§ I I Have received your very kind Let­ter, wherein I hardly know whether I should be more thankful for your Approbation or your Reproof, both of them being in their kind so useful, and both of them being performed by you with so great Civility. I am confident that if our modern Disputes had been [Page 100] moderated with that candour, men would certainly have been more peaceful, and very probably more orthodox, than now we find them. I could very heartily have wished, that the Opinions wherein we differ, had not been of that nature, as to separate Communion. For this I look upon as the onely Circumstance that can make such differences grievous to a pious person. For as for those others which exasperate many, that Dissenters are not so wise as to discern the truth, or so fortunate in avoiding prejudices, or lighting on faith­ful Informations in a time when they are capable of receiving them; or that they are not so submissive as themselves expect to that Pope, which Luther has long since observed in every mans heart, &c. They are reasons either sinful, or at least unsuffi­cient to excuse the sin of uncharitableness upon such an account. But as they are, considering them as tempered with that piety and moderation, which may expiate their others malignities; that they are al­leaged rather as Apologies for your selves, than as Obligations on others, rather to excuse your deformity in not assisting at our Altars, than erecting others in opposition to them; that you are still inquisitive and desirous of further information, and ready [Page 101] to lay down your mistakes when you are convinced that they are such; that still you preserve a peaceable mind, and em­brace our Communion it self in voto, though perhaps not actually; these are so valuable Considerations even before God as well as Man, for excusing from the guilt of error, as that whatever I may think of your Opinions, I hope it shall not hinder me from a cordial respect and ve­neration of your person.

§ II AS I do very much esteem the good opinion of so great a Lover of peace and piety as your self, and should have been sorry to have given any just occasion of offence to you; so I am not a little glad, that upon a view of the particulars men­tioned in your Letter, I find my self to be so very innocent. For as for my Preface, the main designs driven on in it are, that disrespect to the Clergie is shewn to have been an Introductory to the Atheism of the Age we live in; that the conformable Clergie, that is, such as would answer the design of the Church, not onely as to their exteriour demeanour in publick solomen Assemblies, but also as to the qualifications of their persons, and the conduct of their whole lives, could not prove either tri­fling in their Preaching, or scandalous in [Page 102] their Examples; and therefore that the Church is not responsible for their misde­meanours where they prove otherwise; and that the Laity are in their proportion obliged to the same duties with the Cler­gie, and therefore may make use of the Advice there prescribed; or to touch at the errors of our modern School-Divinity, are touched, and to make some propo­sals for their reformation. In these things I can see no occasion of offence, but ra­ther some Preservatives against it. The onely thing I suppose you aim at is, my taxing some Opinions of Nonconformists, (and that with as little personal reflection as I was able) which I conceived prejudi­cial to Church Authority, which Opinions because you seem to disown, I do not see how you should apprehend your self as particularly concerned in what is there said; especially there being nothing in the discourse whereby you could con­clude either your self, or any of your mo­derate temper, to have been intended, I assure you I intended none but such as were guilty, and with being so I charged none particularly. But that not onely the old Puritans and Separatists of Queen Eli­zabeth's times, &c. but also very many of ours now are guilty of them, is too [Page 103] notorious to suppose you ignorant of it. I could heartily wish that the number of better principled and more peaceable Dissen­ters were greater than I fear it is. Nor do I see that what is there said can make it unuseful, even to the persons truly concerned, that value truth more than any, however beloved party. Seeing it may let them see the evil consequence of their principles, and their influence on that Atheism and Prophanness, which I am confident themselves do most cordial­ly detest, which I conceived to be more likely to prevail with them than any other Arguments, as being more suited to their pious disposition. Or, supposing that my fears were indeed groundless of the Introduction of prophanness by the contempt of Government, or of contempt of Government by their disobedience to it; yet might it at least warn them from confining on such dangerous consequences, or from coming to them unawares, by an abuse of principles generally true, but ob­noxious to particular inconveniences, when unwarily managed. I mean, it may put them in mind of the greater Momentousness of good Government, and of Peace, than of many other differen­ces, and consequently of the great En­gagements [Page 104] incumbent on them for their preservation. Whence they would fur­ther find themselves obliged, so to oppose the particular abusive Constitutions of Governours, as not to bring their Govern­ment it self into contempt, nor to suggest unanswerable Apologies to factious per­sons for the future, when they are un­willing to be obedient. These are abuses which your self, I believe, would wish redressed in the causes of our Church-divi­sions. But if that part of my Discourse could not be useful, yet could it not be prejudicial to them, nothing being urged either invectively or imperiously, and there­fore no harm being done, if I should prove utterly mistaken.

§ III THAT you should marvel how revi­ving Discipline could by me be expected from the constitution of our present Ecclesiastical Government, does seem no less marvel­lous to me; especially as to the Excepti­on you make against it. For if it were impossible to maintain Discipline under a Government so far Monarchical, as to ap­propriate the decretory power of the Go­vernment of many to a single person, though the execution be intrusted to many; then it would follow, that the Secular Disci­pline under a Secular Monarch of any ex­tent [Page 105] were impossible also to be observed. Your same reasons will proceed as strong­ly here, as where you apply them. For it is every way as impossible for any such Prince to have a particular cognizance of every particular cause, much more of eve­ry particular person in his Dominions, as for a Bishop in his Diocese. As therefore it appears by experience (I shall instance a Scripture-example because I know that will be liable to least exception) that David (in an extent more vast, and a peo­ple more numerous, than that of the largest Diocese, 120 miles in length, and 60 miles in breadth, and rather better in David's days, where were accounted 1300000 Men fit for war, besides Artifi­cers and such others not coming under that account) was yet able to give a good account of his Government, without par­ticular inspection into all causes, or com­munication of his power to numerous co­ordinate Presbyteries. So I do not see why it may not hold as well for a possibility of Discipline under an Ecclesiastical Monarch of a much narrower extent. For the rea­son produced by you seems to proceed from the nature of Government in general, and therefore must proceed with the same force in Seculars as Ecclesiasticals, [Page 106] there being no ingredient peculiarly rela­ting to Religion, much less to Christianity, which might alter the case, or argue a disparity. For certainly Princes as well as Bishops are responsible for the miscarri­age of their particular Subjects, as far as they may be prevented by their moral di­ligence; and yet you will not thence con­clude, that every particular must come under his immediate personal care and cognizance; nor is it proved, that the Bishop is otherwise obliged to such a care upon peculiar respects. Besides that, it is plainly against experience even in Ecclesia­sticals: for as it hath fallen out in some places where there were many Cities, that the Bishops were proportionably multiplied, as in Africa and Ireland; so that it was not upon account of the im­possibility of the managing the charge of much greater multitudes than the Inha­bitants of those small Cities, appears in that even in the very same places the greatness of no City was thought sufficient for multiplying the Bishops, though it was for the inferiour Clergie. I need not tell you how great Rome was in Decius his time under Cornelius, and how full of Christians, which required the united en­deavours of 1000 Clergie, as appears [Page 107] from the said Cornelius his Epistle to Fabius of Antioch in Eusebius; [...]. Cornel, [...]d Fab. Ant. apud Euseb. Eccles. Hist. 6. 43. yet was one Bi­shop thought sufficient for all, nay the erecting another Al­tar in the same Church was thought to be formal Schism, as appears from the Contro­versies betwixt Cornelius and Novatian, and S. Cyprian and Felicissimus. The same also might have been shewn in several other Cities, exceeding numerous and abounding with Christians, as Anti­och, Alexandria, and Carthage, &c. which even in those earlier Ages, when Disci­pline was at the greatest rigour, were yet governed by single Bishops. Nay, whole Nations were sometimes governed by one onely, as the Goths by Ulphilas, and the Indians by Aedesius, and the Arabi­ans by Moses; which is an Argument in­sisted on by some Presbyterians, for shew­ing the probability of Ordinations by mere Presbyters. Yet are there no Com­plaints of dissolution of Discipline in such places, upon account of the greatness of their charge. Which to me seem suffici­ent Convictions, that the multitude of persons governed is not the reason of [Page 108] our present Neglects in that parti­cular.

§ IV WHEN I said that Ignatius his Epistles were question'd by the Presbyte­rians, I never said nor intended it con­cerning all (for I know of Vedelius his Apology for them) much less did I lay it particularly to your charge; so that if you had here forborn assuming to your self what was spoken of others, (many of whose Opinions I am confident you will not undertake to justifie) there had been no occasion of this Exception. That other Presbyterians, and those by far the greatest number, have denied them, can­not be questioned.

§ V AS for the Reasons of Nonconformity alleaged by you and your Brethren of the Savoy Conference in 1660, if I might without offence presume to interpose my own thoughts, they are as follow­eth: For the approving, not onely sub­mitting to, such things as you disliked, and that by an oath, I am sure there are many Conformists themselves that under­stand no more to have been intended by the Church, but an exterior submission, not an internal approbation of the particu­lars. And particularly I have been in­formed by a Letter from a very worthy [Page 109] credible person, who pretends to have had it from the Bishop himself, that Bi­shop Sanderson, who was a Member of your Conference, interposed those words in the Act of Parliament, where it is re­quired, that Ministers declare their un­feigned assent and consent to the use of all things in the Book of Common Prayer, &c. designedly that this Objection might be prevented. The new Article of Faith in­serted in our Rubrick I do not know, nor can I now get the Book that past betwixt you at the Conference, to know what you mean. That Lay-chancellors were disused, and that the Bishops did more consult their Presbyteries, I could for my own part heartily wish. But I cannot think these abuses momentous enough to war­rant Schism; and I know your self are for bearing with some things things that are not so well, rather than the Church of God should be divided for them. In brief, I do not understand any of the six Parti­culars mentioned as the reasons that keep you off, though you do indeed disapprove them, both because you do not undertake to determine what they might be to others, but onely what they are to persons of your mind, (though I confess this might be understood as a modest declining to [Page 110] judge of others) and because you conceive piety the most likely means to unite us, which could not be if we imposed any thing on you against your Consciences. So that the onely one that may be presu­med to have been thought sufficient by you to this purpose seems to have been another, which because you intimate somewhat obscurely, I do not know whether you would be willing that it should be taken notice of. But however (I suppose) that it self does onely deprive us of your Clerical, not your Laical Com­munion. God give us all to discern the things that belong unto peace. As for other Questions we may easily a wait our Lords pleasure, who when he comes shall tell us all things; and in the mean time pre­serve charity, and be wise unto sobriety. I hope, Sir, you will excuse my freedom, and let me know whether I may in any thing be serviceable to you; and above all things reserve a portion in your Pray­ers for,

§ I AS I have before expressed my sorrow for dealing in such a Controversie that divides Com­munion with a person of your piety and candour, and from whom I am so unwilling to differ upon any tolerable terms; so I am withall glad that we can still maintain an unpassionate way of debating it, which for my part I con­ceive not onely most Christian, but most useful and succesful. It is onely with this design that I am willing to continue it, wherein I hope you will not be displea­sed at me for venturing on that Liberty your self are pleased to take, and which I hope through Gods gracious assistance I shall never abuse. For my meaning is as much as is possible to abstain from all things personal, and to insist onely on the way proposed by S. Augustine to Maximi­nus, [Page 117] Ut res cum re, causa cum causa, ratio cum ratione decertet. And here it selfe I shall endeavour to avoid the multitude of unnecessary controvers [...]es, that we may be more accurate in the discussion of such as shall remain.

§ II THE principal controversie of your Letter is concerning the possibility of re­viving Ecclesiastical Discipline under a Diocesan Episcopacy. Where I am glad to find that the Dispute seems rather deri­ved from your forgetfulness of your own Concessions and mine, than any real dif­ference of our Opinions, when clearly and candidly explained. For I can perceive onely two things questioned betwixt us through your Letter. 1. Whether the Bishop be obliged in his own person to a parti­cular care of all the Souls contained within his Jurisdiction, or whether he may not as­sume Assistents and Coadjutors dependent on himself, over whom he is to exercise the Of­fice of a Bishop, that is, an Overseer: not to take the whole burden on himself, but to ob­lige them to the performance of their duty, and to punish their Delinquencies? 2. Whe­ther supposing this Delegation lawful, Lay-Chancellors be fit to be entrusted with it?

The former you seem to have yielded when you say;1. ‘If this had been all our [Page 118] Dispute, whether a Patriarch or Arch­bishop can rule 1000 Churches by 1000 inferiour Bishops or Church-rulers, I had said something.’ Which is indeed the onely thing asserted by me in my Proofs, and the very Case in pra­ctice, no Bishop undertaking the parti­cular Cure of a whole Diocese, without the assistance of his particular respective Parochians. When therefore you ask, ‘Whether it follows that our Church-Monarch can oversee all himself, with­out any Suboverseers, or rule them (by Gods Word on the conscience) without any Subrulers?’ Sure you cannot mean that this is the Practice of our Diocesans. And if your design be to assert, that eve­ry Cl [...]rgyman is bound to a particular per­sonal care of all within his Limits, and therefore ought not to undertake a Cure too great for his personal cognizance, and which he cannot manage without Assist­ants; this should have been more direct­ly proved than your Letter attempts. So also for the second,2. Whether supposing this Assistance lawful, it were fit to be en­trusted to Lay-chancellors? I expresly de­clined that question, (if you had remem­bred it;) as also, Whether it were expe­dient that the Bishops Government were [Page 119] so Monarchical, as to exclude the counsel of Presbyters. But though we be thus agreed in the main (if not the whole) difficulty, if rightly explained; yet your Arguments and Answers, if allowed, do so consequently overthrow your concessions themselves, as that it is easie to observe how heat of Discourse does transport you beyond the equity of your more composed thoughts.

§ III IF I may therefore securely take it for granted, that a Bishop with many Subru­lers (and such are the particular Parish Ministers) may govern a Diocese of as large extent at least as ours are, as your words seem to grant; I can then imagine no possible difficulty concerning the possi­bility of reviving Discipline under a Dio­cesan Government.

For by Discipline, I suppose, we mean nothing but good Laws punctually executed, both of which are necessarily implied in the nature of good Government. Either therefore you must deny that such good Laws, and such punctual Execution, may be had under such a Diocesan Govern­ment; and then you will destroy the possi­bility of such Government, contrary to your own concession; or you must say that such Government may be maintained [Page 120] without good Laws or punctual Execution, which is alike absurd to affirm concern­ing a good Government, concerning which alone we are at present disputing. But because I find by some of your other Works, that you do indeed deny a possi­bility of Discipline under a Diocesan Go­vernment, nay sometimes deny the law­fulness of communicating with a Diocesan Church as Diocesan; perhaps this Con­fession may have slipped from you una­wares, so that it may not be safe to take you at your word. If this later be your case, (as methinks it must, if there be any real controversie betwixt us) all that at present I am willing to undertake, (that I may not enlarge beyond necessi­ty) is the Examination of your Answers to the Reasons produced in my former Letter. My first Reason is therefore for proving the possibility of Discipline under a Monarchical Diocesan, in the sense there and here already explain'd (which I could gladly wish you would keep in mind for preventing misunderstandings on your part, and unnecessary repetitions on mine) was, that your Reasons being not drawn from testimony, or any positive and peculiar prescriptions, which might make the case singular; but from reason, and that not [Page 121] particularly drawn from the nature of Government as Ecclesiastical, but general, from the principles of Government as such) will proceed as strongly against the possi­bility of Secular Discipline under a Secular, as Ecclesiastical under an Ecclesiastical Mo­narch. Seeing therefore that in a Secular Monarchy as absolute as the Ecclesiastical we speak of, and as remote from a possi­bility of a cognizance of all particulars, and of a much larger extent than any Diocese, Secular Discipline may notwith­standing be preserved: it must needs fol­low, that no Reasons of this kind can prove it impossible under such an Ecclesia­stical Monarchy, as is the subject of our present Discourse. Nay, as it hence ap­pears possible, not onely upon particular accounts, but simply, as having been actu­ally performed under Secular Monarchies: So it must upon these principles be pre­sumed actually performable in Ecclesiasti­cals, which will not onely evince the falshood of your Reasons, but also the truth of the contrary assertion. In this Argu­ment you seem to grant (what is also proved in my Letter from the Instance of Davids Kingdom of Israel, and good Go­vernment of it, (which I thought least liable to exception) that Secular Disci­pline [Page 122] is preservable under Secular Monar­chy. That also what agrees to Ecclesiasti­cal Government, not by virtue of any pe­culiar Ingredients as Ecclesiastical, but by virtue of the common principles of Govern­ment in general, must agree to all other Governments; as also, on the contrary, that what agrees to other Forms of Go­vernment upon the like general accounts, must likewise agree to that which is Ec­clesiastical; are so clear, that as I do not perceive that what you say tends to the denyal of it, so I do not think it worth my time to prove it. The only thing therefore remaining, which you seem to question in your Answer is, that the Reasons produ­ced by you proceed on Principles peculi­ar to Ecclesiastical Government as such. For your principal endeavour is to shew a disparity, why, though Secular Disci­pline be indeed maintainable under a Se­cular Monarchy, yet Ecclesiastical must not be presumed to be so under an Eccle­siastical. For which you refer me to my Lord Bacon; and your own Letter to Lu­dovicus Molinaeus, besides what you add to that purpose in your present Letter. For the very supposal of a Disparity does necessarily proceed on peculiar Conside­rations, and is directly repugnant to the [Page 123] notion of general and common Princi­ples. Now to let you understand that your Reasons do indeed proceed on prin­ciples common to all Government of the same number of persons and extent of place, as that of the largest of our Dioceses, Secu­lar as well as Sacred. I need onely to in­vert those Topicks of duty; which be­cause you think impossible that they should be discharged, you thence infer an impossibility of Ecclesiastical Discipline, that you may see that none of those same Instances of duty are to be exempted from the Cure of the Secular Magistrate.

