The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 7 · Section 11
SECT. XI.
Strictures on his last Section. The stile of the late Church of England examin'd. Christianity where no well-ordered Church. Faith inferior to vision.
HIs last Section now remains to be spoken to, to which upon several accounts it is needless for me to make any large Reply, particularly because his being herein but the foreign to the Catholick Gentleman's Monogramme, an addition of colours from his Rhetorick, but not of any real answers, I have in the Reply chap.. 11. prevented all but the scorn and ill language, against which there is no Antidote.
Yet if there be any incidental glance, which may seem to have any the least difficulty in it, I shall briefly take notice of it, and remove it and so conclude.
And first, the objection which I proposed from the express words of one of their late Proselytes, who frequently stiles ours the late Church of England, he is pleased to wave, and change it quite into another forme, and then to cry out, that I am quite out of the way.] But sure I am not out of the way that was proposed to me to walk in, for if it were lately the Ghurch of England, then twenty years agoe I (and perhaps that piece of S. W. that wrote this last part of Schism disarm'd) was a member of this Church, and not only of this shadow or Ghost of it, To him therefore that acknowledged it the late Church, I address that last chapter peculiarly, as to this present S. W. who thinks we were never a Church at all, I had offered the whole foregoing treatise of schism, to prove we were not so much as guilty of any sort of schism; And then with what colour of truth can he charge on me the mistaking of their objection, when both this was before my eyes the very words of the objection, and that to my knowledge vulgarly prest by several of their party, and indeed the principal parts of that chapter formerly written for the private satisfaction of some, which were solicited and prest with this very objection, & when the objection as he sets it anew, was the question of the whole tract of schism, and was not now to be proposed in the last chapter, when it had been answered in all the former.
Secondly I must it seems be set to teach S. W. his eyes to discern what is before them, he saith I was so eagerly zealous— that I put first and thirdly, but quite forgot secondly] A heavy crime indeed, if it had been true, and not to be past without his discipline, if the Printer had chanced to put thirdly for secondly. But let the 177. page be reviewed, and 'twill justifie all, but my rebuker; For having undertaken to answer that objection by degrees, and having set down the first, page 175. &c. In the midst of p. 177. I mention a conclusion irrefragably following from thence, which I say is the second proposition, and then regularly proceed to the issue with a [thirdly] in the bottome of that page. What an habit hath S. W. arrived to, from which such acts as these can follow thus glibly and gainlessly?
Thirdly, this judgement of the irrationalness of our sufferings, for the maintaining of an uncertain opinion, being founded in our doctrine that Councels may erre, from whence he concludes that the meeting where our Articles were made may erre also] hath oft been prevented by the account that I have given of belief; In a word, that which we have believed and practised, and thereby brought sufferings upon us, we are verily perswaded in our Conscience before God, and have from Apostolical practice, and tradition been by our Church taught, to be the truth of God, And if this be not enough rationally to inferr an obligation and ingagement on us to adhere to this, thought it cost us some indurance, or if to S. W. his discourse this appear irrational, I shall much suspect that he will never think himself obliged to suffer for the defense of the Romish infallibility, having no possible medium, besides his own phansie which he can so much as pretend, to give him any stronger belief of that.
Fourthly, for the number of those that have fallen off from our persecuted Church, I am not obliged to give any other account, than that herein we are but parallel to the purest ages and Churches, when the Gnosticks heresie of which complyance with the persecutors was one known part, carried away so great and considerable a number from the Orthodox assemblies, and profession, and are sure yet far more prosperous, than the Catholick Church in Athanasius's time, when Arrianism had over-spred the whole world.
Fifthly, when by that series of faith coming by hearing, that from preaching, that from mission, and supposing that mission is an act of jurisdiction, he will first inferr that our Bishops and Presbyters have no jurisdiction, and then that we have neither mission, preaching, hearing, nor consequently Church] I shall make no stay to admire his logick, or extraordinary conclud…ng faculty, but ask him in plain terms, whether a Presbyter ordaind by an English Bishop, or a childe yesterday baptized by an English presbyter, be not as truly a Presbyter, or a Christian, as any other which was ordained or baptized by the same or any other Bishop or Presbyter of this Church twenty years agoe? If he be not, from whence the invalidity or nullity of these latter acts proceed? If he be, what concludency then can be imagined in S. W. his argument? As for our resort to the secular power, how little that is to this matter, is shewed in the reply p. 157. and hath formerly been cleared in these papers.
