included. Their reason is because it is said [of] and not [in] Government. Answ. There is no Language (much less the English) that alloweth you such a sence of these two Prepositions, as if [of] must needs mean the Species, and [in] may mean only the Integrity or Accidents. We dare not be so bold as to feign such a Difference and Latitude of sence, to be in the Preposition [of] unless we could prove it.

3.**And the same [of] is annexed to both [the Government of Church or State]. Therefore if it be treasonable to expound it in your sence, of the One, it is sure unlawful so to expound it as to the Other. Will it not be taken for Treason if you make the same Exposition of the other Clause of the Declaration, and say that the King and Parliament meant no more, than to say that no Man is bound by the Covenant to endeavour an Essential or Specifick Change of State-Government; or no greater Change than what may leave it still in the Species of a Monarchy. Or do you believe that they meant no more? and that they determined not against supposed Obligations to lower Changes of the Royal Government?

4. There is not the accuratest Grammarian and Logician of them all, that can tell just what may be said to Specifie a Government, and what but to integrate it; and just how far a Change may go before it may be called a Change of the Species.

5. But suppose all this were nothing: It is clearly proved that it is not the Genus of Episcopacy, but the Species of English Prelacy (described) which the Covenant meaneth. And I have proved already that a specifick alteration of this Prelacy is lawful; and whether also not-necessary let the impartial Reader judge. I have asked the most Learned of the Diocesan Party that I could meet with, this Question, Whether it be not lawful for the King and Parliament to take down Chancellors, and all Lay-Judges in Spiritual Courts, and Deans, Arch-deacons, Commissaries, and the Courts themselves, and to take down a Bishop of a Thousand or many Hundred Churches, and to set up a Bishop in every Market Town with the adjacent Villages, yea, or in every great Parish, to govern with his Presbyters, as it was in Ignatius his days (and in Cyprian's)? And never Man of them denied it lawful for them to make such a Change, if they saw it meet. I have asked them further, Whether they would not call this a Change of Government de specie, or according to the sence of the Act? And they all confest it: (For if they did not, the Act and Declaration would herein do them no good††I pray ask the Law-givers, whether they will excuse you from breaking this Oath or Promise, if you endeavour to extirpate the English Prelacy, but not to root out all Episcopacy., but leave private Men to endeavour such an Alteration, which they know is all the Alteration that ever we desired of them; and for which they have called us Presbyterians). I have asked them further, Whether a Vow turn not a licet into an oportet? And they never deny it. Where then can you imagine any remaining difference? Why this was all that they said, That it was not this Species of Prelacy, but Episcopacy in genere which the Covenant meant, and consequently the Act meanethO for a Mind prepared and willing to know the Truth.. Which I have proved to be most evidently untrue; there being no other Episcopacy but our Prelacy then existent, nor Episcopay ever named in the Convenant in genere, but this Prelacy, being exactly described, and this purposely for the deciding of this very Doubt, by the means of Mr. Gataker, Dr. Burges, and many more in the Assemblies who renounced the extirpation of all Episcopacy, and the Lords having taken the Covenant in that openly declared sence: But suppose all this had not been so: Doth not a renunciation of the Genus contain the Species? And if any Man voweth against the Genus, mistaking it to be all sinful, will not his Vow bind him against that Species which indeed is sinful, though not against the others? As suppose that a Man should think that All swearing and Accusing others were a sin… and so to save himself from the said sins, should Vow to God against them all: If afterward this Man discover that some swearing before a Magistrate is a duty, and some accusing of another, is he not for all that still bound against p. 421prophane and rash swearing? and malicious or unjust accusing, which indeed are sins? for therein he was not mistaken. So if Men had (as they did not) upon mistake make a Vow against all Episcopacy or Prelacy as a sin, and afterward discover that one sort is a Duty, and the other a Sin, do they not remain obliged against that wherein they were not mistaken?

6. Lastly, Let it be noted, That though it be said in Declaration [of] Government, yet it is added [in the Church] and not [of the Church]: which is as much against them as the other is for them, seeming to intimate, that it is not the Form only Constitutive of the Church, which they here intend.

§ 389. 5. Some leading Independents say, That it was essential to this Vow to be also a League: and as a League it is ce…sed, by the cessation of Persons and Occasions. This shift they were put upon first themselves (being the first that nullif…ed these Bonds) that they might do what they did against the Covenant, and make it as an Almanack out of date.

Answ. 1. Though as a Political Instrument, it be called by one Name, A Solemn League and Covenant, and so all the parts of it do make one Instrument, yet 1. The formality of it as a League, and as a Vow, are different. 2. And as a Vow to God, and a Moral Act of Man, there are in it as many distinct Vows as there are Ma…ters vowed. The League is not the end of the Vow, but Reformation was the professed end of both, to which they were taken as co-ordinate means. And therefore it as a League it were ceased, it followeth not that as a Vow it is so: For Men are the parties in the League, but God is one of the Parties in the Vow, and every individual Person is the other Party: And if one Vow or Article should cease, it followeth not that all the rest do so.

2. It is not proved that it ceaseth as a League: Though it oblige us not to war, or to any thing against the King or State; and though many of the Persons be dead that took it. For, 1. War was not mentioned in the Covenant; much less as the Duty of all the Covenanters: sure it was never intended that all the Women must fight. 2. If it had, that was but one of the means there mentioned: and every Man bound himself [to endeavour in his Place and Calling]; and that was not to fight, for all.

3. Therefore though the particular Occasions cease, the general Cause continueth (the need of Reformation); and though no Man be bound to any unlawful means, it followeth not that there is no bound to lawful means: And though some Persons be dead, not only the Nations, but many individual Covenanters are living.

4. And in express Terms they bound themselves [all the days of their lives zealously and constantly to continue therein]; and therefore intended no such cessation.

§ 390. 6. Lastly, The Latitudinarians say that the general Rule is, That all Sayings are to be interpreted in the best sence that the words will bear. Ergo—

Answ. In the best sence which hath Evidence of Truth, Charity requireth us to take all the words of others: But the question is first, Which is the true sence? and not which is the best. And if it can be proved that another is either certainly or probably the true meaning of any words, we must not feign a better sence, because it is better. In the Case in hand, the Law-makers have plainly declared their own sence, by their Speeches, and Votes, and deliberate plain Expressions, and by another Act (for Corporations.) If I might take all Oaths and Statutes in the best sence which possibly those words may be used to express, than I could take almost any Oath in the World, and disobey any Law in the World under pretence of obeying it; and tell any Lie under the pretence of telling Truth, and Jesuitical Equivocation would be but the common Duty of the Charitable. But Charity is not blind, nor will it prove a fit Cover for a Lie. He that knoweth the Parliament, and is but willing to know their sence, may know the mistakes of this pretended Charity. And especially Laws and Oaths are to be taken in the sence which is plainest in the words.

