LICENCED.  
July 19 1686.   

A LETTER TO Edw. Stillingfleet, D. D. etc.  
In ANSWER to the Epistle Dedicatory before his SERMON, Preached at a Public Ordination at St. Peter's Cornhill, March 15. 1684/5.  
TOGETHER WITH Some Reflections upon certain LETTERS, which Dr. Burnet wrote on the same occasion.  
By SIMON LOWTH, Vicar of Cosmus Blene, in the Diocese of Canterbury.  
Sed non idcirco, frater charissime, relinquenda est Ecclesiastica disciplina, aut sacerdotalis solvenda est censura, quoniam convitiis infestamur, aut erroribus quatimur. B. Cyprianus, Ep. 55. ad Cornelium.  
Impp. Honorius & Theodos. A. A. Anthemio, P. F. P. Hirenarcharum vocabula, quae adsimulata provincialium tutela, quietis ac pacis per singula territoria haud sinunt stare concordiam, radicitùs amputanda sunt. Cesset igitur genus perniciosum reipublicae: Cesset rescriptorum Hirenarchas circiter inconsulta simplicitas, & celsitudinis tuae sedes provinciarum defendenda suscipiat, pacis hujusmodi locupletioribus commissura praesidia. 12. Cod. Theodos. Tit. 14.  
LONDON, Printed by J. L. and are to be Sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers-Hall, in Amen-Corner, MDCLXXXVII.   

A LETTER TO Dr. Stillingfleet, In ANSWER to his Epistle Dedicatory, prefixed to his SERMON Preached at a Public Ordination in the Church of St. Peter's Cornhill, March 15. 1684/5.  
Reverend Sir,  
HAVING perused your angry Epistle, I am now abundantly satisfied, that after all the clamorous Objections and riotous Noises against my Book of Church-Power, raised and kept up by Men of your Party and Complexion, and all the endeavours of such Champions as yourself, and that renowned Hero the famous Dr. Burnett, you have been able to say nothing in reply to it, besides personal remarks and accusations. I might add choice Epithets and embellishments of Wit, that might have become a Tripas Exercise in the Sophister's Schools, but by no means the Gravity of an old exercised Master of polemics. If you can reap any satisfaction from loading me with the general Titles of a Plagiary, ridiculous fool, malicious, unskillful maker of Controversies, a barbarous and rude Disputer with his Brethren, an accuser of his Brethren, an implacable man, uncharitable, unjust, slanderer, proud, void of prudence and common discretion, the usual Compliments you are pleased to bestow upon me, you may be happy in the enjoyment of your humour, though it hath not an Irenical Complexion: But I that design nothing but the pursuit of Truth and Honesty, shall only endeavour in an easy method, and plain words, to come to the true state of the Controversy between us, and my reply you may be pleased to take in this order: 

First, I shall presume to make some return to those little Pleas and Excuses that you give in for yourself; and those Accusations of any weight that you are pleased to bring in against me; and withal take the liberty to reflect a little upon the Treatment I have received from your Friend and Advocate, Dr. Burnett, upon the same occasion: For I foresee that opportunity will be offered.  
Secondly, I shall make it appear, That the account you give of your Irenicum is not fair nor true; and that you conceal your Crime in the very confession of it: The whole design and plot being merely laid against the Re-establishment of the Church of England.  
Thirdly, I shall inquire more particularly how far you have recalled, and recanted the principal Errors of it; and particularly the Imposture of your Manuscript: not doubting to make it appear, That you still own a public Recantation for it, not to the poor Vicar of Cosmus Blene, but to the Church of England.    
