Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Appendix · Section 5
Numb. VI. A Resolution of this Case; What's to be done when the Law of the Land commands Persons to go to their Parish-Church, and Parents require to go to private Meetings.
Quest. THE Law of the Land commandeth me to go to the Publick Churches; the Canon commandeth me to go to my own Parish-Church, and not to another Parish: Both forbid me to go to Conventicles and silenced Preachers. My Father and Mother forbid me to go to the Publick Churches, and command me to go constantly to a silenced Minister in Meetings forbidden by the Law! But specially not to go to my Parish Priest, (saying he is an insufficient and drunken Railer) but to a Neighbour Parish, if I will not obey their first Command! Am I now bound to obey my Parents, or the Law, and Canon?
Answ. It is an hard Task to a Minister of Christ, either so to practice or so to speak, as shall seem to accuse his Rulers and the Laws; but when the saving of our own or other Mens Souls requireth it, there is no remedy. Our own silence, if we ceased Preaching, and our practice contrary to the Law in Preaching or Praying, which is forbidden, do against our wills unavoidably intimate that we suppose great sins to be commanded us: And whether we preach or be silent, while we Subscribe not, Declare not, Covenant not, and Swear not, and Practice not, all that is required of us, this cannot be hid: Though our cautelousness and fear of accusing our Governours or the Conforming Ministers, have given some Men occasion to affirm, That we take not Conformity for a sin: or that no considerable persons among us dare say so (we spare the Authors, whose published Names are dishonoured by themselves, when prefixed to such words, as he that will but read our Petition for Peace, and our Reply (unanswered) delivered to the commissioned Bishops 1660. will say did ill beseem a Doctor, a Preacher, a Christian, or a Man). We profess from the first to this day, that it is a great sin in us to forbear our Ministry, or to exercise it in a forbidden manner, especially when such doleful Divisions and Calamities follow it, if it be not sin, that is required of us: and if it be not, many and heinous sins, our peace in suffering will have some less reason to that, than we have thought it had.
Therefore being urged, I cannot in Conscience deny a plain Answer to this Question. But I despair of satisfying those Men that must have that which Augustine said he hated, viz. A short Answer to a long and hard Question; and that cannot away with distinction, when distinct matters must be spoken to. Let such Readers cast this Answer aside, as being not suited to their Wits and Dispositions.
1. We must distinguish between an Infant or Child in the Parents Family, and one that is at Age, or gone out of the Family.
2. Between a thing that is either Duty or Sin or Indifferent, in it self by the Law of God, and Mens thinking it to be so, or not so.
3. And particularly between a Minister justly silenced, and People justly prohibited to meet, and those that are unjustly silenced and forbidden.
4. Between the Prohibition or Command of the Civil Magistrate, and of the Bishops.
5. Between the Command of Laws or Parents, to hear such and such Ministers, and their Prohibition not to hear others, nor joyn in such Assemblies.
6. Between an Act of Formal Obedience to a Command, and an Act of Prudence moved by the good or hurt that will follow.
7. Between guilt of Divine Revenge, and guilt of Humane Punishment.
I make use of all these distinctions in resolving your Doubt by … following Propositions.
I. There is no Power but of God, and none above God, nor ag…, or any of his Laws. All Laws are null to Conscience, as being no Acts of true Authority thereto, that are against the Laws of God, in Nature or Scrip…e.
II. Though only Rulers be Judges publickly to decide Controversi…, and punish Offenders, every rational Man must judge discerningly of his Duty, what God's Law and Man's require: else we were not governed as Men but … nor were accountable for our Actions to God, any further than whether we obeyed Men: And else all under Heathens, Mahometans, Papists, Hereti…, … be of the Kings Religion. And then if the King and a Usurper strive for the Crown, we must not be Judges whose part we must take: All which are intolerable Consequents.
III. Every true Minister of Christ is in his Ordination devoted and consecrated to that Sacred Office during Ability and Life: And it is from the Law of Christ that their Authority immediately ariseth; as the Lord Mayor's from the King's Charter; though Men elect, and the Ordainers invest them in it by delivery. And as he that crowneth the King cannot depose him, or he that marrieth Persons cannot unmarry them, no more can any depose a Pastor, and dissolve his Obligations to his Office, but in case of such Crimes as God's Law deposeth him for, and enableth them to do it: Of which Bishop Bilson of Obedience speaketh soundly, too large to be here recited.