§ 391. Besides all that is already said, I shall end this Subject with this question on the Non-subscribers part, Whether an Oath doth not bind Men in the sence of the Takers? (though they be bound to take it in the sence of the Imposers if they know it.) As if I had been commanded to swear Allegiance to the King; and he that commandeth it should mean Cromwell, or some Usurper, and I thought he had meant my rightful King, Am I not bound hereby to the King indeed? And if so, Query further, Whether any Man so well know the sence of every Man and Woman in England, Scotland and Ireland, as to be able to say that it was so bad, that they are not obliged to it? And in what Age it was that all Ministers were forbidden to Preach the Gospel of Christ, till they knew the Hearts of all the People p. 422in three Kingdoms, so far as to justifie them before God from the Obligations of such Vows and Oaths?

§ 392. And though I heartily wish that the Prelates would have been intreated to have chosen another course of proceeding with their Brethren, and not have tempted any to Repinings or Complaints (for endeavouring which I lost their love), yet I would admonish all my Brethren to take heed of aggravating this Difference so far, as to bring the present Ministry into Contempt, and hinder the Efficacy of their Labours. I did my best to have prevailed beforehand, that we might not have had any occasion of Divisions; but if we must needs be divided, that it might have been upon some lower Points, than the Obligation of Oaths and Vows! It had been better for the Prelates that the Non-subscribers had seemed to be scrupulous Persons that refused only some tolerable Ceremonies, than that the fear of so great a Crime as justifying three Kingdoms from the Bond of an Oath, and the guilt of Perjury, should be the occasion of their Ejection, and the Matter of this Publick Controversie: But seeing this could not (by us) be prevented, let us not be so partial as to wrong the Church, by making them odious to justifie our selves. It was sad when the Names of Formalists and Puritans, and afterwards of Malignants and Rebels, and Cavaliers and Roundheads, distinguished the divided Parties: But it is now grown worse, when they are called PER-fidious jured secutors and PURITANS: For the most odious Names do most potently tend to the extinguishing of Charity, and the increase of the Difference between them.

§ 393. III. The next Controversie is Political: That [it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King; or as is after said, against any Commissionated by him]. In this the Lawyers are divided, yea and Parliament themselves; one Parliament saying one thing, and another another thing. And the poor ejected Ministers of England are commonly so little studied in the Law, that in these Controversies they must say as they are bidden, or say nothing: And they think it hard that when Lawyers and Parliaments cannot agree, every poor ignorant Preacher must be forced to decide the Controversie, and say and subscribe which of them is in the right, upon pain of being cast out of their Office and silenced: which they think as hard as if they were required to decide a Controversie between Navigators, or Pope Zachary and Boniface's Case about the Antipodes, or else be silenced. We are ready to Subscribe [That King Charles the Second is our lawful King, and that we owe him Obedience in all his lawful Commands, and that we are bound to defend his Person, Dignity, Authority and Honour with our Lives and Estates against all his Enemies, and that neither Parliaments nor any other at home or abroad, have any power to judge or hurt his Person, or depose him, or diminish any of his Power; and that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to conspire against him, or …stir up the People to Sedition, or to take up Arms against either his Authority or his Person, or against any lawfully Commissioned by him; or any at all Commissioned by him, except he himself by a contrary Commission, or by his Law do enable us, or not forbid us, or when the Law of Nature doth oblige us]. In all these Cases we are ready to Subscribe: And one would think this much might procure our Peace. But that which is scrupled by the Non-subscribers is as followeth.

The words [on any pretence whatsoever] studiously put into a Form of Declaration by a Parliament, are so universal, as to allow no Latitudinarian Evasions or Limitations or Exceptions by any Man that is sincere and plain-hearted, and doth not Equivocate with God and his Governours: Now

1. Though the King's Authority or Person may not be resisted by Arms, they are not certain that his Will may not in any Case be resisted.

2. Though none Authorized, that is Legally Commissioned by him may be resisted, yet they are not certain that all that are Commissioned by him are Authorized or Legally Commissioned.

3. Either this Declaration requireth us to suppose that the King never will Commission any illegally; or else that though he do, yet such may on no pretence whatsoever be resisted by Arms. If the former be the sence, then either it is because no King will do it, or only because no King of England will do it. The former, all Historians, Politicians, Lawyers and Divines, are against. And the latter hath no Evidence of Certainty to us. But yet if that had been the sence, we should have consented [that on supposition the King commission Men legally, they are not to be p. 423resisted]. But this no Man will say is to be supposed, as an Event certainly and universally future. But if the worst that is possible might be supposed possible, then in these several Cases they are doubtful.

1. In Case that a Man pretend to have the King's Commission, but doth not shew it me, what am I then to do?

2. In Case he shew it me under the Privy Seal, and another shew the Broad Seal to a Commission to resist him.

3. In Case he shew the Broad Seal, and I know not whether it be counterfeit or surreptitiously procured.

4. In Case that by the fault of Officers, or forgetfulness, or any other cause, one Man should have a Commission to defend and command a Ship or Fort, or Country, and another shew a Commission of the same date to command and defend the same Ship, Fort, or Country, and to resist any that oppose him; Is it unlawful for both of them here to obey the King's Command?

5. In case that any shall shew or pretend a Commission for any illegal Act, as to take Mens Purses by the High-way, to break into their Houses, and take their Money and Goods, and seize their Estates, or kill their Families: Or to lay a Tax upon the Country without the Consent of Parliament; or to ravish Mens Wives, or Daughters, or to burn the City, or if two or three should shew a Commission to come into the House of Lords or Commons, and kill them all in the place; &c. It is certain that a Sword is Arms, and that to fight in a Man's own Defence is to take up Arms: Or if any say it must be the fighting of many together only that is called the Taking up of Arms, as that is not to be understood by the words which have no such restriction, so no Man knoweth how many it must be that by concurrence must make the Act to be a Taking up of Arms. We have put some of these Cases to Parliament Men, and they tell us, That in any such Case they would use their Arms to defend themselves: But these are single Members: What the Houses mean, we know not, but by the words: And no words can be more exclusive of any Exception, than these, That [it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever]. Also, what if Saul gives Commission to his Armour bearer to kill him? Might not a Subject by Arms defend the King, and rescue his Life, against his Will and Commission? And what if a Court of Justice decree a Subject the Possession of his House and Land, and require the Sheriff of the Country to put him in possession, and to raise the Posse Comitatus to do it, if there be resistance; And what if the Person to be ejected shew a Commission from the King to keep possession, contrary to this Judgment; is it unlawful for the Sheriff to obey the Court? (And the Posse Comitatus of Yorkshire hath been a considerable Army).

§ 394. The Things which increase the Doubt of the Non-subscribers in this Case, are these:

1. Because if, as it is said by some, the Laws are the King's Laws, and the Acts of his Will, as well as his Commissions are: Then if his Law and his Commission be contradictory, I must need disobey the King which soever I disobey, and resist the King's Will which soever I resist. We have no Laws but what are Acts of the King's Will; and till they are repealed, they still express his Will.

2. Because that the Laws are made purposely to be the Subjects Rule of Obedience, being also the Rule of Judgment in all Courts; and being that Act of the King's Will which the Subjects have publick certain Notice of: They know that the Laws are indeed the King's Laws, and are not counterfeit: And they are of universal Obligation: But a Seal to a Commission may possibly be counterfeit, or the Subject can have no such certifying notice of it.

