Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times

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: and 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 sense, as it hath one Constitutive and Ecclesiastical Head: but only in an improper larger sense, 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 Superior 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 Governors: 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 persuade 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 itself, and gratifieth Satan, while the Church is deprived of the Public 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 honor which God hath appointed for it, by this public 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 public honor of Godliness and Honesty, and consequently to the Conversion and Establishment of Men's Souls.

§ 344. 6. It greatly tendeth to the dishonor 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 Men's Lives than their Opinions.

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

§ 346. 8. And hereby God himself and our blessed Redeemer are greatly dishonored in the World: As his Saints are his honor, so when the Communion of Atheists and Profane 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 dishonor of the Head of such a Body, and the Author of the Christian Faith.

§ 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 anything in all the World will do it) to think that five parts in six of the World are still Heathens, Mohammedans 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 Travelers and Merchants tell, that the Banians and other Heathens in Indostan, Cambaia, and many other Lands, and the Mohammedans adjoining to the Greeks, and the Abbyssinians, &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 Mohammedans, 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 dishonor, and show 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 grossly 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 noisomeness 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 Schismatics, while they reproach our Churches as Hypocritical and Profane, 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 itself, which is all owed to Kings: Ergo it is this which is forbidden Ministers. This is the very sense of the Text which is given by Protestant Episcopal Divines themselves, when they reject the Presbyterians sense, 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,

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 Men's 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 Jurisdiction; 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 Governor 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, mixed 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 persuade the Magistrate that he ought to do so. 2. Force is not a mere 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 dishonor 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 itself 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 Churches 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 itself, nor the Offices in the Church: He granteth that 1. Worshipping Assemblies are of Divine appointment; 2. That everyone 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 mere 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 Honor? 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 Honor 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 Controversy 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 endeavor 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.

§ 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 Human Societies, and maketh a Man unfit for Human 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 traitorous 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 Joshua, 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 public owning Perjury and Falsehood, 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 Public Actions have first told them that Perjury itself 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 easy 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 anymore a Minister's Duty that cannot do it without sinful Conditions, than it is a Woman's 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 guilt, 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 endeavor 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 endeavor 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 anything that is sinful.

2. No nor to anything that may hereafter be sinful, nor from anything 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 itself 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 ourselves 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 merely 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 ourselves 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 anything 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 endeavor unlawfully] or [by any unlawful means] We had not scrupled so disclaiming any Obligation, as on ourselves or any other Subjects. Thus far there is no Controversy 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.

§ 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 endeavor 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 endeavor the extirpation of (not Episcopacy, but) Prelacy, that is, Church-Government by Archbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors, 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 endeavor [the Extirpation of Superstition]

7. And [of Heresy]

8. And [of Profaneness]

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

10. [To endeavor with our Estates and Lives to defend the King's Majesty's Person and Authority, in the preservation and defense 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 sense of the Imposers of Subscription expressed in the Corporation Act. But it is only [the 〈◊〉 of Church Government] which the present Controversy is about: And if all that was said against our Prelacy on the first Controversy prove it a Duty to endeavor an alteration of the Church-Government, then the Controversy 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 endeavor 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 sense. 3. Because the said Divines upon that profession, caused the Description of the word [Prelacy] to be expressed 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 Lord's (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 endeavor 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 endeavoring 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?

§ 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 Privilege 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 Sovereignty, 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 shown, 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 forementioned 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 Controversy.

§ 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 talked 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 publicly 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 sense 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 always bound to take it in the Imposers sense, if he take it not against the proper sense of the words.

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

§ 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 settled by Law: The Bishops were a part of the House of Lord's, 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 itself, 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 itself are [in our several Places and Callings we shall endeavor]: And this was the expressed work and end: And this was not doing anything 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 Controversy fit to be touched by itself. 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 myself 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 endeavor accordingly?

And whereas it is said, That the very War itself 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 Lord's House, where they might be over-voted.

2. The Scruple of the Non-Subscribers is not at all, whether they are obliged to endeavor 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 •

3. 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 Controversy, 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 Highway: 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 Controversy) 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 expressly 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 expressly, (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 sense from this unlawful End, is itself 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 comprised 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 showeth 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 sense to say, 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 Men's 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 sense. 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 Controversy. 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 shown). 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 mere 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 ration 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 Superiors, 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 Lord's 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 causeless 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 expressly 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 dispensing 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 died 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 Judgment). 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 endeavor 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 endeavor 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 terror, 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.

3. 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. anymore 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 showing 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 Honors 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 Honors? 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 Public, and given for the Work, and the Work is for the Public 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 Men's Souls to cast us out of the Church; but should rather justify 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 endeavor 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 Privileges, 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.

6. If the Laws of God be against Prelacy, those oblige above all Human Laws. And he that should forbid another to save him or his Neighbor 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 Sovereignty; 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 endeavor 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 sense 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 tied Subscribers to the particular words, and they long deliberated to express their own sense: 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 endeavor], and the Latitudinarian saith, That I may endeavor it, and that they mean no Endeavor 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 anything 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 endeavor any Alteration of Church-Government]: Let them write or say openly [Men are obliged by the Covenant to endeavor 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 sense of the Law will be declared: If they be in the right the Accuser shall lose his Costs, and no danger can befall 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.