IV. For a Minister of Christ to forsake his Calling or Work, while his Vow and the true …cessity of Souls continue his Obligation, and this meerly because he is unjustly forbidden by Man, is to be odiously persidious and sacrilegious, and a Deserter of his great Lord and Master's Work, and a Murderer of the Souls which he neglecteth, as verily as Parents murder their Children whom they give not food to. And no Murderer hath Eternal Life, were it but of the Body or Temporal Life; such being as Cain, of him that was a Murderer from the beginning; and contrary to Christ, who came to seek and save the lost.
V. The unjust forbidding Christ's Ministers to preach his Gospel, is a sin so exceeding heinous, as that no Christian should either concur in the Guilt, or be so scandalous as to seem to do it. Had I lived in Germany when many hundred Ministers were ejected, and thereby the Churches cast into division and confusion, and Protestant Preachers turned against each other, about the Form or Book called the Interim, while Melanchthon and some good Men partly conformed to save the Churches from ruine, and Illyricus and more were Nonconformists, I would not for all the Riches of the World appear before God in the Guilt of those three Men that did Compile that Book (Iulius P…ug, Sidonius, and Islebius Agricola) or of those that for it silenced or banished Christs's Ministers. 2 Tim. 4. 1, 2. I charge thee before God and the Lord Iesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, at his appearing and his Kingdom, Preach the word, be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and doctrine. 1. Thess. 2. 15, 16. Who both killed the Lord Iesus and their own Prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always, for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost. When they persecute you in one City flee to another.—Shake off the dust of your feet against them. It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Iudgment than for that City, Matth: 10. 14, 15. and 23. 22.
VI. God hath set up more Governments in the World than one, and each hath its proper works and bounds; and one may not destroy the other. There is private Self-Government, Family-Government, Church-Government, and Civil-Government: each have their proper Ends also, though all have one common End, the pleasing of God. The King in his manner and measure and to his Ends (the Publick Good) is the Ruler of all Persons, all Families, all Pastors and Churches, all Physicians, School-masters, &c. that is, to see all these do their own duty; but not to take their Work from them upon himself; not to take all Men from Self-government of their Tongues, Passions, Actions: not to take on him the part of Parents, Pastors, &c. And no Prince's Laws will acquit a Man before God from his Duty in any of these Relations while he is in them.
VI. God hath much conjoyned Interest and Duty: No Man is so much concerned, whether I be saved or damned, as I am my self: And therefore my own Choice and Self-government is first and chiefly to be used for the saving of my own Soul, without which no Man else can save me. Therefore I am more concerned than any Magistrate is, to the Counsel and Conduct of what Pastor I commit my Soul and I have the nearest and first power in the Choice. There is great Controversie in the World, Whether Subjects have a Propriety in their Estates, which is not at the will of Princes? And it is commonly affirmed, That Propriety is anticedent to Regiment, which is but to order it for common good, and not to destroy it. But I had rather quit my Claim to Propriety in all my Worldly Estate, than of my Salvation, or the necessary means thereto. If the Law commanded me but to use a Physician that I thought unskilful in my Disease, and his Medicines pernicious, I would choose a better if I could, though the King and Laws forbad me, and I would refuse the obtruded Physician and his Medicine: so I would do if they commanded me to marry an utterly unsuitable Wife: And I should judge that as these matters are more my Interest than theirs, so they belong to my Self-governing power, and not to their Civil Government. And next my self, while I am young, my Parents being naturally indued with stronger love to me, than Magistrates are, the Choice in such Cases more belongeth to their power than to the Magistrates.
VII. Accordingly it was for Seven hundred, if not a Thousand years, the currant Judgment of the Christian Churches, that a Bishop must be set over a particular Church, by the Election or Consent of all the Clergy and all the People, and that he was no justly called Bishop that came not in by the common consent of the Flock: This is not only proved in the ancientest Writers, even Clemens ad Corinth, and others commonly; but by many Canons, and even the Popes Decretals, for many hundred years, and the contrary is an undoubted Innovation.