§ IV I BELIEVE you will not questi­on but that every Secular Magistrate is as responsible for his Cure as the Ecclesiasti­cal; and that this Cure is not so general, but that all particular Misdemeanours of particular persons, that are capable of an exteriour cognizance, both as to their prevention and punishment are compre­hended under it. If so, then certainly, 1. As many persons will belong to the Care of the Civil, as the Ecclesiastical Go­vernment; nay, generally more, seeing that in the same precincts it is true what Optatus Milevitanus tells us,Contra Parm. l. 3. that the Church is contained in the Commonwealth, not the Commonwealth in the Church; [Page 124] there being no Members of the Church not liable to the Civil Government, but many in the Commonwealth not being subject to the Church, as Pagans, Jews, Mahumetans, and other Infidels. And, 2. At least as many crimes will come un­der Secular as Ecclesiastical cognizance, nay generally more, both as to the indi­viduals and kinds of Crimes. As to the individuals, because those who are not obnoxious to the power of the Church, as Infidels, are to be presumed generally more careless of themselves, and less ca­pable of good impressions, as wanting those most powerful Motives for reclaiming men from a vicious course of life, which are taught by the Doctrines of Christia­nity. And as to the kinds of Crimes. For as for the Law of Nature, the punishment of Offences against that will as properly belong to the Magistrate as the Bishop, and that not onely as to the Second Table, (which does professedly concern Crimes against Secular Conversation) but also the First, as far as it relates to Natural Religion, the Interest of the State being so nearly involved in that of Religion, especially as far as it is natural, as that all Obligation of conscience is derived from thence, which is incomparably a better [Page 125] Preservative of the Princes Rights, than that of external force. As for the positive Laws of the State, they are far more nu­merous than those of Christianity; ac­cording to those who make the Scripture an adequate Rule of such Positives. For how extremely do these fall short of those Volumes of Codes and Pandects; Charters and Statutes, Civil and Municipal, of all the distinct subordinat Societies to which every particular person is related, by multiplication whereof his duties and possible offences must be proportionably multiplied? That I may not now menti­on all the extemporary provisional com­mands which are acknowledged obliga­tory, (even to the sinfulness of such dis­obediences) by virtue of the general Sub­jection due to ordinary and extraordinary Superiours? But yet the positive impositi­ons of the Scriptures themselves, which may be conceived ordinarily and eter­nally obligatory to sin, are extremely short of the Voluminousness of the Cano­nical Writers themselves. For deduct first all those passages that are purely hi­storical; for as for the obligation of Scrip­ture-precedent, which is so much insisted on by some, themselves dare not main­tain it in the utmost latitude. Nor have [Page 126] they yet established such Notes, where­by we might discern when we are con­cerned in them, and when we are not: and when we are, when onely its imita­tion is commendable, and when its omission is directly sinful; what is obligatory in all circumstances, and what onely in some particular ones; what are all the circum­stances requisite for such obligation, and how we may know when they concurr particularly in our present case; when their obligation arises from the authority; and when onely from the prudence of their Author; when they oblige as Laws, and when onely as Rules; when upon account of the authority of the person, and when onely of the reason of the thing. For when this obligation is derived from the reason of the thing, (as I might have proved it generally to be either as to the establishment of the Rule, or at least as to its application to the particular case to be ruled by it) then it cannot be proved without recourse to other Laws of Nature or Prudence, or positive Constitutions; so that such precedents will not encrease the number of Scripture-obligations. Deduct also all promises and threats, all exhortati­ons and dehortations, which are not them­selves precepts, but suppose the proof of [Page 127] the precepts which they concern by other mediums. And, even of that small part of the Scripture, which after these dedu­ctions will still remain properly precep­tive, which (for the Old Testament) does according to the computation of the Rab­bins, who are most minutely critical in such punctilio's, amount to no more than 643, including both affirmatives and ne­gatives. If we still further consider, how many of them are onely positive enforce­ments of natural Laws, and so reducible to the forementioned consideration; how many of them that are positive concern the Jews, not as a Church, but as a Com­monwealth; how all of them that concern them as a Church, are now evacuated by that Evangelical Liberty, which has abro­gated the Mosaick Authority, from which they derived their Sanction; how, even of the New Testament prescriptions, ma­ny are onely provisional, and onely grounded on temporary reasons, and those such as are not suitable to our present times and places; how many are confes­sedly antiquated, and how hard it is to distinguish Apostolical Connivanees from Approbations, their Approbations from Con­stitutions, their Constitutions as of ordi­nary Governours, and their Traditions as [Page 128] extraordinarily sent and impowered by our Saviour, for the eternal and unaltera­ble obligation of the Catholick Church. When all these things, I say, are consi­dered and allowed for, the positive Consti­tutions of the Scripture, which may ob­lige us antecedently to the Churches Impo­sition, (which the persons I am speaking of do not value) and that to sin, will be extremely short of the number of Secular Laws.

§ V AND though we should, to increase the number, add the Ecclesiastical Laws to those of the Scriptures; yet neither so would they exceed the Secular. For to make this comparison with Justice, we should, 1. Compare onely such Ecclesia­stical Laws, as do not derive their force from any civil Sanctions: For they that do must needs suppose those civil Sancti­ons at least as numerous as themselves, and therefore cannot be presumed to over-number them. And this considera­tion will be extended not onely to such Instances, wherein Ecclesiastical Persons exercise a Power confessedly dependent on the Concessions of Princes, as in Marria­ges, and Wills and Testaments, and the certain proportion of the Ecclesiastical main­tainance, &c. but also to those spiritual [Page 129] crimes, more immediately relating to their cognizance, as established under Secular Penalties, which will de jure in­clude all affairs of that nature in Christian Commonwealths, where the Prince is ac­knowledged to be custos utriusque juris, and de facto does include the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of our Kingdoms, where the Clergie are not onely by Law, but by pro­mise in King Henry the Eighth his time, (as far as that promise can oblige their Successors) obliged to make no Laws with­out the Secular permission. Seeing there­fore that (with us at least) there are no Ecclesiastical Laws but what are seconded by the Secular, but many Secular not se­conded by Ecclesiastical; it must needs follow, that Secular Laws, and conse­quently Crimes, must be more numerous than such as are Ecclesiastical. But, 2. Abate even out of the Jus Pontifici­um, Petr. de Marca de Concord. Sac. & Imp. l. 3. c. 6. which has swelled to the greatest Voluminousness in this kind, not onely such things as are undertaken by Ecclesia­stical persons by the favour of Princes, but such as are usurped against their express consent; and wherein the Romish Clergie, who have so exceeded in this kind, can­not de jure challenge any Legislative pow­er; and the number of such Laws will [Page 130] yet extremely decrease. And, 3. All such Laws as are grounded on Ecclesiasti­cal Usurpation, such as are all those which abridge the power of ordinary Bishops, and ascribe all to the omnipotency of the Ro­man See, which seems to be the principal scandal that first alienated Spalato from them. I need not instance particulars of this kind, whose Titles abound with them as those of reserved Cases, of Exem­ptions, of Appeals from without the Li­mits of the Roman Patriarchate, &c. And 4. All such Laws as are grounded on false Doctrines, as those against the use of the Cup in Laical Communion, against reading the Scriptures, concerning Indulgences, and the like practices grounded on the supposal of Purgatory, &c. And, 5. All such as are misbecoming the candour and equity of a Christian Church: such as are all those relating to the Inquisition, in relation to the delation and punishment of the persons and suppressing the Books of Hereticks, &c. the very things the Catho­licks under the persecutions complained of, as unequal in the Pagans, and prejudicial to all just Information. And, 6. All, even indifferent, Constitutions which, though lawful to be obeyed, are yet ei­ther imprudent as to the things, or bur­thensom [Page 131] as to their number, and there­fore unnecessary to be imposed; for if S. Augustine complained, that even in his time the Constitutions of this kind ex­ceeded the servitude of the Law, we may do it much more justly now, when they are incomparably more numerous. These things, I say, and the like being retrench­ed, and no more being left, than what are absolutely necessary for the Govern­ment, of a Church, reformed from all en­croachments and abuses, would reduce the Ecclesiastical Laws into a narrow compass; as we find them in the several Codices Ec­clesiae Universae Romanae & Africanae, which though extremely short of the Voluminousness of the present Canon Law, yet were thought sufficient for se­veral Centuries, before the ambitions and factiousness of private Prelates had dissol­ved the unity of the Catholick Church.

§ VI AND as the Crimes have thus ap­peared more numerous, that come under the cognizance of the Civil than Ecclesta­stical Governours; so also, 3. The necessi­ties to be provided for by the Magistrate are so too. Thus Maries better part (which was Religion) is represented by our Saviour himself as a solicitousness onely for one thing necessary; whereas [Page 132] Martha was troubled about many things. For Religion teaches us an indifferency as to our desires, and an unconcernedness as to events, and a confident acquiescency in God for our temporal provision, the effi­cacious procurement and security where­of is the design of temporal Laws. It preserves us from many or great designs, from all ambitions or competitions, from all resentment and impatience of inju­ries; and for such persons very few Laws will prove sufficient, for direction onely, not for coertion: for the Apostle tells us, that the Law is not for the righteous. And as the Necessities are thus certainly fewer in persons of an eminent perfection in Religion, so the means of bringing them to that perfection are fewer and easi­er than those of a secular conversation; it being much easier to curb our own desires, which is the design of Religion, than to curb the world and the course of provi­dence, which are many times necessary for their gratification; which is the design of the world. Besides, that the good things of Religion are not like those of the world, the less to particulars for being communicated to many, which is the great occasion of those many controversies concerning meum and tuum, which make [Page 133] the eares of men so intricate, and their Laws so very voluminous. And though the things themselves were more obno­xious to injury than they are, yet the persons are not so inclinable to offer it; Religion much more effectually uniting and endearing its Professors, than the most excellent humane Laws. To which may be added, that in case of incorrigible­ness the Church is much more easily clea­red of the prejudice of a corrupt member, than the Commonwealth. The Church is sufficiently cleared of his scandal by dis­owning him, and excluding him from Communion, and the blessings conse­quent thereunto; but the State is never secure from suffering by him while he lives, which is much the more difficult case.

§ VII IT had been very easie for me to have added many more difficulties in the Secu­lar Government of a multitude, which have not place in the Ecclesiastical; and that without the partiality of insisting onely on the conveniences of one part, and onely on the inconveniences of the other, (which I confess very fallacious and un­fit for a faithful representation of the Cause) but in such Instances as might be competent for an absolute and equal sen­tence [Page 134] concerning the whole. Nay, I might have insisted on your own To­picks, and shewn you, 1. The many Re­quisites for making a good Subject, and wherein more positive Laws are concern­ed, than in making a good Christian. First, many Laws of the Commonwealth con­cern Marriages, that there may be no injury to the Friends or the Persons con­cerned, or the Children. When the Children are begotten, there are further Laws for preserving them in the womb; and when they are born, for securing them from murder or exposing, or un­wholsom nourishment, or vicious educati­on. The oeconomical charge of Educati­on does require more care and con­stant attendance of the Nurse than is ever pretended or required from any Minister in the conversion of Souls. Many are the casualties of their childish Follies, many the distempers of their irregular Actions, many the dangers they can neither avoid nor complain of, to such as might prevent or remedy them. And yet for all these their Nurses are made responsible if they happen by their negligence. Nay, so great is this care for some years, as to take up the whole time of the Nurse, which the conversion of no sinner does of a [Page 135] Minister. Yet certainly you would not think your own Argument good if I should apply it here. If the nursing of one child take up the whole time of one person, then what one person can be able to govern as many children as are in ordi­nary Families? And if this Govern­ment of many children appear thus im­possible to one person, then much more that of a Family, of a Corporation, of a City, of a Province, &c. And if to avoid this you reply, that although every Master of a family be not able personally to discharge the duty of governing many children, yet he can by his authority oblige the Nurses and Tutors to do their duty, and so at least mediately govern them; (as the King, though he cannot possibly be per­sonally present in all places of his Domi­nions, where it is necessary that Justice be administred, can yet command such as may, and punish them upon non-per­formance of their duty, which Subordina­tion and Delegation may be so contrived, as that they who come under his more immediate personal inspection may be proportionable enough to the Abilities of one man;) I pray consider whether the case be not exactly the same here: For if one Minister be able to govern [Page 136] 400, which is the lowest number men­tioned by you as in a Parish, then why may not a Bishop govern 400 Ministers? especially considering that the Govern­ment of a Bishop over his Clergie, is onely in general to see that they do their duty, and does not require so particular an in­spection into their performances, as that of a Minister over his Parishioners. For it is much easier for a Bishop to inform himself, whether a Minister perform the duty of his Cure, whether of Preach­ing, or Praying, or Visiting, and whether he be of a good repute, or at least not scandalous, with his Parishioners; than for a Minister not onely to inform him self of those Quaere's concerning each of his flock, whether they discharge their calling justly and conscienciously, and what means may be used for their re­covery in case of their default, who are not so easily to be cast out of the Mini­sters care by Excommunication, as scanda­lous Ministers are out of the Bishops by deprivation. Besides his catechizings of the ignorant, and his admonitions of the knowing, and his resolutions of perplex­ed consciences, and his awaiting fit oppor­tunities and circumstances for rendering his persuasions more prevalent, are most ex­pensive [Page 137] of time, and yet are not so abso­lutely necessary to be critically observed in Government, (where the publick Ser­vice may be promoted by other Instru­ments, if persuasions prove unsuccesful) as in private discourses, where the perso­nal advantage of the party concerned is principally intended.

§ VIII BUT then if you would be pleased to consider further, how few Parishes are so little peopled as to consist onely of 400, and how few Dioceses consist of so many Ministers that have proper and di­stinct Cures; how that usually the most eminent men for Parts and Action are, or should be, chosen Bishops, many of them upon personal regards able to per­form the work of many ordinary Mini­sters, and may well be presumed extra­ordinary, considering the great advantage for choice from the disproportion of their number, so few Bishops being to be cho­sen out of so many Ministers. If you would consider further how untrue it is, that the dispensation of discipline, even as it is practised, is managed by the Bishop alone, who has his inferiour Officers for preparing things for his cognizance, be­sides the direction of learned Lawyers for his assistance in point of counsel, (which [Page 138] is the main reason that may be pretend­ed, for proving the Government of many better than that which is Monarchical;) and for counsel in this kind the Clergie themselves are not qualified as Clergie­men, but as Lawyers, but would have much more of this assistance, according to my Book, where I have professed my self desirous, that the Bishops would more communicate the great Affairs of Government with their Clergie, which I confess I think more agreeable to the pri­mitive Form. If, I say, you had consider­ed these things, you would find Disci­pline much more practicable under a Dio­cesan, than a Secular Monarchy. And I wish you would consider whether your Arguments will not proceed with the same force; I do not say onely against those numerous Parishes of 30000 or 50000 persons, which is a greater num­ber than I believe are in some of our Irish Dioceses, especially if onely Protestants be accounted, (and yet you do not pretend a duty of separating from the communion of such Parishes, as you do from our com­munion as Diocesan; though certainly a Bishop with a multitude of Clergie, more subject to him than ordinary Curates are to their principal Parsons, is much more [Page 139] able for the Government of a Diocese, than an ordinary Minister, wanting such ad­vantages, is for the Government of such a Parish) but against Provincial and Natio­nal Classes also. For it is as impossible for every particular Elder of even a Provin­cial Class, which were often of larger ex­tent than our Dioceses, to inform him­self particularly of every person and cause to be brought before him, so as to be able to judge distinctly of their merit, as for a Diocesan Bishop. And I can perceive no­thing that may with any plausibility be pretended there, that may not with as much force be urged here.

§ IX IF it be pretended that there is a mul­titude who have their distinct Govern­ments in their respective precincts mutual­ly independent on each other, some of whom by advantage of their neighbour­hood may have opportunity of inform­ing themselves particularly of every cause belonging to their Jurisdiction. The same may be pretended here, the same number of Clergie being imployed under a Diocesan, as under a Classical Govern­ment. But it is withall clear, that a much greater number of them will, even in such Classes, prove incapable of that ad­vantage of personal information, who yet [Page 140] would not be denied their decisive vote on the testimony of others. And in all Polyarchical Governments the suffrages of the major part is as decretory as that of a single person, in that which is Monarchi­cal; so that still the Government is ma­naged without particular information. If their multitude be urged for the security of their counsel, that is had also here, especially in the Hypothesis defended by me, where Presbyters are joyned in Go­vernment with the Bishops. But with this advantage in our case, that the same security of counsel is here joyned with ex­pediteness in its decision and execution, and security from equal suffrages, the want of which do oftentimes more prejudice polyarchical Societies, than the security of their counsels do avail them. And it is plainly as impossible, if not more, for any Class, which can onely be convened oc­casionally, to execute its own Decrees with­out Delegation as for the Bishop.

§ X YOUR answers for shewing the dis­parity betwixt Civil and Ecclesiastical Go­vernment, as many of them as are true, (for all are not) do onely prove a dispa­rity on other accounts, (which is not de­nied) but not such a one as may hinder the governableness of the same multitude [Page 141] by an Ecclesiastical, and that in foro ex­teriori, (which is the onely question I am concerned in at present) which is ac­knowledged governable by a Secular Ma­gistrate. You have neither any thing of reason, nor of any positive revelation of God, which might make such a multitude less governable, by reason of some liber­ties restrained in the Church, but allowed in the Commonwealth. ‘Your 1. is, that the standing of the Magistrates office is by the Law of Nature, which therefore alloweth variety and mutations of in­feriour Orders, as there is cause. But the standing of the Clergy is by supernatural institution; our Book of Ordination telling us, that there are three Orders, &c. Whence you con­clude, that men may not alter them, or make more of the same kind.’ The force of this Answer, as far as I can ap­prehend it, seems to consist in these two things; 1. That the government of a Dio­cese cannot be administred without more than three Orders, for those three, you seem to allow from the Book of Ordinati­on; and, 2. That it is not in the power of the Church to institute new Orders be­sides the three already established, though it be in the power of the State to [Page 142] innovate as they please by reason of the disparity by you mentioned. The for­mer is so manifestly false, as that if ever Discipline were observed ever since the government of the Church was Diocesan, (which is hard to deny, since it has been Diocesan as far as Ecclesiastical History can inform us) it was under these three Orders. Nay, the Presbyterians pretend their Classical Discipline to be maintainable by one Order alone, for Deaconship they make onely a kind of civil office for dis­posing of the alms of the Church. So sufficient they account the Subordination of particular persons singly considered to the same persons, as considered collective­ly in an Assembly, without any distinction of Orders for Government. And why the President of these Presbyteries, though not of a distinct Order, as most of the Schoolmen, and many of the Episcopal Au­thors, maintain, especially those of the old Prelatists, (as your self have else­where observed) may not upon the same terms maintain Discipline, for my part I cannot understand. The ground, I be­lieve, of your mistake is, that in the ad­ministration of our Prelatick Episcopacy you have observed some other Officers of prudential Ecclesiastical Constitution, [Page 143] which are intrusted with Jurisdiction, as Deans, Archdeacons, Vicars General, Lay­chancellors, &c. which you mistake for Orders, because they have different duties in the subordination of the policy of the Church. But, 1. I do not doubt but that you know better than I can tell you, that even Diocesan Government, as Diocesan, may and has been actually administred without them in the primitive times. Some of them being of civil constitution, for administring the power of the Prince in the exteriour government of the Church, as he is [...], (that I may use the language of Constantine the Great) and all of them of prudential use, onely convenient, not simply necessary, even in the opinion of them that use them. And 2. You cannot pretend, that the addition of new Officers (though possibly unlawful upon other accounts, yet) should make the Discipline of a populous precinct less, but rather more maintainable. For cer­tainly in such a case the multitude of Offi­cers is an advantage. And let me intreat you to remember that this is the real question, not Whether Diocesan Govern­ment be constituted by God, but Whe­ther Discipline be maintainable under it. But, 3. Suppose it as inconvenient as you [Page 144] please, even for the maintainance of Di­scipline, (which I am not willing at pre­sent to digress to) nay even unlawful to be introduced by Governours; yet how can it be proved that it is lawful for Sub­jects to undertake its Reformation with­out and against the consent of Governours? And how can they be excused, even in such a case, for refusing passive obedience; for separating from them, and joyning with Parties formed in opposition to them? Which seems to be your case in separa­ting from our Communion as Diocesan, and communicating with such who have cast off their obedience, and united them­selves in a communion opposite to their ori­ginal Superiours? And, 4. You may be pleased to consider, that as we do not call all these prudential Offices Orders, so there is no reason why we should do so in the Ecclesiastical notion of the word. For not now to make use of that distinction be­twixt Order and Jurisdiction, which is generally followed by the Ancient and Modern Popish Schoolmen, that Order is circa corpus Christi mysticum, and Jurisdi­ction circa corpus Christi verum, accord­ing whereunto these offices will differ in Jurisdiction, not in Order. It is plain, that every rank of men in Ecclesiastical [Page 145] Assemblies, are not by the Presbyterians themselves accounted distinct Orders, as Scribes, Moderators, Lay-Elders, &c. But onely such as by a distinct solemn consecrati­on have a distinct power given them for the dispensation of divine graces, not to be de­prived or repealed as to its original right, though it may be restrained as to its actual execution. In which sense it is plain, that these Offices neither are, nor suppose a distinction of Orders.