4. The Parliament, who is the Expounder of their own Laws, have given us their sense of the Subject of our Controversy, 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 anything 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 sense 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 Errors, 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 there 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 sense; 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 joined to [endeavor] 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 Judge 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 itself, and would cure it by an ineffectual accidental Medicine: You harden both the Imposers and Subscribers by your Scandal, while you are said to Subscribe the very thing imposed, whose sense 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 sense 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 sense. 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 public and notorious as your Subscription itself is, then I have less to say against it. There are no words utterable which a Man may not put a good sense 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 sense which is true and warrantable.

§ 388. 4. Another Motive of the Latitudinarians to Subscribe is, That by [to endeavor 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.

Answ. 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 endeavor 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 sense 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 sense, to be in the Preposition [of] unless we could prove it.

3. 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 endeavor 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 specific 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 sense of the Act? And they all confessed it: (For if they did not, the Act and Declaration would herein do them no good , but leave private Men to endeavor 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 meaneth . 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. Burgess, and many more in the Assemblies who renounced the extirpation of all Episcopacy, and the Lord's having taken the Covenant in that openly declared sense: 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 profane 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 Almanac 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 anything 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 endeavor 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 sense that the words will bear. Ergo—

Answ. In the best sense which hath Evidence of Truth, Charity requireth us to take all the words of others: But the question is first, Which is the true sense? 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 sense, because it is better. In the Case in hand, the Law-makers have plainly declared their own sense, 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 sense 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 sense, may know the mistakes of this pretended Charity. And especially Laws and Oaths are to be taken in the sense 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 sense of the Takers? (though they be bound to take it in the sense 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 sense 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 in three Kingdoms, so far as to justify them before God from the Obligations of such Vows and Oaths?

§ 392. And though I heartily wish that the Prelates would have been entreated to have chosen another course of proceeding with their Brethren, and not have tempted any to Repinings or Complaints (for endeavoring 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 Labors. 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 Public Controversy: 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 justify ourselves. 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 Controversy 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 Controversy, 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 Controversy between Navigators, or Pope Zacharias 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 Honor 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 Governors: 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 sense, 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 sense, we should have consented [that on supposition the King commission Men legally, they are not to be resisted]. 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 show it me, what am I then to do?

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

3. In Case he show 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 show 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 show or pretend a Commission for any illegal Act, as to take Men's Purses by the Highway, 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 Men's Wives, or Daughters, or to burn the City, or if two or three should show a Commission to come into the House of Lord's 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 Defense 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 Armor 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 show 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 public 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 everywhere 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 public 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, show a Commission to kill all the Parliament, and fire the City, Nature seemeth to allow them Self-defense; and Parliaments (which are part of the Constitution ) are vain if they have no better Security for their Lives.

5. 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, 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 ruin?

7. They said, King James 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 Lord's, 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 Authors 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 Men's 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.

§ 395. Incident to this Controversy are other Clauses of the Declaration, as that the Covenant was in itself 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 Honor, 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 Traitors, 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. Joseph Read offered at the King's-Bench-Bar to take the Oxford Oath as expounded in that sense by the Vote of the Lord's 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 Controversy 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 itself 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 mere 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 that 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 anything which seemed to justify 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 myself 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 myself to them as my Governors, 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 Controversy: 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 ration 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 ourselves with that lowliness as Subjects do to their Rulers: But this is nothing to public relative stated subjection, of which the Controversy 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 ourselves 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 Controversy is about Re-ordination. Now in this the Nonconformists are the more shy, 1. Because in our most Public Meetings before the King and the Lord's 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 sense, 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 Churches. 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 Controversy is about the first Declaration, [I do here declare my unfeigned Assent and Consent to all and everything contained and prescribed in and by the Book entitled, &c.] 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 sense. 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! 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; 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 itself, 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 Rubric 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 everything, which includeth every word: 3. It is to everything contained in it, as well as to everything 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 Lord's sent it back to the Commons with this Proviso, That those that declared Assent and Consent to all and everything, &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 Lord's 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 publicly 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, Judith, are 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 Public 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 , 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 itself, 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 shown 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 persuade People that it is some effect of Baptism, and privilege 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 sense of the Compilers of the Liturgy. I am sure Dr. Gunning, who brought it in, hath publicly expressed his sense 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 adjoin 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 Public 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 Controversy 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 myself, I cannot execute so unjust an Imposition, as to cast out Christ's Members upon that account, no more than to cast out Children 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 numbered with the Excommunicate and Self-murderers. But if a hundred Thieves, Adulterers, Drunkards die; or Murderers or Traitors be hanged for there sin; though they never so much as say, I repent, but justify 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 Public 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 Traitor, 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 ourselves, 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 Controversy between the present Conformists and Non-conformists.

§ 417. Having thus interposed the State of the Controversy, 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 . 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 Threatenings 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 why 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 . 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 January 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 endeavoring 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 anything 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 forced 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 Controversy, 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, inclined 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 honored; 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 discernible: 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 him: 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 January following was buried good Mr. James Nalton, another Minister of the Primitive Sincerity: A good Linguist; a zealous excellent Preacher, commonly called, The weeping Prophet, because his Seriousness oft expressed itself by Tears: of a most holy blameless Life: Though Learned, yet greatly averse to Controversy 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 sense) 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 surprised 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 Employment which had the least show 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 persuaded 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 rejoiced 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 mere 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 shown 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 meddling 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 pulled 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 endeavoring to restore the present King: And then when good old Mr. Jackson, 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 everyone 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 watched 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 myself. 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 out, 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 Schismatics, 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 everywhere 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 publicly in Churches which had no Ministers: (for so many were cast out, that all their Places could not presently be supplied). 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 Bridgewater, 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 Jailor was corrected, and an Order made against Jailors 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 sequestered 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 persuaded Ministers to restore 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 persuade him to, so fearful was he of Oaths, or anything 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. Philip's, 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 persuaded 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 endeavors for that work were stopped 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 marvelous Works of God were done, which surely he did not cause in vain! But the over-fervent spirits of some Fanatics (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 which 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 Fanatics 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 Fanatics 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 June 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 talked 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 persuaded 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 Public 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 despite 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 lie 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 someone 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 sat still, and meddled not with that Business.