VIII. It is certain that neither Civil nor Ecclesiastical Rulers have their Power for destruction, but for edification, 2 Cor. 10. 8. and 13. 10. Rom. 13. 1, 2, 3, 4. Even Parents that give life and being to their Children, are justly destroyed if they destroy them. It is no singularity of Mr. Humphrey, that hath lately written, That Laws against the Common Good bind not in Conscience to Obedience: It is the Judgment of the greatest Casuists; Greg. Sayrus, Fragosus, &c. in whom you may see many others: The terminus entereth the definition of relations. It is not Authority (Ius regendi) which is not for the Ends of Government, the Common Good. The Magistrate may order the preaching of the Gospel, and other means of Salvation; but not forbid them, and destroy them. If he do this, it is not by Authority received from God; as Bishop Bilson afore-cited often sheweth, and Bishop Andrews in Torturâ Torti. I have more power from God to use needful means of my own Salvation, than any Man hath to forbid me the using of them.
IX. It is not another Man's saying, [That much preaching or praying is not needful to me,] that will make or prove it so, or ex use me from it. And there is so vast a difference between a found, skilful, and experienced sively Teacher, and one that is ignorant, heretical, a meer artist, dead or dull, that readeth a Cento as a Boy saith his Lesson, that no Man can make it my Duty to commit the Pastoral Care of my Soul to the latter, when the former may be had without a greater hurt than the benefit will compensate. Nor will other Mens Crosses, Opinions, or Appetite herein, suffice to satisfie me against my Sense, Reason, and my own and other Mens Experience.
X. Yet a tolerable l…ss must be born rather than publick Order violated. And seeing our Laws and Church-Canons allow any Man when he will to change his Bishop or Pastor or Congregation, if he will but change his Dwelling, the losses of this must rather be born, than any greater real detriment to our Souls or to the Publick Good. But Wives, Children, and some others, cannot remove their Habitations.
XI. An Infant or Child in minority in his Parents House, as he is not to be supposed to understand the Laws, so caeteris paribus he seemeth to me to be more obliged to hear the Teacher that his Parents choose for him, than one that is chosen by the Magistrates. As in his Diet, and the choice of a Physician when he is sick, so here. The Magistrate is an Officer of Power, Wisdom, and Love, but principally of Power. The Pastor is an Officer of Power, Wisdom, and Love, but eminenty of Wisdom. The Parent is an Officer of Power, Wisdom, and Love, but eminently of Love: And the works of Love to his Children eminently belong to his Care and Government.
XII. Yet when Children have the true use of Reason, to discern what God and Man command them, they must obey neither Parents not Princes against God.
XIII. In the circa sacra or Circumstantials of Religion, so much as should be commonly agreed on by all or most Churches for the Common Good, the Prince by the Counsel of the Pastors, is the Judge of, and is to be obeyed before the Bishops; unless he leave it only to the Pastors own Consent, and then their Consent in Synods must be much regarded: (of which Grotius de Imperio Sum. Potest. hath written excellently, notwithstanding Bishop Brumhalls discommendation). But in the Circumstances that are not to be universally agreed on, but belong to the Pastoral Office to vary pro re natâ, the present officiating Pastor is the Judge, and to be followed.
XIV. Rules are to be obeyed in all lawful things belonging to their Office to command: but all lawful things belong not to their Office. Whether I shall eat once or twice a day, or once in two days? what Meat I shall eat, and how much? what Ho…se I shall ride on? what Wife I shall marry? what Physician, or Teacher I shall trust, and what Medicine I shall take, &c. belongeth more to my self, as is said.
XV. Intolerable Ministers justly forbidden to preach are bound to obey, and the People forbidden to hear them, should forbear: But it no more follows that the Case is the same to all others, than that a true Man may be hang'd because a Thief may: If we be unjustly forbidden to Preach while Ability and Mens need continueth, we must neither obey, nor rebel.
XVI. A Man may go further in obeying the Civil Power that only sets up Publick Teachers or Catechizers, if they be unworthy, than those that set up Church Pastors, to whom we must commit the Pastoral Care of our Souls, (if they be unfit) and receive the Sacraments from them: Of which Mr. Philip Nye's Papers now printed may satisfie you.