§ XI BUT then for the second proposition supposed in your Answers, That the Church has not power of constituting new Orders; though I doubt not you under­stand what Conclusion may be inferred from the Doctrine of that ingenious per­son, who has professedly disproved Dr. Stillingfleet's all divine unalterable right of any certain form of Church-government, because I confess my self not to be of his mind; yet if you mean by Orders all de­putation even of Ecclesiastical persons to particular offices, executive of their gene­ral power; then I think you have no way disproved prudential Innovations in that kind. Nay, I doubt not but that it were easie to instance in all other Sects, as well as the Presbyterians, that have any face of Government, unscriptural Officers. The [Page 146] Scripture has not used the word, and therefore cannot be pretended to have condemned. Nor has the Church ever understood it in this sense, when she has owned but three or two Holy Orders. But if by Orders you mean the limited sense of the Church of that word, then I confess they are not multipliable by the Church, but conceive I have shewn the no-necessity of it in our Prelatick Diocesan Government.

§ XII YOUR second disparity is, ‘That Kingly Power requireth not, ad dispositi­onem materiae, such persnal ability as the pastoral office doth. That a child may be a King, and that it may serve turn if he be but the Head of Power, and give others commission to do all the rest of the governing work. But it is not so with a Judge, a Physician, an Orator, or a Bishop, who is not subje­ctum capax of the essence of the office without personal aptitude.’ This seems to me a plain mistake even in the judg­ment of those Nations which are govern­ed by an hereditary Monarchy, who do not suffer their Princes, whilest children, to intermeddle; I do not say in the execu­tive (which belongs not to them as abso­lute Princes) but in the decretory parts of [Page 147] their Government, (which is their Royal­ty) but oblige them to perform all by Re­gents and Protectors, till themselves come to the years of personal aptitude, in the mean time reserving them onely the honour, without the power of a King. And this sense of the necessity of personal abi­lities, as it appears from the Scripture, which accounts those Nations miserable that are under such Princes, and the na­ture of the Office it self, which is as chargable with the miscarriages of their Subjects as Ecclesiasticks, as is excellently discoursed by Socrates in Xenophon; Mon. Soci. so the avoiding such defects in regard of per­sonal Incapacity seems to be the reason of all those Nations who have made their Government elective; and even of those which are hereditary, who have excluded persons notoriously incapable, or at least so judged by them, as Fools in all places, Women in France, and even such as are judged fit in regard of natural endow­ments, till they come to be so personally. That children therefore are any where permitted the honour of Kings, is not be­cause that they think them sufficiently qualified, or that they think it convenient to stand to the hazardous contingency of their future qualifications; but that it is [Page 148] accounted a less evil so to be assured of their person, than to expose themselves to the danger of Civil Wars and Sediti­ons on that account, if it were managed by popular election. And accordingly those Nations themselves onely make those Offices hereditary, which being supreme are supposed, in the interregna, not to leave a Power sufficiently preservative of the publick peace. Otherwise they that are consistent with such a Power, are even among them Elective, as all inferi­our Magistracies. And upon these ac­counts of avoiding greater inconveniences, it is not repugnant to the Ecclesiastical Magistracy as such, to be hereditary, as appears from the High Priesthood among the Jews, which yet you will not conclude not to have required personal abilities. But still your comparison of a Prince wanting personal abilities with a Bishop having them, are not methinks to the purpose, for shewing a greater multitude to be governable by such a Prince, than such a Bishop. Nay, certainly in such a case the advantage will lie on the Bishops side, personal abilities being much more sufficient for the discharge of such a trust, than the want of them. Nor will it be sufficient for you to reply, That the de­fect [Page 149] of personal abilities in a Prince is sup­plied by the assistances of his substitute Governours, whose united aids are more considerable than the personal abilities of any single Bishop. For it will be requisite for making the comparison even, that the Bishop as well as the Prince be considered with the like assistances of Substitutes; and then the advantage will still remain as formerly on the Bishops side. For cer­tainly the Bishop having personal abilities to judge of the sufficiency of his Substi­tues, and to call them to an account in case of their default, must needs be able to perform more work than such a Prince, who must not be supposed able to assure himself of the sufficiency or honesty of his inferiour Officers.

§ XIII IF it be pretended, that Princes have power to nominate such Substitutes, but that Bishops have not; and therefore that the comparison is rightly formed betwixt Princes with their Substitutes, and Bishops singly considered; I pray remember, 1. That the question is not, Whether Bi­shops may lawfully use Substitutes, but what were possible to be performed by them in the nature of the thing. For of this kind were your Arguments from the many requisites for dealing with a single [Page 150] Soul, much more will so many Souls as are included in a Parish, and more yet for as many Parishes as are comprehended in a Diocese. These, I say, if they prove any thing, prove the impossibility of discipline in a Diocesan Government, not onely its unlawfulness; and the proving its possibi­lity not onely lawfulness, was my design in this Argument drawn from the good Government of Secular Monarchy. Now this is clearly granted me in this Answer. For if a Prince without personal abilities may yet govern a Kingdom by his Substi­tutes, much more might a Bishop with the like Substitutes, and personal abilities besides. And, 2. It is plainly the case in practice among us, for Bishops to govern their Dioceses not alone, but by the assist­ance of other Officers, besides the distinct subordinate Parochians. And to this Go­vernment as thus established, I believe you objected the impossibility of discipline. And, 3. The lawfulness of such Substitution was, you know, the thing principally debated; and therefore you ought not so confidently to have urged your sense of it as a disparity.

§ XIV YOUR third and fourth disparities are onely against Bishops substituting Laymen; which because I did not under­take [Page 151] to defend, shall not look on my self as further concerned in. Your fifth is, ‘That either it is the Bishops work that is delegated by him, or some other. If properly his own, then either he maketh more Bishops, (and that you say is all you plead for) or else a Presbyter or Lay­man may do a Bishops proper work; and then what need of a Bishop?’ This is an Exception so easily answered, as that I verily persuade my self, that such a Wit as yours is would have easily defended us against it, if it had been objected by ano­ther Adversary. And if I might be so bold, I would humbly beg you not to exercise your wit, in bringing needless and weak Arguments ex abundanti, but onely to insist on such as are in your own judgment convictive. For certainly if you had but cursorily reflected on this Ar­gument, you would readily have discern­ed, that this is so far from being a dispa­rity, as that indeed (if it prove any thing) it will proceed with as much force against the possibility of Secular Discipline under a Civil Government of the same extent with a Diocese. For may it not as well be urg­ed against the power of Delegation in a Prince, that either it must be his own work that is delegated by him, or some [Page 152] other? If that which is properly his own, then he must either make many Princes, (which were directly destructive to his Monarchical Government) or else he who is no Prince may do a Prince's work, and then what need of a Prince? Besides that, your pretended Contradiction will proceed with as much force here as in the Church. Consider, I pray, what you would answer in behalf of a Secular Mo­narch, and see whether it will not be equally appliable to that which is Ecclesi­astical. I believe your self would deny, that every inferiour Officer, who is delega­ted to do the Prince's work, is thereby made a Prince, seeing that though he do exert the same power, yet he does not do it adequatly (some Acts of grace being still reserved to the Prince's person incommu­nicably;) or if adequately, yet at least not independently, all other Officers being sub­ject to the supreme. For these two are the formal constitutives of a Prince's power as such; so that they who want them, how many soever of his commands are exe­cuted, or how much soever of his power is administred by them, will not therefore prove formal Princes. Besides that, up­on these Principles it may be affirmed, that though the Prince may indeed im­ploy [Page 153] others in all the Services of the Com­monwealth; yet it does not thence neces­sarily follow, that he delegates that which is properly his own work. For to do all things himself is so far from being his proper, as that it is none of his work as a Prince, but onely to take care that the supreme Officers entrusted under him do their duty, and to punish them in case of default; so that [...], or irresponsible power, is that which is proper to him, and which if it be communicated to others, must make them also Princes; and this care of obliging others to the perform­ance of their duties is so inseparable a Royalty of the Supreme Power, as that those Princes who have entrusted others with it, have been judged by all prudent persons Princes onely in name, not in effect, as Chilperick of France, Sardanapalus, &c. This proper work therefore of the Prince being reserved to himself incommunica­bly, it will plainly appear that this Depu­tation will not supersede the necessity of the supreme Monarch; and that there will be no contradiction in the case, the infe­riour Officers still remaining Subjects, not Princes, notwithstanding whatsoever De­putation that does not make them absolute and unaccountable, and unobnoxious to the [Page 154] care and cognizance of the Supreme. The Application to our present case is easily made. For when I mentioned the Dele­gation of the Bishops power to particular Parochians, I onely meant such a subordi­nate power for governing their respective Parishes, as Viceroys and Lieutenants have under Secular Monarchs for the Govern­ment of particular Provinces; but this subordinate power is so far from being the proper work of a Bishop as such, as that it would make him no Bishop to suppose it in him at all. That therefore which is proper to a Bishop as such, that is, the power of compelling the Parochians to the performance of their duties, is not com­municated to any Parochian; and when it has been communicated to any simple Presbyters, it has been counted as great an effeminacy and betraying of their pow­er, as the like case in Seculars was reputed in the Secular Princes now mentioned. For this was the occasion of the Aboliti­on of the Co-episcopi about the ninth Cen­tury, that the Bishops made use of them as pretences for their own sloth in the performance of their own duties. If therefore any thing of this kind have crept in in the later ages, I will not defend it; but onely shall desire you to remem­ber, [Page 155] that it is not pertinent to your design of making all Presbyters as such, without any such particular deputation, equal with them; and that your Arguments, if they proved any thing, are more directly le­velled against Diocesan Episcopacy as such, without any such abusive deputation.

§ XV BUT this at present may suffice to shew, that that power which is by the Bi­shops permitted to Parish Ministers, does not make them Bishops, nor make them who are so properly unnecessary; which methinks your self might easily have un­derstood, if you had but reflected on what your self know concerning its pra­ctice among us, without such dilemmatical uncertainties, which would make one think you a stranger to it. The other member of your dilemma you do not pro­secute, whether because you forgot it, or that you thought it of it self sufficiently evident, I know not; I suppose your Ar­gument would have been, that if the power delegated by the Bishop to the infe­riour Clergy were none of his own, then he could not delegate it, seeing that none can justly dispose of that which is not his own. To this the Answer is easie, from the pa­rallel power of Princes already insisted on, that this power is the Bishops the same [Page 156] way as that of inferiour Magistrates is the supreme Prince's, not to be executed by his own person, but by others obnoxious to his election and censures, which is suffici­ent to shew, that the disposal of it is his, though not the Execution.

§ XVI YOUR sixth Answer, which you call your chief one, is that which I before observed to be a Concession of all that I pretended to prove, that a Bishop with inferiour Church-rulers can govern a scope as large as a Diocese. But when in appli­cation of it to our purpose you ask, ‘Whether it follows, that our Church-Monarch can oversee them all himself, without any Suboverseers, or rule them (by Gods Word on the Conscience) without any Subrulers.’ I wonder that you should seem so to forget the practice of our Ministers of ruling our Parishes as Subrulers under the Bishop. It may be your meaning is, that our Parish Mini­sters were not allowed a part in the Su­preme Government of their Churches, as if that were sufficient to deny the name of proper Church-rulers. But you might have remembred, 1. That my desire was, that the Bishops, as in S. Cyprians time so now, would more communicate their affairs of any considerable importance [Page 157] with their Presbytery. And, 2. That even according to the Rubricks of our Church the Parish Minister or Curate is allowed the power, not onely of dissuading, (which yet is all that is allowed the Church by several of our Nonconforming Brethren) but also of hindering notorious ill livers and uncharitable persons from the Communi­on, onely with a provision that they sig­nifie such their proceedings to the Ordina­ry within fourteen days at the furthest, which was no more than necessary for keeping them to the notion of Sub, not principal Rulers. This quick and easie dispatch in case of the Ministers concur­rence, would make one wonder at your complaints concerning the dilatory pro­ceedings of the Ecclesiastical Courts in this affair, if the Clergy could be persuaded to be unanimous and vigorous in the per­formance of their duty. And, 3. As it is plain that there are many Subrulers under Princes, who are not of their Privy Coun­cil; so you cannot therefore conclude the Parish Ministers not to be Subrulers under the Bishop even now, because all great affairs are not originally transacted by their Council. Nay, 4. Your self con­fess Legislation it self to be communica­ted to the inferiour Clergy in the Lower [Page 158] House in Convocations, when they make Canons, which are Church-Laws. And this which is one of the highest acts of Go­vernment being communicated to them, can you yet complain of their exclusion from Government?

WHEN I described the Ecclesiastical Monarchy I spoke of,§ XVII to be such as does appropriate the decretory power of Govern­ment to it, communicating onely the exe­cutive to others, you bid me hold to that. What your meaning is thereby I do not know; for neither do you seem to per­suade me to hold to it as truth, seeing you afterwards seem to dislike it. Nor can I think that you would have me to hold to an error, that you might have advantage of disputing against me. What you ex­cept against a mere Executioner's being no Governour, might easily have been prevented, if you had considered that the word [mere] was none of mine, and that the executive power was by me opposed to that which is decretory, that is, which is absolute, and unaccountable to any Supe­riour on earth, at least within such limits. Which as it may include much more power than that which your self call more than executive, that of reproving, exhort­ing, convincing, &c. So that decretory in [Page 159] this sense can agree to a subject, I believe your selfe will hardly affirm. And indeed if you had been pleased to follow the ana­logy in the civil power, where I do not find you so scrupulous in Ecclesiastical, you would more clearly have understood my meaning, and its unconcernedness in your Exceptions. For in civils, at least the de­cretory power (from whence all Laws and Rules of proceeding are originally borrow­ed, and to which all appeals, in case of difficulty in their sense or partiality of inferiour Judges, are finally resolved) will I believe be owned by your self as proper to the supreme Magistrate. And how will you call that power of the Subject as such, that is, as depending hereon by a more proper name than that of executive (though it may withall include some­thing decretory in affairs of inferiour con­cernment, which though decretory in re­spect of their Inferiours, is yet onely executive in relation to the sense and design of their Supreme to which they are even in such cases confined) for my part I do not understand. If I knew what were more, either indeed expressive of my meaning, or likely to be understood so by you, though indeed less proper, I would rather have used it, than have given you [Page 160] occasion to leave my sense, and onely to dispute the impropriety of my expressi­ons.

BUT you pretend your Arguments to prove the Bishop ‘uncapable even of the judicial work, § XVIII (by which I suppose you mean the same that I called decreto­ry) because the exploration is part of that, which you seem to imply to be neither fit to be entrusted with others, nor yet possible to be managed by the Bishop in his own person in so large a cir­cuit as a Diocese.’ This Argument also would have been found false if applied to the Secular Power. For by the same rea­son you may prove, that a Prince cannot govern a Diocese, because he cannot ex­plore every particular crime committed within his Jurisdiction, which according to you he must do in his own person if he be a Judge. Consider, I pray, whether what you would answer in defence of the power of Princes, which may not be as plausibly urged in behalf of Bishops? Would you not say, that there is a two­fold judicial power; such as determines Laws and general rules of proceeding, and such as does apply them to particular facts; and that the former is that onely which reserved as the prerogative of the supreme [Page 161] power, the later onely (which is that alone which alone includes exploration particu­lar and personal) is communicated to infe­riour Officers? And you might have descerned, that the former onely was that which I called decretory, and which was by me appropriated to our Supreme Eccle­siastical Monarch, which you see does not necessarily include exploration. And even concerning that exploration which is re­quisite for pronouncing Sentence in our ordinary Secular Tribunals, you might have answered in behalf of Princes, that it is not necessary that it be so minute and ex­act as might be had from a personal ac­quaintance with the person, and observa­tion of his humour and behaviour in the course of his life; but for the Judges in­formation that is thought sufficient which is publick and juridical, upon the testimonies of honest persons, who have known the person and his fact: for upon these Evi­dences our ordinary Judges do generally proceed in sentencing such as they never saw or knew before. Nor is it onely usu­al in practice, but in reason it is thought abundantly sufficient. And, I pray, what may be the disparity that may make this just in our Secular, and unjust in our Ec­clesiastical proceedings? Is it that the [Page 162] credit of the witnesses may as well be su­spected as partial or mistaken, (even where no grounds do appear sufficiently convi­ctive of such a suspicion) as the persons themselves? Or is it that there have been frequent Experiences of their decei­ving such as have relied on their Testi­mony? And are not these difficulties as great in secular causes, where yet they are not thought considerable? For humane affairs are not capable of demonstrations, but proceed generally on onely moral cer­tainty, oftentimes onely on probabilities, which are therefore after the utmost hu­mane diligence acknowledged fallible: Yet it is thought prudent to rely even on such proofs, where the publick advantage by the decision of such causes is more considerable, than the prejudice that may redound to the person concerned by a particular mistake, when such proof is the best that the matter is capable of, or that can be had, and that its failings are more rare and unusual. And the same Reasons are as cogent for the like pro­ceedings in Ecclesiastical Courts. Or is it that some crimes are so secret, as that they cannot be juridically discovered with such Evidence as may satisfie a prudent person without personal and particular [Page 163] information? But you may remember that all crimes do not come under the cog­nizance of publick discipline, but onely such as are great and notorious, concerning which this cannot be pretended. And as Governours have thought it just and prudent in some criminal causes, to pro­ceed on conjectures and presumptions, which themselves confess harsh in some instan­ces, as judging it fitter that some few In­nocents should suffer some prejudice rather than that many guilty should escape; so in others, where the probabilities are more frequently fallible, they have rejected them, as conceiving it more just that some few Nocents should escape, rather that many Innocents should suffer. Be­sides that, where this publick Evidence does not appear, the crime cannot be so scandalous, nor consequently can the Church in such a case be so nearly con­cerned for its punishment.