§ 427. For my own part, I meddled 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 Honorable 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.

§ 428. Instead of Indulgence and Comprehension, on the last day of June 1663. the Act against Private Meetings for Religious Exercises past the House of Commons, and shortly after was made a Law. The Sum of it was, That [every Person above sixteen years old, who is present at any Meeting under color or pretence of any Exercise of Religion, in other manner than is allowed by the Liturgy or Practice of the Church of England, where there are five Persons more than that Household, shall for the first Offence by a Justice of Peace be Recorded, and sent to Iail three Months till he pay five pound; and for the second Offence six Months till he pay ten pound; and the third time, being convicted by a July, shall be banished to same of the (American) Plantations, excepting New-England or Virginia. The Calamity of the Act, besides the main Matter was, 1. That it was made so ambiguous, that no man that ever I met with, could tell what was a violation of it, and what not; not knowing what was [allowed by the Liturgy or Practice of the Church of England in Families], because the Liturgy meddleth not with Families, and among the diversity of Family Practice, no man knoweth what to call the Practice of the Church. 2. Because so much Power was given to the Justices of Peace, to record a man an Offender without a Jury, and if he did it causelessly, we are without any remedy, seeing he was made a Judge: According to the plain words of the Act, if a man did but preach and pray, or read some licensed Book and sing Psalms he might have more than four present, because these are allowed by the practice of the Church in the Church; and the Act seemeth to grant an Indulgence for 〈◊〉 and number, so be it the quality of the Exercise be allowed by the Church; which must be meant [publicly] because it meddleth with no private Exercise. But when it cometh to the trial, these Pleas with the Justice are vain: and life men do but 〈◊〉 , it is taken for granted, that it is 〈◊〉 Exercise not allowed by the Church of England and to Jail they go.

§ 429. And now came in the Peoples Trial, as well as the Ministers: While the Danger and Sufferings lay on the Ministers alone, the People were very courageous, and exhorted them to stand it out, and Preach till they went to Prison: But when it came to be their own Case, they were as venturous till they were once Surprized and Imprisoned; but then their Judgments were much altered, and they that censured Ministers before as Cowardly, because they preached not publicly whatever followed, did now think that it was better to preach often in secret to a few, than but once or twice in public to many; and that Secrecy was no sin when it tended to the furtherance of the Work of the Gospel, and to the Churches Good: Especially the Rich were as cautelous as the Ministers. But yet their Meetings were so ordinary, and so well known, that it greatly tended to the Jailor's Commodity.

§ 430. It was a great Strait that People were in, especially that dwell near any busy Officer, or malicious Enemy (as who doth not?) Many durst not pray in their Families, if above four Persons came in to dine with them. In a Gentleman's House it is ordinary for more than four, of Visitors, Neighbors, Messengers, or one sort or other, to be most or many days at Dinner with them: and then many durst not go to Prayer, and some durst scarce crave a Blessing on their Meat, or give God thanks for it: Some thought they might venture if they withdrew into another Room, and left the Strangers by themselves: But others said, It is all one if they be but in the same House, though out of hearing, when it cometh to the Judgment of the Justices. In London, where the Houses are contiguous, some thought if they were in several Houses, and heard one another through the Wall or a Window, it would avoid the Law: But others said, It is all in vain whilst the Justice is Judge whether it was a Meeting or no. Great Lawyers said, If you come on a visit or business, though you be present at Prayer or Sermon, it is no breach of the Law, because you met not [on pretence of a Religious Exercise]: But those that tried them said, Such Words are but Wind when the Justices come to judge you.

§ 431. And here the Fanatics called Quakers did greatly relieve the sober People for a time: for they were so resolute, and gloried in their Constancy and Sufferings, that they assembled openly (at the Bull and Mouth near Aldersgate ) and were dragged away daily to the Common Jail; and yet desisted not, but the rest came the next day nevertheless: So that the Jail at Newgate was filled with them. Abundance of them died in Prison, and yet they continued their Assemblies still! And the poor deluded Souls would sometimes meet only to sit still in Silence (when, as they said, the Spirit did not speak): And it was a great Question, Whether this Silence was a Religious Exercise not allowed by the Liturgy, &c. And once upon some such Reasons as these, when they were tried at the Sessions in order to a Banishment, the Jury acquitted them; but were grievously threatened for it. After that another Jury did acquit them, and some of them were fined and imprisoned for it. But thus the Quakers so employed Sir R. B. and the other Searchers and Prosecutors, that they had the less leisure to look after the Meetings of Soberer men; which was much to their present ease.

