A Whipp, &c.
EXCPTION II.
[C] When Paul had sent for the Elders of the Church at Ephesus, he bids them to feed the Church of God, over which (not be himself, by his
sole Authority, a Bishop of the Diocess, but) the Spirit of God hadmade them,, i. e. Overseers, or to use the proper stile, Bi•hops. And Peter commands his Fellow Elders, (for so doth that Apostle to call himself) to feed the Flock which was among them,, Overseeing, or Acting the Bishops, not (like the Bishop of Wor∣cester) as Lording it over Gods Heritage, but as Patte•ns of the Flock. From which places we learn, not only that those two so much controverted Names of Bishop and Pres•yter, are without distinction ascribed to the same Persons, but likewise, that whoever f•d the Flock, are under Christ (whom the Apostle there stils the Chief Shepheard) the next and immedi∣ate Pastors of the Flock; and to extend the Pastoral Power beyond the actual care of Feeding, is a notion altogether uscriptural, and likewise leaves us no bounds where to fix, till we come to cere upon some one Universal Pastor, who may claim this Power over the whole world, by the same parity of reason, that a Bishop doth over one D•ocesse.]
EXCEPTION III.
[B] Truly if this practise be justificable, and those who design themselves to preach the Gospel, must, besides their Ordination, procure a License from a Bishop, to do that, which a Woe is deced against, if the offer to ot, then 1. I see not what Ordination signifies, ce the power that is given, o Authority from Ma away, any more then dissolve the contract of a Mariage, much lesse empeach and hinder the free use of it, except for Moral and? notoriously vicious Misdemeanours. 2. For one Minister of the Gospel (for certainly a Bishop is no more) to Silence another, and that for no better Reason, than because his Fellow-Minister is desirous to preach the Gospel without a new License, this is an abuse of Dominion, which as our Saviour doth no where countenance, so the first Ages of the Church were altogether with.]
[C] For the Bishop's Inst of our Saviour's putting to silence the Scrib•s and Pharisees, is both Impertit and False, because our Saviour did only silence them by Argument, which the Bishop may do when ever he is ale, but what is that to an Authoritative and imerious commanding men to be Silent. Besides, even then when our Saviour was most strict in pronouncing Woes against the Pharisees in that very Chapter▪ he is so far fom forbidding the Pharisees to preach, that he commands his Disci∣ples both to hear and to obey their Doctrine. So that since the Bishop wi needs have the Presbyterians to be Pharisees, let him but allow them the same Liberty of Teaching the People, as our Saviour did the other, and I believe they will not (at least were I a Presbyterian I should not) envy his Lordship either his Title or M, how soever they both be. And though the Bishop is pleased to say, That the Presbyterians preach nothing but Sedition and Treason (which is most alse, as being directly to their declared Principles) yet the Pharise•s taught something worse, and that was : Yet our Saviour (who sure had more power, and withal more care of his▪ Church hen the Bishp of Worcester) did not go about by force to prohibit them]
EXCEPTION IV,
[A] HOw consistent with the Civil Peace (for as to Christian Cha∣rity, the whole thing is but a Letter of dfiance against it) the Bishops Distinction is about the Act of Idempnity, and (he so much fogotten) Act of , I hope His Majesty and the Parlia∣ment will in due i ne consider. For he is so hardy as to tell us, That the King by it only pardoned the corporal punishment; but the Church had not, nor ought not to forgive the scandal, till honourable amends were made her by confession and Recantation. Where by speaking of the Church, as distinct from the State (I mean in point of Corcive Jurisdiction) the Bishop would make us believe, that after His Majesty and the Parlia∣ment have forgiven men their Civil Crimes, there is still another Power, which he calls the Church, unto which they are still accountable, eve so far as to make a Pulick . Here I wsh the Bishop would have soken out of the Clouds, and plainly told us what he meant by the Church: For if it be a Congrega•ion of the Faithful met together for the worship of God, as the Dfinition of Scripture, and of the Church of England in the 39 Articles; this will not at all advantage him, since such a Chuch hath Cocive or Imposing Power: But if he means the Hierarchy or Ecclesiastical State,y Arch-Bishops, Bishops. &c. there can be nothing mor false, or more dishonourabl unto o Civil Government, than to affirm that it lies in their power, not only o push, but likwise to exact a Recantation, fr those faults which the King and Parliament have not only pardoed, but und sever penalties command shuld never more be remembred: And therefore I doubt not, but that they will resent this Malicious and ll-grounded Phancy.]