3. And they know that the King is not himself every where present, to tell his doubtful Subjects, which signification of his Will he owneth, and which they should prefer; and that he governeth his Kingdom by his Courts and Officers; they sit and send forth their Orders in his Name: And a known publick Court of Justice, seemeth to be a more credible declarer of the King's Will, than a Stranger or particular Person, who saith that he hath his Commission. It is the Form of the Law, to be the Act of the Governing Will of the King, and the use of his Courts, to declare it, and expound it, and judge by it for his Subjects: But a private Commission wanteth these Advantages.

4. Because they think that the Law of Nature, and the Constitution of the Kingdom must else submit to this Declaration: For if two or three, or more, shew a Commission to kill all the Parliament, and fire the City, Nature seemeth to allow them Self-defence; and Parliaments (which are part of the Constitution) are vain if they have no better Security for their Lives.

p. 4245. They find a Statute of King Edward the Third, That if any Man bring from the King a Command under the Little Seal, or the Great Seal, to require any Judge to go against Justice, or to contradict it, the Judge shall go on, as if it signified nothing: And the Sheriff's forcible Assistance, may be part of his Judgment, or the legal Consequent.

6. Else no Subject seemeth to have any Security for his Estate or Life, nor the Subject any Liberties: For if their Estates or Purses be taken away, And we fear left by this we put it in the power of the Lord Keeper or Chancellor to Depose the King at his pleasure, by sealing Commissions to any to feize on all his Forts, Garrisons, Navies, Treasures, Guards, &c.or their Lives assaulted by pretended Commissions, or Taxes imposed contrary to Law, what remedy have they? To say they may question the Instruments at Law, is vain and worse, as long as that Law, whatever it decreeth, must submit to a Commission, and must never resist it, nor use any force of Arms, though against a single Man for its own Execution. Who will begin a Suit at Law, against the King's Will at all, if he first know that his Will must not be resisted, and that the End will but be his greater ruine?

7. They said, King Iames asserting in his Writings (for Monarchy) that a King may not make War against his whole Kingdom: In case then that he should do it, they are uncertain that the whole Kingdom might not at all resist his commissioned Officers.

8. They find the late King Charles the First, in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of the Parliament, asserting a Protecting Power in the Lords, and setting up the Laws above his own Will.

9. They know that the Laws are made by King and Parliament, and Commissions here supposed to be by the King alone: And the whole Authority of all parts seemeth more than of one alone.

10. They find that it hath been familiar with Lawyers to prefer the Law before the King's Commissions; and Parliaments have been of that mind: And they are too weak to Condemn them all in their own Faculties.

11. They find that the greatest Defenders of Monarchy of all Forreign Lawyers, even Barclay and Grotius, have instanced in many Cases in which it is as they say, lawful by Arms to resist a King! And we pretend not to more skill in Laws than they.

12. They find that even the greatest Episcopal Divines, approved by our Princes, and most Learned Defenders of Monarchy and Obedience, do yet set up the Laws above the King, and write more in this Case than we can consent to… Mr. Tho. Hooker (whom King Charles the First commended to his Children to be read) speaketh so very high, not only in his whole Eighth Book (dedicated by Bishop Gauden to the King) but also in his First Book (which was extant when King Charles the First commended his Works) that for my part I do not believe him, (that the Body as such hath the Legislative Power, and that the King is singulis major and universis minor, with much of the like: And therefore I have wrote a full Confutation of him in the Fourth Tome of my Christian Directory. And yet he is one of the most magnified Authours with the Bishops. And so is Bishop Bilson, who in his Treatise for Christian Subjection, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, hath that terrible passage for resisting Kings before-recited § 253.

13. And they find that not only Politicians speak more in this Case than we allow, and the Roman, Greek, and other Historians; but the Historians and Chroniclers of this Land. For instance, Hollingshead Lib. 1. in his Chapter of Parliaments, saith, [This House hath the most high and absolute Power of the Realm: For thereby Kings and mighty Princes have from time to time been deposed from their Thrones; Laws either enacted or abrogated, Offenders of all sorts punished, and corrupted Religion either disannulled or reformed; which commonly is divided into two Houses or Parts, &c.] Here is more then I assent to, or think to be justifiable. Now when all these say so much more for Resistance than we judge sound, it seemeth hard to us to go so far contrary to them all (in Matters of other Mens Profession) as to Subscribe, That on no pretence whatsoever no one Commissionated by the King, may be resisted by taking up Arms.

14. And we read how Dr. Mainwairing, and other Divines, have been condemned by Parliament for Matters of this Nature. And whatever any Latitudinarian may say, we are sure that [on no pretence whatsoever] are words that exclude all these fore-mentioned Pretences from being lawful. And if it yet be said, That it is disloyal to suppose that any such illegal Commission will be granted, we do not suppose that it will be so, but if it be not possible to be so, in this Age or another, then we are contented to Subscribe this Clause: For Parliaments will not differ about Impossibilities.

p. 425§ 395. Incident to this Controversie are other Clauses of the Declaration, as that the Covenant was in it self an unlawful Oath, and imposed against the known Laws, &c. which though they contradict not, yet many that were Children then, and know neither Matter of Law or Fact, no not so much as the Fundamental Laws and Constitution of the Kingdom, do think themselves very uncapable of determining.

§ 396. And for the Trayterous Position of taking Arms by his Authority against his Person, or against those that are Commissionated by him: We see no position here recited; and therefore must annex this Clause to the former (as before) supposing that the meaning is, that it is a Trayterous Position to say, That it is lawful by the King's Authority, to take up Arms on any pretence whatsoever, against, &c.] And we all confess that it is a Contradictory and Trayterous Position for any man to say, that he may take up Arms by the King's Authority against his Authority, or Dignity, or Honour, or Person: But all the Doubt is as aforesaid, Whether the King's Laws have not his Authority? and whether his Laws and his Commission may not be contrary? or one Commission contrary to another? And in that case, whether it be Trayterous to say that one side hath his Authority against the other? As if his Law allow Men to defend their Lives and Purses against Assaults, and an Assailant produce a Commission, whether the King's Authority in his Laws and Courts enable not a Man by Arms to save his Purse or Life against such a pretended Commissioner: (And how shall any Subject, at the time of the Assault, be sure whether the Commission be true or spurious?) If as Ioa… and Abner sent the young Men to play (mad play) before them, and the Romans caused their Gladiators to fight to make them sport, so if the King to try the Valour of some Subjects, would Commission a few on both sides to fight against each other, doth it follow that both sides were Traytors, because they both fought by his Authority against such as were Commissionated by him? If it be said, That this is not the meaning of the Act: we answer… That where Forms are supposed to be deliberately worded by a Parliament, if we must not understand Universals universally, but may put in Limitations or Exceptions at our Pleasure, then their words are not the signifiers of their Minds, and we know not whether to go to understand them, nor what be the Exceptions and Limitations allowed, but every Man may except according to his Fancy, and thus all will be but Equivocation and Deceit. And Dr. Sanderson resolveth it, That when Oaths (and consequently subscribed Forms) are ambiguously worded, and the Imposers will not explain them, it is not fit at all to take them.