INDEED in some attempts it has been found,§ XIX. that persons have used much more liberty in private for venting and propagating scandalous Reports, than when their oath has been required for publick service, by which means they have at once made the crime very scanda­lous, and yet rescued the criminal from [Page 164] justice. But then the blame of such im­punity is not to be imputed to the negli­gence of such a Judge, but the prevarica­tion of such witnesses, and therefore will not be pertinent to our purpose. And then for other less or less notorious Crimes the private power of exhorting, repro­ving, &c. (which you call more than exe­cutive, and is no more denied a Minister in his own Parish under a Diocesan, than any other Form of government) may and must prove sufficient, because no other is either convenient or possible. Or is it that the penitence of the criminal, which is requisite to his absolution, (which is equally an act of power as that of censure) cannot be so certainly known by this publick Juridical Evidence? This (be­sides that it may be as plausibly objected in Secular Causes, where personal peni­tence, at least that which is judged so, is as much required to absolution from secu­lar penalties, and where these Juridical Evidences are perfectly as fallible) will not appear so difficult as it may seem, if it be considered what kind of penitence is requisite for this Ecclesiastical Absolution? 1. Not a universal penitence for all sins, but onely those which he had been before censured for. 2. These not secret, but [Page 165] publick and notorious. For none but these can be scandalous, and none but scandalous sins do fall under publick Ecclesiastical Ju­risdiction. And, 3. Not real penitence, even for these themselves, but onely so far as it may be signified to the satisfacti­on of a prudent person by exteriour indica­tions. And, 4. These exteriour indicati­ons, not private but publick, such as pub­lick confession of the sin, and asking for­giveness for it, and giving publick satisfa­ction to the injured party and the Church, and her scandalized enemies, and all cir­cumstantiated with such pregnant evi­dences of sincerity, as may be thought sufficient probabilities of it in the judg­ment of equal prudent persons. And, 5. These publick indications, such as may satisfie even strangers, who have been scandalized with his crimes, though un­acquainted with his person. Now why a Bishop may not in this publick juridical way of proceeding explore the penitence, even of particular criminals, without per­sonal acquaintance, as well as the scanda­lized multitude, and as well as secular Judges, as you have produced none, so for my part I see no cogent Argument. And yet further, 6. Considering that it is not the personal sin, but the publick scan­dal [Page 166] of it, which brings it to a publick cog­nizance, though these signs should fail of signifying his real personal penitence; yet if they satisfie the multitude, though erroneously they take off the scandal, and therefore give a just reason of revoking such publick censares? For every cause that may be sufficient to dissuade a person, upon an account of his own interests, to abstain from communion, will not be so for depriving him of it authoritatively. For they are not all sorts of crimes that put us out of the state of grace, as they ought to be that deprive us of our right to communion; not all that can deprive us of that right, that have not Evidence enough to warrant a coercive involuntary punishment; nor all that have that Evi­dence, that are fit to be punished publick­ly, and I believe you will not question but that Excommunication is a publick pu­nishment. And thus, I believe, by this time you may understand, how that though the Bishop sentence upon other mens words, (which your self confess may perhaps sometimes be done) yet there are as good prudential preservatives against that inconvenience which you thence infer, That he must excommunicate all that some body else says he must excommunicate, [Page 167] as there are against the like in Secular Tribunals, which do confessedly sentence on other mens words, and yet do not therefore condemn all that some body saith they must condemn.

YOUR seventh Disparity is,§ XX. ‘That in the Kingdom there is not one Subject of an hundred, or many hundred, who hath Law-suits with others once in a year, or seven years, or his life; not one of some hundreds where you have lived, that findeth the Magistrate work as a criminal, &c. But we are all of a sinning corrupt disposition, and that the Pastor hath few of his flock that need not some personal Applications in one degree or other. And even as to gross sins lived in, and ignorance, or heresie against the very essence of Christianity, it is a good Parish, where a considerable part of it are not guilty.’ To this it is easie to reply, That though the case were as you have represented it, that men were, not onely where you have li­ved, but generally more guilty of crimes obnoxious to Ecclesiastical than Secular cognizance; yet it would not follow, that more were governable by a Secular than by an Ecclesiastical Magistrate; 1. Because I have already shewn, That [Page 168] there are even in the same precincts very many more persons, if not crimes, subject to the Magistrate than the Church, as In­fidels, Excommunicated persons, and such as are incorrigible by Ecclesiastical censures, &c. Besides those who are religious, who are not the less subject to the Magi­strate for their being Members of the Church. And, 2. There are many other ends of government besides the punishment of criminals, such as are the prevention of the crimes, the promotion of unanimity and industry, and publick generous de­signs, and the determination of disputable controversies, wherein good and well-mean­ing men may bonâfide differ from each other, and the like. They must as well build as take away the rubbish. And there­fore there is a government where there are no crimes, over the Angels and beatifi­ed Spirits. But especially among men, where crimes are at least acknowledged possible, the prevention of crimes may be a work of no less diligence than their re­formation. And, 3. The freedom of good men from these more ordinary scandalous crimes, (which I perceive you to instance in) though it may less frequently exer­cise the secular power; yet where it does, it will most dangerously. For, 1. Virtue [Page 169] raises the spirits of men, and makes them active and industrious, that they may satisfie themselves of their usefulness in their generations. Whereas, on the contrary, Vice does emasculate mens spi­rits, and make them slothful and sluggish, and lovers of their own ease, and more unfit for commotions. And, 2. Virtue makes men publick spirited, whereas Vice does debase them to private and little Interests. So that the Adversaries of these are onely such ordinarily as may oppose them in their limited and particular de­signs, and therefore onely private per­sons; but these having the same object with the publick Magistrate, that is, the publick concernment, must more directly clash with him in case of different persuasi­on. And, 3. The very authority of Virtue with the multitude, (who cannot but re­verence it in others, how little soever they practise it themselves) cannot chuse but very much advantage virtuous persons for the forming of a party more than such as are vicious, who, though they may be flattered and loved by such as are gainers by their vices, yet cannot in prudence be thought so fit for management of their publick concernments, even by vicious per­sons themselves, who act upon princi­ples [Page 170] of worldly prudence, as they who are more honoured, and publick-spirited, and honest and sincere, and so every way as well more fit, as more able for the dis­charge of a publick trust. And, 4. The onely curbs of the Supreme Powers, whe­ther of rewards or punishments, are less regarded by virtuous than vicious per­sons, and therefore must needs be less able to restrain them. For how can he who undervalues Death and Fear, and all deprivation of exteriors, be governed by any humane power? Besides, 5. The great courage, and that not precipitant but ra­tional, which animates good men to the susception of great Attempts, from the satisfaction of their own consciences, and their strong confidence of the present assistance or future rewards of God, of which wicked men are wholly destitute. These considerations, I say, and many others, may suffice to shew, that the mistakes of good men are of more mischievous influ­ence on the Commonwealth, than the crimes of debauched persons, and therefore far from diminishing the care of the su­preme Magistrate. And accordingly you may find the most virtuous ages of the Romans more troublesom for popular Broils and Seditions, than those later [Page 171] ones of wickedness. Witness the almost perpetual clashings betwixt the Senate and the People, the popular envies against their Hero's, Coriolanus, Camillus, Scipio Africanus, &c. But, 4. Though the ge­nerality of people were actually every where as little troublesom to the Magi­strate, as where you have known them (which I doubt you can hardly undertake for;) yet you must not thence estimate the qualifications and duty of a Magistrate. For as none would think it prudent for a person putting to Sea in a calm, to choose a Pilot sufficient onely for that season, but unprovided for a Storm; so certainly a Magistrate ought to be prepar'd and qualifi­ed with abilities for governing a crimi­nal and unquiet people, even then when he lies under the actual obligation for ex­ercising them, especially considering it as a case so very ordinary, and so probably to be expected. If therefore a Bishop may not undertake the charge of a Dio­cese, because impossible to be performed by him; I may as well by the same points of reason conclude, that a Magistrate may not take that of a Province or Kingdom, even when in the good humour you sup­pose them, because he must not in pru­dence venture on that, unless he be prepa­red [Page 172] for them when vicious, which you suppose impossible, and therefore unfit to be engaged on. And, 5. You do not propose the case with any equality; for if you would do so, you should not com­pare a Prince governing a regular people and a Bishop with an irregular scanda­lous Diocese, but have supposed the Sub­jects in both cases regular, or in both ir­regular. And if you will needs suppose in favour of the Prince, that his Subjects are as little criminal in his Courts, as you have found them where you have been acquainted, to shew the possibility of his governing such a people, though in a large precinct; why can you not suppose in fa­vour of the Bishop, that the Subjects of his Diocese behave themselves as innocently in reference to crimes obnoxious to the publick cognizance of his Courts? Is it either because that even persons so sup­posed equally innocent in relation to the charges of both Courts, are yet more diffi­cultly governable by an Ecclesiastical than a Secular Magistrate? This is not as much as pretended, I am confident, not as much as plausibly proved, in your pre­sent Discourse. Or is it that the Suppo­sition it self in relation to Ecclesiastical crimes is more difficult, it being more [Page 173] rare and improbable to find a people inno­cent in crimes of publick Ecclesiastical, than Secular cognizance? If this later be your meaning, I doubt neither of the reasons intimated by you will maintain you in it. Not that of your own experience; for I believe you would have found those good persons of your acquaintance as little troublesom to the Bishops, as the King's Courts, as little guilty of incestuous Mar­riages, forging Wills and Testaments, Si­mony, &c. as of any acts of secular inju­stice. And as for the other concerning our propensity to actual, deduced from the original, sin; you have not as yet proved this propensity greater to Ecclesiastical than Secular crimes. But it is rather pro­bable, that as the crimes cognoscible in the Ecclesiastical Courts are generally more heinous, so they are more easily avoidable. If you have any inclination to think so, for preventing it I pray re­member what I have already intimated, that they are not all sorts of sins against God that are cognoscible in the Bishops Courts, but onely such as are great, and scandalous, and notorious. And then con­sider whether it be not as easie to suppose a people innocent of great, and scandalous, and notorious sins against God and Reli­gion, [Page 174] as of injustice towards Men. For this indeed will be the true state of the question. 2. Therefore it will not be so easily proved, that the crimes cognosci­ble in the Secular Courts are so few, in comparison of those that are Ecclesiastical. This I have already proved before, and am not willing to repeat what I have there said. At present methinks your own Concessions, if closely reflected on, would have prevented your pretending otherwise. For, besides that those mul­titudes of persons guilty of crimes ob­noxious to the Bishops Courts, (which I have said every impenitent sinner is not, and have given my reason why I said so) are I doubt guilty of many more civil crimes, for which I shall onely appeal to your own experience; I pray consider how many of the crimes cognoscible in the Bishops Courts are originally civil, as those concerning Marriages, Wills and Testaments, Tithes. &c. which are mere arbitrary concessions of Princes in favour of the Church, as protected by them. And the rest that are not, yet come un­der the Princes cognizance, as the Churches Canons are made Laws of the Common­wealth, and her Censures are seconded by coercive secular penalties imposed by [Page 175] the Prince on such as have proved refra­ctory against her Spiritual Authority. Upon which account it is impossible but that the Secular causes must needs prove more numerous, as including all Ecclesia­sticals, and many proper to themselves be­sides. So that this Disparity is every way unconvictive of your purpose. For if you mean those persons who are so innocent of secular crimes, to be different from those who are supposed so very guilty of Ecclesiasticals, then there can be no just disparity pretended, because there is indeed no equal comparison. But if you mean the same persons in both cases, then the Disparity cannot be pretended true, because the Supposition is false.

BUT you object in favour of me,§ XXI. ‘That the Parish-priest is to reprove, ex­hort, and convince [sinners] first, till he prove them impenitent; and that he is to instruct the Ignorant, Infidels, and Hereticks;’ (which must needs consi­derably lessen the number of criminals, who onely in case of their convicted im­penitency in the use of these means, should be further impleaded in that severer way of proceeding in the Bishops Courts.) To this you answer. 1. That this is more than an executive power. If it be so, I do not know [Page 176] any that denies it you, so that you have no reason that I know of to complain on that account. None hinders you from reproving, exhorting, convincing, and in­structing whom you please, especially such as are intrusted to you as Members of your cure. But I am sure this is not more than that executive power, which I said was communicated to the inferiour Clergie, in opposition to that which I cal­led decretory, reserved to our Ecclesiastical Monarch; for I believe you will not call this power of reproving, exhorting, &c. de­cretory. I believe you meant a power merely executive. But you may remem­ber, that that was neither my word nor meaning; nor do I for my part think this power mentioned by you to be more than that which were merely executive. My reason you will suddenly under­stand.

SECONDLY,§ XXII. therefore you an­swer, ‘That you desire no more at all from Bishops or any.’ If so, you need not de­sire it, for none denies it you. But you say, ‘You know no other Episcopal power over the people, but thus personally to convince men, and to declare to the con­gregation upon proof, the fitness or un­fitness of men for their communion by [Page 177] penitence or impenitence.’ If you know no other power than this, you know none at all. For this power of convin­cing men will as well agree to the mean­est Laick who has reason on his side, as the greatest Bishop; seeing either of them may convince if furnished with such rea­son, but neither can without it. And yet sure you will not say, that the mean­est Laick has any power over him whom he may thus convince, at least not cohe­rently to your own principles, who in opposition to our Lay-chancellours make Jurisdiction inseparable from Orders. So also if the power of Excommunication be no more than declaring a person unfit for the communion of the congregation as be­ing impenitent, and Absolution be a de­claration of his fitness for such communi­on as a penitent; then every prosecutor of a criminal, every witness produced against him, every prudent skilful Canonist, every Laick that is sufficiently informed of the sense of the Law and matter of fact, may as well excommunicate as the Bishop or the Presbytery. For every such skilful person may know the fitness or unfitness of such a person for communion, and knowing it may declare his knowledge with the rea­sons of it; and upon such declaration the [Page 178] people may, if they pleafe, do as he would have them, either communicate with, or separate from such a person. For indeed no declaration of it self formally and precisely understood is obligatory, but as it is a promulgation of that which antece­dently has a just obligative power, In actu primo, yet is not in actu secundo obligato­ry quoad nos till we know it. As though the King and Parliament have a power of making Laws, and therefore what has passed all their Votes, in the first moment when it has done so, is immediately a Law; yet it is not in actu secundo obliga­tory on the Subject, so as that its violation by him does incur the annexed penalty till it be legally promulged. Yet so it is, on the contray, that this legal promulgation it self, that is, such a promulgation as is performed by the person authorized by Law, with all the requisite circumstances, cannot make any thing really obligatory, that has not formerly been decreed by the Legislative Power. Unless therefore there be in the Church a power antece­dent to such declaration, the declaration can make none, seeing every one may declare his own sense as well as the Governour; and declaration does onely make that obli­gatory quoad nos, which was so in se ante­cedently. [Page 179] I did not before charge you with any of those pernicious Doctrines to Church Authority taxed in my Preface, and am sorry now you give me so just oc­casion to do it. It may be I may misun­derstand you, and shall be very glad to acknowledge my mistake when you shall call it one.

AND I beseech you,§ XXIII who have so publickly professed your self a Friend to publick peace, and an Enemy to Church-divisions, to consider whether those dispa­raging Doctrines concerning the power of the Church be not Seminaries of infinite and eternal Schisms. For if the Church have no other power but persuasive and de­clarative, then he who either actually per­suaded of the equity of her particular im­positions, or at least pretends it, may freely remonstrate against them, and re­fuse obedience to them, and cannot be re­strained frm seditious behaviour by Ex­communication, unless at least the greater part of Communicants be satisfied, and pro­fess themselves to be so, that it is their duty, not in obedience to their Superiours, but on account of the particular reason­ableness of the thing, to withdraw them­selves from his communion. And even then it self, if he can persuade a few to [Page 180] his Party he may upon these principles, without any scruple of conscience erect a new communion for himself. For indeed what can hinder him when government, which is the principle of unity in all So­cieties, is thus deprived of all other awe of conscience to oblige him to obedience, distinct from his particular satisfaction of the reasonableness of the things; or of any coercive means of his restraint, be his cause never so bad, and his dissatisfa­ction never so onely pretended? And when the unity of the Catholick Church is thus made to depend on so hazardous and rarely-contingent a condition, as the per­suasion of its many thousand members, of infinite interests and capacities, of the rea­sonableness of every particular indifferent or probable Constitution, who can ever secure it for so long a time, as the Govern­ment of the Church was designed for by him, who first did constitute it? I know for prevention of these inconveniences you would have Governours cautious in de­termining any thing but what is clear and necessary. And for my part I wish it so too, that for matters of belief (it not be­ing in Subjects minds to believe what they please) they would determine no­thing but what were very evident, and [Page 181] even for matters indifferent, that they would neither determine more of them than were needful, nor such of them as were not convenient in the circumstances, and suitable to the dispositions of the age of their determination, nor be too te­nacious in maintaining them when their inconveniences should be found greater than their advantage. Though I confess withall, that it were in prudence much safer, to make any such change by their own free Election, than to seem necessita­ted to it by mutinous and seditious Re­monstrances of their Subjects, such a com­pliance being of greater consequential prejudice to government, and consequent­ly to Ecclesiastical Unity, than a maintain­ance of a thing indifferent, though incon­venient. But withall you know, that Unanimity even in things indifferent (much more in matters of Faith) is in general and indefinitely necessary, though not particularly determined in the Scrip­ture; that this unanimous observance of things of such a nature is not morally possible by the particular conviction of every Subject of their fitness; that there­fore there is no security for their unani­mous observance but that of authority, and no authority so proper as that which [Page 182] is Ecclesiastical; that when it is so impo­sed, it is an instance of obedience to the authority imposing; that being so, what­ever it may be in its own nature, it can­not still remain indifferent as to its use, seeing it is not indifferent whether Sub­jects ought to be obedient to their lawful Sovereigns. And therefore methinks it would become you in healing Church-divisions, to take a care of preserving as well the Prerogatives of Governours, as the Christian Liberty of Subjects, seeing extremes on both sides are alike prejudicial to Ecclesiastical Unity. Indeed I confess many of our first Reformers not to have been so cautions herein as the Interest of the Church would have required, who feel­ing themselves oppressed by a Tyrannical Ecclesiastical Power, and being extremely exasperated by their violent and rigorous proceedings, were almost onely sollici­tous about Negatives, never satisfying themselves with any reasonable retrench­ments of such exorbitancies; onely shew­ing how far Ecclesiastical Power might not presume, but not how far it might pro­ceed. And they were then the more ex­cusable for not proceeding to such posi­tives, because the ends of such Ecclesia­stical Power, the preserrvation of unity [Page 183] both in faith and practice were then more easily attainable without the Interpositi­on of the exercise of such a power. For their first zeal against the common Ad­versary will oblige them in prudence to conceal their lesser Animosities, and the danger of weakening themselves, whose united strengths were no more than ne­cessary for their common preservation, which was a mischief so great and immi­nent, as might make many less, at least comparatively, tolerable, and might keep them from being so dogmatical in impo­sing or opposing Opinions of inferiour concern. And for matters of practice, the zele of their first beginnings, and the watchful eyes of their Adversaries for ob­serving their lapses, and the great use of good personal Lives for the propagation of their opinions, made them at first less sensible of the loss of Discipline, whilest upon these accounts they performed those things of themselves, which Discipline should have compelled them to, as far as Ecclesiastical Censures might compel them, that is, as far they valued the opinion of so many wise and good men, and as far as they feared the loss of the ordinary means of grace, and those dangers they were exposed to when cast out of that Society, [Page 184] which could alone entitle them to the Di­vine Protection, and all the terrours that are signified in their delivery to Satan, I am necessitated to interpose this Explica­tion of the compulsion of Ecclesiastical Disci­pline, because I see you otherwise apt enough to misunderstand me. And even for the observation of things indifferent, the very great opinion they had entertain­ed for some of the first Reformers, and the little leisure for reflection on their own condition, when they were so di­verted by their heats against the common Adversary, and the little willingness they had to dissent, at least to make a breach, for little things, from them whom they loved so dearly, for their unanimity in their common and greatest cencern, coa­gulated the multitude in a willing observa­tion even of indifferent punctilio's.