§ 432. And now the Divisions, or rather the Censures of the Non-conforming People against their Ministers and one another, began to increase: which was long foreseen, but could not be avoided, and I that had incurred so much the displeasure of the Prelates, and all their Party, by pleading for the Peace of the Non-conformists, did fall under more of their displeasure than any one man besides, as far as I could learn: And with me they joined Dr. Bates, because we went to the Public Assemblies, and also to the Common Prayer, even to the beginning of it: Not that they thought worse of us than of others; but that they thought that our Example would do more harm: For I must bear them witness, that in the midst of all their Censures of my Judgment and Actions, they never Censured my Affections and Intentions, nor abated their Charitable Estimation of me in the main. And of the leading Prelates I had so much favor in their hottest Indignation, that they thought what I did against their Interest was only in obedience to my Conscience. So that I see by experience, that he that is impartially and sincerely for Truth and Peace and Piety, against all Factions, shall have his Honesty acknowledged by the several Factions, whilst his Actions, as cross to their Interest, are detested: Whereas he that joineth with one of the Factions, shall have both his Person and Actions condemned by the other, though his Party may applaud both.

§ 433. My Judgment was for the holding of Communion with Assemblies of both Parties; and ordinarily I went to some Parish Church, where I heard a Learned Minister that had not obtruded himself upon the People, but was chosen by them, and preached well, (as Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Tillotson, Mr. Nest, &c.) and I joined also in the Common Prayers of the Church: And as oft else as I had fit opportunity, I privately preached and prayed myself, either with Independents or Presbyterians that desired me! And I professed to all upon all occasions, that though I justified not all things which they held or did in any of their Churches, yet as long as they made not any Sin of mine a Condition of my Communion with them, I would occasionally join with any true Church in public or private; so be it they preached not for Heresy, nor against a holy and peaceable Life, nor turned not their Strein to Sedition or uncharitable Reviling one another: Even as I would hold occasional Communion with a Church of Lutherans, or Greeks, or Abbyssinians, if I passed through their Countries. Though caeteris paribus I preferred Public Assemblies, which have the Magistrates Countenance, before Private; yet I more preferred those that have pure Worship and Discipline and powerful Preaching, before the scandalous, undisciplined, ignorant Churches, of ignorant and formal lifeless Ministers. And so far as I had my choice, my most usual Communion should be with those Assemblies that I thought the best; yet would I have occasional Communion with others, as Members of the Catholic Church, to show my Catholic Communion with all the Body of Christ. Yea, and my ordinary Communion should be with a Church that used the Common Prayer, rather than with none, or with a worse: And the Lord's Day I would spend in Church Communion (it being principally appointed to that end), and not in any mere Family Worship, or Meetings with a few Christians occasionally which met not as a Church. This was my Resolution: But the confidence of many on the other side was as great as mine could be: And their Arguments as many (though I thought not so good): Many Books came out against hearing Common Prayer, and against hearing any of the present Parish Ministers: One said to be by Mr. John Godwin, and another by one Mr. Brown of Worcestershire (a fervent, injudicious, honest Fifth-Monarchy-man) and many more that made the Common Prayer to be no less than Idolatry. Because it was not prescribed by the Scripture, they said it is false Worship; and false Worship they said was one Species of Idolatry; by which arguing they would have made every fault in any of our Prayers or other Worship to be Idolutry: For Scripture prescribeth not any disorder or other fault in Prayer, but forbiddeth it: and so they may on the same account call it false Worship and Idolatry: But many honest People were led to depart too far from the Parish Assemblies, and from Charity and Unity itself, by such weak reasonings as these Yea, many turned Quakers, because the Quakers kept their Meetings openly, and went to Prison for it cheerfully; and because they would not join with the late imposed Ministry and Worship, which was so bad in their esteem, that their hearts rose against any Debate in which we would but question it.

When I hear men cry out against us as dangerous Schismatics, even when we deny not Communion with the conformable Parish Ministers, merely because we cease not preaching when the Magistrates and Prelates command us so to do, notwithstanding the notorious necessity of the People; it bringeth to my thoughts two remarkable Passages there met with.

The first of the Eastern Churches (Alexandria, Anti • ch, C • sares, &c.) which stuck to their old Pastors in private Meetings, and refused the new obtruded Bishops suspected of Arianism, notwithstanding the Emperor Valens his Prohibition, and his contrary Commands, and his personal violent Impedition. The like was done in Constantine 's time.

The second is of many Bishops in Africa who by Genseric •• were forbid to preach, and when they obeyed him not, their Tongues were cut out: And God by a Miracle justified their Disobedience to the King, and they spake as well as when they had their Tongues: Among many Historians who report this, I remember two credible ones, who profess that they saw and heard the men speak themselves, after the cutting out of their Tongues: One is Victor Uticensis, and as I remember the other is Aenaem Gazem.

§ 434. I confess some of those that were for Separation from the Parish Churches spake so plausibly, that it was no wonder that most of the Religious sort followed them. They said that

1. We have but lately sworn in the Covenant against Superstition, and for a Reformation: and shall we all so soon return to Liturgies and Ceremonies, &c. at the Will of Man?

2. As Conformity, so Separation, is now another thing than it was when the old Non-conformists wrote against the Brownists, the Churches being far more polluted.