Some Lawyers tell me, that if it came before the Judges they would judge an unlawful Commission to be no Commission; and that the Judges are the Expositors of the Law. I answer, 1. We have no assurance that the Judges would so judge; much less unanimously: nor that they have so done. 2. Lately Mr. Ioseph Read offered at the King's-Bench-Bar to take the Oxford Oath as expounded in that sence by the Vote of the Lords about the Test; and he was reproved for his Offer, and told that he must take it as the Law imposed it, and was sent back to Jail. 3. The Law-makers only can expound a Law as antecedently Obligatory to all the Subjects: The Judges can only expound it consequently for the decision of a particular Case, in order to Execution; and ad hoc, which warranteth no Man to take that for the true meaning of the Statute.

§ 397. IV. The Fourth Controversie is about the Oath of Canonical Obedience: And the Reasons why this is scrupled by the Non-Conformists are these: Because they take the Power it self to which they are to swear, to be specifically Evil, and against the Word of God: of which their Proofs are given before: And therefore they dare not be guilty of swearing Obedience to them, lest they 1. Take the Name of God in vain; and Oath being a thing which is not to be ventured on, but with the greatest reverence, deliberation and sincerity. 2. And lest they scandalously approve of Usurpation in Christ's Kingdom, to the wrong of his Crown and Dignity, and contract the guilt of Treason or Disloyalty against him. 3. Lest they encourage Usurpers in these insolent Novelties and Corruptions, which the ancient Churches never knew, and came not into the Church till the Roman Papacy grew to some degree of Impudency in their Usurpations.

§ 398. Yet these two things the Non-conformists are contented readily to do: 1. To obey the Bishops Chancellors, &c. by meer Submission, without an Oath, in all things lawful. To appear at their Courts, and answer them with due reverence. For they think that Subjection and Submission towards Usurpers greatly differ: and p. 422that as in the late Cromwellian Usurpation in England, many submitted, as they would have done to a Robber, whom they could not resist; who yet would not swear Subjection, nor do any thing which seemed to justifie his Usurpation or Title: So here, though they dare not state themselves by an Oath, in the relation of Subjects to the Prelates, yet they can obey them materially in lawful things. 2. And they are willing to swear Obedience to them as they are the King's Officers; commissioned by him to exercise such Coercive Power as belongeth to the Magistrate about Church Matters: But not as they exercise the Power of the Keys, in Absolving, Excommunicating, &c.

§ 399. Object. 1. It is but in licitis & honestis that you swear to obey them: And who will refuse things lawful and honest.

Answ. 1. But it is in the relation of our lawful Ordinaries that we are required to swear this Obedience to them. It may be lawful and honest to do the things commanded, when it is neither lawful nor honest to subject my self to the Commander as his Subject. The most just Authority that is can command us nothing but licita & honesta. And if Cromwell or the Engaging piece of the Parliament had required me to swear Obedience to them in licitis & honestis, I think to have done it had been a subjecting my self to them as my Governours, which had neither been licitum nor honestum. If a Rebel now should usurp Authority against the King's will, for the Government of Ireland or Scotland, he that would go swear Obedience to him in licitis & honestis I think would be disloyal.

2. And it is Obedience according to the Canon, which is their [in licitis & honestis]: And this is to Lay-Chancellors Exercise of the Keys, and many other things which are supposed licita & honesta, but not yet proved to be so.

§ 400. Object. 2. What a Man may do, he may swear to do: But licita & honesta a Man may do: Ergo—Answ. 1. I deny the Major as universally taken: There is many a thing that may be done, which may not be sworn: Else you might swear to speak every word before you speak it, and to do every trivial Action that you do. 2. Some time the Oath reacheth further than the Act to be done, even to the Relation in which it is done, and the reason for which; and this is the Case here: So that here is a feigning of a false state of the Question; which is not, Whether we may swear to do licita & honesta? but whether we may swear to obey them as our lawful Ordinaries in licitis & honestis? 3. The Conclusion therefore might be granted without any Decision of the Controversie: For the Question is not, Whether we may swear to do such things? but whether we may swear to obey those Men in that relation, and to do those things sub formali ratione obedientiae? Which their Loyalty to Christ their King, they think prohibiteth. What if you lived in a Popish Country, would you swear to obey the Pope in licitis & honestis? If not, you may see our Reasons, while you give your own.

§ 401. Object. 3. The Scripture commandeth all Men to subject themselves one to another. Answ. There is an Equivocation in the word [subject]. The Text speaketh only of private submission and yielding to others, voluntarily carrying our selves with that lowliness as Subjects do to their Rulers: But this is nothing to publick relative stated subjection, of which the Controversie is. He would be but an ill Subject to the King, or an ill Member of the Church, who would make every man his King or his Pastor, on this pretence that we must all subject our selves to each other.

§ 402. Object. 4. You are to swear Obedience to them only as Church-Magistrates appointed by the King. Answ. That cannot be true: because it is as our Ordinaries, who have the power of Ordination, Excommunication and Absolution, and in the exercise of this power: But the power of the Keys is not Magistratical.

§ 403. V. The fifth Controversie is about Re-ordination. Now in this the Nonconformists are the more shie, 1. Because in our most Publick Meetings before the King and the Lords and the Bishops, some of them (as Dr. Gunning oft) have openly declared that the Ordination which hath been in England without Bishops is null, and those that were so Ordained without them are no Ministers, but Lay-men. And his Majesty himself hath signified openly his own Judgment accordingly, that he would no more take the Sacrament from such then from Lay-men. So that it being thus openly declared to be their sence, and no one of their Bishops or Doctors contradicting it, we have reason to think that by submitting to be Re-ordained, Men do interpretatively confess the nullity of their former Ordination. 2. And it is a new thing, contrary to the Judgment and Practice of all the Reformed p. 427Churches. 3. And there is a Canon among those called the Apostles which is express against it, commanding the Deposition of the Ordainers and Ordained. 4. I have fully proved in my Disputation of Church Government, That the said Ordination without Diocesans is valid, and better than the Prelates, and was performed by such Bishops as were in Ignatius's days; viz. City-Pastors who had Presbyters under them: And no Man hath attempted to answer what I have there said. 5. And at best to be Re-ordained, seemeth but a taking of God's Name in vain, and a solemn praying to God for that which they have already, and a pretending de novo to receive that Authority which they had before. And to come, as upon a Stage, thus ludicrously to play with holy Things, to fulfil the Humours, and confirm the claim of Usurpers, is somewhat hard.