[B] And since the Bishop is so over-zealous for the very Letter of the Law, when it imposes Ceremonies, give me leave a little to wonder, that one of his Profession and Place in the Church should so go against it, when it enjoyns Moderation and Forgiveness as to Civil Injuries. Such as he, who make the Law, instead of being a Buckler to protect. Converts, a Sword only to cut off all such as were once Offenders, abour what they can, to make men desperate, and thereby render the peace of the Nation and in that the prosperity and welfare of His Majesty very insecure and ha∣zardous. For what can mo inrage Men to take wild and forbidden courses, than to see even Preachers of the Gospel strive to widen their wounds, and contrary to their own former Professions, to pull off that Plaister, which the wisdom of our St-Physitians had provided to eal our distempers.]
EXCEPTION V.
[A] IT is bold and impious (I know not how to express it more mild'y) what he affirms, That I• to command an Act, which by acci∣dent may prove an occasion of sin, be sinful, then God him∣self cannot command any thing. For, though, as I said before, I will by no means own that Assertion, yet, a thing which by accident may become sinful, may be unlawful in another to command, for want of sufficient Authoriy; whereas God's Sovereign Power doth without dispute or con∣troversie make all his Commands to be just; and therefore his Name ought not to be mentioned in our trivial Disputes, because every such vain use of it, is nothing but a diminution and lessening of his Great∣ness.
EXCEPTION VI.
[A] THat an offence, to which a disproportionable penalty is an∣nexed, is not to be measured by the quality of the Act con∣sidered in it self, but by the mischievous consequences it may produce; whether this ought to hold good in Civill Lawes, becomes neither the Bishop nor me to dispute: but in Divinity nothing can be more false and dangerous. For to impose in the orship of God as necessary circum∣stances of it, things confessedly trivial and needless; and upon the for∣bearance of them, to debar any from the benefits first of Christian, and then of Civil Communion; is a thing which hath not the least, pretence of Scrip∣ture or Primitive practice to justifie it. For, our Saviour tes us. That
whosoever were not against him were for him; and the Apostle bids us to receive our weak Brother, and not to judge, much less to burden his Conscience.]
[B] Unto which sacred Canon nothing can be more directly contrary, than what the Bishop most incompassionately tels us, That the Lawes do well to punish, even with non-admission to the Sacramen•, such as will not, or perhaps dare not, kneel. And the Reason he gives is equally Apocrypha, Because, saith he, it becomes not the Law-givers to endanger the Churches peace for their sake: As if first, It did not much more become all Law-givers in the things of God, to observe the Law of Christ, which is a Law of Love and Liberty. Secondly, As if the Churches peace would not be much more endangered, by the pressing of things doubt∣ful, than by the forbearance of them. For since by the enforcing of such things, as God hath no where commanded, our Christian liberty is inin∣ged; from hence it follows, that, if we ought not, yet we lawfully may
refuse, to sub•t unto such Impositions; as our Saviour did, in not washing his hands before meat; and the Apostle Paul, in the case of Circumcision.]
EXCEPTION VII.
[A] AS for the Chain of Consequences, which the Bishop liks and tis together: As that from Diversity in external •ites, ariseth Dislike; from Dislike, Enmity; from Enmity, Oppositi∣on; thence, Sehism in the Church, and Sedition in the State: For of which he doth very virulently instance in our unhappy times. To prevent which he tels us, That the State cannot be safe without the Church, nor the Church without Unity, nor Unity without Uniformity, nor uniformity without a strict and rigorous Imposition. To all this I answer, that it is a Rope of sand, and the parts of his Chain do little hang together; as Sampsons Foxes did before they were tied by the Tails, which course the Bishop hath imitated, not forgetting to put in even the Firebrand it self to make up the Comparison.]
[B] Nothing is more clear than that there hath been, nay, ought to be, Diversity in external Forms, without any Dislike at all as to the Person of another: For, the Apostles that preached to the circumcision gave the right hand of Fellowship unto the Apostles of the Gentiles; although their Outward Rites in publick Worship, were far more different than those, which, by any of the most distant perswasions, are now practised iEngland. 2. The State may be prefered, without the least reference to the Church, unlesse it turns Pesecuter of it; as is evident i those 300 years before Constantine's time, in which there was no Church at all legally countenanced; and for some scores of years after, both the Chri∣stians and Getiles were equally advanced and favoured. 3. Vnity, I mean such as Christ came to establish (which is an Unity in heart and spirit) doth not in the least depend upon Uniformity, but upon Charity, i. e. a Christian and a Candd forbeaance of one another i things cir∣cumstantial, when we agree in the Essentials of Worship; which is a thing that meer Civility would teach, though Religion were silent in it.]