3. We are commanded to avoid them that walk disorderly, and not to bid them good speed that bring false Doctrine, and not to eat with them,&c. And Cyprian saith, That it belongeth to the People to avoid a bad Pastor, and that if they do it not, they must not think themselves innocent, though Synods cast them not out. And what sin, say they, can be more heinous, than to break their Vows with God so solemnly, and in such dreadful Expressions, made? and to Subscribe under their Hands, That neither Prince nor People in Three Kingdoms, ought to reform such a corrupted undisciplin'd Church, no not though they have Sworn to endeavor it? and not only to be Perjured themselves, but to justify Three Kingdoms in the Guilt of Perjury; to dishonor our Nation before all the World, and teach them to name it Insula Perfidorum, the Perjured Island: To declare openly for the absolute Slavery of the Kingdoms, whose Liberty their Ancestors preferred before their Lives; declaring that it is not lawful by Arms to save my Purse or Throat from Thieves, if they say they have the King's Commission for it! • or show it: To Assent and Consent unfeignedly to all the Corruptions imposed on them! To make all this a Ministerial Sin, by Publishing or Reading it before all the Congregation: To turn to all this unfaithfully, without ever Debating the Case with the ablest that differed from them; or else going on when they were Silenced in Conference, and had nothing to say! Are these men for us to hold Communion with?

4. God will be worshipped with the best, and curseth them that offer him the blind and lame, when they have better in their Flocks.

5. The Churches are not only undisciplined, but the Pastors by Subscription justify it, and compel by cruel Persecution all Men to Communicate with them thrice a year, both the Good against their Consciences, and the Bad against the Word of God, to their Condemnation: And shall we Communicate with such?

§ 435. To these sad and heavy Accusations we answered,

1. The Covenant bound us to our best to reform: but did not bind us to sin, that is, to forsake all Christian Churches among us, and all Public Worship, when we cannot reform as we desire. As I am bound to amend all the Disorders and Faults of my own Prayers, but not to give over praying till I can amend them. Nay, the Covenant bindeth us to come to the Assemblies, in that it bindeth us against Schism, Profaneness, and whatsoever is against sound Doctrine and Godliness.

2. I confess that Conformity is not the same thing as it was in the Brownists time: But yet the Difference is not so great as to make Separation lawful now, which was unlawful then. In one great Point the Case of the Church was worse then, than it is now: in that the multitude of the People being new turned from Popery by the bare Will of the Queen and Parliament, were far more ignorant than now they are, when the Gospel hath made the People much more understanding and reformed; insomuch that in some (few) great Towns and Parishes, a considerable part of the People, are zealous Professors of Religion that daily worship God in their Families.

3. There is a great deal of Difference between God's Commands to a Church to cast out and avoid particular Sinners by way of Disciplinary Reformation, and a particular Person's avoiding whole Churches, and that before the Neighbouring Churches have in any Synod declared them unfit for our Communion: The former may be found, but any Command for the latter you will hardly find in Scripture; but contrarily it was the practice of Schismatics and Heretics: For how can you proceed in Christ's method of Admonition with such whole Churches? At least, till they are notoriously Heretical, or intolerably corrupt and obstinate therein you cannot avoid them. The Churches of Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Sardis, Laodicea, Thiatyra, &c. had foul Corruptions, and are commanded to execute Discipline on the Members; but no Members commanded to forsake the Churches, but the contrary. As to Cyprian 's words, it's true, that a People that care for their Souls must depart from an Heretical or utterly intolerable Minister, as they that love their Lives will do from a Physician that would kill them: But there is a great deal of difference between Personal Faults, and Ministerial Faults, (as between a Drunkard and an Heretic), and between a tolerable ministerial Fault (as all imperfect Men are guilty of in their several measures) and an intolerable one: and between the Desertion of a whole Congregation, and of the lesser part, when the rest will not forsake the Minister. I deny not but you are bound to forbear committing the care and guidance of your Souls to a Man whose Ministerial Faults are intolerable. And such are, 1. The utterly Ignorant and Insufficient; 2. The Preachers of Heresy, or Doctrine contrary to the necessary Points of Religion; 3. And those that set themselves to preach down Godliness, or preach for a wicked Life, (if any such there be): But you must remember how in their Factious Zeal, all Parties or Sects of late among us, were wont to preach against one another, and yet that was not taken for preaching against Godliness, though the Persons were never so godly that they preached against. And as you recount all that may aggravate their sin, so you must in justice remember all that may extenuate it: Remember therefore, 1. That for the Common Prayer and Ceremonies and Prelacy, multitudes of worthy holy Men conformed to them heretofore, from whom you would not have separated; such as Dr. Preston, Dr. Sibbs, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Staughton, Mr. Gattaker, and most (by far) of the late Synod at Westminster: And for the rest of the Conformity, remember the Matter and the Temptation: For the Matter, it is much about Political Things, where it is no wonder if Divines on either side are ignorant or erroneous: and if they be unacquainted with the Power of Kings and Parliaments, when Lawyers and Parliaments themselves are disagreed about them. And for the Temptation, remember that such horrid Miscarriages, as the Rebellious pulling down of King and Parliament, killing the one, and casting out and imprisoning the Members of the other, and the attempting the taking down of all the Ministry, and the ruining of all Order by armed Sectaries, with the multitude of Sects that swarm'd among us, I say these Effects, with the King's miraculous Restoration, and the ruin of such an Army without one drop of Blood, are things that might easily draw Men to judge that the Covenant was but a League for the promoting of an unlawful War, and therefore is utterly null: And specially it concerneth you to remember, that it was the Independents that first taught them the nullity or non-obligation of the Covenant, calling it a ceased League, and an Almanac out of date, which they were forced to do that they might violate it: And yet you do not now call them Perjured, and aggravate their Sin, and say, They killed the King and conquered Scotland, when they had sworn the contrary in the Covenant: Nor do you separate from them on this account: Nay, it is mostly the Independents that are now for Separation from the Prelatists as Perjured, who went before them in the nullifying of this Vow.