First, I shall consider herein the little pleas you make use of for yourself, and your trifling Accusations against me, together with your Characters of me; and also take the liberty of some Reflections upon Dr. Burnet. And here your failure is so evident and notorious at the very entrance, and your conclusion so inconsequential, that it plainly appears you began your Epistle in a passion, and without a due consideration of those things which in course follow upon one another. Otherwise, how could you say to your most Reverend Diocesan; That as you have the satisfaction of doing your duty in obeying his Lordship's command, for Printing the Sermon you Preached at his last solemn Ordination, so you hope others will have so much at least in Reading of it, as to be convinced how unjustly you have been, not long since, represented to the world, as an enemy to the very being of Churches in general, and to the constitution of this Church in particular. Pray how does it follow, because you Preached sound and orthodox Divinity at that one time, that you had never Preached or Printed any thing Erroneous or Heretical before? Or what connexion is there in this, such a one is now a sound Divine, and therefore he was so always? Had you in that Sermon made it appear that my Accusation was not True, or that I had said you would never retract those unsound tenants that I accused you of, than you might have depended, with some tolerable assurance, upon the Reader's conviction of the injustice I had done you: But since so it is, that you neither attempted to clear yourself concerning those things I accused you of; neither did I say, you would never retract them; to infer injustice on my part, because some years after that I had accused you, you Preached a Sermon which was Orthodox in those points, wherein I said you were once defective, is a conclusion he alone can be guilty of, whose common perceptions are choked with Choler: No Man could suspect that Dr. Stillingfleet made it, had not the following part of the Epistle been of his Composure also, consisting mostly of the like undecencies. I said you were guilty of such Doctrines at the time when I Printed my Book; but I did not say you would never retract them. It was part of my design in writing that Book to inform you better, and that you might come to a sense of those Errors, which I apprehended at that time you were not sensible of: I told you I judged a retractation necessary; and that you ought to make one, (which was my crime in that I spoke so plainly and boldly to you) and no Man rejoices more, or thanks you more than I do, for what you have performed of that nature in your Sermon.  
You argue on at the same rate, and say, That my Calumny (as you are pleased to call it) is groundless and ridiculous; because you have since proved the Church a distinct Society, and vindicated her power in general, and the particular constitution of this Church. Now this supposes the truth of my accusation, and that you once had asserted the contrary; only I am so disingenuous that I take no notice of your retractation, but still urge that first Error against you: and this is the full of all that you can be interpreted to plead for yourself. The conclusion indeed seems larger upon the first reading, by the advantage it hath from the embellishments of your stile, or your artificial disposition of the whole; but he that duly considers the premises, will find no more: And indeed it is only a shame way of arguing; just as afterwards you tell the History of your Irenicum; where not one word you say comes up to the point under debate. The reality of the Controversy betwixt us (which you say I have with so much folly, and malice, and unskilfulness made; and the world will laugh at me for, only the comfort is, they must first discern it with your Eyes) lying here; whether you have in your latter Writings given sufficient evidence to the World of the change of your judgement as to these Points of Church Power in general, and Episcopacy in particular? or (as in the words of your Epistle) you are not still the same Enemy to the very being of Churches in general, and to the constitution of this Church in particular, that I own I once did represent you to be, for which I gave my reasons in my Book, and private Letter, since Printed before it; but never had any Answer, unless you shall be pleased to say that this Epistle Dedicatory is an Answer; (and yet I hear you do say so) which is indeed a Libel: Besides, it did not come forth until two full Years after. So then, the ground is laid out, and the Controversy stated. You affirm; I deny. I shall put it upon a fair Trial; your own writings shall be my Evidence, and the Readers the Jury.  
You continue on and object, That I produce not one considerable Argument which I did not steal out of a Discourse of yours; but this must never be taken notice of. Dr. Burnet, and Mr. Dean of St. Paul's have sufficiently blazoned me abroad for a Fool, and nonsensical fellow; and truly with reason too, if you could prove me so silly as to steal and tell. When my Papers came first to London, in order to the Press, and you, with some others, had got them into your hands; the artifice then used, whereby to bespatter me about the Town, was, to tell it abroad, That I was not the Author of them: And there was, it seems, other grounds for it than we were at that time ware of; because they were yours. But when Men are in the Net, the more they struggle, the more they are entangled. I confess you owed me a turn; for I had peremptorily accused you for stealing out of Robert Parker; and pointed you to the very time, Book, Chapter and Margin, when and where he was transcribed by you: And certainly nothing was ever more imprudent, if not unpardonable, than for you to take his credit and testimony against our Church and Episcopacy, who professedly designed their defamation and destruction; and really was the greatest Incendiary, and most malicious, implacable Schismatic that appeared in his time against us; or perhaps that had appeared since our Reformation, excepting Thomas Cartwright: A Man could in Conscience do no less than expose you for it. And if you had but dealt as candidly with me, and named the particular time, Book, etc. your Accusation would have had greater weight, and my Vindication might have been more particular and satisfactory; whereas now I can only proceed upon Conjectures. I remember, once being assaulted by an impertinent Quaker, amongst other stuff, he told me, That I was a thief; the reason that he gave for it was, because I stole all my Learning from Books. Now in this sense I confess myself a thief; and in particular that I stole my Book out of the Fathers, Councils, Church-History, etc. and more, that I might possibly steal now and then out of your Irenicum; it being such a Farce of all manner of Quotations, that it is a hard matter to miss of some of them: And I will say thus much, That if those Quotations were as aptly applied as they are numerous, you might, at that time, have been placed in the first file of Learned Men. I have been informed, That the Regalia of France, published some time since by your Friend Dr. Burnet in his own name, were the labours and collections of Mr. Brisbon, his Countryman, who delivered his Papers unto him, and desired his judgement of them; but the wise Doctor (whose Back is of steel, as his Face is of brass) liked them so well, that he went not to bed till he had transcribed them; and immediately Printed them for his own. Now this is thieving in our profession.  