XVII. On some occasions it is lawful to hear an unmeet Minister; And his Sacramental Administrations may not be Nullities, or invalid to the Innocent Receiver: We lose not our right, when he loseth his reward: But it is not lawful to encourage any intolerable Person in his usurping of the Ministry, either by ordinary attending him, or by committing the Care of our Souls to him: that is, 1. To such as are intolerably unable in Knowledge or Utterance or Practice; 2. Or to such as are Atheists, Infidels, or true Hereticks; 3. Or to notorious Malignants, that do more harm than good.
XVIII. Though its a hard Question how far other Vices disoblige us from submitting to such a Ministry, e. g. Perjury, Renouncing, Reformation and Repentance, great Errours, Drunkenness, Idleness, and such like; yet 1. He that can without greater mischief than benefit, have a better, should undoubtedly prefer him. 2. And a Man that feeleth the need of a better to his own Soul, and knoweth how much a Scandalous Ministry wrongeth Christ and the Church, is very unfit to be persecuted or troubled for preferring his Soul's benefit before a Humane Parish Order: For Cyprian and an African Council, in the Case of two Portug…l Bishops, have laboured to prove out of Scripture, That A Libellaticke, and so such like scandalous Sinner, is uncapable of being a Bishop or Pastor, and ought to be forsaken by the People, though the Neighbour Bishops own him. 2. Pope Nicholas, and the Canons of some Councils, Command that no one hear Mass of a Priest that liveth in known Fornication. And may not a Christian be tolerated in being but as strict against Vice as the Papists and Councils are; and being of the opinion of so holy a Martyr as Cyprian: and erring (if he err) but as he and that African Council did.
XIX. All this is but Preparatory: To the Case, I say, you must distinguish between the Command and the Pr…hibition of your Rulers and your Parents.
1. The Command of you Prince is the Command of a lawful Power; and to hear honest tolerable Ministers (such as we have many) in the Pub…ick Assemblies, is a lawful Command (whatever some say without profit against it) and therefore you ought to obey it. And your Parents are a lawful Power (for the many Reasons which I publickly named) expresly mentioned rather than Princes, in the fourth Commandment: And to Hear and Communicate in the Assemblies of Orthodox godly Christians unlawfully prohibited by Man, is a lawful Command, and ought to be obeyed. Both the Powers are lawful, and both the Commands lawful, and both must be obeyed as far as you can, at several seasons: But you cannot be in two places at once.
2. Intending no dishonour to Authority, I must not betray Truth and Souls, while it is my Office to resolve their Doubts proposed; with submission to better Information, I am past doubt, that both the Prohibitions in your Case here are lawful, and neither of them to be formally obeyed. That is, in general to take any true Ministers of Christ for no Ministers, or Christians for no Christians, and Churches for no Churches, and so to avoid them, or to take their Communion for sinful when it is not, is a heinous sin: He that thus avoideth lawful Communion as unlawful, reproacheth the People and Worship of the Lord, and in a degree doth as it were Excommunicate all those Churches, judging them unworthy of Communion. And if it be a great sin rashly to Excommunicate one Christian, what is it so to Excommunicate whole Parishes, Cities, Counties, or Congregations? Your Parents forbid you to hear in Publick: It is an unlawful Prohibition of a lawful thing commanded by the King and Laws, and you are not to obey it. You say the Laws for…id you to joyn with any Nonconformable Ministers and Christians in other Assemblies than the Parish Churches: If they do so, I humbly conceive that it is an unlawful Prohibition of a thing that God to some commandeth, and therefore is not to be formally obeyed. God commandeth us not to forsake the assembling of our salves, Hebr. 10. He chargeth all true Ministers, to preach his Word, and be instant, in season and out of season; and woe be to them that are truly called, and not lawfully deposed, if they preach not the Gospel, when there is need. He that shall say, That now in England there is not true need of the joynt Labours of all faithful Ministers of Christ, Conformists and Nonconformists, will but shew that ignorance or unconscionable indifference in the Matters of Salvation, as will warrant all wise Men to suspect his Counsel, and all that know the Falshood to reject it. Christ requireth all his Servants to live in purity, love and peace; and consequently not to reject Communion with each other as unlawful, when it is not so, nor to go any further from each other than they needs must; nor unjustly to judge one Man, much less Christian Societies. He that in the days of the Emperours of various Opinions (Constantius, Valens, Theodosius Junior, Zeno, Anastasius, the Leo's and others, that were some for Images, and some against them, would have called the Pastors and Assemblies unlawful and unfit for Communion, because they were forbidden, would have been a guilty Separatist. And so may he be that separateth from forbidden Assemblies, as well as he that separateth from commanded ones (by men). And if God command Love and Communion of all Christians, as they have occasion, as being one Bread and one Body, what God commandeth and conjoyneth, no Man may forbid or put asunder. Therefore I conceive you owe Obedience to both the positive Commands, but to neither of the general Prohibitions of Communion.