4. We dissuade you not from worshipping of God with the best you have, so you will but remember, that Love and Concord and honorable Solemnity are considerable Ingredients to make up the best: and that it is not best to spend the Lord's Days in no Church-worship at all, but merely with a few that are met occasionally, because you cannot worship him publicly as you would; and that that may be the best which you have liberty to perform, which is not the best which you could do if you had liberty.

5. And though the Churches be too much undisciplined, and all Communicate, so are the Reformed Churches of Helvetia, which are numbered with the best, where Discipline never was set up. In Conclusion, He that separateth from one Church, for a Cause common to almost all the Churches in the World, doth go too near a Separating from all the Churches in the World: But so it is here: For almost all the Churches in the World have worse Ministers and worse Members, and as bad a form or way of Worship as these in England: And it is a terrible thing to think of Separating from all or most of the Universal Church of Christ on Earth.

§ 436. But the Ejected Presbyterian Ministers that would not come to Common Prayer in Public, went more moderately to work, and said,

1. We do not separate from every Congregation that we join not with in Person: Else every Man doth separate every day from all the Congregations in the World save one: If they are not Separatists for not joining with us, then neither are we for not joining with them, no more than for not joining with the Anabaptists and Independents: We may confess them to have a true Ministry, and be true Churches; but their faultiness we must not countenance.

2. We were lawfully called by Christ to feed our particular Flocks: And if these Men cast us out of the Temples and Maintenance, and get into our Places, and the more ungodly half of the Parishes, for fear of Man, conform to them, it doth not follow that we are absolved from our Office and Duty for the rest, or must bring them to the disorderly way of Worship which they violently imposed on us.

§ 437. To these I answered,

1. That it's true, that mere Absence is no Separation: But when a Party call and invite you to join with them, and you publicly accuse their way, and never join with them at all, you seem to tell the World that you take it to be unlawful: And that hath some degree of Separation; to avoid them as a Company unmeet to be joined with.

2. Though you Offices to your People cease not, yet you have your power to Edification and not to Destruction: And if a tolerable Minister be put into your Places, it's considerable whether it be not most to your Peoples Edification, Unity, Charity and Peace, to take them with you to the Public Assemblies, and help them nevertheless at other times yourselves as much as you can: And whether both helps be not more than one: Especially when you cannot preach to above four yourselves, without Imprisonment and Banishment, and then you cannot preach at all. And whereas it's easy to let a passionate Stoutness transport us, and think that Tyrannical Church-Usurpers must not be encouraged by our Compliance; the meek Spirit of Christianity, when it sifteth these reasonings, will find in them too much of Self and Passion when Unity, Charity and the Churches Edification is on the other side.

§ 438. And whereas some Men are much taken with this Reason, That these times have more Light than the old Non-conformists ever had, and therefore that is not excusable in us which was so in them, I must confess I have great reason to believe the clean contrary, if by Light they mean Knowledge, that the old Non-conformists had much more insight into these Controversies than Professors have of late: For,

1. We know that when the Parliament had cast out Bishops, Liturgy and Ceremonies, the generality both of Ministers and People, took it for granted that they were all bad, and so had more Light than their Forefathers had, before they ever studied the Controversies: I have asked many of them that have boasted of this Light, whether ever they read what Cartwright, Bradshaw, Ames, Parker, Baynes, Gersome, Bucer, Didoclavius, Salmasius, Blondell, Beza, &c. have said on one side; and what Saravia, Bilson, Whitgift, Covell, Downham, Burgess, Hooker, Paybody, Hammond, &c. have said on the other side; and they have confessed they never thoroughly studied any one of them.

2. And we see it by experience, that one of those Men have written more on these Subjects, than any of these can say or understand, who boast that they have greater Light. How weakly do they talk against Bishops, Liturgy, and Ceremonies in comparison of these ancient Non-conformists! However, that which was Truth then, is Truth now: And we have the same Scripture to be our Rule as they had: Therefore let them that say they have more Knowledge, bring it forth and try it by the Law and Testimony, Isa. 8. 20.

§ 439. Having lived three years and more in London, and finding it neither agree with my health or studies, (the one being brought very low, and the other interrupted) and all Public Service being at an end, I betook myself to live in the Country (at Action ) that I might set myself to writing, and do what Service I could for Posterity, and live as much as possibly I could out of the World. Thither I came 1663. July 14. where I followed my Studies privately in quietness, and went every Lord's Day to the Public Assembly, when there was any Preaching or Catechizing, and spent the rest of the Day with my Family (and a few poor Neighbors that came in); spending now and then a day in London, and the next year 1664. I had the Company of divers godly faithful Friends that Tabled with me in Summer, with whom I solaced myself with much content. Having almost finished a large Treatise, called, A Christian Directory, or Sum of Practical Divinity, that I might know whether it would be Licensed for the Press, I tried them with a small Treatise of The Characters of a Sound Christian, as differenced from the Weak Christian and the Hypocrite: I offered it Mr. Grig the Bishop of London 's Chaplain, who had been a Non-conformist, and professed an extraordinary respect for me: But he durst not Licence it. Yet after, when the Plague began I sent three single Sheets to the Archbishop of Canterbury 's Chaplain (without any Name that they might have past unknown, but accidentally they knew them to be mine) and they were Licensed: The one was Directions for the Sick: The second was Directions for the Conversion of the Ungodly; and the third was Instructions for a Holy Life: for the use of poor Families that cannot buy greater Books, or will not read them.