§ 404. VI. The sixth Controversie is about the first Declaration, [I do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the Book entituled, &c.]**There is a Direction to be assented to, to find out Easter-day, which every Almanack will tell you is a flat falshood: and it's contrary to another there given. Here the Non-conformists have to do with two sorts; the willing and the unwilling Conformists. The first say that this Declaration may be lawfully made in its proper sence. The Non-conformists refer you for the Answer of this, to all their foregoing Exceptions against the Book, besides what they have said against our Order of Diocesans, and so against the Book of Ordination, which asserteth three Orders as of Divine Institution!This is more fully opened in other Papers. And besides all their Exceptions against the New Common Prayer Book, in the Points wherein it is much worse than the old.

§ 405. And for the Latitudinarians and Unwilling Conformists, their Plea is, That [the use of the Forms and Ceremonies is lawful, and that is all that they are required to subscribe to;Note, That this Declaration justifieth even the Imposition of the whole that is by the Rubrick imposed; because imposing is the use of those Rubricks. And it is not the words of the Declaration, which is de medio, that hath the term [use] but the previous words which are but de fine. The means are made larger for securing the end. And the word [Approbation of all Orders, &c. is after exprest. If we were commanded to subscribe to the use of the Decretals in these words, and no other; [I do Assent and Consent to all Things contained in them, and prescribed by them] should we say, It is but so far as I must use them, and not others? because the Act saith [they shall declare their Assent and Consent to the use of all things, &c.] They do not subscribe their Consent to the thing in it self, but to so much as is to be used by them, and so far only as that they will use it. But this is so gross, that the Non-conformists cannot stretch so far. For, 1. What Man can doubt whether all things in the Book were intended for some use or other; though not each part to the same use? Did the Convocation and Parliament contrive and impose things, which they themselves did judge to be of no use? Is not the Kalendar and Direction for reading Scripture, of use to tell you what Days to keep, and what Chapters to read? Is not the Rubrick of use to direct you in the several Offices? Is not the Doctrinal Determination about the Saving of Baptized Infants (and other such like) of use to tell us its Doctrine is taken to be true? Doubtless every part hath its intended usefulness. 2. The words are as express to exclude such stretching as could well be devised: For, 1. It is Assent as well as Consent, which is declared: 2. It is to all and every thing, which includeth every word: 3. It is to every thing contained in it, as well as to every thing prescribed by it: And the Doctrinals (as of three Orders Iure Divino, &c.) are contained in it. 3. To put all out of doubt, since this Act the Parliament made another Act; to which while Proviso's were offered, the whole House of Lords sent it back to the Commons with this Proviso, That those that declared Assent and Consent to all and every thing, &c. should be obliged to understand it only as to the use of what was required of them, and not as to the things in themselves considered. The Commons refused this Proviso: and the Houses had a meeting about it; in which the Commons delivered their Reasons against that Exposition of the Declaration: And in the end the Lords did acquiesce in their Reasons, and consented to cast out the Proviso: so that now the Parliament hath expounded their own words, and there is no more pretence left for the Latitudinarian Equivocation.

§ 406. But if it were otherwise, is the use of all things contained there lawful? 1. To what they say about the Apocrypha, it is answered, That it is not lawful to read publickly in the Church, on any days, so many (above One hundred in two Months) of the Apocryphal Chapters, in the same manner, time and title (of Lessons) with the holy Scripture, with no fuller distinction: When 1. Experience telleth us, That many of the People (who understand not the Greek word Apocrypha) are thereby drawn to take them for Canonical Scripture, (being also bound up with it in the Books.) 2. And when Tobit, Susanna, Bell and the Dragon, Iudith, p. 428are ordinarily by Protestants taken for Fables or Untruths, and therefore not so much as pious Instructions.

§ 407. 2. And for the disorder and defects of the Common Prayer, before proved, they seem but ill matter for such an unfeigned Assent and Consent.

§ 408. 3. And for the new Clause of the Salvation of Baptized Infants as certain by the Word of God, the Scruple were the less, if it were confined to the Infants of true Believers: But our Church admitteth of all Infants, even of Infidels and Heathens without distinction, if they have but Godfathers and Godmothers; and the Canon enforceth Ministers to Baptize them all, without exception. And when in our Publick Debate with the Bishops, I instanced in one of my Parishioners that was a professed Infidel, and yet said he would come and make the common Profession for his Child for Custom sake; even Dr. Sanderson the Bishop of Lincoln answered me**And none of the Bishops contradicted him, but some seconded him., That if there were Godfathers it had a sufficient Title; which Bishop Morley and others of them confirmed. Now these Godfathers being not Adopters nor Owners, we cannot see it certain in God's Word, That all those are saved whom they present to Baptism; no nor whom ungodly and hypocritical Christians present: for how can the Convenant save the Child, as the Child of a Believer, which saveth not the Parent as a Believer himself: So that while unmeet Subjects are Baptized, we cannot Subscribe to this Assertion.

§ 409. And it is strange, that when Infant-Baptism it self, and commonly said by these Men, to be a Tradition, and not commanded or found in Scripture, that yet they find it certain by the Word of God that Baptized Infants are saved!

§ 410. But some say, That it is certain that all Infants (so dying) are saved, and therefore all Baptized Infants. But 1. They never shewed us any Word of God, from whence that certainty may appear to us! nor have they answered what is said against it. 2. And what jesting with holy Things is this, to speak that of the Baptized only which they mean of all! As if they would perswade People that it is some effect of Baptism, and priviledge of the Children of the Church, which they think belongeth to all the Children of Heathens.

§ 411. Some say that the word [All] Children is not in, and of some its true. Answ. The Indefinite here, according to common Speech, is equivalent to an Universal: [Children baptized, dying before actual sin] is equal to all children baptized: your Consciences must tell you, that if you limit it to some only, you cross the sence of the Compilers of the Liturgy. I am sure Dr. Gunning, who brought it in, hath publickly exprest his sence for the Salvation of all such Infants.

§ 412. 4. As to the Practice of Baptizing all Children that can have Godfathers, and of Confirming, Administring the Lord's Supper, Absolving, Burying, &c. with unjust Application to Persons unfit for the Sacraments or Titles given them, we know not how to Assent and Consent to the Imposition or Form of, as long as we know that the same Church which commandeth us to use those words, doth command us to apply them to unworthy Persons: And how it may harden the Wicked to Perdition, is easily conjectured.

§ 413. 5. And for the Ceremonies they are so largely written about on both sides, that I need not stay here to recite the Arguments. For my own part, as I would receive the Lord's Supper kneeling, rather then not at all, so I have no Censure for those that wear the Surplice, though I never wore it. But that Man may adjoyn such a Human Sacrament as the Cross in Baptism, to God's Sacrament, I am not satisfied in: And cannot Assent or Consent to it, that such a solemn dedicating Sign, should be stated in God's Publick Worship by Man: 1. It is a (transient) Image, used as a means of Worship: Therefore unlawful by the Second Commandment. 2. It is a stated Human Ordinance, in God's Worship; an instituted, fixed Sacramental, dedicating Sign. 3. It is no less than the Covenant of Grace which it signifieth, yea somewhat of God's part as well as ours, and acted by the Minister, and not by the Parents, as a professing Sign. It signifieth the Cross and Sufferings of Christ, the Ground and Seal of the Covenant on his part. And if God would have had such Sacraments used, he could as well have instituted them as he did the rest.