YET we find those Hero's themselves complain of this defect.§ XXIV Our Church of England wishes that Discipline might be restored in her Commination, a sign that she was sensible of its want and necessity; and Luther commends it among the Bo­hemians, and wishes also that it were re­stored among his own; and the want of positive constitutions in this kind seems to have been the greatest scandal to Eras­mus, [Page 185] to alienate him from the Protestants, to whom he had formerly been well af­fected. But Bullinger and Gualther do, as I remember, in their Epistles to Erastus, confess their Helvetian Churches to have no other discipline than what was exerci­sed by the Civil Magistrate. But when upon a defervescency of their first zele, and a liberty occasioned by their great successes against the common Adversary, men at length got the leisure to enquire with the same freedom into the Do­ctrines of the Reformers, as the Reformers themselves had into those of the then ex­tant Ecclesiastical Governours, and so di­vert that zele which had been enkindled and heated in the prosecution of the com­mon cause against each other, in the pro­secution of their own private sentiments; and when they grew more remiss in the care of their lives, and began by degrees to take advantage of their freedom from their former yoke of Ecclesiastical Govern­ours, and to relapse into their former disso­luteness, and to be curious and critical in inquiring into the merit of every Ecclesia­stical observance, and to make themselves Judges of the expediency as well as law­fulness of things confessedly indifferent, and not to content themselves with their [Page 186] own thoughts, but to discountenance their dissenting Brethren, and to divide the Church, and to disrespect their Superiours, who in later times were not held in that great veneration as their predecessors; then at length at Geneva, and other places that were swayed by the authority of Calvin, it was found as well in prudence, upon ac­count of its experienced reasonableness and use; as in duty, upon account of its Institution in the Scriptures, necessary to revive Ecclesiastical Power, that might for future Ages prevent and restrain the exor­bitancies of men abusing their liberty, and secure the peace of the Church. And what­ever they had before disputed against their Adversaries, prejudicial to Ecclesia­stical Power in general, it is plain that the authority which that very wise and pru­dent person thought necessary for the pre­servation of peace and piety in the Church, is more than persuasive and declaratory, even coercive of persons otherwise persua­ded. I shall not mention those excesses which I believe you will not approve, their encroachments on the Regal Autho­rity in Scotland, and the burning of Ser­vetus and Gentilis at Geneva, and the Book written by Beza to justifie that action. It is very plain that the Presby­ries, [Page 187] where ever they have been set up, have exercised a power coercive, whether in defining Heresies, or censuring prophane or refractory disobedient persons. And if Calvin found the necessity of this coer­cive power then, I am sure, as our experi­ence since his time is much greater, so we have found much reason to approve the truth of what he onely foresaw. For all the later Sects have prevailed on the con­cessions of the former. And by the same reason, as the first Presbyterians, who broke the peace of the Church, thought themselves to be excused, because they professed themselves unsatisfied with the Churches persuasions to her Impositions; so every later Sect has pretended the same against the Presbyterians. And as long as there is any unanimous observance of the Church, that is not particularly ex­pressed in the Scripture, at least not clear­ly, with that evidence which may be pre­sumed sufficient to satisfie every well-mean­ing person as well as our selves, (which I doubt will be found as long as such a thing as communion with the Church as a body politick is owned, that is, as long as it is not dissolved into mere Enthusiasm) we shall never be secure of the communi­on) not onely of pretended, but really dissa­tisfied [Page 188] pious persons. And till you make a power in the Church coercive of mens practice, as well as a belief of Fundamen­tals, a requisite condition to unity; I fear you will never be able to reach what you are so zealously and commendably at­tempting, the Cure of our Church-divi­sions.

BUT that which makes me most of all wonder is,§ XXV that you should pretend that this persuasive declarative power is de­nied to Parish Ministers; and the reason you give for it seems to me more parado­xical: ‘That the Minister can have no access to the guilty by their own wills, and that there is no law nor penalty that you know of to constrain any to come to you, or receive you, to hear or an­swer you.’ Here one would think that you did approve of coercive means, as ne­cessary for doing good to those that are unwilling to be persuaded. For if you did not, why should you blame our Diocesan Discipline for not allowing you that which you would not have allowed? But presently after you take occasion from these coercive means, ‘which you con­fess are used among us, to inveigh against us, as if our Prelatick Christian Profession were onely to choose rather [Page 189] to be Christians and communicate, than to lie in Gaol, and have all our Estates confiscate.’ One would think that you were desirous to find Objections against us, when thus almost at the same time you blame us for having that, which immediately before you blamed us for wanting. For the difference is not (as one would think) from the most candid interpretation of your words, That you would have such guilty persons forced to con­fer with you, but not to profess themselves Christians, and communicate without your leave: for you afterwards profess simply, that you would have no force at all. Be­sides, what force is it that you mean? is it that exteriour one of laws and corporal penalties? (this your words seem plainly to imply.) This you know does not be­long to the Church, but the civil Magi­strates power circa sacra, who is therefore to be blamed for it, and not the Church, if it be a crime, and some body must needs bear the blame. Or are they the spiritual coercions of the Church? I know none of that kind but Excommunication, which is of no force with those who do not va­lue the advantage of communion; and they who do, need not to be forced to confer with their Minister. Besides that, [Page 190] your self know and have confessed, that the power of Suspension of unworthy persons from the Sacrament is allowed to the Parish Minister even in our Church, so that even in that case he has his reme­dy in his own hand, as far as it can be proved expedient that he should under a Monarchical Government. But methinks your description of a Prelatick Christian is very harsh, and (though for my part I am resolved to take nothing ill, because I verily believe, not onely by this Letter, but your other publick writings, that the heat of your style, and the extraordinary expedition you make use of, not allowing your self time for second thoughts, do transport you to such expressions, as your serious reflections would not approve; yet) would, to other less favourable Judges of your good meaning, rather tend to ex­asperate than cure those divisions, for which you are justly so much concerned. And besides your own acknowledgment of many good Prelatick Christians on other occasions, ‘you cannot be ignorant, that many of them have been Christians of that which you call the old profession, that is, [have been Christians, and held communion with the Church, though they have gone to prison and death for [Page 191] it]’ not onely in Queen Maries days, but even in your own memory in England and Ireland, when their being so has brought sufferings on them, not rescued them from them. So that I do not un­derstand why you should stigmatize them with the name of Prelatical.

INDEED if you could shew,§ XXVI that it was rather the extraordinary good influences of God, and their own good in­clinations, that made them voluntarily good, against their worldly interests, not­withstanding their malignant principles, which of themselves would have made them otherwise; I confess your com­mendable inclination to speak of things as they are might have excused the rigour of such expressions. But, 1. You cannot but know that these exterior compulsions have not been proper to Prelatists, but common to all those that have owned such a thing as discipline, Presbyterians as well as Papists; so that there is no rea­son to appropriate to such Christians as are made so by coercive discipline the invidi­ous name of Prelatical. And, 2. You have not, and I believe you cannot, prove that such external force must needs of it self make Prelatists dissemblers: 1. Be­cause all that are of themselves good, will [Page 192] not need such force, this being onely a se­condary reserve for reducing such as are desperate, as to that power which alone you allow the Church, that is, of persuasi­on, none being this way compelled, but they who cannot be persuaded. And cer­tainly for such persons it is at least a less evil to profess themselves Christians, though dissemblingly, than not so much as to profess themselves so, both in re­gard of the honour which is done Religi­on even in professing it, and the edification of others, who may be moved by their example, and that they are by this means taken from the sins of open hostilities against the truth. And, 2. You must not presently condemn all of dissimulation, who are brought to a sense of their duty by fear. Otherwise you will condemn all the penal laws of the Commonwealth, as tending to make their Subjects dissem­blingly loyal, and all Gods providential crosses and menaces of hell, as tending ra­ther to make men profess themselves Christians rather than be damned, &c. For frequent experience cannot but have informed you, who are so very experien­ced, that the fear of Man, as well as of God, has to many proved the beginning of true wisdom; that good Christians have [Page 193] found more occasion to bless God for their crosses than their consolations; that the terrible vengeance of God against sin­ners, even in this life, under the Old Te­stament, was a great restraint to that hard-hearted people, to deterr them from their sins, and to reduce them to solid real piety, whom we find less efficaciously moved to their duty by any other means. For I pray consider, 3. That this dissimu­lation which you seem to suppose to be the ordinary consequent of exterior compul­sion, cannot indeed have any place but up­on these conditions; that, 1. The sufferer do believe his cause to be good; and, 2. That such belief be grounded on conscientious motives, (whether really or apparently con­scientious I now dispute not, seeing the person must act according to the evidence of his own conscience, however really errone­ous, after he has used his best endeavours for its information;) and, 3. That this persuasion of his conscience be unalter­able; or at least, 4. That such exteriour compulsion be neither a means nor a pro­bable occasion to make men alter their opi­nions, atleast not to make good and con­scientious persons to alter, at least not or­dinarily; so that it be presumed, that the multitude of goodmen cannot be altered up­on [Page 194] such terms, and therefore that if the multitude do, they cannot be generally presumed to do it on just and conscien­tious motives; and yet, 5. That, not­withstanding his being persuaded as for­merly, he be by his exterior compulsion wrought on to make an unveracious ex­teriour profession.

NOW to shew briefly that none of these hold,§ XXVII. at least not all of them, which is requisite for your purpose; I must pre­mise, 1. That the design of this kind of discourse against these coercive means, if it be to hinder them, must be to persuade them in whose power they are, that is, the Church or the Magistrate, that their practice were sinful to them. That, 2. Nothing can be imputably sinful to Go­vernours, but what either does or may, in the use of their utmost moral diligence, appear to them to be so. So that it is not your opinion of the sinfulness of such coer­cion, that can prove it sinful to them, un­less they be of the same mind, or neglect the moral means of information, which if you suppose the case evident, you must presume such as would infallibly bring them to be so. 3. Therefore what are the real thoughts of Governours, and whe­ther they have made use of the means of [Page 195] information with integrity and diligence, none can for their own satisfaction (which is principally to be taken notice of in or­der to the imputableness of sin) judge of so well as themselves. Nor, 4. Can we better be assured of their sense herein than by their word, unless it be by the evidence of the thing. It is not there­fore every proof that may seem satisfacto­ry to our selves, that may warrant our presumption of their sense, unless it be such as is thought cognoscible by them, and whose evidence is presumed inevitable up­on a sincere examination. And, 5. It is not sufficient as to the matter in hand, that it appear that some persons have in­deed been made hypocrites for fear of this exterior coercion, but it must further be shewn that its natural tendency is to do so, or at least that it is its most usual con­sequent. And, 6. That it is an occasion of their hypocrisie by virtue of it self, not of the disposition of the Subject. For the sins that are derived from the disposition of the Subject, they that give the immediate occasions are not responsible for. Other­wise when the wicked turn Gods grace into wantonness, and those things which should have been for their good into the occasions of falling, and the word preached turns to [Page 196] be the savour of death unto death to its unworthy hearers, and the blessed Sacra­ment of the Lords Supper to its unworthy receivers; you might conclude God, who gives those abused favours, to be the pro­per occasion of the abusers sin. And (be­cause there are some who will with less scruple grant of God, that he is, the de­signer of his creatures sins, than they would grant it concerning any good men) S. Paul had been the culpable occasion of the perjury of those conspirators, who had sworn not to eat untill they had killed him, onely by making use of just means for his own preservation. And these you may ea­sily believe to be the thoughts of Govern­ours, concerning those whom they are pleased to prosecute for their opinions. That they do as seriously believe, that the reasons which satisfie themselves, are as sufficient to satisfie all others, that use their moral diligence for finding satisfa­ction, as the sufferers believe it concern­ing their own reasons, that they are suffi­cient to satisfie their Governours; and therefore that such dissenting hypocritical Subjects are as faulty in not using their di­ligence in the use of the means, if they find not actual satisfaction, as such Sub­jects believe the same concerning their [Page 197] Governours. And, 7. That this personal hypocrisie of such dissembling persons is a greater inconvenience to the publick, than the toleration of their seditious behaviour. For as it is certain that Governours no more than other good Christians, may de­sign any sin for any good whatsoever; so it will not be easily disproved either by reason or authority of Casuists, that they may design that from whence they know a sin will necessarily follow, for the avoidal of a greater both inconvenience and sin, such as is sedition in respect of hypocrisie. For though it be unlawful to choose any evil where it may be avoided; yet it is not so when two occurr, whereof at least one is inevitable, to make choice of the less be­fore the greater. And now upon these supposals it were easie to shew, from these conditions of dissimulation, that either there were no necessity that the sufferers under these coercive means must needs dissemble; or if there were, yet at least not such as would make it imputable as sin to Governours; or if it were a sin to them absolutely, yet not such under such a streightned election.

BUT I must avoid prolixity,§ XXVIII. and therefore at present shall onely briefly make Application to the forementioned [Page 198] conditions of dissimulation. 1. Therefore it is not necessary that every sufferer for his opinions must believe his cause to be good; for there are bad as well as good of all much received opinions, that maintain them not upon account of their truth, but because they are themselves factiously di­sposed, and love contradiction, especially to Superiours, (a humour such people of the vulgar are usually too much addicted to) or affect popularity or singularity, or promise themselves some great advanta­ges by publick Innovations and Distur­bances, or engage in a party out of kind­ness to their Friends that are concerned in it. Much less, 2. Is it necessary that eve­ry one who does indeed believe his own Opinion true, must do it upon Motives, so much as apparently conscientious. For education and custom, and the authority of a person respected, or a vainglorious ostentation of his own Wit, or the shame of being mistaken or convicted, may at first incline many to defend Opinions for­tuitously taken up, and afterwards the love of their own arguments may delude many to believe what they have once asserted. And God knows whether the vulgar of most Opinions be not acted thus, whatever pretences they make of consci­ence, [Page 199] (for custom may go very far in ma­king men abhor unusual, innocent, or commendable things as prophane and pi­acular, as appeared in the Experiment of Darius Hystaspis in Herodotus, who found the Scythian to pretend as much conscience for eating, as the Grecian for burying his dead Relations.) And we have reason to believe, if of too many, whom we find the most zealous maintainers of opi­nions controverted, and yet the most neg­ligent practisers of such as are undoubted, which certainly would not be, if Gods sake, or conscience, or a sense of their own duty, were the reasons inducing them to believe them. Now these Deductions being made, the number of conscientious Dissenters would I doubt be generally found the smaller. And it is a general and just rule of publick proceedings, not to forbear that which may generally do good, though it may prove inconvenient and prejudicial in some rarer Instances. Nor would these coercive means oblige these Dissenters upon Motives not conscientious to dissimulation or hypocrisie. But even for those fewer truly conscientious Dissenters which would remain, it is not necessary, 3. That if they have been of a different Opinion, they should persevere in it unal­terably. [Page 200] And as their minds may alter at any time, so as well when they are prosecuted for their Opinions as other­wise, in which case their conversion may be veracious. And possibly the number even of good converts, even upon such an occasion, would be more, if they did not some of them, for fear of being censured as time-servers, not allow the contrary Opinion the same favour of an equal hear­ing, when it is countenanced by Autho­rity as otherwise, or at least not express their sentiments so freely and ingenuou­sly; not heeding that hereby instead of courage and constancy, they onely choose their conquerour, being more awed by the persecution of the tongue than of the sword. Nor, 4. Is it true, that this coercion is not a probable means of bringing even good men to a conscientious change of their Opini­ons. For, 1. It is of it self likely to allay that tumour and rigour of spirit, to which even good men themselves are frequently betrayed by prosperity, which does usually alienate them from all sober thoughts of accommodation, and even of sober and im­partial inquiry. And I believe you who have so well studied the peace of the Church, do very well understand, that in very many things mens spirits, are at a [Page 201] greater distance than their principles, in all which for making peace it is sufficient to make men peaceable. Indeed for a while such a way of proceeding may ra­ther exasperate than calm them; but by that time that the strangness of it is over, and the sudden tumour has evaporated and spent it self, they are at length redu­ced to a more composed temper. And I be­lieve your own experience, which is great in the late and present posture of Affairs, cannot but let you understand the much greater moderation of those Presbyterians of your temper and acquaintance now than formerly. For it is natural for men, as well in wars of opinions as of swords, when they have wearied themselves with fighting to desire peace. And, 2. As this coercion brings good men themselves to this more sedate and candid temper, which makes them more competent Jud­ges of rational discourses; so it usually ob­liges them to a more faithful and accurate inquiry than formerly. For good men can no more than others endure afflictions willingly and patiently, unless they be ani­mated by the goodness of the cause, and that they cannot so well satisfie them­selves of, without an impartial inquiry into its merits. Besides that good men [Page 202] themselves, and that reasonably enough are unwilling to suffer, unless it be indeed necessary for the preservation of their more momentous interests, and therefore are willing to admit of any satisfactory favourable construction of their duty, that may dispense with such severe perform­ances, which cannot be attained but by a more close inquiry into the merit of the thing, and the nature of the Obligation. And hence it follows, 3. That they must upon prudential, and yet just and rational accounts, be favourably enclined to the Opinions of their prosecutors, as far as any favour may be just and conscientious. And this may do much for determing them in all such cases, as are not either very evi­dent or very momentous; and such not ve­ry many would be found on a severe exa­mination. And, 4. Affliction does very much quicken good mens consciences, to approve themselves to God when they are destitute of humane consolations. And this also may exceedingly contribute to a conscientious change, when by this they are freed from those carnal prejudices, which before had blinded or diverted them from a clear discovery, and are ex­cited to a greater industry in the inquiry of means, and obliged to a greater sinceri­ty [Page 203] in following conviction, when they consider how much their greatest Inter­ests are concerned in it, and how vain it is to hope to escape his discovery in case of negligence or dissimulations, who is the immediate Lord of conscience. Upon all these accounts therefore Governours, who are to be presumed to believe their own Opinions true, may justly believe exter­nal coercion to be a means of reducing others to them, conscientious as well as such as are not. But, 5. Though you might with more plausibility pretend, that dissimulation would indeed be the or­dinary consequent of coercive means alone, they being alone no rational arguments for working a conscientious change; yet when they are not designed as the princi­pal arguments inviting to such a change, but merely as dispositions to prepare and qualifie the persons for receiving conscien­tious arguments, the case will be clearly otherwise. Now this I believe you do already know to be the case with us. Be­sides what coercive means may have been pretended, the means of information are freely communicated to any that desires them. Our Books are extant, our learn­ed men and Parish Ministers are freely to be consulted with; and why these may [Page 204] not ordinarily be presumed likely to make a conscientious change, onely be­cause people are necessitated to use them, I do not understand. And, 6. The case is not such as you have proposed it. None was obliged to be Christian rather than go to Gaol, &c. I believe you cannot instance any Law lately in use, that obli­ged people to profess any thing not be­lieved by them. All I think that can be pretended was to restrain persons, not from the publick profession, nor from the private practice of their Opinions; but onely from practising them in publick or great assemblies, that might create suspi­cion to the State. Otherwise I know no­thing restrictive of those persons you are concerned for, from being commonly known to be such as they were. And I pray, what necessity is there then of dissi­mulation? The onely Canon of that kind that I can think of, is that of communica­ting once a year at Easter, the exacting whereof whether by infliction of Civil or Ecclesiastical penalties, whether of Non-conformists, or even Conformists them­selves, has been at least where I have been, so generally neglected, that I do not know any reason you have to complain of it. For any other coercive means for [Page 205] compelling Dissenters to communicate with us, I know none that have been ri­gorously executed to my knowledge in Ireland. What has been done in England your self know better, and therefore I shall very willingly leave you to your own information, wherein I hope you will be ingenuous. Yet, 7. Suppose that coercive means were not for the good of the persons concerned, but did indeed make them Prelatical Christians, as you call them, that is, dissemblers; this were not sufficient to shew that they are there­fore not to be used, if their punishment and dissimulation it self may prove for the ad­vantage of the publick. For you know that Governours are not to heed private advantages any otherwise, than in sub­ordination and coincidency with the pub­lick, and that even in civil affairs there are some few punishments imposed, which are known to be utterly inconsistent with the civil interests of the party punished, (and their civil interests are properly ob­noxious to the care of Governours) for such are all that are capital, especially such of them as are withall rigorous and painful. For in publick punishments there are other ends more considerable than private emen­dation, namely the prevention of future [Page 206] offences from the same person, and the terror of others by his example. Nor is this way of proceeding blamed by any just (however favourable) Judge of such things, when personal emendation has been first attempted, and no criminals are sub­jected to such censures, but such as have been found, in the use of all other pru­dential rational means, incorrigible. To such it is not thought any more cruelty to be severe for the good of the Commonwealth, than it is for a Chirurgeon to cut off a gan­greened member for the preservation of its owners life. And such is the design of the Church, who is not for using even her spiritual coercions (which onely be­long to her) but onely on such persons on whom her rational inducements have proved desperate and succesless.