Your next Objection is levelled against my stile; that it is without embellishments: that I follow the Schoolmen only in Two things, viz. A barbarous stile, and a rude way of disputing with my Brethren: And you engage that posterity will not make me their pattern: And Dr. Burnet has insisted on the same subject before you, with enlargements; and in the close of his Letter, dated Decemb. 20. 1684. this is one of the two short advices he is so kind as to give me; That if you intent to write any more, you will learn first to write true English, and then to write good sense: but I believe this will prove so very hard a task, that the best and easiest advice can be given you, is, That you would write none at all. So that in plain English, you give me the character Luther once gave Carolostadius, viz. That I have neither Sense nor Words.  
Res & verba Philippus, res sine verbis Lutherus,  
Verba sine re Erasmus, nec res nec verba Carolostadius.  
As to the former, I have put myself upon my trial, which is God and my Country; only you and Dr. Burnet are excepted out of the Jury; because Men so notoriously incapacitated to be there, through manifest prejudice and interest. As to the latter, I plead, in some measure, guilty; acknowledging my defect, and that I have been less careful and industrious therein than I ought, and might have been: And yet I cannot say, (under my present circumstances, to be sure) That I really repent of it; for these two Reasons: 1. Because you had thereby lost an opportunity of making this Objection against my Book, and so much less of your Passion in opposing me must have appeared; which is really my advantage. 2. If my stile had been agreeable with your embellishments and smother polite phrases, how can I tell but that you might have taken all my Book away from me; especially since you have laid actual claim already to my considerable Arguments.  
But as to the Schoolmen in particular, I must confess, That I am no admirer of their Terms and Niceties, yet I cannot condemn all; but (if my little skill in them do not deceive me) their rude way of disputing, such as it is, might become both your own and others imitation: For they are seldom guilty of the embellishments of soul language; very rarely name persons, but when the case necessarily requires it; and avoiding all personal heats and quarrels, keep themselves close to their Matter and Argument, but never repute a nickname, or cramp Epithet a Confutation of their Adversary. And again, I less admire your inconsiderateness, in that you accuse so eminent an Order of Divines of rudeness in their disputations, at the same time when you implead me as guilty of the same misdemeanour, in respect of yourself, and aggravate it against me as the greatest crime. Besides, you seem mostly peccant herein, having been so peculiarly beholden to the Schoolmen for your palmarium argumentum, or capital Argument (as you call it); for the mixed and communicative power of Bishops and Presbyters (for they were the first that set that design on foot; and their Arguments still support it) to which you adhere to this day: Do you not boast and value yourself upon that one adventure? It appears by the Epistle Dedicatory that you do; where you tell us, That the design of it was, to gain upon Dissenters from our Church; and it did not want success that way, both here and in a neighbour Kingdom. (I thought our Church and the Pope of Rome had never gained Proselytes one and the same way.) All that can, with any show, be pleaded for you is, you looked upon Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas, the Master of the Sentences, and the Angelical Doctor to be Country Vicars, or to be no Deans; and upon yourself as under no obligation of gratitude, or common civility towards them for that only reason; and hence concluded that you had a right to theirs, equally as to my Arguments; and so much the more, because you can put them into better words, your stile is less barbarous, or has more embellishments. And if you hope this way to recommend yourself as a pattern to posterity (tho' my Charity obliges me to wish them better precedents to copy after) I shall not envy your acquisitions. I assure you the bar you have put, that I may not be the like pattern, is no ways ingrateful to me. All that I aim at is, to appear to posterity an honest Man in my profession; your giant Objection will then be on my side. And admit my stile to be as rude and barbarous as your Eloquence can represent it to be, the advantage will be the greater thereby to that truth, which (tho' so rudely composed) the greatest Orators have offered so little against. And this point once gained, I value no more the repute of a Grammarian or Elegant Composer, than the Grammarian in Aelian valued Helena's Picture, that was drawn by Zeuxes the Painter, who discerned not one feature in it; being a Grammarian, no Limner, as the reason is given.  