EXCEPTION VIII.
[A] WHether, as to the matter of Fact, the French Protestants do enjoyn standing at the Sacrament; and the Dutch, kneel∣ing; I will labour to enform my self of some more Unbyassed witness than this Bishp; for in the Ecclesiastical Laws of those Churches, which I have carefully perused, I can find no such matter. But if they did so, this would not at all justifie the Imposition of Kneeling; because 1. The Question is de Jure, whether it be lawful to prescribe any one such certain Posture, without submiting to which, it shall not be lawful to admit any to the Sacrament, and till the Affirmative of this be proved by Scriptures, Ex∣amples, and Instances from the Practice of men, will not satisfie a doubting conscience. 2. Neither of those fore-mentioned Postures are so much to ex∣ception as Kneeling; because this last is manifestly more superstitious, for, 1. It varies most of any from the First Pattern. 2. It hath been monstrously abused by the Papists to Idolatry; which alone renders it most unsafe to be practised, and most Unwarrantable to be imposed: Especially, till it be a∣gain explained as in the very first Liturgy of all it was; which I particu∣larly mention, to shew how little our Reformation since Edw. 6th. time, hath been improved.]
EXCEPTION IX.
[A] AS it was needlesly, so was it likewise Uncharitably done, to re∣vile the whole body of Presbyterians for the Faults of Mr. Bax∣ter; upon supposition that either he is a Presbyterian, or so culpable as the Bishop would make him. For since every man is to bear his own Burden, what Bible did the Bishop find it in, that he might, without scruple, asperse a whole order of Men, for the pretended miscarriage of one; who, by the Bishop's own Confession, was not of so Amicable and complyant a Temper as the rest: And therefore certainly they ought not to be brought in as Parties in that crime of Unpeaceableness, from which the Bishop just before hadabsolved them: but choler spoyls the Memory; and, sure his Brethren the Bishops would not take it well of a Presbyterian, should he cry out Crimine ab uno, disce omnes—See what manner of Spirit these Bishops are of, and judge them all by the Bishop of Wercester's example. Truly, Sir, I am a little angry, when I consider how much this one mans Indiscre∣tion hath exposed all of the same Order to Censure; For were they all like him (which I do not, nor dare not think) I should not scruple to pray heartily, what the Bishop doth in scorn concerning the Preachers—Lord deliver us from such Bishops. And let all the People say, Amen.
POSTSCRIPT.
[B] 1. In that he declaims, so fiercely, as if he would crack his Girdle, against all those who force all Communicants to come unto them, and be particularly examined before they admit th•m to the Sacrament. Indeed, Sir, this was an Imposition, as no way Justifiable, so, for ought I can hear, no where practised. The Custom being that men were only once for all examined, at their first coming to the Sacrament; which the Bishop himself allows un∣der other Names of being Catechised and Instructed. It was therefore wisely done of the Bishop, this cold weather to set up a Man of straw, and then get himself heat by threshing it.
[C] 2. It is me-thinks very politickly dne to exclaim against the por Covenant, and in great zeal to wish all the Books which defend it, were burnt by the Authors, to save the Hangman a labour. For here let his Adversary do what he can, the Bishop will be too hard for him: For if he takes no notice of the Covenant, the Bishop clearly gains the Cause; if he ventures to assert it, he shall presently be consuted with a Confiscation. So that under the shelter of this unanswerable Dilemma I leave him, let I should be gored with the Hons of it. And this I speak, Sir, as one that though I never took, but alwayes opposed the Covenant; yet I have a very
good opinion of many that did, and withal a great Tenderness for the lawful part of an Oath, after it is o solemnly taken. I will only add this, That since that Oath hath been so generally taken, even by those that were most active in his late Majesties service; and several times ventured their lives, to signalize their Loyalty; I think the Ashes of it (since it was burnt by pub∣lick Authority) had much better have been suffered to rest quietly, than thus to be blown up and scattered abroad by the Bishops furious breath, when no oc∣casion was given him so much as to mention it.]
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