BUT notwithstanding your former contrary intimations you say,§ XXIX ‘You de­sire no force nor Church power; but not to take these, 1. for Christians; 2. for your special Christian flock; 1. who are no Christians; 2. who themselves re­fuse it.’ But this power you desire here is more than that which alone was al­lowed by you to Bishops, of reproving, ex­horting, instructing, and declaring persons fitness or unfitness for communion by their [Page 207] penitence or impenitence. For what if your people believe those penitent whom you think impenitent, or on the contra­ry? What if they be not satisfied with your Declarations, or resolved not to ob­serve them? What if at least the great­er part, which is always predominant in popular Governments, be not of your opi­nion? Would you think your self obli­ged in such a case to make your peoples opinion or your own, the rule of your pra­ctice in receiving or rejecting persons from your communion? If you follow your people, then you are as capable of being imposed on against your will, (for receiving such persons for Christians, and for part of your Christian flock, who are no Christians, and who themselves refuse it) by them as you are now by the Bishop. And it does not appear that the greater part of your flock (especially if such as you describe, whereof whole Parishes have been presented by the Churchwardens) are likely to stand with you in opposition to your Bishop. And if they stand for him against you, you can have no reason to ob­trude your own judgment and complain, according to this principle? But if not­withstanding their dissent from you, you yet resolve to follow your own judgment, [Page 208] in receiving or rejecting according to your own thoughts of the penitence or im­penitence of the person obnoxious to your Discipline; then you will indeed be so far from desiring no Church power, as that you would desire more than you seem willing to grant the Bishops, which is onely declarative. And then if you may as a Governour impose on the people, why may not the Bishop as your Govern­our impose on you? Indeed there can be no such thing as Government without such an Imposition as you speak of. For the reason of all Government is the ine­quality of mens Judgment in their own causes, and the inconvenience of deciding their differences by force, which is many times the greatest on the unjust side. The design therefore of all Government is to entrust a third person or society, supposed impartial to the litigant parties, with a power sufficient to compel either of them to submit to her decision. For seeing it is not ordinarily to be expected, that dif­ferences should be decided by a persuasion of both parties of the equity of decisions, but that both parties will frequently prove tenacious of their own Opinions; therefore it is necessary that the guilty, whatever he be, who will seldom believe [Page 209] his own condemnation just, be imposed on; and such an Imposition being thus thought necessary, common prudence will suggest, that it is much more equal and secure for the party imposed on, that he be imposed on by the common arbitrator of their differences than by his partially affected adversary. And accordingly where there is no need of imposition there is none of government, and the seat of go­vernment is finally resolved on them, who have this power of imposing their own sentiments on others; so that to deny Ministers this power over the peo­ple, or the Bishops over the Ministers, is to make neither the one nor the other properly Governours. Besides, the pow­er of Excommunication and Absolution (which you seem to mean in this your complaint, that the independent use of them is not communicated to the Mini­sters) are so incommunicably proper to the supreme governour, (who, as having the power of a Society, must also have that of admitting to, and rejecting mem­bers from it) as that it were impossible for him to give an account of his charge, if others may admit and reject at pleasure without dependence on him. So that to complain of being imposed on in this kind, [Page 210] is indeed in effect to complain of the Bi­shops superiority over you. And if this reason were of any force, it would pro­ceed as much against the Presbyterian go­vernment as the Episcopal, for even among them the Minister may as well be over­voted, and consequently overruled, by the Classes, as with us by the Bishops. So inseparable this power of imposing on Parish Ministers is found from Govern­ment, as that is indeed admitted by all them who own a Government superiour to single Parishes?

BUT,§ XXX. I pray, quo jure do you chal­lenge this Parochial power of Excommu­nication and Absolution independent on your Ordinaries? I shall at present give you leave to say, (not because that I think you can prove it, but because I am unwilling at present to dispute it) that Presbyters were not onely counsellors, but coordinate governours with the Bishop. But how can you shew the least likely­hood that the Bishop had not at least a negative vote among them? That as he could not do any thing without their suffrages, so they were able to conclude any thing without his? Much less are you able to prove, that every particular Presbyter, singly taken, ever had within [Page 211] his own Jurisdiction the power of deter­mining so momentous a thing as Ecclesia­stical censures. Whereever you find any Presidents over Presbyteries in the Scrip­tures, whether Apostles, or Evangelists, or Angels, you cannot find any Precedent of any thing carried by the major vote against the consent of the President, as at least one of the prevailing number. And for the Ignatian Episcopacy and so down­wards to S. Cyprian, which you seem to approve, it is very plain that all the pow­er of Presbyters was dependent on the Bishop. Thus Ignatius (in his genuine uninterpolated Epistle to the Ephesians) [...].Edit. Vs­ser. p. 3. And that that [...] is the Communi­on of the Bishop, appears from the sequel, whence he concludes, [...]. whence you may easily guess what he would have thought of Presbyters com­municating in opposition to the Bishop, that even such Communions being with­out the altar, must needs have been de­stitute of the bread of God. To the same purpose also the same blessed Martyr ad­vises even Presbyters not to despise the youth of Damas the Bishop of the Magne­sians, Ep. ad Magn. p. 11. [...], [Page 212] (the word [...] translated apposite­ly to the sense of this place, familiariter uti, seems to argue a greater distance than you would I believe think consist­ent with the parity you are so desirous of) [...] (observe I pray again the word [...] re­verence) [...], (hence it appears that Presbyters as well as others are concerned in this his Ex­hortation) [...], (this is the [...] so much dispu­ted of, the youthfulness of their Bishops person, not the novelty of the Institution of his Order, for it was that youthful­ness which they were likely to take advan­tage of, which is the notion of [...]. You see here that even Presbyters are not to take ad­vantage even of a youthful Bishop, either for presuming on too much familiarity with him, or denying him the reverence due to his Order, though in a youthful person. That they are to yield to him, [Page 213] or rather to Jesus Christ, whose person is represented by him, (and sure you would not think much to be imposed on by Jesus Christ.) That this duty is to be paid without all hypocrisie to the Bishop for Gods sake, whom it is impossible to deceive. That hearkning to him (for that is the notion of [...], which in the Hellenistick style then in use, is the same with obedience) is part of that. And that the disrespect to him in any of these duties, redounds to the dishonour of God, for whose sake he is to be ho­noured. And now I pray consider how you can reconcile herewith your desired liberty of excommunicating without his privity or consent. Immediately after he blames them who give their Bishop the honour of an empty name, and yet do all things without his privity, and expresly censures them as [...], men of no good consciences, [...] Where, besides the co­herence formerly noted, it is plain, that even Presbyters also are included, be­cause he speaks of Assemblies, which could not be celebrated without some act of priestly power. And if such Assem­blies be not according to the command, nor the rules of good conscience, how [Page 214] your proceedings without the consent or privity of your Bishop can be excusable I do not understand. In the Epistle ad Tral­lian. after having enjoyned respect to all the three Orders, he concludes, [...],p. 17. whence you may easily conclude his thoughts concerning such Assemblies, which are maintained without one of them, that is of Episco­pacy, as they must needs be who take upon them to act independently on their Bishop. So in the Epistle to the Phila­delphians, he says expresly that as many as are on Gods part and Jesus Christ, [...],p. 28. by which you may see what he would have thought of those who should have joyned with any Presbyter, exercising an Authority differ­ent from, and independent on, that of the Bishop. Nay, he confidently char­ges them, not as from his own private sense, but inspiration, (and those extra­ordinary [...] had not as yet failed in his time) [...], and after teaches that God gives remission of sin to them that are penitent, onely on that condition,p. 30. [...], which if it be so, how can the Absolutions of Presbyters at­tempted without the consent of their [Page 215] Bishop be valid? But what can be more clear against your Independency of Parish Ministers in the exercise of disci­pline, than that excellent passage in the Epistle to the Smyrnaeans; p. 36. [...]. And a little after; [...] So again; [...]. You see how expresly all persons (Pres­byters themselves not excepted) are forbidden to meddle in Ecclesiasticals without order from the Bishop. You see what Ecclesiasticals he means by his enumeration of the particulars, not onely Baptism and the Feasts of Love, but the very Eucharist. You see how clearly he disowns the validity of that Eucharist which is not received either from the Bishop himself, or some person authori­zed by him. Which both may serve to let you see, that even Presbyters them­selves are included, seeing your self do not allow the power of admitting to communion Laicks or Deacons, though au­thorized; [Page 216] and that the power you seem to challenge of communicating whom you please, without the Bishops Licence is again censured as invalid, as a dishonour of God, nay as a service of the Devil, which would have been thought harsh and passi­onate expressions, if the Age he lived in, before the starting of our modern Con­troversies, had not put him beyond any just or probable suspicions of partiality.

I HAVE the rather insisted on the Testimony of this blessed Martyr,§ XXXI because you seem to seem to have been willing to have condescended to the Ignation Epi­scopacy, and were therefore concerned, because in my Catalogue of the ancient Writers, I said Ignatius was decretory against the Presbyterians. I might have descended lower, because you said you would have yield to the Episcopacy practised in S. Cyprians time, to shew that this liberty you desire, of admitting to, or excluding from, your flock whom you please, was not even in those Ages allowed to bare Presbyters. At present I shall onely note a passage or two, be­cause I am desirous of hastening. Bap­tism therefore, which has always been thought to require less power than the Lords Supper, De Bap­tism. c. 17 was not in Tertullians time permitted to Deacons nor Priests them­selves, [Page 217] without the Authority of their Bishop. These are his words; Dandi quidem (viz. Baptismi) habet jus summus sacerdos, qui est Episcopus. Dehinc Pres­byteri & Diaconi, non tamen sine Episcopi authoritate, propter Ecclesiae honorem. Quo salvo, salva pax est, &c. Exactly herein agreeing with Ignatius. Ep. 75. apud S. Cyprian. p. 182. ed. Pamel. And the same seems to have been the sense and pra­ctice of the Asiatick Churches in the time of Firmilian, who, though indeed he mention the majores natu praesides (under which word, according to the use of that Age, I confess Presbyters may be included) as having the power of Bapti­zing, Imposition of hands, in reconciling penitents especially, and of Ordination, which we do not deny them; yet he seems to intimate their dependence on the Bishop in the administration of that power which properly belonged to them, which is all that we desire. For thus he afterwards expresly asserts the power of remission of sins, (either in Baptism or Absolution of Penitents, as appears from the occasion of the Dispute concerning the validity of both among the Here­ticks) to have been given to the Apo­stles,p. 184. & Ecclesiis quas illi à Christo missi con­stituerunt, & EPISCOPIS qui eis [Page 218] dinatione vicariâ successerunt. Where it is to be observed, 1. That no exclusive particle be expressed, yet it must necessa­rily be understood from the whole design of his Discourse, which is to exclude the Baptism of Hereticks from being remissive of sins, because the power of remitting sins is not granted to them, which would not follow unless all which had that pow­er conferred on them, had been adequat­ly enumerated by him. And, 2. That by the Churches here mentioned cannot be understood a Society contradistinct from the Bishops. For I believe you can­not produce a precedent of that age, where the word is taken for the other Clergie; so that there are onely two other Senses that I can think of reduci­ble to this purpose; either for the Laity, and that your self I believe will not think intelligible here, that the power of remit­ting sins by Baptism, or otherwise, does agree to them; or for the complex of both the Laity and the Body of the Cler­gie, in contradistinction to the Bishop. And to this his proof of the power of remitting sins given to the Apostles, being also given to the Church in this contradi­stinct sense, must have been impertinent­ly urged from its being given to the [Page 219] Apostles, seeing that the Church in the Apostles time must have been as contradi­stinct from the Apostles, as the later Chur­ches from their respective Bishops. By the word Churches therefore are onely meant Orthodox Societies, including Bi­shops as well as other members; whence it will follow, that the Church is onely therefore said to have this power, because the Bishops have it; and therefore that no Ecclesiastical Member can have it inde­pendently on them. 3. Therefore that by the word Bishops, to whom this power of remitting sins is given, to which all other Ecclesiastical Power is consequent, Presby­ters are not included; will appear pro­bable, if you consider, 1. That though the word Presbyter and Sacerdos be attri­buted to Bishops properly so called, yet at least in that age I believe you will hard­ly find that a simple Presbyter is called Episcopus. Blondell himself I think will not furnish you with an Instance. And, 2. That these Bishops are such as are cal­led Successors of the Apostles. And that by these Successors of the Apostles, single persons are understood in the language of that age, appears in that when they prove Succession from the Apostles, they do it by catalogues of single persons, as [Page 220] those in Irenaeus, Tertullian, &c. and that Bishops in the confined sense are so fre­quently said to be Successors of the Apo­stles, which is not said of simple Presby­ters. See S. Cyprian ep. 42, 65, 69. and the Author de Aleatoribus, with many others usually produced in the Disputes concerning Episcopacy.

AND then for the sense of S. Cypri­an, § XXXII. he was as resolute in vindicating his own right, as condescending in his practice. He it is that asserts the unaccountableness of the Episcopal Office to any under God; In Concil. Carthag. init. that makes the Church in the Bishop, as well as the Bishop in the Church; Ep. 4. ad Cornel. that charges the contempt of the Bishop as the original of all Schism and Heresie, and parallels it with the Sin of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram; that spares not even Presbyters themselves, when presuming to act without his order, but puts them in mind of his being their Superiour, and charges them with rebellion, when they took that liberty you desire of acting arbitra­rily and independently. Instances of all these kinds might have been produced, if I were not afraid of being too tedeous, These things may at present suffice to shew, that the liberty you desire of ad­mitting or rejecting whom you please from your own flock, is not more unrea­sonable [Page 221] than dissonant from the practice of those Ages for which you profess a reve­rence. Nor do I understand your design in the use of that liberty you desire. If it be that you would have those whom you think unworthy of your flock excluded from your cure; that is as improper as if a Physician should desire to be excused from visiting those who are most dange­rously, though not desperately, sick. Cer­tainly the contrary would rather follow, that as they need most, so they should have most of your care. It is our Savi­ours own saying, that the whole need not a physician, but the sick; that is, at least not comparatively: and generally his greatest pains and favours were extended to those who had least deserved them. Nor is their unwillingness to deal with you in affairs of this nature a sufficient reason to exempt them from your Cure; for this unwillingness it self is a most considerable ingredient in their distemper, and that which makes them most truly pitiable, and it would be as great a piece of inhumanity for the spiritual as the corporal Physician, to desert them on that pretence, I am sure very different from the behaviour of Christ and his Apostles, who found the World generally as much prejudiced [Page 222] against and unwilling to hear, them con­cerning affairs of that nature, as you can with any probability presume concerning a Christian Auditory. If your meaning be, not to be excused from the use of all other good means for their recovery, but onely from admitting them to the blessed Sacrament, which ought to be the privilege of such as are already deserving; I pray consider, 1. Whether though you deny them to be Christians, yet their very Bap­tism and exterior profession of Christianity, be not at least sufficient to entitle them to exterior privileges, if on their own peril they will venture on them; and that Sa­cramental privileges are but exteriour. They are invited to the marriage feast, and none may exclude them if they come, though it is at their own hazard if they presume to do so without the marriage gar­ment. And, 2. That this does at least hold till they be convicted and censured by their due Superiour, and you know it is questioned whether you, as a private Presbyter, ought to have that power. But, 3. That you have a power of suspend­ing refractory persons till you acquaint the Bishop, and with him you have that power of convincing and persuading, which seems as much as your self desire, so that [Page 223] even upon this account you have no rea­son to complain.

MY second Argument was from expe­rience even in Ecclesiasticals; § XXXIII to which you answer, that ‘It's hard then to know any thing, and that you dispute all this while as if the question were, Whe­ther men in England speak English; that therefore if you herein erre, you profess your self incurable, and allow me to de­spair of you.’ If I had disputed from present experience in England, I should have confessed your Answer proper, that I had endeavour'd to conquer your sense and experience, as you elsewhere express it. But I wonder how you could understand me so, considering that our present want of discipline was the reason of my desire of its revival, whence you took the occasi­on of these Disputes. My meaning was, that in the primitive times, when Bishops were indeed laborious and conscientious, and were willing and desirous to do what they could do, experience shewed that di­scipline was actually maintained under such a Diocesan Government; and there­fore I concluded, that the multitude of per­sons governed was not the reason of our present neglects. And what is it that is scrupled in this Discourse, or need put [Page 224] you to those unequal resolutions of being uncurable? Is it whether the number of Christians in Dioceses were equal then with what we have now? This was proved in my former Letter. Or that the Bishop then challenged the same pow­er over the Presbytery as now? This I have but lately proved. Or that disci­pline was then maintained. This I do not find that you deny. Nay certainly your self thought discipline maintainable under it, when you professed your self ready to yield to such an Episcopacy. Or that what was then performed by the same Government, is still performable, if men would be the same? The admissi­on of this would not oblige you to questi­on your self or experience. Nor indeed is any thing of this kind concerning anti­quity as notorious to you, as what men do at present in England.

FOR proving the great multitudes then subject to Diocesan Discipline I said,§ XXXIV ‘That the greatness of no City was thought sufficient to multiply Bishops. To this you answer, 1. That Gods Insti­tution was, that every Church have a Bishop, for which you quote Acts 14. 23. &c.’ But, 1. The place you refer me to has no mention of a Divine Institu­tion; [Page 225] for Apostolical practice is not a suffi­cient proof of that, and this is all which is so much as intimated in this place. 2. It does not as much as mention the word Bishop, but that of Presbyter. And though the words were granted to have been then confounded; yet you know they were so afterwards when the things were certainly distinct. And therefore you cannot conclude from the word Presbyter, that a Bishop was meant, espe­cially in the sense wherein it was after­wards appropriated. Nor, 3. Is it evi­dent that by [...] is meant a single Presbyter in every particu­lar Church, as in a Parish; but it may as well be meant of Presbyteries as Presby­ters. And when afterwards the Presi­dency of a single Monarch was introduced, no Churches and Presbyteries but such as had Bishops, and were Diocesan in the sense we now understand the word. And if they were Presbyteries, you cannot hence disprove the presidency of one over the rest, as we find it soon after practi­sed. Nor, 4. Is it evident that by [...] must needs be meant a Parish, as it con­cerns you to believe. For the word Church is as applicable to great as small Societies, and the great ones may as well [Page 226] be called one in their kind, though they be capable of a further subdivision into many Churches of smaller denomination. Thus the Catholick Church is called one in the Constantinopolitan Creed, though con­sisting of many national, and the Church of England but one national Church, though consisting of two Provincial; and the Province of Canterbury but one Provincial Church, though consisting of several Dio­cesan; and every Diocese but one Dioce­san Church, though consisting of several Parishes. And even in the Scripture there are several notions of the word of different proportions. There are the [...], and there are the two or three gathered in the name of Christ, which from the coherence, and the Jewish noti­ons of Assemblies, seem to make up a Church, Exhort. Cast. and accordingly Tertullian calls an Assembly of two or three a Church, though consisting onely of Laicks. And yet these Churches are so little serviceable to your purpose, as that I believe you would not be for confining a private Presbyter to so small a cure, I am sure they are much beneath those populous Parishes which you do not seem to disapprove. Suppo­sing therefore I should grant you, that every distinct Church should have a di­stinct [Page 227] Bishop; yet how will you prove with the least plausibility, that this Church must be understood of a Parochial one, that the multitude of Bishops may answer that of Parishes? Especially con­sidering that the notion of the word for a Parochial Church will not be so easily de­duced from Scripture, as that for a Dio­cese. For thus much the Independents, I think, do prove sufficiently, that a whole Church in those times did generally meet in one place; but they fail in proving di­stinction of Churches in Cities, though ne­ver so great and populous, which two put together do plainly amount to our noti­on, not of a Parochial, but Diocesan Church, there appearing no footsteps in those times of any Subdivisions allotted to particular Presbyters. Besides, if we may believe the [...] here parallel with those [...], Tit. l. 5. as in all likelyhood they are; then a Church will be that which will extend to the Li­berties of a whole City. And because you find no mention of distinct Presbyters for Villages recommended to Titus's care it seems very probable that they were suffi­ciently provided for by those of the City, and therefore that they had some depend­ence on them. That the name of Chur­ches [Page 228] was attributed first to Cities, see proved by the Excellent Dr. Stilling fleet, Iren. p. 2. c. 7. § 2, 4.