And yet, if we consider a little farther, another reason may be given for this your Master-Objection: You were an early Disciple of David Blondel's, and the rest of that Tribe; who assaulted the Epistles of the most Holy and Primitive Martyr, St. Ignatius, at the same rate. And among those many Arguments from whence he concluded them to be spurious (wherein you have particularly concurred with him in your Irenicum; and I wish it were all the rubbish he bequeathed to you) there are some à dictione petita; from his unusual and uncouth stile, which he defames and renders contemptible, being unmindful of that of St. Jerome, Scio inter Christianos verborum vitia non solere reprehendi; as the late most Learned Bishop of Chester reproves him for it, from the authority of that excellent Father, in his Vindiciae Ignatianae. And blondel is so insolent, and puffed up with a conceit of his success herein against the Apostolical Martyr, that (in his Praefatio ad Apologiam pro sententia Hieronymi, pag. 52.) he sets upon Franciscus de Clara in the same way; and concludes himself to have baffled his Apology for Bishops, only by giving an account of his solecisms in Grammar, and other barbarities; of which I have here given a taste 
* En Barbarismos, viz. Satis testium sunt Zelotes. In recto regiam petierunt Majestatem. Veriverbium sonat. Ecclesiae gubernium. Primitas. Practica Ecclesiae. Maxima, id est, axioma. Verbulum. Dubiolum vocat, quod postea pro grandi objectione habet. Nihil sanxierunt. Epilogat. Amonibiles', &c. : Though I cannot tell whether something else might not be at the bottom. For de Clara writes himself Minoritarum; which sounds like a Vicar.  
I have sometimes met with more solid and grave Divines (or at least that believed themselves such) who call their Adversaries Grammarians; thereby implying the contempt they had of their persons, as altogether unqualified for those performances in Divinity, in which they had engaged themselves. As I remember, either blondel or Salmasius, or both, thus revile Dr. Hammond: But for certain, Salmasius is thus upbraided by John Milton (who thought himself somebody) in his Pro populo Anglicano defensio: as also our most learned Bishop Montacute by Labbee, in his Dissertatio Historica de Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis. But your greatness, or Typus Theologicus takes a contrary method; becomes Splenetic, and swells and insults over me, with this term of disgrace, No Grammarian; and because I have less regarded words and embellishments, since matter of Fact, and Argument, are the only object of my search and enquiry; to which you have not made one exception.  
But my matter is accused as unintelligible; to which I'll return the Answer Mr. Thorndike gave for himself upon the same occasion, in the Preface to his Epilogue: The obscurity of my matter I am not sorry for; if writing in English (because here the occasion commenceth) the reasons, if the consequence of it, in some matters seem obscure; I conceive it ought to teach the world, That the People are made parties to those Disputes, whereof they are not able to be judges: and I am willing to bear the blame of obscure, if that lesson may be learned by the People.  
My crime is more heightened yet, in that I am not only rude with my Brethren, but with two Archbishops and a Bishop, viz. Whitgift, Bancroft, and Bilson; whom I remark for writing inconsiderately. I am sorry that a Man of your Dignity and reputed Learning in the Church, should be brought so low, as to stand in need of such a palpable Cavil, or groundless Accusation as this is; your case surely is the same with that of a great person you elsewhere mention; who, when he had undertaken to manage an ill cause before a public audience, and one of his Friends asked him what he meant by it, replied, Trouble not yourself, our own side will believe me. Only such a presumption could put you upon this particular indictment of me: In plea to which, I will only tell the naked story, and leave the Reader to judge of your candid deal with me. Robert Parker (one that ought not to be named by an honest Man but with a mark of infamy) accused these eminent Bishops for placing the Church Authority in the Prince. I vindicated them as well as I could, and as I thought, satisfactorily. All that I there said of them appearingly capable of an exception was, That in laying their Argument, they did not consider that so illnatured a Man as Parker might at some time or other have advantage against them: And I am so far from acknowledging it a fault, that I accuse them of more inconsiderateness of the same nature, (you may make it their fault if you can) in that they did not foresee also, That such a Book as the Irenicum would come into the world; taking occasion from their writings, and by their authority, to degrade and depose them; expressly making them a party against themselves, and the institution of their Episcopal Order; and with as much perverseness and ill nature as ever Robert Parker acted against them. And now, you see my crime, it is well if the offence does not lie the other way; in that I made Parker appear a defamer: the familiarities one, that I know, once had with his writings, taking them for his own, gives a shrewd suspicion of it.  