§ 440. March 26. being the Lord's Day 1665. as I was preaching in a Private House, where we received the Lord's Supper, a Bullet came in at the Window among us, and past by me, and narrowly mist the Head of a Sister-in-law of mine that was there, and hurt none of us; and we could never discover whence it came.

§ 441. In June following an ancient Gentlewoman with her Sons and Daughter, came four Miles in her Coach to hear me Preach in my Family, as out of special Respect to me: It fell out that (contrary to our custom) we let her knock long at the Door, and did not open it; and so a second time when she had gone away and came again; and the third time she came when we had ended: she was so earnest to know when she might come again to hear me, that I appointed her a time: But before she came, I had secret intelligence from one that was nigh her, that she came with a heart exceeding full of Malice, resolving, if possible, to do me what Mischief she could by Accusation: and so that Danger was avoided.

§ 442. Before this, divers Forreign Divines had written to me, and expected such Correspondence as Literate Persons have with one another: But I knew so well what eyes were upon me, and how others had been used in some such accounts, that I durst not write one Letter to any beyond the Seas: By which some were offended, as little knowing our Condition here: Among others, Amyraut sent one upon the occasion of a word of honest Ludae. Molinaeus, a Dr. of Physic, who had said that he had heard that Amyrald had said somewhat as slighting the Non-conformists in England, and me in particular, which with what vehemency and great respect he disowneth, his Letter following will show. Another was from a Minister in Helvetia, who would have had my Advice about setting up the Work of Ministerial Instruction of the Families and Persons of their Charge particularly, which I will also add: but I sent him an Answer by his Friend by word of mouth only. And so I refused the answering of all others.

The vigilant Eye of Malice that some had upon me, made me understand that (though no Law of the Land is against Literate Persons Correspondencies beyond Seas, nor have any Divines been hindered from it, yet) it was like to have proved my ruin, if I had but been known to answer one of these Letters, though the Matter had been never so much beyond Exceptions. So that I neither answered this nor any other, save only by word of mouth to the Messenger; and that but in small part; for much of this (in the latter part) was Matter not to be touched. Our Silencing and Ejection he would quickly know by other means, and how much the Judgments of the English Bishops did differ from theirs about the Labors and Persons of such as we.

§ 443. About this time I thought meet to debate the Case with some Learned and Moderate Ejected Ministers of London, about Communicating sometimes in the Parish Churches in the Sacraments: (For they that came to Common Prayer and Sermon, came not yet to Sacraments). They desired me to bring in my Judgment and Reasons in writing: which being debated, they were all of my mind in the main, That it is lawful and a duty where greater Accidents preponderate not. But they all concurred unanimously in this, That if we did Communicate at all in the Parish Churches, the Sufferings of the Independents and those Presbyterians that could not Communicate there, would certainly be very much increased, which now were somewhat moderated by concurrence with them. I thought the Case very hard on both sides, That we that were so much censured by them for going somewhat further than they, must yet omit that which else must be our Duty, merely to abate their Sufferings that censure us: But I resolved with them to forbear a while, rather than any Christian should suffer by occasion of an action of mine, seeing God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice, and no Duty is a Duty at all times.

§ 444. In July 1665. the Lord Ashley sent a Letter to Sir John Trevor, That a worthy Friend of his, in whose Case the King did greatly concern himself, had all his Fortunes cast upon my Resolution of the enclosed Case, which was, Whether a Protestant Lady, of strict Education, might marry a Papist, in hope of his Conversion, he promising not to disturb her in her Religion. It came at Six a Clock Afternoon, and knowing it was a Case that must be cautelously resolved at the Court, I took time till the next Morning, that I might give my Answer in Writing. The next day the Lord Ashley wrote again, with many words to incline me to the Affirmative; for the Lady told them she would not consent unless I satisfied her that it was lawful. (Who the Lord and Lady were I know not at all, but have an uncertain Conjecture): So I sent the following Resolution.

The Case was thus expressed.

Whether one that was bred a strict Protestant, and in the most severe ways of that Profession, lived many years without giving offense to any; well known in her own Country to be such; may without offense to God, or Man, marry a professed Roman Catholic, in hopes of taking him off the Error of his ways, he engaging never to disturb her?

My Lord's Letter was as follows.

THE LIFE Of the Reverend Mr. Richard Baxter. The Third Part.

§ 1. SEing God hath been pleased to add these few Years more to my Pilgrimage, I will add some Account of His Providences towards me, and his People in this Land, in these additional Years. When I ended my last Narrative, the dreadful Plague was laying waste, especially the City of London; and thence spread into the neighbouring Parts, and into many distant Cities and Corporations of the Land. Yet did we hear of no public Repentance professed by any one City or Corporation, for that Profession by which they were all at that time even Constituted, whilst that all that had any Office or Trust therein, declared, That there was no Obligation from the Vow called the Solemn League and Covenant on any Person; no not from their Vow against Popery, Schism, or Profaneness, nor their Vow to Defend the King, nor their Promise of Repentance for their Sins. And who can but fear that such an universal Sin must be yet more sharply punished, when such a Scourge as this had no better effects?

§ 2. The Number that died in London (besides all the rest of the Land) was about an Hundred Thousand, reckoning the Quakers, and others, that were never put in the Bills of Mortality, with those that were in the Bills.