VII. § 414. The 7th Controversie is about Actual Administrations according to the Common Prayer and Canons. 1. We dare not when we give the Sacrament to others, refuse it to all those faithful Persons, who fear to take it kneeling lest it be Idolatry. Though I can so take it my self, I cannot execute so unjust an Imposition, as to cast out Christ's Members upon that account, no more than to cast out p. 429Children for crying, or for being Children! And I think it better for me not to meddle with the Sacrament at all, than to be guilty of such Oppression, Uncharitableness, Injustice and Division, and to do such actual wrong to one part, that I may give the Sacrament to the other part.

§ 415. 2. And I dare not knowingly Baptize those Children that are not in the Covenant of God, nor call every Child regenerate, without exception, that can but have Godfathers. Nor dare I (while I receive all these) reject all the Children of godly Parents, who dare not bring them to be Baptized with the Sacrament of the Cross. To say that others forbid me, is nothing, while I must be the Executioner of their Decrees.

§ 416. 3. And I dare not, if I undertake a Pastoral Charge, give the Sacrament to the notoriously unworthy, though the Chancellor absolve him (or never question him) nor utterly neglect all that part of Discipline, which belongeth to my Office, though Men forbid it, nor be guilty of all that corruption and confusion, which the neglect of Discipline bringeth into the Church.

4. Nor dare I absolutely pronounce a wicked Man forgiven, if in his sickness, he superficially say, I repent.

5. Nor dare I at the Burial of every notorious wicked Man, that is not Unbaptized, Excommunicate, nor a Self-murderer, solemnly pronounce, That [God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother, &c.] lest I harden the wicked in their damnable Presumption. If the Child of the holiest Parent die unbaptized; we must not say these words for it, that is, in their Language, we must not bury it by the Office of the Church with Christian Burial; but such are numbred with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers. But if a hundred Thieves, Adulterers, Drunkards die; or Murderers or Traytors be hanged for ther sin; though they never so much as say, I repent, but justifie themselves to the last breath, yet must we bury them all with these words, [God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother] to teach the People to give him the lie, who giveth himself the lie by preaching that the Impenitent and Wicked are not saved: And to teach all the most ungodly to look to speed as well as others: Purgatory is a better Doctrine than this; for it leaveth the Wicked under some awe. Yet all this we must Assent and Consent to, and use, if we will have leave to preach in the Publick Churches. Nor do the little poor Evasions used for these things, seem worth the answering. It tendeth to the vitiating also of the Commonwealth, to pronounce thus the Salvation of every Traytor, Thief, Murderer, as well as of Drunkards, Whoremongers and Atheists, who never so much as said, We repent. How can we preach the Misery of Sinners, or the Necessity of Renovation and Sanctification, without contradicting our selves, when we must tell a Man in the Pulpit, [That except be repent be shall perish; and if he live after the flesh he shall die; and without holiness he shall not see God]: And yet if he die without one Penitent word, we must say, [God hath taken to himself the Soul of this our dear Brother].

So much of the Controversie between the present Conformists and Non-conformists.

§ 417. Having thus interposed the State of the Controversie, and Cause of the Ejected Ministers of England, and so being got past Barthelomew-day, I proceed in the History of the consequent Calamities. When I was absent (resolving to meddle in such Businesses there no more) Mr. Calamy and the other Ministers of London, who had Acquaintance at the Court, were put in hope that the King would grant that by way of Indulgence, which was before denied them: And that before the Act was past, it might be provided, That the King should have power to dispense with such as deserved well of him in his Restoration, or whom he pleased: But that was frustrate**If I should at length recite the Story of this Business, and what peremptory Promises they had, and how all was turned to their Rebuke and Scorn, it would more increase the Readers astonishment.. And after that, they were told that the King had power himself to dispense in such Cases, as he did with the Duteb and French Churches: Ane some kind of Petition (I have not a Copy of it) they drew up to offer the King: But when they had done it, they were so far from procuring their Desires, that there fled abroad grievous Threatnings against them, that they should incur a Premunire for such a bold attempt: when they were drawn to it at first, they did it with much hesitancy (through former Experience) and they worded it so cauteously, that it extended not to the Papists. Some of the Independents presumed to say, That the Reason why all our Addresses for Liberty had not succeeded, was because we did not extend it to the Papists, and that for their parts, they saw no reason p. 430why the Papists should not have Liberty of Worship as well as others; and that it was better for them to have it, than for all us to go without it. But the Presbyterians still answered to that motion, That the King might himself do what he pleased: and if his Wisdom thought meet to give Liberty to the Papists, let the Papists petition for it, as they did for theirs: But if it be expected by any that it shall be forced upon them, to become Petitioners for Liberty for Popery, they should never do it, whatever be the issue: Nor shall it be said to be their work.

§ 418. On the 26th of Decemb. (1662.) the King sent forth a Declaration, expressing his purpose to grant some Indulgence or Liberty in Religion (with other matters) not excluding the Papists, many of whom had deserved so well of him**1. The Declaration for Liberty at Breda was for them. 2. Next the Clause offered to be added to the Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs gave them the free Exercise of their Religion. 3. The foresaid Motion next attempted it. 4. This Declaration Dec. 26. 1662. expre…ly promised it them. 5. Our Treaty after set on foot by the Lord Keeper Bridgman, would have offered it them. And by breaking all these offers, we are our selves in our present afflicted state.. When this came out the ejected Ministers began to think more confidently of some Indulgence to themselves: Mr. Nye also, and some others of the Independents, were encouraged to go to the King, and when they came back, told us, That he was now resolved to give them Liberty. On the Second of Ianuary Mr. Nye came to me, to treat about our owning the King's Declaration, by returning him Thanks for it; and I perceived that it was designed that we must be the Desirers or Procurers of it: But I told him my Resolutions to meddle no more in such Matters, having incurred already so much hatred and displeasure by endeavouring Unity: And the rest of the Ministers also had enough of it, and resolved that they would not meddle: so that Mr. Nye and his Brethren, thought it partly long of us that they mist of their intended Liberty. But all were averse to have any thing to do with the Indulgence or Toleration of the Papists, thinking it at least unfit for them.

§ 419. The Independent Brethren also told me, That the Lord Chancellor had told them that their Liberty was motioned before when the King's Declaration came out, and that we spake against it, even I by name. But when I told them what words I spake (before recited) they had no more to say: But now they grew greatly affected to the E. of B. (a Papist) thinking that the King's Declaration was procured by him, and that he and the Papists must be the means (for their own ends) to procure our Liberty: But the Declaration took not at all with the Parliament or People, and the E. of B. setting himself against the Lord Chancellor (accusing him by Articles of High Treason in the Lord's House), was cast off by the King as an Incendiary, and forc'd to hide his head.