Sixthly, 'tis a little strange, that when I say of our present persecution, that the same tempest hath with us thrown out all order and forme, Bishops and Liturgie together, which visibly belongs to their reteining none of these, who have cast us out of our Churches, not to our retaining none of them, who if we would have forsaken them, had not been cast out, he can make use of this, as my own confession, that now all order &c. is cast out, and therein, and not in our serving God in private families, to found his proof of the invisibleness of our Church. These are rare flights indeed, to make my accusing a fault in others, to be indeed the confession of it in my selfe.
Seventhly, when upon proposing to consideration for the future, whether in case Bishops stand, or it be not our faults that they do not stand, this objection can ever be improveable into a charge against us or our posterity, he reprehends my logick severely, and makes it all one, as if my body being cut into Atomes, I should yet conclude, that if this were not my fault, it were still a well ordered body] I answer, first, that my question in this case was not whether this would be then, when order were destroyed, a well ordered Church, but whether it would be chargable on us, or our posterity that it were so disordered? Secondly, that in his very instance, in that case of the mineing my body, 1st. my soule might yet continue unmangled, and intire. Secondly, that if that misfortune of my body were befallen it, without any default of mine, God would never charge it on me, how loudly so ever such a charity, as hath S. W. might revile or triumph over me; Proportionably, that the soule of Christianity remaining to those, who shall out live those hands who baptized and admitted them into the Church (as he that ever was such, may sure continue a Christian, when those that brought him into the Church are either gone or cast out of it) and what hath perish… of the outward forme or body of Government being lost without any fault or guilt of theirs (their infelicity, which they could not prevent, and not their crime volun…arily brought upon themselves) this sure will never be lookt on by God, as any dangerous want of order, or as that which shall be any way chargable upon them. Order is required to the well being, but not necessary absolutely to the being of a Church; an orderless, or a secret society of brethren may be a Church still, as any number of converts in a City, before the Apostle, which was gone to some other City, had yet placed any Governor over them. 'Tis certain a baptized person is, and continues a Christian, if he have not by some fault of his own, fallen from that priviledge (here I speak not of those who are not baptized, and yet if they were qualified for it, and wanted it by no fault of theirs, it will not be chargable on them neither) and a number of such baptized persons, wheresoever cast by what tempest soever, will never be condemned by God for not having a Bistop or Presbyter in their company, when they earnestly desire, but cannot have him. And this was the plain sense that S. W. had disguised into such an illogical conclusion, the Reader now discerns what logick it was that assisted him to do it.
Eighthly, when he saith I have spent this whcle chapter, except the first paragraph to prove 'tis not our choise or fault that we are persecuted] I answer, that when the whole objection of this Chapter is that which is taken from our being persecuted, there was nothing pertinent to answer, but that 'twas not our fault, nor consequently any matter of charge, or objection against us.
Ninthly, what the Catholick Gent. simply cited from Mr. Hooker, S. W. hath somewhat improved, fansying that Mr. Hooker did ground his speech in the uncertainty and sandiness of our foundation. Than which nothing could be farther removed from all appearance of truth, as appears by the true occasion, and importance of his words, set down in the Reply p. 154. &c.
Tenthly, when speaking of their assurance of their Churches not failing, he calls it a seeing with evidence, perhaps more than scientifical] I shall not now dispute the grounds of his assurance, that the promises made to the Church in general, shall certainly be performed to the Papacy howsoever they behave themselves, (to that I have spoken in the Reply p. 153.) but only ask what possible sight or evidence he is capable of, in this world, which is more then scientifical, whether indeed faith is, or may perhaps be more than science, or vision, which is one branch of science, i. e. in effect whether the state of the viatores here be, at least in this respect of evidence, more perfect, than that of the Comprehensores hereafter? Or if it be, why p. 303. when he comes to magnifie Rushworths Dialogues and Mr. Whites Apologie, as the means of clearing to men this point of Infallibility, he is yet so meek in his expressions, as but to say we may see it as visibly as it is possible any thing can be made to the eye of reason] whereas the eye of reason, being but an humane eye, and the evidence that is capable of, being sure no more then scientifical, we had our expectations raised to an higher pitch than that, and so are already defeated in our hopes, and competently discouraged ere we come to take a closer view of them.
As it is, I am now once by Gods blessing gotten to an end of one long journey, and shall breath a while, before I obey S. W. his summons to set out a fresh, upon such another.
The powerful Prince of peace restore that blessing of peace to his divided Church.
The End.
End of the text · Henry Hammond, The Disarmers Dexterities Examined (1656)