§ 3. The richer sort removing out of the City, the greatest • low fell on the Poor. At the first so few of the Religiouser sort were taken away, that (according to the mode of too many such) 〈◊〉 began to be puffed up, and boast of the great difference which God did make • But quickly after, they all fell alike. Yet not many pious Ministers were taken away; I remember but Three, who were all of my own Acquaintance. 1. Mr. Grunman, a German, a very humble, holy, able Minister; but being a Silenced Non-conformist was so poor, that he was not able to remove his Family. 2. Mr. Cross, a worthy Minister, that had long ago lived with the famous Religious Lady Scudamore; and being Silenced, was entertained by Richard Hambden, Esq in his House at London; and flying from the Plague into the Country, died with his Wife, and some Children, as soon as he came thither, in the House of that Learned and Worthy Man, Mr. Shaw, another Silenc'd Mi • ister, and his Brother in Law; who being shut up, gave God Thanks for his Deliverance, in a very Learned and Profitable Treatise, which he Published thereupon. And since being found (not only very Learned, but) moderate, and holding Communion in the Public Assemblies, and a peaceable Man, hath got connivance to Teach a Public School, a great favor in these Times. 3. Mr. Roberts, a Godly Welsh Minister, who also flying from the Plague, fell Sick, as far off, as between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, and died on a little Straw, while none durst entertain him.

§ 4. It is scarce possible for People that live in a time of Health and Security, to apprehend the dreadfulness of that Pestilence! How fearful People were, thirty or forty, if not an hundred Miles from London, of anything that they bought from any Mercer's, or Draper's Shop; or of any Goods that were brought to them; or of any Person that came to their Houses. How they would shut their Doors against their Friends; and if a Man passed over the Fields, how one would avoid another, as we did in the time of Wars; and how every Man was a Terror to another! O how sinfully unthankful are we for our quiet Societies, Habitations and Health!

§ 5. Not far from the place where I sojourned, at Mrs. Fleetwood 's, three Ministers of extraordinary worth were together in one House, Mr. Clearkson, Mr. Sam. Cradock, and Mr. Terry, Men of singular Judgment, Piety, and Moderation; and the Plague came into the House where they were, one Person dying of it, which caused many (that they knew not of) earnestly to pray for their Deliverance; and it pleased God that no other Person died.

§ 6. But one great Benefit the Plague brought to the City, that is, it occasioned the Silenc'd Ministers more openly and laboriously to Preach the Gospel, to the exceeding comfort and profit of the People; insomuch, that to this Day the freedom of Preaching, which this occasioned, cannot, by the daily Guards of Soldiers, nor by the Imprisonments of Multitudes, be restrained. The Ministers that were Silenced for Nonconformity, had ever since 1662. done their Work very privately, and to a few (not so much through their timorousness, as their loathness to offend the King, and in hope still that their forbearance might procure them some Liberty; and through some timorousness of the People that should hear them.) And when the Plague grew hot, most of the Conformable Ministers fled, and left their Flocks, in the time of their Extremity: whereupon divers Non-comformists pitying the dying and distressed People, that had none to call the impenitent to Repentance, no • to help Men to prepare for another World; nor to comfort them in their Terrors, when about Ten Thousand died in a Week, resolved that no obedience to the Laws of any mortal Men whosoever, could justify them for neglecting of Men's Souls and Bodies in such extremities; no more than they can justify Parents for fanishing their Children to death: And that when Christ shall say, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these, ye did it not to me, It will be a poor excuse to say, [Lord I was forbidden by the Law.] Therefore they resolved to stay with the People, and to go in to the forsaken Pulpits, though prohibited, and to preach to the poor People before they died; and also to visit the Sick, and get what relief they could for the Poor, especially those that were shut up. Those that set upon this work, were Mr. Thomas Vincent, late Minister in Milk-street; with some Strangers that came thither, since they were Silenced, as Mr. Chester, Mr. Ianeway, Mr. Turner, Mr. Grimes, Mr. Franklin, and some others. Those heard them one Day oft, that were sick the next, and quickly died. The Face of Death did so awaken both the Preachers, and the Hearers, that Preachers exceeded themselves in lively, fervent Preaching, and the People crowded constantly to hear them; and all was done with so great Seriousness, as that, through the Blessing of God, abundance were converted from their Carelessness, Impenitency, and youthful Lusts and Vanities; and Religion took that hold on the Peoples Hearts, as could never afterward be loosed.

§ 7. And at the same time, whilst God was consuming the People by these Judgments, and the Nonconformists were laboring to save Men's Souls, the Parliament (which sat at Oxford, whither the King removed from the danger of the Plague) was busy in making an Act of Confinement, to make the Silenc'd Ministers Case incomparably harder than it was before, by putting upon them a certain Oath, which if they refused, they must not come (except the Road) within five Miles of any City, or of any Corporation, or any place that sendeth Burgesses to the Parliament; or of any place where-ever they had been Ministers, or had preached since the Act of Oblivion. So little did the Sense of God's terrible Judgments, or of the necessities of many hundred thousand ignorant Souls, or the Groans of the poor People, for the Teaching which they had lost, or the fear of the great and final Reckoning, affect the Hearts of the Prelatists, or stop them in their way. The chief Promoters of this among the Clergy, were said to be the Arch-bishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Seth-Ward, the Bishop of Salisbury: And one of the greatest Adversaries of it in the Lord's House, was the very Honorable Earl of Southampton, Lord Treasurer of England, a Man that had ever adhered to the King, but understood the interest of his Country, and of Humanity. It is without Contradiction Reported, that he said, No honest Man would take that Oath. The Lord Chancellor Hide also, and the rest of the Leaders of that mind and way, promoted it, and easily procured it to pass the Houses, notwithstanding all that was said against it.