FOR that the Apostles did take care even for Villages we have the express Te­stimony of S. Clemens Romanus, § XXXV. (that [...]) if these words be un­derstood as commonly they are.p. 54. edit. Junii. But I confess it does not seem to me so clear, that by [...] here is understood those Country Villages, which are obnoxious to the Jurisdiction of the City; but rather Regiones, as it is translated, not as Rome and Constantinople were divided into their Regiones answerable to our Wards, but as it may in a larger sense signifie whole Provinces, under which many Cities might be comprehended (my Reasons I would give if I were not unwilling to digress;) much less am I satisfied with Blondell's Conjecture, who conceives it to relate to the Chorepiscopi, and thence concludes that they were not originally subject to the City Bishop. For though [...] were indeed taken in the sense he is concerned it should be; yet there is no necessity that it should be referred to [...], as if distinct Bishops had been [Page 229] imposed over them from those of the Ci­ties to which they were related, but may conveniently enough be joyned with [...], to signifie their preaching in the Villages as well as Cities, and their election of fit persons from both for Bi­shops and Deacons, to be disposed of where they thought convenient. However it were, it seems very probable that the Apostles, as they planted Christianity first in Cities, so they seemed to have settled the Government there first; and as they generally left the Villages to be convert­ed by excursions from the Cities, so it seems most credible, that the influences of the Government must have followed that of the propagation of their Doctrine. Certainly the [...] menti­oned by Ignatius, in his Inscription of his Epistle to the Romans, over which the Church of Rome is said [...], cannot in the narrowest exposition choose but include a Precinct as large as our ordina­ry Dioceses. But, 5. Supposing all had been as you would have them, that it had been enjoyned by the Apostles, that every Parochial Church should have a di­stinct Bishop; yet how can you prove that it was an Injunction of an immutable and eternally-obliging nature, (as it is clear that [Page 230] some, that of abstaining from bloud, Acts 15. was not.) For if they be not, you ought not to urge them to the prejudice of superinduced Constitutions. But lastly, all that you can hence pretend for your purpose is onely, that the having onely one Bishop in the appropriated sense in a Diocese, was not conformable to the sense of the Apostles. But it does not thence follow, that discipline is not maintaina­ble under such a Government, which was the onely thing for whose proof I produced it. You answer, 2. ‘That a particular Church was a Society of neigh­bour Christians convened in personal communion for Gods worship.’ I confess per­sonal communion was generally practised with the Bishop, but I have proved it to be of whole Cities, and such great Assem­blies as could not be served by a single per­son, (without the assistance of a Presbyte­ry, which the Bishop had for his help;) and therefore could not be Parochial in the sense of the word now commonly used. If you thinke otherwise, when you prove it I may then, and not till then, be concerned to think of a further Answer.

YOU answer 3. ‘That for 250 years you think I cannot prove,§ XXXVI that any one [Page 231] Bishop in the world (save at Alexan­dria and Rome) had more such congre­gations and altars than one; nor there for a long time after the Apostles, nor in many Churches for some hundred years longer.’ The is the same mistake as before, to think them answerable to our Parishes, who did then all communicate at one altar; whereas indeed the fame circuit and number of Inhabitants, who had first been governed by the Bishop and his Presbytery in common, no particular Presbyter having nay proper portion assigned him, but by the provisional com­mands of the Bishop, was afterwards di­stributed into parts proportionable to the number of the Presbytery, that so every one might know his own work. And I pray, what essential difference is there be­twixt the same Presbyteries, as acting in common as they did at first with the Bi­shop; and distributed into several divisions as they are now, unless it be that this la­ter is more convenient? And if the Bi­shop was major universis when they acted in conjunction with him; why must he be minor singulis, or at least aequalis, when dispersed to their several distinct Imploy­ments? If all of them when united might not attempt any thing without his [Page 232] consent and privity; why must each of them be allowed that liberty when depri­ved of their united forces? And if disci­pline was maintainable by them, when by acting in common they were more remote from particular exploration; why should it not be much more so when none is in­vited to be negligent by trusting to ano­ther, as men are apt to do in cases of com­mon concernment, and when each of them has a task proportionable to his own abilities? But, 2. Suppose that this subdivision of the Diocese into Parishes, (which is all that you can pretend to have been attempted at Rome and Ale­xandria, for by this means it fell out by accident, that there were several altars under the Jurisdiction of the same Bi­shop) had not answered the primitive ex­ample, nay had been a culpable, not a law­ful prudential Innovation; yet will you say that discipline was not maintained, when it was actually (however upon other accounts) culpably introduced? If you grant it was, that is sufficient for my purpose, to shew that the experience of those times has evinced the possibility of discipline under a Diocesan Government, and therefore that it is practicable even now if men would but endeavour it. If [Page 233] you say it was not, you must then charge the most celebrated Churches in the purest earliest Ages with want of discipline. For in Rome the first division into Titles (an­swerable to our Parishes) is attributed to Pope Euaristus, Under Domitian in the year 83, according to Eury­chius. (who came into his See Anno Dom. 112.) by the Author de Vit. Pontif. commonly ascribed to Damasus. For afterwards in the two Epistles of Pius (which are of better repute with Blon­dell than the others that bear his Name) to Justus Viennens. we find mention of two Titles then newly established by Eu­prepia and the Pastor; so that I think this division there (if we may trust these Authors for it; and if we may not, you will have no ground of charging the Ro­mans of those Ages with plurality of Al­tars more than in other places) will ap­pear to have been as soon as they had any settled places to meet in. For before that their meetings seem to have been ambu­latory and uncertain; sometimes in the Temple, sometimes in the [...], some­times in secret places, particularly in the Coemeteria, (for of some of these may the passages of 1 Cor. 11. and the ancient Author of Philopatris in Trajan's time, who bears the name of Lucian, be un­derstood) and then it was not so conve­nient [Page 234] to subdivide into Parishes, when there were not any settled places peculi­arly designed and convenient for Paro­chial Assemblies. Upon which account there will be no reason that the necessi­tous examples of the former Age should prejudge against the prudence and con­veniences of this. But the Titles men­tioned by Pius, as left by Legacy, seem to have been perpetually alienated to the use of the Church, and therefore fitter for this purpose. Which if it be suppo­sed, then the antiquity of divers Altars in the same Diocese will be equal with Churches and Parishes which you do not condemn, and as ancient as they could be with any tolerable convenience, and you cannot blame them for being no soo­ner. And sure you will not deny, that even then, and a long while after, disci­pline was maintained among the Roma­nists themselves. If you do, you must contradict all the histories of that Age, which mention the Martyrdoms of their Bishops of those Ages, together with ve­ry many of their other Clergy and Laity for several Successions;Tertul. and the great Elogies of Tertullian and S. Cyprian, Praescr. and the confident Appeals to the Roman Church as well as others,Iren. l. 3. adv. Hoer. for the Asserti­on [Page 235] on of Apostolical Tradition, used frequent­ly by the Fathers against the Hereticks; whereas a sensible decay in discipline would have weakened their credit even in Doctrinals. And for the other Instance of Alexandria, the first mention that we find of a subdivision there is in the time of Arius, who is said to have been Presbyter of a Church called Baucalis, upon which occasion Epiphanius tells us, [...] (so it is to be read) [...]. Epiphan. Haeres. 69. N. 1. Vide etiam Hae­res. 68. N. 4. That the Churches of the Catholick Communion in Alexandria, under the Jurisdiction of the same Archbishop, had their par­ticular Presbyters assigned them, for the Ecclesiastical necessities of the Inhabi­tants, which divisions were by the Alexandrians, according to the cu­stom of their Country, called [...]. But it is not mentioned as an Innovation in or near his time, and therefore is in all probability to be presumed much more ancient. And if the custom of the eldest Presbyters succeeding in order to the Episcopacy, was in Alexandria, (where it seems observed as a special custom) pra­ctised from the Apostles time to Hera­clas, (who was Scholar to Origen) as [Page 236] S. Hierom and Eutychius say it was, and there ceased at S. Hierom seems to inti­mate, then it would be very probable that this subdivision into [...] was in­troduced at least before that time of He­raclas; because some reliques of that pra­ctice remained even in Arius his time, whose place as Presbyter of Baucalis is made next to the Bishop. Act. Concil. Nicen. l. 2. c. 1. (So Gelasius Cy­ricenus speaking concerning Alexander, [...].) Whence also the relation in Nicephorus Calistus of the quarrel of Arius with one Baucalus, being the first and second Pres­byters of that Church of Alexandria, which is given as an occasion of his Heresie; a story very probably raised by occasion of his mistaking Baucalis the name of his Parish for the name of a Man, who is made second because Arius was known to be the first. For this Precedeny of Arius is no way probable to have been because of his longer standing in his office of Pres­bytery, seeing Alexander is said expresly to have given him it, who was the first that made him Presbyter, for he was one­ly made Deacon by Achillas the Prede­cessor of Alexander. Now Alexander himself is by Baronius thought to have succeeded Achillas in the Year 311, and if [Page 237] he be mistaken, seems rather to erre in placing him too soon after Peter, and the difference betwixt him and Arius arose about the Year 315, not above four years after, too small a time to make him in course the senior Presbyter. This Prece­dency therefore seems to be upon ac­count of his Parish, which at the first distribution had in all probability been allotted to that Presbyter, who had been senior in due course of standing, which therefore seems to have been introduced whilest that seniority was observed, that is, at least before the time of Heraclas.

AND how long before Heraclas his time this distinction might have been in­troduced you cannot tell;§ XXXVII. yet I believe you will hardly say, I am sure much more hardly prove, that discipline failed there in the time of Heraclas, or for a long time after.Apud Eu­seb. l. 4. c. 40, 41. l. 7. 10, 11. After Heraclas, how much the Church of Alexandria and himself parti­cularly suffered for Christianity, you have fully related by his Successor Dionysius in Eusebius, in the time of Decius and Vale­rian; and how severe they were in their Fasts, appears from the Canonical Epistle of that same Dionysius to Basilides, besides his other penitential Treatise now lost. What the Alexandrians also suffered in [Page 238] the most bloudy Persecution of Dioclesi­an, [...]. 8. c. 10, 12, 13. you may find in the same Eusebius, and particularly in Thebais, (which by the Nicene Canon establishing the [...] we find to have been influenced by the Alexandrian Discipline) the number of Martyrs was so great as to denominate a famous Epocha, which those Countries observe to this day, called the Annus Martyrum or Dioclesiani. Which severi­ty is by so much the more remarkable, because it followed an intervall of rest, which usually corrupts that discipline which is onely voluntary, and unseconded by good Laws. I need not mention the Martyrdom of their Bishop S. Peter in this Persecution; his very severe Canoni­cal Epistle is sufficient to shew how rigo­rous discipline was then practised, when in the heigth of persecution such severe Penances against lapsed persons were not judged unseasonable to be exercised on such persons, over whom they had no coercive power, but the obligation of the Penitents conscience. I might have pro­ceeded to have shewn the same severity still maintained in that City, (which you so particularly reflect on as unworthy to be made a precedent) during the Prelacy of Alexander and the great Athanasius, [Page 239] from the great Elogies given to those ex­cellent Prelates by the Fathers, and the courage shewn by them, in ejecting and keeping out Arius, and the very slight Exceptions urged by the Arians their Enemies against them, especially in the several Synods convened in the cause of Athanasius. Euseb. l. 9. c. 8. But for evincing the general severity of the Lives of Christians, that memorable Example of their great dili­gence in providing for those who had been formerly their severest Persecutors, in the great Plague and Famine which immediately followed the Persecution of Dioclesian, and venturing many of their own lives in the service, when they had been deserted by their nearest Friends, may be an illustrious evidence. Besides the Controversie betwixt S. Pet. of Alexandria and Meletius, Epiph. the occasion of the Meletian Schism,Haeres. 68. N. 3. shews how generally the Alexan­drians were affected to discipline. For when S. Pet. though severe enough against lapsed persons, as appears by his foremen­tioned Epistle, yet thought it a necessary Indulgence to admit Penitents to Commu­nion during the Persecution, even Priests as well as others, that they might be the better animated to new occasions of suf­ferings; Meletius opposed it, and was [Page 240] followed by much the greater part of the Clergie. Nor ought you to conclude, that the like subdivision was not introdu­ced into other Churches, because we have no Records attesting it to have been so, seeing there is so little extant of the Hi­stories of those earlier Centuries, much less any thing so minute and particular in de­scribing the Customs of particular Chur­ches, as that it would be safe to argue negatively, from their omission of a custom to conclude that there was none. For my design, it is sufficient that the anci­ent Dioceses had as many Presbyters, be­sides other Clergie requisite to rule them, in conjunction with the Bishop, as are now thought sufficient, since their distri­bution into particular Parishes; besides the Chorepiscopi and the Clergie under them, all subject to the Government of the City Bishop. Which is enough to shew, that the charge of a Diocese was as great then as now, and much beyond what you would have it, the abilities of a particu­lar person without Parochial Subrulers.

4. YOU say,§ XXXVIII. ‘At Antioch (the third Patriarchate) Ignatius professeth that every Church had one Altar, and one Bishop with his Presbyters and Deacons, Fellow-servants.)’ If you mean every [Page 241] Church at Antioch, as if that or any other City in that time, had more than one Bi­shop presiding over a Presbytery; that is more than you will find in Ignatius, or any Authentick Writer of that time. But if you mean at Antioch as a Patriar­chate, that is, within that circuit which was afterwards subject to the Bishop of Antioch as a Patriarch, including the whole Oriental Diocese, there were many Cities that had in them but one Altar with one Bishop and his Clergie, that I have already granted probable; but have withall shewn how little it will advan­tage your Cause, or prejudice mine, and I am not desirous to trouble you with Re­petition. The name of Fellow-servants I doubt you misunderstand; it is indeed true if related to God, that persons of all Orders in the Church are his Fellow-ser­vants; but if you mean it (as I doubt you do) that they are Servants coequal among themselves, that is clearly against the whole current of Ignatius his Epistles, and against the supposition of their being distinct Orders; and, I believe, against your own opinion concerning Priests and Deacons, whom I think you will not say to be thus coequal. But for what you add further, (as if you had it out of the same [Page 242] Ignatius, though indeed you have not scored it as you did the former part) ‘That in this one Church the Bishop must enquire The place intended is I be­lieve Ep. ad. Polycrap. [...], &c. p. 139. Ed. Vsser. all by name, even Servant Men and Maids, and see that they absented not them­selves from the Church; whence you ask, Why is not Ignatius. confuted if he erred? and refer me to Mr. Mede on the point.’ I am confident that you will find no such thing in Ignatius or Mr. Mede that will need confuting. For this inquiry by name need not have been performed by perso­nal visitation of them, but by Schedules delivered to him by his subordinate Cler­gie, which if any of our Bishops would do, I should be so far from offering to confute, as that I should highly honour and reverence him for it.

BUT you say,§ XXXIX 5. ‘That Alexandria and Rome by not multiplying Bishops as Churches or Converts needed it, began the great sin and calamity which hath undone us, and therefore are not to be our patern.’ If you mean by Bishops your Parish Ministers, (as you seem to do) who must have no greater charge [Page 243] than one particular person, unassisted with a Presbytery, may give a particular account of; then sure you cannot but know, that as they are by you thought singular in introducing this distinction of Altars in the same City; so they must have been so in multiplying such a kind of Bishops that might attend them, at least in more accurately proportioning them to the multitudes of Churches and Converts. But if you mean a multitude of Parish Priests, whom you would fain call Bi­shops, independent on a principal Presi­dent; then it would concern you to prove, 1. That Alexandria and Rome were herein singular, which you will find impossible to be done. And, 2. That their guilt herein was not onely an occasi­on (for occasions of evil cannot be proved evil, and so unfit for being paterns) but natural causes of that grand sin and cala­mity you so lament.

YOU answer or rather argue,§ XL. 6. ‘That were Bishops necessarily to be distributed by Cities, the Empires that have few or no Cities, must have few or no Bishops; and an Emperour might (aliud agendo) depose all the Bishops by disfranchising the Cities.’ This does not shew the impossibility of a Bi­shops [Page 244] maintaining discipline in a City that is great and populous, (which is in­deed our question) but onely the incon­venience of scrupulously multiplying Bi­shops according to the multitude of Ci­ties. And that, as it is not to our pur­pose, so I know no Adversary you have in it. For there are no humane Esta­blishments whatsoever that can fit all circumstances; yet are not such possible in­convenient cases thought sufficient to abrogate them though known and fore­seen. And therefore it were not in pru­dence a sufficient reason for the Church to alter her general rule of multiplying Bi­shops by Cities, because the cases mention­ed by you are but rare and improbable, which kind are not taken notice of by hu­mane Legislators. They are rare; for where will you find that Empire that hath few or no Cities, at least in those ci­vilized parts of the world they were then acquainted with? They are impro­bable; for the administration of justice among Subjects, and the encouragement of traffick, which are the Governours In­terests, do require such Privileges to be given to places not too distant from each other. But if the inconveniences were greater than indeed they are, and suffici­ent [Page 245] to persuade a deviation from such a general rule in such cases. Yet, 1. The Church never acknowledged any unalter­able divine obligation to observe it, but has always reserved a power to her self of deviating in such cases, of which she might be satisfied that they were suffici­ently momentous. And, 2. She has in such cases actually taken the liberty of exert­ing her own power; as in those Nations which had but one Bishop, though many Cities, of which instances were already given; and in those places where Cities too numerous, and too little frequented, against which she has made those express Canons, Can. 6. Concil. Sandicens. that Bishops should not be placed over them,Can. 57. Conc. Laodic. Epist. nè vi­lesceret nomen Episcopi, 1. Pseudo-Clementin. ad Ja­cob. ep. 1. Pseudo-Anacleti & Dist. 80. ep. 3. Pseudo-Ana­cleti n. 2. which those of your Per­suasion do so often take notice of with offence.