Yes, but I lay to their charge the bringing in a new sort of Henrician Heresy: which is as new to me, as the name it goes under. Henrician Heresy! I am at a loss to find who this Henricius, or Henricianus, the Author of an old Heresy, is. I have consulted all my Books, as Epiphanius, St. Austin; with others of the Ancients, that wrote of Heretics, as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and particularly the Notes of Pamelius upon Tertullian's Prescriptions against Heretics; where the Catalogue of them is explained; and am still as ignorant as when I first set out. Who can this Haeresiarcha be? I considered a little farther, and the word appearing Novel, I consulted my modern Authors, down to Edward's Gangraena; but neither fell nor fall appeared here either. At last reading Dr. Stillingfleet's Answer to Mr. Cressey's Epistle Apologetical, pag. 406. I found the Man, but in great obscurity, among the mouldy Papers in the Cottonian Library. And truly, Sir, tho' I will not presume to offer to you any advice of my own; yet I will venture to recommend the advice which an excellent Friend of yours gave to me, as he supposed, in the like case; and because I appeared to him unintelligible; it is your Advocate Dr. Burnet's, in his Letter that he was pleased once to write to me, pag. 7. You had best to do as another Emperor did, writ of yourself, and illustrate your Epistle with Annotations.  
That which comes next is a flight of your wit upon the Vicar of Cosmus Blene and the Vicar at Rome; but falls as much short of it, as Cosmus Blene and Rome are distant from one another: But more ill nature accompanies it, (without which some have no wit at all) and you insinuate that to attack you, is to be a Papist, or at least to be their Friend, as certainly as the Devil is known by his cloven foot; for so Dr. Burnet speaks out in his last Letter; and farther adds, That we equally degrade Kings from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and at length will make them Reign at the mercy of the Church, and at the Pope's courtesy. The Doctor was in a heat during the whole time of his Epistolizing, and did not consider immediate consequences; for he brings Mr. Dean of St. Paul's as evidently into the praemunire, as he does me, and accuses him of the same Popery; who has declared himself to be of my judgement; and that the Church is a distinct Society: And further, That I have not produced one considerable Argument which he had not made use of to that purpose, in a Discourse published above Twenty years since. But if the Doctor and the Dean have no better Arguments to prove us Papists, (as we are very well assured they have not) we may better bear the charge: I'll add, Or than these which are farther produced in the following part of the Paragraph; tho' once thought to be very good ones, till my great humility, in writing myself Vicar of Cosmus Blene better informed you. As, Because I proceed so like a judge in Controversies, and after an imperious manner summon, by a kind of Citation, etc. (It seems then, that every judge of Controversies is a Pope, and each Citation is a Bull from Rome) or else, that my private Letter, begging a more full information from your own hand, (for that was all which I desired of you in my Letter) is of the same nature as a Summons or Citation from the Courts Ecclesiastical; and you suspected, lest an Answer to it, had been a declining your Diocesan's Authority and Jurisdiction. One of these, or all you must be interpreted to mean, if you mean any thing; and choose whether you please, it is pure Irenicum all over, or the very Weapon-salve Doctrine and Argumentation. Thus Men usually run into the contrary extreme, thinking thereby to atone for the first Error. And you who have before asserted your Bishop to be really void of Power, or a mere name without Authority; now enlarge his Power as much too far, and make it a breach of Canonical Obedience, to Write, or Answer a Private Letter, without his knowledge and Licence.  