§ 420. Good old Mr. Simeon Ash was buried the very Even of Bartholomew-day, and went seasonably to Heaven at the very time when he was to be cast out of the Church. He was one of our oldest Non-conformists (of the old Strain; for now Conforming is quite another thing than before the Wars): He was a Christian of the Primitive Simplicity: not made for Controversie, nor inclined to disputes, but of a holy Life, and a cheerful mind, and of a fluent Elegancy in Prayer, full of Matter and Excellent Words: His ordinary Speech was holy and edifying: Being confined much to his House by the Gout (and having a good Estate, and a very good Wife, enclined to Entertainments and Liberality) his House was very much frequented by Ministers: He was always cheerful, without profuse Laughter or Liberty, or vain Words: never troubled with doubtings of his Interest in Christ, but tasting the continual Love of God, was much disposed to the Communicating of it to others, and Comforting dejected Souls: His eminent Sincerity made him exceedingly loved and honoured; insomuch as Mr. Gataker, Mr. Whittaker, and other the most excellent Divines of London, when they went to God, desired him to preach their Funeral Sermons: He was zealous in bringing in the King; having been Chaplain to the Earl of Manchester in the Wars, he fell under the obloquy of the Cromwellians for crossing their Designs: He wrote to Col. Sanders, Col. Barton, and others in the Army when G. Monk came in, to engage them for the King. Having preached his Lecture in Cornhill, being heated, he took cold in the Vestry, and thinking it would have proved but one of his old fits of the Gout, he went to Highgate; but it turned to a Fever: He died as he lived, in great Consolation, and cheerful Exercise of Faith, molested with no Fears or Doubts discernable: exceeding glad of the Company of his Friends: and greatly encouraging all about him, with his joyful Expressions in respect of Death, and his approaching Change; so that no Man could seem to be more fearless of it. When he had at last lain speechless for some time, as soon as I came to him, gladness so excited his Spirits, that he spake joyfully and freely of his going to God to those about p. 431him: I stayed with him his last Evening, till we had long expected his Change (being speechless all that day), and in the night he departed.

§ 421. On the first of Ianuary following was buried good Mr. Iames Nalton, another Minister of the Primitive Sincerity: A good Linguist; a zealous excellent Preacher, commonly called, The weeping Prophet, because his Seriousness oft exprest it self by Tears: of a most holy blameless Life: Though Learned, yet greatly averse to Controversie and Disputes: In almost all things like Mr. Ash, except his natural temper, and the influence it had upon his Soul: both of them so composed of Humility, Piety, and Innocence, that no Enemy of Godliness that knew them, had a word (of sence) to say against them! They were scorned as Puritans as their Brethren, but escaped all the particular Exceptions and Obloquy which many others underwent: But as one was cheerful, so the other was from his Youth surprized with violent Fits of Melancholy once in a few years, which though it distracted him not, yet kept him, till it was over, in a most desponden… Case, and next unto Despair: And in his health he was over humble, and had …o mean Thoughts of himself and all that was his own, and never put out himself among his Brethren into any Imployment which had the least shew of Ostentation. Less then a year before he died, he fell into a grievous fit of Melancholy, in which he was so confident of his Gracelesness, that he usually cried out, [O not one spark of Grace, not one good Desire or Thought! I can no more pray than a post! If an Angel from Heaven would tell me that I have true Grace, I would not believe him]. And yet at that time did he pray very well; and I could demonstrate his sincerity so much to him in his Desires and Life, that he had not a word to say against it: But yet was harping still on the same string, and would hardly be perswaded that he was Melancholy. It pleased God to recover him from this fit, and shortly after he told me, That now he confessed that what I said was true, and his Despair was all but the effect of Melancholy, and rejoyced much in God's deliverance: But shortly after came out the Bartholomew Act, which cast him out of his Place and Ministry, and his heart being troubled with the sad Case of the Church, and the multitude of Ministers cast out and silenced, and at his own unserviceableness, it revived his Melancholy (which began to work also with some fears of Want, and his Family's Distress), and this cast him so low, that the violence of it wore him away like a true Marasmus, so that without any other Disease, but meer Melancholy, he consumed to Death, continuing still his sad Despondency, and Self-condemning Means. By which it appeareth how little Judgment is to be made of a Man's Condition by his Melancholy Apprehensions, or the sadness of his Mind at Death: and in what a different manner Men of the same Eminency in Holiness and Sincerity may go to God! Which I have the rather shewed by the instance of those two Saints, than whom this Age hath scarce produced and set up a pair more pious, humble, just, sincere, laborious in their well-performed Work, unblameable in their Lives, not medling with State Mat… nor Secular Affairs, and therefore well spoken of by all! Only the Interest of the piece of the Long Parliament (which ejected the rest, and was called The Rump, and cherished Cromwell till he pull'd them down also) did cause them to persecute Mr. Nalton, with many other London Ministers, at the time when Mr. Love was beheaded by them, for being true to the Covenant in endeavouring to restore the present King: And then when good old Mr. Iackson, Dr. Drake, (a very holy man) Mr. Ienkins, and many more of them were in the Tower Prisoners, Mr. Nalton and Mr. Cawton were glad to fly into Holland, where the latter died, and the former lived to see himself, and every one of those imprisoned Ministers, with the rest of their Brethren, all cast out, and forbidden upon pain of Imprisonment and Banishment to preach the Gospel in the King's Dominions.

§ 422. And as we were forbidden to preach, so we were vigilantly watcht in private, that we might not exhort one another or pray together; and (as I foretold them oft, they would use us when they had silenced us) every Meeting for Prayer was called a dangerous Meeting for Sedition, or a Conventicle at least. I will now give but one instance of their kindness to my self. One Mr. Beale in Hatton-Garden having a Son (his only Child, and very towardly and hopeful) who had been long sick of a dangerous Fever, (as I remember a Quartan) and by relapse brought so low that the Physicians thought he would die, desired a few Friends, of whom I was one, to meet at his House to pray for him: and because it pleased God to hear our Prayers, and that very night to restore him, his Mother shortly after falling sick of a Fever, we were desired to meet to pray for her Recovery (the last day when she was near to Death): Among those that were to be there, it fell p. 432out, through some other occasions, that Dr. Bates and I did fail them, and could not come: But it was known at Westminster that we were appointed to be there! Whereupon two Justices of Peace were procured from the distant parts of the Town, one from Westminster, and one from Clerkenwell, to come with the Parliaments Serjeant at Arms, to Apprehend us! They came in the Evening, when part of the Company were gone, (there were only a few of their Kindred there, besides two or three Ministers to pray): They came upon them into the Room where the Gentlewoman lay ready to die, and drew the Curtains, and took some of their Names, but missing of their Prey, returned disappointed! What a joy would it have been to them that reproached us as Presbyterian seditious Schismaticks, to have found but such an occasion as praying with a dying Woman, to have laid us up in Prison! Yet that same Week, there was published a witty malicious Invective against the silenced Ministers, in which it was affirmed, that Dr. Bates and I were at Mr. Beal's House such a day keeping a Conventicle! But the Lyar had so … extraordinary modesty, as within a day or two to print a second Edition, in which those words (so easily to be disproved) were left out. Such Eyes were every where then upon us.

