MATERIALS FOR UNION, Proposed to Public Consideration, With Indifferency To All Parties.  
By— M. A. Pem. Col. Oxon.  
Let Your Moderation be known unto all Men. The Lord is at hand.  
Printed, And are to be Sold by the Booksellers in OXFORD, 1681.   

Materials FOR Union.  
WHereas there are Three Parties of Protestants in the Nation, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Independent (or Congregational Men, which are of divers sorts) who do, and will ever differ in their Opinions about the Church, and Discipline of it, in the Question, which is of Christ's Institution; or, Whether the One, or the Other, is most consonant to Scripture: it is not our Disputes about the Church as Particular (which are rather to be mutually forborn, and every Party left herein to their own Persuasion) but a Common Agreement in what we Can Agree, and that is in the Church as National, must Heal our Divisions.  
It is here we must lay the Foundation-Stone of Union.  
When the Parliament than shall set about This Business to purpose, A Bill should be brought in for Declaring the Constitution of Our Church of England.  
A Parliament is the Representative of the whole People of England, and I doubt not, but by Consent and Agreement, they might Make a New Constitution of the CHURCH, as it is National; and much more may they Declare the Constitution of it.  
The Papists are for one Universal Organical Church throughout the world, whereof the Pope is Head by Christ's Appointment; and whosoever consequently is not of this Roman Catholick-Church, and Governed by him, must be Damned. There are some of our late Prelatists are for the same Church, but under the Diocesan Bishops of the whole Earth, who being Convened in a General Council, are the Head that must give Laws to it; and whosoever refuse to be Governed by the Laws of these General Councils, are Schismatics. I am much rather therefore, in my mind, for the Notion (which is that in the Embryo the Revered Dean of St. Paul's seems to me to aim at, if it could be once well form) of an Independent National Church Political, but not to be held, as the Congregationalist supposes his Particular Independent One, and They their Catholic, to be of Divine, but of Humane Institution; for it is manifestly a thing Accidental to the Church of Christ, that the Supreme Magistrate, and the whole Body of a Nation, are Christian.  
It should be declared then in such a Bill or Act of Parliament, that the Church of England consists of the KING as the Head, and all the several Assemblies of the Protestants as the Body.  
A Discrimination between the Tolerable and Intolerable, is never to be gainsaid by any Wise Man.  
It is not for me, or any One person, but a Convocation, or Parliament, to prescribe the Terms of National Communion; but I would have all our Assemblies that are Tolerable, to be made Legal by such an Act, and thereby parts of the National Church, as well as the Parochial Congregations.  
That the Bishops should be declared Ecclesiastical Officers under the KING, acting Circa Sacra only, by Virtue of His Authority and Commission.  
As Jehoshophat appointed Officers for Government in the Matters of God, and the King's Matters: So should the Bishops be in Our Ecclesiastical, as the Judges are in Civil Matters, the Substitutes of His Majesty, and Execute His Jurisdiction.  
Upon this Account, if any of the Eminent among the Non-conformists were Chosen to be Bishops, they could not refuse it.  
Let Dr. Owen and Mr. Baxter be the Two next that are called to this Function upon such an Act, and commanded to Hold it, and then would UNION indeed Commence.  
Their Work in general, should be to Supervise the Churches of both sorts in their Dioceses, that they all Walk according to their own Order, agreeably to the Gospel, and the Peace of one another.  
I am sensible unto what Distress a Congregational Minister may be brought in the exercise of Discipline over some potent, turbulent, and refractory Members; and what Relief he might find in such an External Ecclesiastical Officer as this.  
This shall Advance, and not Lessen, the outward Power and Honour of the Bishops.  
I humbly Motion a Third Clerk for the Convocation, to be added to the Two in every Diocese, and chose out of the Non-conformists for the Unanimous prosecution of Holiness and Concord throughout all the Churches: And the two Provinces of Canterbury and York should Unite in this Convocation, for the making them one National Church, and not two Provincial ones in a divers Assembly.  
I should expect then such Canons to be made, as would render us all happy in the satisfaction of both Parties.  
An Act of Parliament to this purpose, would make the Church of England to be in Earnest, such a Church, as the Churchmen would have us still think it, the Best Constituted, the most Exemplary, and the most Glorious of any that is, or indeed, that well can be in this World.  
And thus I have offered my Mite to the Sanctuary; that is, so much as I have, and what I think fit for Cultivation by Others, whom GOD shall make Wise-hearted, and Concerned, for the Welfare of Zion.  
There is Room also here left for the farther Invention of Such, in regard to many the like things as these: For they that will, may see something more in a few Sheets, in part Entitled, Animadversions upon the Debate between Dr. Stillingfleet and Mr. Baxter, Concerning the National Church, and Head of it. Unto which this Paper may be Stitched.  
THE END.