However, notwithstanding the danger of Popery, (for you will certainly say again, That I proceed like a judge of Controversies, and summon you after an imperious manner by a kind of Citation, and you may as well say so now, as before) I'll venture to ask you Two Questions more: 1. Where the crime really lies in proceeding like a judge of Controversies? does not every one that writes of Controversies become a judge of them? he aught to be so; or else he ought not to write about them. And if you had laid your calumny here, That I am not fit to write Controversies, but undertake to be a judge when I am not qualified for one, and proved it, you had done something more than every Traducer can do. Your Objection seems co-incident with Dr. Burnet's, in his rude Letter, which he sent me, December 20. 1684. Because I published my Book after a course of studies, upon full thoughts, and a thorough consideration; or that I did not Print it, as he does Manuscripts, without fear or wit: or as he did his Letters in their defence; with such rash, heady precipitancy, that he is forced to retract in one, what he wrote in another; and each contradicts the other; as will appear in due place. 2. Admit that I had sent you a summons by citation to Answer such Questions as I should demand of you, supposing you in great Errors, and the Church of God had received great damages by your publication of them; you of all Men ought to have taken the least exceptions against me for it, who in your Irenicum have enstated me, as a Presbyter, and by virtue of my Orders, in full power for the doing of it; as to superintend, inspect, preside over, and govern the Churches; and from the best authority and precedents Ecclesiastical. So that if I had transgressed, since Dr. Stillingfleet led me to it, he need not have been so very harsh and severe upon me for it: Especially, since the utmost of my crime can amount no higher, than that it was done unclassically. I'll only repeat your own Words for my authority; Irenic. pag. 355. That they (viz. the Presbyters) concurred in governing the Church, and not only by their Council but Authority, appears from the general sense of the Church of God, even when Episcopacy was at the highest. Nazianzen speaking of the Office of Presbyters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉: he knew not whether to call it Ministry, or Superintendency (the lofty Superintendant of Cosmus Blene:) And those who are made Presbyters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, from being ruled, they ascend to be Rulers themselves. And their power by him is in several places called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They are called by him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Chrysostom gives this as a reason of St. Paul's passing over from Bishops to Deacons without naming Presbyters, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because there is no great matter of difference betwixt a Bishop and Presbyters: For those likewise have the instruction and charge of the Church committed unto them. With more to this purpose produced by you, to show that the Presbyter's power is every way equal to the Bishop's; even to summon and censure the disobedient. And consequently, upon your own terms, the lofty Superintendent of Cosmus Blene went not beyond his commission, if it were true (as you scandalise him) that he did actually Summon and Cite you, in order to a recantation of your Error, as publicly, as the error, scandal, and offence given by it.  
The next Character you affix upon me is not so easily to be born, or pardoned; [This accuser of his Brethren] because the character which is given to the Devil, Rev. xij. 10. and you repeat it over again [as my accuser calls it.] I have made a very strict examination of myself in that performance, and cannot find that I have given any occasion why you should expose me to mankind under so odious a Character. I am so confident of my Innocency, that, in order to my Vindication, I'll here also tell the naked Story, and make my Enemies my Judges. Sixteen years after the first publication of your Irenicum, (for which, as you say well, many Men made allowance, considering the scepticalness and injudiciousness of Youth, and the prejudices of Education) the Manuscript that is there, and the most Scandalous part of it, (made more Scandalous, by your declaring it to be the Sense of our Church) was reprinted, with your order, in Doctor Burnet's History of the Reformation, as an authentic Record; and with the Approbation of both Houses of Parliament (by the undue procurement of your Party) affixed unto it, which, by the way, you have declared to be the Mouth of the Church of England. And this was done without any caution or alteration, excepting for the worse; because concealing Cranmers (probable at least,) Retractation. And about this time also Mr. Dean of Canterbury Preached before the Court, and afterward Printed Doctrines to the same purpose, or rather more offensive. Hereupon I apprehended a farther design, than many were ware off; and not without Reason: For what, appearingly, adds more to the confirmation of these Doctrines, as the Sense of our Church, than the approbation of both Houses of Parliament, and the popular names of Dr. Tillotson, and Dr. Stillingfleet; and all this might make a greater impression upon me, than on some others; because I had for many years applied my Studies to search after the Rights of the Church, and that Power which our Saviour had vested her withal, and appointed to be continued till his coming again: Especially, I being not in the number of those Subscribers, who believe themselves no ways obliged to defend what they have assented and consented unto. I therefore revised my Collections, and digested them in that order, according to which they have since been Printed: where, as I make some reflections upon you, so I always refer to your own Words and Sense to vouch them. And yet when my Papers came to London, all the Objections that I found to be made against them by some Learned Men, into whose hands they lighted, were occasioned by reason of yourself, and Doctor Tillotson; on whom I seemed, in their Eyes, to reflect over-severely. Hereupon I wrote a private Letter to you, (since Printed before my Book) the sum of which, is, to tell you the ground of that Charge I had laid against you, and that I conceived Posterity would be concerned by reason of your Writings in this Cause, (not in my Writings, as you are pleased to misreport me) if no Public acknowledgement of the error be made by you; further adding and desiring, that you would inform me wherein I had wrongfully accused you; engaging, upon due notice, that I would expunge whatever was in my Papers, relating that way. To this you vouchsafed me no Answer, unless Scorn and Contempt (enough of which came abroad every day) are to be reputed one; or the Epistle Dedicatory, published two years after; which is only a Defamatory Libel. And now I appeal to the whole World, Whether there is any thing in all this on my part that is Diabolical; or that may fix upon me the Character of ACCUSER, in Capital Letters? As also how unjustly you have farther slandered me, with the Epithets of Implacable, Whom no recantation will do good, Untractable & c.? or wherein any public scandal or offence is given by me?  