§ 423. Many holy excellent Ministers were about these times laid in the Jails in many Counties, for private Meetings to preach and pray! and some for venturing to preach publickly in Churches which had no Ministers: (for so many were cast out, that all their Places could not presently be supplyed). In Cheshire Mr. Cook of Chester was imprisoned, who not long before had lain long a Prisoner in Southwark (by Lambert's Faction) for Delivering up Chester to Sir George Booth for the Restoring of the King. In Somersetshire were imprisoned Mr. Norman of Bridgwater, Mr. Allen of Taunton, and other: In Dorsetshire were imprisoned Mr. Francis Bampfield, Mr. Peter Ince, (taken at a private Meeting in Shaftsbury) Mr. Sacheverill, and divers others: In Dorchester Jail they preached to the People of the Town who came to them, every day once, and on the Lord's Day twice; till at last the Jaylor was corrected, and an Order made against Jaylors letting in People into the Prisons to hear. The rest at last were released upon some Bonds given for their good Behaviour, but Mr. Francis Bampfield abode in the Common Jail several years, although he was all along against the Parliament War. His Brother, Mr. T. Bampfield, was a Member of many Parliaments and Speaker of the Parliament in Richard Cromwell's time, which the Army broke: He was Recorder of Exeter; and though he sequestred Recorder, had Satisfaction from the City for his Place, yet he (succeeding him in time of Cromwell's Usurpation) restored to the Poor of the City all that he had received in that place, and perswaded Ministers to restore **But since, alas, Francis having fall'n into the Opinion for the Saturday Sabbath, &c. their Afflicters think themselves justified for afflicting them.all that they received from Sequestrations in time of the Usurpation, because it was not Law that gave it them (Though they had but their Bread while they preached, which was hardly restored). He was chosen by … Gentlemen of the West to carry their Remonstrance to encourage General Monk when he came in! He is a Man of most exemplary Sincerity and Conscientiousness: He never took the Covenant, nor any other Oath in his Life, till he was a Member of the Parliament that brought in the King, and then he was put upon taking the Oath of Supremacy, which I had much ado (being my dear and much valued Friend) to perswade him to, so fearful was he of Oaths, or any thing that was doubtful and like to sin: Yet hath this prudent holy Man been laid in Jail as well as his Brother, because (having a worthy Minister, Mr. Philips, in his House) he would set open his Doors, and meet freely for preaching and prayer in his House, forbidding none: But though he and his Brother were the likest Men I knew in England successfully to have perswaded those that are contrary minded, that it is unlawful for a Parliament to take up Arms to defend themselves, or punish Manufactures, against the Will and Word of the King, yet this would not keep either of them out of Prison: And so their endeavours for that work were stopt against their wills.

§ 424. It is worthy the mentioning how God's strange Judgments about this time, were turned by the Devil to his own advantage. Most certainly abundance of real Prodigies and marvellous Works of God were done, which surely he did not cause in vain! But the over-fervent spirits of some Fanaticks (Fifth-Monarchymen) caused them presently to take them up boldly with the Commentary of their own Applications, and too hastily venting Matters of Common Report before they were tried, they published at several times three Volumes of the History of these Prodigies, in which there were divers lesser Matters magnified, and some things p. 433which proved false! And though upon strictest Examination both I and all Men are convinced that very many of the Things were true (as the drying up of the River Derwent in Darbyshire, upon no known Cause, in Winter, the Earth opening and swallowing a Woman near Ashburn in the same County, upon her own Imprecation, the Appearance of an Army to many near Montgomery, and abundance more); yet were Falshoods thrust in through their heady Temerity and Credulity; whereby it came to pass, that these Wonders were so far from moving Men to Repentance, or the fear of God's Judgments, that they greatly hardened them, and made them say, [These Fanaticks are the odious lying Deceivers of the World, that to cheat the poor People into a seditious Humour, care not to bely even God himself]. And what the Fanaticks had been guilty of was imputed to the ejected Ministers and their Followers, by them who thought it their interest to do so. So that the poor obdurate Enemies of Godliness did not only lose the benefits of God's strange and dreadful Warnings, but were much hardened by them, to the increase of their Enmity.

§ 425. In the beginning of Iune 1663. the old peaceable Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Iuxton, died, and Dr. Gilbert Sheldon, Bishop of London, succeeded in his room.

§ 426. About these Times the talk of Liberty to the silenced Ministers (for what ends I know not) was revived again, and we were blamed by many that we had never once petitioned the Parliament (for which we had sufficient Reasons); and it was talkt about that they were resolved to grant us either an Indulgence (by way of Dispensation) or a Comprehension by some additional Act, taking in all that could Conform in some particular Points. Hereupon there was great talk upon the Question, Whether the way of Indulgence, or the way of Comprehension were more desirable? And it was debated as seriously, as if indeed such a thing as one of them had been expected. And Parliament Men themselves perswaded them that it would be done. The Sectarians (as they then called all that were for Liberty of Sects, and for separated Churches) were for the way of Indulgence, that the Act might not enlarge the Terms of the Publick Ministry, but give Liberty for gathering private Churches to all: Else they thought that the most considerable of the Ministry were embodied with the Conformists; their own Exclusion and Suppression would be unavoidable: The most of the Independents yet were resolved against Petitioning for the Papists Liberty as well as the Presbyterians. But some of the Politick Leaders of them said, You are blind if you see not that this very Act of Uniformity was made so rigorous, and the weight of Conformity so much increased, that so the Number of the ejected Ministers might be so great, as to force them to be glad of a general Toleration, which might take in the Papists: And if you think to stand it out, they will yet bring you to it in despight of you: They will increase your Burdens, and lay you all in Prisons, till you are glad to petition for such a Toleration: and stand it out as long as you can, you shall be forced to procure the Papists Liberty; and the odium of it shall not lye on the Bishops, but on you that are so much against it: The Bishops shall speak against it; and they will force you to beg for it who are against it: And if you will not do it now, you do but stay till the Market rise, and your Sufferings be made greater, and you shall be glad to do it at dearer rates. On the other side, the Presbyterians said, It is against our Covenant to promote Popery and Sehism, and whatever we suffer, we will never do it: nor will we contract that odium with the People, nor contribute so much to betray them by deceiving them! And if we should do it, we are assured we shall be never the better for it: for the Toleration shall be clogged with the Renunciation of all Obligations from the Covenant, or some one other particular Condition, which shall seem no matter of Religion, which they know we will not conform to, and the Papists will; and so when we have petitioned for a Common Liberty, we shall have the odium, and they only the Liberty. And thus they sate still, and medled not with that Business.

§ 427. For my own part, I medled but little with any such Business since the failing of … at which incurred so much displeasure; and the rather because, though the Brethren Commissioned with me stuck to me as to the Cause, yet they were not forward enough to bear their part of the ungrateful part in the management, nor of the consequent displeasure: But yet when an Honourable Person was earnest with me, to give him my Judgment, Whether the way of Indulgence or Comprehension was more desirable, that he might discern which way to go in Parliament himself; I gave him my Thoughts in the following Paper, though I thought it was to little purpose.