BUT,§ XLI. 7. You say, ‘Every Corpora­tion, Oppidum, like our Market Towns, was then truly [...]. And if we will procure every such City with us to have a Bishop, and the office of such Bishops to be to drive men from sin, and not to it; and to silence Blasphemers, not faithful Preachers of the Gospel; all [Page 246] our Controversies of Prelacy are then at an end.’ But I fear though you had your desire, that in analogy to Cities Bi­shops should be multiplied according to the number of Cities, (which Rule you lately seemed to dislike) and that every Market Town should be accounted a City, as you conceive it to have been practised among the Ancients, and that Bishops discharged their duty as you have de­scribed it; yet you would hardly suffer our Controversies to end so, especially if you acted consequently to your own Prin­ciples. For you know, by the same rule that small Cities, as you have described them, must have distinct Bishops; the greatest that are, London it self for ex­ample, must have but one, together with the Villages about it; and I doubt that would be found to be a charge as dispro­portionable to the abilities of a single man, as some of our Country Dioceses, especi­ally here in Ireland. The 15th. part in Taxes, 14th. real­ly, p. 83, 84 Nay, by Captain Grants Calculation London bears a great­er proportion to all England than any single Diocese, which is onely the 25th. part. Now according to your Princi­ples, our Communion quâ Diocesan, that is, if I understand you as exceeding the abilities of a single man, is not to be em­braced. [Page 247] Therefore even in this case you must refuse to communicate with the Church of London. And considering that in communicating with a particular, you do communicate with all with whom that particular Church holds Communion, (for Communion with a particular Church is no where understood as a profession of union with her alone, but also with all such whom she accounts orthodox mem­bers of the Catholick Church) you must by the same sequel conceive your self ob­liged to decline the Communion of all particular Churches communicating with London. Unless therefore you suppose a Schism of all other Churches from her, you must make one from them; and so be in the same condition wherein you are at present. I confess you do not act consequently to this later Principle, whilest you refuse not our Parish Commu­nion, which communicates with our Dio­cesan quà Diocesan; and so I had much rather decline the Dispute, than urge you too far to approve your self more ratio­nal by your being more uncharitable, which may too probably be the event if you should prove too tenacious of your present Opinions. But I believe, Sir, if you would be pleased to examine, you [Page 248] would certainly find your self mistaken in thinking their ordinary Cities to have been no more considerable than our ordi­nary Market Towns; for sure you know that then as well as now Cities were the highest denomination; and that in those flourishing Countries, proportionably much more populous than England, it is likely their Cities were accordingly fre­quented. Nay, most of the Cities of those times, especially the Oriental the Greeks and Asiaticks, had been little Repub­licks among themselves, before the suc­cess of war had subdued them to the yoke of a common Master, which must in all likelihood have made them more con­siderable, when their Governours care and interests were more confined to them, than if they had originally been included in a greater Society. Besides the wars wa­ged by them, and the resistance made against numerous Armies, and the mul­titude and capaciousness of their Tem­ples and Theatres, then so frequent in or­dinary Cities, (as you may see for the small Tract of Greece very fully in Pau­sanias, besides what other Authors have mentioned occasionally concerning that and other places) are sufficient Argu­ments of their ordinary populousness. [Page 249] And considering that those Cities that were among them eminent for greatness, did rather exceed than fall short of those which are accounted so now; we have reason to believe that the common Cities did likewise hold the like proportion.

NAY,§ XLII. according to all the qualifica­tions of our modern Cities, those ancient ones were every way as considerable as ours. They were Towns corporate among themselves. This appears from the Go­vernment mentioned as exercised among them; the [...], Acts 19. 39. the [...], and [...], and [...], so ve­ry frequently mentioned in Greek Cities, and the Praetors and Aedibes among the Latines. They were walled, whence the ordinary Etymology of Urbs quasi Orbis, from the compass allotted for the walls by the plow, and the customs for plowing, for founding, and demolishing their walls, so famous among the Romans. And the same you may observe to have been the general custom; for you will, I believe, never meet any mention of City a unwal­led, though possibly not with those cere­monies and formalities. And this seems to have been one of their principal distin­ctions from places of a near, but inferi­our account; that the O [...]ida among the [Page 250] Latines, and the [...] among the Greeks, were not walled as our Market Towns usually are not. They had Sub­urbs subject to their Jurisdiction frequent­ly mentioned in the Scriptures, particu­larly those of the Levites, Numb. 35. 5. have 2000 cubits on every side without the walls, which is near a mile. So the Romans had their Pomoeria and Suburba­na, and the Greeks their [...] or [...] obvious in Authors. And besides these Suburbs there were several places of infe­riour denomination subject to the ancient Cities; these you have frequently menti­oned Josh. 16. and in several other passa­ges of that and other Books of Scripture, and are rendered Towns in our English Translation, Vici and Villulae, Castella, and sometimes Oppida, in the Vulgar; [...] and [...] in the LXXII. And expresly Aristotle defines a City [...].Polit. l. 1. c. 2. And as the Grecians had their [...] subject to their Cities, so the Romans particularly had their Pagos, pla­ces of some natural advantage for strength, to which the Rusticks might have a ready recourse in time of danger, instituted by Servius Tullius, yet subject to their City, as you may see in Halicar­nassaeus; whence you know the name [Page 251] Paganus first signified a Country Clown, in opposition to a Citizen, or a person of civil education. And generally through Italy you may find mention of Vici and Villae and Oppida, and the Ager denomi­nated from the City, who in all affairs of consequence had recourse to their neighbouring Cities. And besides the Examples now mentioned from the Scri­ptures, the same practice seems to have been observed in other Oriental parts, as appears from Isidorus Characenus, who in his Parthick Stages mentions not only [...] but [...], in contradiction to Cities; as also in Xenophon in exped. Cyr. And that they were subject to the Cities might have been shewn from the manner of their Census described by S. Luke 3. 2. that they were to be taxed in their own Ci­ties, which seems to have been the com­mon custom of the whole Roman Empire, and the ordinary practice of the men of those Ages, to denominate themselves from the City they had relation to, though born in the Villages, and their usual re­course on solemn occasions to the City Sacrifices, a practice very much conform­ed to their secular dependences by the an­cient Legislators; besides their repairing thither for secular justice. But besides all [Page 252] this, the right of a City was given to pla­ces, not upon account of their greatness and populousness, but by special Charter. A clear instance hereof we have in 13 Action of the Council of Chalcedon; there we find Anastatius Nicaenus pleading a a right to Basilinopolis, because it had been formerly a Region of Nice, (what Regions were, is notorious from the divi­sions of Rome and Constantinople into them) till it was made a City by Julian or some other Emperour. Here we see a place so considerable, as that it was afterwards made a City, yet formerly onely a Ward of another City, which Ward was in all likelyhood equivalent our ordinary Mar­ket Towns. Nay more than that, for he gives instances of two such others, Tati­ens and Doris, that were then acknowledg­ed Regions of Nice. We see also this Region raised to the dignity of a city by the Im­perial Rescript. And further he proves the dependence of Basilinopolis on Nice by this argument, that the Emperour who made it a City took [...] or Curiales, (whence the Imperial Rescripts them­selves are frequently called Pragmatica) from Nice; and that the custom was still observed, that the Vacancies of Basilino­polis, as they fell, were supplied from [Page 253] Nice, and that they were frequently translated from thence back to Nice again; and that thus that which had for­merly been a Region became a City. Where several things are observable to my purpose: 1. That that which made the Region a City, was the having Court­officers of their own, whence it appears that Courts were appropriated to Cities, and that therefore all other Towns not thus privileged must have been subject to the Jurisdiction of the Cities. 2. That these Courts were granted by special Charter of the Emperour. And, 3. that the borrowing these Officers from another City, if constantly observed, signified some secular dependence of such a place on such a City, from whence they were bor­rowed. And now I pray what an such a Town walled, incorporated, and having Ju­risdiction, not onely over Suburbs, but a pro­portion of the Villages and Towns adjacent, by special Imperial Charters, want of our modern notion of a City, even as contra­distinct to our Market Towns?

AND that the Government of the Church was proportioned to that of the State is so commonly observed by learned Men,§ XLIII as that I cannot think it necessary to be tedeous in proving it. And that in [Page 254] this very particular of the subjection of the [...] to the City Bishop, appears from the 17th. Canon of this same Council, where it is not onely for this, but all other affairs of a like nature, established as a general Rule, (very pro­bably occasioned by the forementioned Controversie;) [...]. And though we had no ex­press Testimony, yet the multitude of the Clergy requisite for the Government of their ordinary [...], a whole Presbytery in the City, besides the Deacons, and the other inferiour Orders there, and others in the Country subject to the Chorepisco­pus or [...], and all subject to the Ci­ty Bishop, do plainly shew that the Bi­shops Jurisdiction, if not as large as now, was at least much larger than our ordi­nary Market Towns, which usually have but one Parish, and are therefore thought sufficiently governable by an ordinary single Presbyters. And this form of go­verning Cities was so universal, as that your Assertion to the contrary is not credible even in Africa, or any other place where Bishops or Cities are observed to have been most frequent or numerous: [Page 255] But if it had indeed been otherwise in some singular places, yet it is plain that the general rate of Cities among the An­cients was equal to ours. Whence it will follow, that the Dioceses generally designed were such as ours are now, though in some particular more anomalous In­stances they were (it may be) as small as you would have them. Whence two things will follow very apposite to my design: 1. That the Judgment of those Ages themselves were certainly more for us than you, seeing their judgment is onely to be concluded from their general rules, not from their particular anomalous pra­ctices. And, 2. that the case of discipline must have been the same with them as us. For the general observation of disci­pline cannot be effected by singular, but general practices and designs. Whence it will be easie to infer, that if discipline was then generally observed, then it is observable under a Diocesan Government, in the sense we are now disputing con­cerning it. For such I have proved to have been generally practised then, and if it was observed then, you can give no disparity why it may not be so now, if Governours would be equally industri­ous.

[Page 256] ‘YOUR intimation concerning to Bishops you would have in your Par [...] ­chial Dioceses; § XLIV (that their office must be to drive men from sin, and not to it and to silence Blasphemers, and not faithful Preachers of the Gospel;)’ as if our Bishops were guilty of the contrary, is methinks very sharp and uncharita­ble. We are all agreed, you as well as we, that this is our Diocesan Bishops office. Our onely difference is, that you con­ceive their actual practice to be other­wise. But I pray consider seriously what good meaning you can have herein if your desire had been granted? Is it that the Bishop must not do that which himself thinks to be driving men to sin? You cannot but know that they pretend, (and how can you know that they do not re­ally believe) their prosecutions of Dissent­ers to be not a driving them to sin, but from it, from disobedience to that which they think lawful Ecclesiastical Govern­ment, and from those Separations which themselves judge Schismatical, and from the defence and malice of unlawful Oaths. And certainly what they think to be Dis­obedience and Schism, and the maintain­ing of unlawful Oaths, your self [...] blame them if they believe them [...] [Page 257] [...] And the Preachers silenced by [...] not by them thought faithful [...] of the Gospel, at least not in the [...] of their silencing; but [...]eachers of [...] and Founders and Fomenters of parties, to the great weakning of the common Interest of the Gospel. And can you think it faulty in them to be zealous against them, whom they conceive to be such enemies to the Gospel, at least while they think them so, and profess themselves unable to find any reason to think otherwise? Or do you mean that the Bishop must not drive to that which the Criminal will pretend to be a sin, or prosecute that which he calls faithful Preaching of the Gospel? If so, you had dealt more plainly to have denied the Bishop any power at all to drive men from sin, or silence Blasphemers; than to grant him it, and yet to make it useless and un­practicable, as it must needs be if he must not practise it till the Sinner or Blasphe­mers confess themselves so, for how rare­ly do you find real Criminals plead guilty at the Bar? Besides that, by this means the most innocent if any must onely suffer; and the most dangerous must generally escape. For they who confess their crime must generally be presumed penitent, and they who are so are almost innocent, if we [Page 258] may believe the Tragedian; but he who denies his guilt, aggravates it by the disin­genuity of his Apologie. Besides, he who confesses himself a Sinner or a Blasphemer, is onely chargeable with a personal guilt; but he who denies sins and blasphemies to be sins, sins more heinously, not onely sinning himself, but teaching others to do so too. Nor is the multitude onely more considerable, that is drawn aside by this later sort of disingenuous sinners, but the quality of the persons seduced, and the greatness of their danger is much more considerable, than in those who are pre­judiced by the former. For none are likely to be seduc'd by professed debauchees, but such as are ill-inclined themselves. But they who are deceived by them who teach ill principles, not onely defending sins ad excusing them, but pretending them to be duties, are usually such who are of the best lives, and the most innocent meaning, whose Errors are like to be au­thenticated by their personal authority and reputation. And those who acknowledge their sins are more easily recoverable, their own consciences being ready upon any occasion to joyn with external conviction whensoever offered to them; but they who mistake their sins for the service of God, do both alienate their minds from [Page 259] conviction, by laying out their zeal against hearing or impartial considering that which they look on as a temptation; and in the event resolve their conviction into an issue of more difficult proof. For it is generally more easie even to the meanest most popular capacity, to prove a matter of fact than a matter of right, how unque­stionable soever. Certainly you would your self acknowledge him to be much the greater and more dangerous person, who should preach for drunkenness, and maintained it to be an evangelical duty, and call this his Preaching a faithful preaching of the Gospel, and accordingly be guilty of it, without any thing of re­morse or shame, than he who should inge­nuously confess his guilt and blame-worthi­ness for it.

NOW this you know is the sense of Superiours concerning Dissenters; § XLV they think that to be their Subjects duty, which their Subjects pretend to be sins. And can you blame them for obliging their Subjects to perform their duty? If you do, you will thereby make their Government use­less and unsignificant. They think Schism to be a sin really much greater than those which sound louder in the vulgar esteem, than drunkenness, &c. and more nearly relating to their trust as Governours, as [Page 260] being more directly prejudicial to the publick, to take care of which is their pe­culiar office as Governours. They think that which is called faithful preaching of the Gospel, not to be for reforming of mens lives, which is the great design of the Gospel, (for God be praised we do not differ in Subjects of that kind, but men may be as zealous as they please against vice, though Conformists) but the consti­tuting and perpetuating of Schism, which is by so much the more dangerous by how much it is more palliated by specious ti­tles, such as is that now mentioned; so that though themselves may believe them faithful in other things, yet in this they are far from thinking them so, and there­fore as far from prosecuting them as faithful Preachers. And I believe your self will hardly pretend, that their fideli­ty in some things must excuse their un­faithfulness in others. Or do you mean, that persons of a pious conversation and conscientious, must not be driven to that which they think sin, or from that which they think faithful Preaching of the Go­spel? If you mean that all truly pious conscientious persons ought to be treated with all candour and respect, before seve­rer means be used; or that the use of se­verer [Page 261] means is utterly to be forborn, as far as may be, that is, as far as such for­bearance may be reconcilable with the publick Interest, which is to be preferred before the private of any single person how pious soever; I could for my part heartily wish it were so too, and I believe most of the Bishops do practice according­ly with those concerning whom they have entertained such a good opinion, and do endeavour to shew the same charitable demeanour to them on earth, which they think God will in heaven.

BUT,§ XLVI Sir, you know that they who are indeed free from carnal vices, and such as are obnoxious to observation, may yet be guilty of spiritual, such as Obstinacy in yielding to conviction, or Disobedience to Superiours, or Negligence in inquiry, or too much prejudice or aversation to the persons or reasons of their adversaries, be­fore they have given them an equal hear­ing, or some such other prejudice, which unawares seduces the very best and wisest persons; and their guilt upon some of these accounts may be discerned and judged by their Superiours, from their perverse demeanour under those milder Treat­ments. And when it is discerned, though their innocence as to carnal crimes may [Page 262] indeed, in prudence and charity, be thought sufficient for the expiation or pre­terition of smaller delinquences, yet they can upon neither account be judged so, in regard of crimes of a more heinous na­ture than their virtues are eminent, and of such a kind would Schism and Facti­ousness appear to such as would equally and soberly consider them. But suppose that Governours do indeed believe, that their Subjects do bonâ fide believe as they profess, and conceive themselves obliged in conscience to deny their due obedience, and to follow those factious courses they were engaged in; yet sure you cannot think but that well meaning men, as well as others, may be mistaken, and that ve­ry dangerously; nor does their goodness se­cure their judgment from error, in think­ing that evil which is good, and on the contrary; but onely their practice, that they are not likely to be guilty of what themselves think evil, nor to be negligent of what themselves think good. One would verily think, that Raviliac and several such resolute persons, who enga­ged themselves without any private pro­vocation, on dangers they could never hope to escape, and much greater than any possible secular ends, if in their wits, [Page 263] could have been animated by nothing to such desperate enterprizes, but onely a strong persuasion of the goodness of their cause, and the hope of future rewards. And yet you would not think that a sufficient reason to exempt them from the severity of the Law. God may in­deed be merciful to such in regard of their pious intentions. But, 1. Their pra­ctises by being acknowledged to need mercy, must be supposed blamable, not commendable; S. Paul confesses himself the chief of sinners, in regard of those persecutions, for which he owns his igno­rance as the reason of his pardon. And, 2. Even God himself does often chastize them for the terror of others, with tem­poral afflictions, whom he intends to spare in the world to come. A clear example hereof we have in David, 2 Sam. 12. 13, 14. where after his sins of murdering Uriah, and defiling Bathsheba, had been forgiven him; it is yet expresly added, that because by this deed he had given occasion to the enemies of God to blaspheme; the child that had been born of that adulterous mixture should surely die. And therefore good men themselves, when guilty of Schism, giving the like scandal to the enemies of the truth, and drawing [Page 264] others to the like sin by their persuasion [...] example, may in this life be punished for the good of others. And, 3. God himself cannot be thought merciful to men good for all other things, and peccant onely in one kind, especially if of so heinous a na­ture, as Schism without their repentance, either particular by an actual explicite confession and reformation of it when known; or general and implicite, and in voto, when they are penitent for all sins unknown as well as known, and are in a ready preparation of mind to use and ac­cept of all moral means of discovery, and to reform what might be convicted by such discovery how dear soever other­wise. And this you know is the case of the Church in punishing well meaning persons who are guilty of Schism. It is plain, that they are so far from being pe­nitent for what she thinks to be sin, as that they defend it, and draw others to it. And as to general repentance, she thinks she has not reason to believe it in them, when upon proposal of her reasons they shew themselves perverse, and factious, and incorrigible. If it be pretended, that the Church may be mistaken in censures, I pray consider, 4. That she must act ac­cording to her own conscience, though er­roneous; [Page 265] and though God may prove in­deed indulgent to many persons, whom he as a searcher of their hearts may know to be penitent; yet the Church being ob­liged to accommodate her demeanour to them, to her own knowledge, may at the same time justly and commendably prose­cute them, if they seem otherwise to her. And I believe you will find it a ge­neral occasion of your mistakes in this kind, that you look upon Superiors as ob­liged to act according to your own private conscience. But if your self had been a Governour, and had to do with a person of a reputation otherwise unblamable, but yet notoriously guilty of some very re­markable offence coming under your cog­nizance, and so far from being penitent for it, as that he should defend it, and preach it to others, and call such Preach­ing a faithful Preaching of the Gospel; I believe you would think your self more secure in acting according to your own conscience, than that of the criminal, though you might confess your self as liable to mistakes as him. And believe it, that it is the most equal way to clear your self from prejudices, and to prevent uncharitable censures to represent their case as if it had been your own.