XX. But you cannot obey both at once: I answer; Obey both as far as you can; and obey neither when it tendeth to your destruction. If Parents bid you joyn with Hereticks or Rebels, obey them not. If others bid you commit the Pastoral Care of your Souls to intolerable Men, obey them not. But where formal Obedience ceaseth, Prudence must direct you about material Obedience. It is Obedience when we do it in Conscience to the Authority: It is Prudence when we gather our Duty from the End. Avoid that most that bringeth the most intolerable Consequents, and prefer that which tendeth to the greatest Good. Some dwell where there is no Competition, all the Ministers being only of one way: Some when the …ll Consequents are more on one side, and some where they are more on the other. And Rituals give place to Morals: Go learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. You shall answer for your own Souls: Neither Parents nor Princes have an absolute or a destroying Power over them, nor any that divesteth you of the Charge or Government of your selves. Prudence therefore in such Cases must look to Order, to Publick Good, and to your own Edification, and preserve all as far as you are able; and God will accept you if you do your best, though interess'd Factions …e offended with you.
XXI. It is a great Doubt among Casuists, Whether and when the Breach of Humane Laws oblige Men to any other than Humane Penalties? So far as God is offended and his Law broken by the breach of Mans, so far Punishment from God also is deserved; but no further. And a Council at Toletum hath an express Canon, that lest Subjects by the Churches Laws should have their Souls ensnared in Guilt towards God, it is declared that their Provincial Canons bind only ad poenam, non ad culpam, to bear the Penalty, but not to conclude men Sinners. The Expressions want skill, but the Meaning is manifest.
XXII. The Persons belief that an evil Course is lawful, maketh it not lawful to him: The esse is before the scire: If God's Law have forbidden or commanded; Man's Errour may ensnare himself in sin, but cannot change the Law of God.
XXIII. Some that I love and honour, that have heretofore been ensnared in Anabaptistry and Separation, in the sense of their Errour (as is usual) warp to the contrary Extream, and fear not the dreadful guilt of perswading Christ's faithful Ministers to lay by the Sacred Office which they are devoted to; yea, and would blind us to believe there is no need, save only to speak to particular persons privately; whereby they should be a year in speaking to those whom they may speak to in an hour, and few be able to do it, and perhaps be thrust out with wrath by the Parish Ministers, as creeping into Houses to seduce silly women, or reproached and suspected for it. They say truly, that he that hath gone their former way of unjust Separation, is like one that an travel seeth here a Leg and their an Arm lye in his way, and therefore should fear to go on in danger. But I tell them further, he that readeth Church History and Councils, what work Church Tyranny and striving to be greatest, hath made with Kings and Kingdoms, Churches and Families, and the Blood of an hundred thousand Christians, for about a thousand years at least, is like one that in his travel seeth here a hundred Carkasses, and there an hundred, and there a stream of Blood, and there a City ruined, and there a good King surrendring his Crown as an Act of Penance (as Ludovicus Pius did), and there the Streets covered with the Blood and Carkasses of Monks and others, and then cast into the Rivers, by the wars and broils of contending Bishops (as at Antioch, &c) and if this Man will go on, he overcometh another kind of warning than [here a Leg and there an Arm]. Read but the History throughly, and judge. But what will not Ignorance make men say?
XXIV. Some think that if Sacramental Communion only were left free, it would alone heal most of our English differences. I confess, I that think Men may be forced to hear and be catechized, do think the great Priviledges of Sacramental Communion, and a sealed Pardon, should be given to none by Cramming, or as a Drench; I mean, to none against their wills: none but Volunteers or Consenters being capable of so great Benefits according to Christ the Donor's mind: But this requireth many Cautions, and belongeth not to the Case in hand.