Letter of Resolution to Six Queries, Title page – Table of contents
A LETTER OF RESOLUTION TO SIX QUAERES, OF PRESENT USE IN THE CHURCH of England.
BY HENRY HAMMOND D.D.
LONDON: Printed by J. Flesher for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane. 1653.
A Letter of Resolution TO SIX QUAERES, Of present use in the Church of ENGLAND.
SIR,
SInce you have upon some consideration made choice to call for my assistance to the truth in these particulars, and expressed your sense, that the perspicuous and brief stating of them, is all that is necessary to be offered toward the resolution of them, I shall most willingly pay my obedience in the method which you have proposed to me; and being confident of your clear perswasion, that I shall say nothing to you, but what I beleive my self, and of which I shall, when I am required, be able to give a competent account to a Christian gainsayer, I shall first thank you for the advantage which the order of your Quaeres hath given me toward the decision of them; The first being so necessary, and so proper to expedite the resolution of the rest, that as that hath fallen under the heaviest displeasure, to the overwhelming of the rest with the single weight of it; so the praejudices against that being once removed, the consequence will be easie and natural (and by way of resultance) that the rest should return to the ancient liberty, which they have alwayes enjoyed in the Church of God, free from all encounters and jealousies in the practise of them. For certainly, as in those things of which we have not sufficient advertisement from one sense, we are wont to call in the ayds of the other; and when we want the more valid authentick Testimony of our own eyes, we supply that by the eyes and Testimonies of other men, and being to satisfie our selves of things distant from us, are content to make use of such Perspectives and Otacousticks, as these, (the best in every kinde, of which the matter is capable, though none of them perfect or infallible) So having all reason to resolve, that such Doctrines and Practises of the Apostles times, (and so of the Jewish Church) which are not plainly set down in Scripture, are solely to be learnt from the Primitive, and most authentick Records of those times, preserved for our use by the Church of God, (as the way to interpret difficulties in ancient Authors, is by acquainting our selves with the Histories of those times wherein they were written) there can be no reasonable demurre to the Conclusion, that such, when fairly produced, are readily to be admitted, and all contrary conjectures of these later ages (how plausible and probable soever they make a shift to appear to us) profestly disclaimed and renounced in this comparison, which being once said, must be allowed to have its due weight and influence on the ensuing particulars.
QUAERES.
I. Of the way of Resolving Controversies, which are not clearly stated and resolved in the Scriptures, Page 1
II. Of marrying the Wives Sister, p. 35
III. Of Polygamy and Divorces, p. 83
IV. Of the Baptism of Infants, p. 175
V. Of Imposition of Hands for Ordination, p. 313
VI. Of the Observation of Christmas-day, and other Festivities of the Church, p. 411