Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Part 2 · Section 1
Certain Queries and Scruples of Conscience offered to some Learned Divines for Resolution and Satisfaction.
1. WHETHER may a Christian Magistrate tolerate Liberty of Conscience in Religion and Church Discipline without Scandal?
2. Whether may and ought a tender Conscience exercise and use his Liberty and Freedom without Violence inforced by Superiors?
3. Whether in Matters of Government Ecclesiastical depending only of Fact, the general and perpetual Practice of the Church from Age to Age, be not a sufficient Evidence and Warrant of the Right, Truth, and certainty of the thing?
4. Whether the Vocation of Bishops be an Order Lawful in it self?
5. Whether the Regiment Ecclesiastical by Bishops hath not continued throughout the Christian Church ever since the Apostles, untill Calvin's days? No Church Orthodox dissenting.
6. Whether was there ever since the Apostle's days so much as one national Church governed by a Presbytery without a Bishop untill Calvin's Days? If so, where was the Original? in what Place? by what Persons? of what continuance? and how was it lost, or changed into Episcopacy, and upon what Grounds or Motives?
7. Whether the present Ministry in the Church of England (as it now separated from their lawful Superiors or Bishops) be not Schismatical?
8. Whether all these Ministers that have taken the Oath of Canonical Obedience to their Bishops, and have backsliden and submitted to those Powers that violently deprived the said Bishops of their legal Powers and Iurisdictions, by yielding a voluntary Obedience to their Ordinances, are not under a high Censure of Perjury and Schism?
9. Whether those Ministers now pretended to be made and ordained in the Church of England only by their Fellow Ministers without a Bishop, be true Ministers or no; or else meer Lay Persons, and bold Usurpers of the Sacred Function and Order, like Corah and his Complices?
10. Whether all those Ministers which are now in actual possession of the late Incumbents Parsonages and Cures of Souls (and deprived for their only adhering and assisting their late lawful Prince and their Governour, and also their Bishops) to whom they owed all Canonical Obedience) without and beside any Legal Induction or Admission, may not be reputed as Intruders and false Shepherds?
11. Whether it had not been an excellent part of Christian Perfection, rather to endure passively lost of Liberty, Estate, and even of Life it self for the maintenance and defence of the Iust and Legal Rights invested in the Church, and the Bishops it's Superintendent Pastors, and the Liturgy and Service of the Church, than carnally for Self-interest and Ends, to comply and submit even against their knowing Consciences, to a violent and meer prevailing power and force in the abolishing of Episcopal Power, and the daily Prayers and Service used in the Church?
12. Whether all such Persons be not guilty of Schism and of Scandal given, which Communicate and be present in such Ministers Congregations and Assemblies, whether in Church or in private Meetings, to hear their Prayers or Sermons, or receive their Sacraments according to the now present mode and form, more especially in the participation with them in the Sacrament of the Eucharist? Or how far may a good Christian Communicate with such without just Scandal given or taken?
13. Whether it be lawful and just for any Orthodox Minister or Episcoparian to accept of any Benefice with Cure of Souls, as the state of the English Church now standeth visible and ruling, without guilt of Schism by compliance to their Form?
14. Whether as the Condition of the present Church of England is, The Ministers thereof may not legally, and so justifiably, exercise and use against the late Liturgy of the Church, there being no Statute Law prohibiting the same? And whether those that continue the Observation of the late Directory be not perturbers of the Peace of the Church, especially since the limitation of trial by a pretended Legality and Command for its observance, is expired and not reconfirmed.
15. Whether the old Iewish Church had not set Forms of Prayer? whether St. John the Raptist our Saviour's Praecursor, and our blessed Saviour himself, taught not their Disciples set Forms of Prayers, and whether the Christian Church (especially since the time of Peace from the violence of Heathenish Persecution) had not, nor generally used set Forms of Prayer? And whether the Ministers now ex tempore Prayers in the Church, be not as well a set Form of Prayers to the Auditors, whose Spirits are therein bounded, as any set Form of Prayer used in the Church?
16. Whether may a Christian, without Scandal given, appear to be a Godfather or Godmother to a Child in these New Assemblies, where the Minister useth his own Dictates and Prayers, and not of the ancient Liturgy, except the Words of Baptism, I Baptize thee (A. B.) in the Name of the Father, &c.
17. Whether any Supream Earthly Power or Powers Spiritual or Temporal, joint or separate, can alienate and convert to secular uses or imployments any Houses, Lands, Goods, or Things once devoted, offered and dedicated to God and his Church, without grand Sacriledge and Prophaneness; although by Corruption of Persons and Times they have been either superstitiously abused, or too prophanely employed, but rather to reduce them to their primitive Use and Donation?
18. Whether the ancient Fasting Days of the Week and Festivals of the Church, setled both by Provincial Synods in the Year 1562. and 1640. and confirmed by the then Regal Power, and also by several Statutes and Laws, ought not by all persons in Conscience to be still observed, until they be abrogated by the like Powers again? or how far the Liberty of Conscience therein may be used in observing or not observing them? the like for the usage of the Cross in Baptism, and the humble posture of Kneeling at the receiving of the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper?
19. Which way of security and peace of Conscience may a quiet Christian order and dispose himself, his Wife, Children and Family in his Duty and Service towards God, and enjoy the right use and benefit of the Sacraments and other holy Duties, as long as that part of the Catholick Church wherein he lives, is under persecution, and the visible Ruling Church therein is faln Schismatical, if not in many particulare Heretical?
April 20th, 1655.