If the Scandal and offence be laid here, (and some have so laid it) as exposing our own Members to the scorn of the common Adversary, especially in these divided times: Or if it be farther pleaded, That since our Church is well known, to have neither published nor countenanced any such Doctrines in her Articles, Homilies, Canons, Rubrics, etc. it had been much better and safer, to have passed over, and concealed some few, tho' heterodox Opinions of one or more particular Doctors, which cannot be supposed to influence and debauch mankind, against the judgement of a whole Church to the contrary. To this I answer. Those always have been observed as the worst of Heretics, that arise among ourselves, and within the Bowels of a particular Church: and they have the greatest advantage to delude and seduce. St. Paul therefore gives Directions for severe proceed against those that are within, 1 Cor. 5. and by the parity of Reason, the Rule is to extend to other offenders, than those there mentioned by him. And as to my own particular, I do here produce these following instances, whereby it will appear, that other Writers have taken the same course and method before me.  
1. And Dr. Stillingfleet shall be the first, in his General Preface to an Answer to several late Treatises, etc. The learned Doctor having at large discovered several corruptions among the Romanists; and more particularly in the point of Repentance; they endeavour to clear the honour of their Church, and thus argue: That where the Church hath defined nothing in her Councils, it is to no purpose to object that such Doctrines are taught in it; for those who defend their Separation from the Communion of a Church, by reason of its Corrupt and Erroneous Doctrines, must make it appear those are taught by it, and the belief of them also exacted by its subjects. To whom he thus replies: But supposing there were no such foundation for this Doctrine in the Council of Trent, as we see there is, would there be no danger to Men's Salvation, if their Confessors generally told them these things, and they knew it to be the general Opinion among them? Is there no danger of falling into the Ditch when the blind lead the blind, unless a General Council expressly allow of it? Is there no danger of Empirics and Mountebanks, unless the whole College of Physicians approve them? And then he adds farther: I confess when we debate the causes of separation from their Communion, we think it then reasonable to allege no more than what they impose on all to believe and practise (and we have enough of all Conscience without going any farther;) but when we present the hazard of Salvation to particular Persons, we may then justly charge them with pernicious Doctrines and Practices, which are received and allowed among them, although not decreed by the Church in Councils. For otherwise it would be just as if one should say to a Man, that asked him whether he might safely Travel through such a Country? Yes, without doubt you may; for although there be abundance of Thiefs and Highway Men, yet the Prince or the State never approved them, nor gave them liberty to rob Travellers. Do you think any Man would venture his Person or his Purse on no better security? yet such security is all they can give, as to the Roman Church; for they dare not deny the bad consequence of the Doctrines and Practices charged upon them, but only say, The Church hath not decreed them.  
2. When Doctor Jeremy Taylor published some Tenants concerning Original Sin, which opposed the Doctrine of our Church; Doctor Warner, Lord Bishop of Rochester, wrote a Treatise against him, and detected his error as openly as he had divulged it. A great deal might have been pleaded in the Doctor's behalf; as much, nay, more than can be pleaded for any Man now a days; such was his eminency in all Learning, his great and daily service for the Church in her present distress, he standing almost alone in the gap, and in opposition to her many Enemies ready to devour her, and still gaping with their Mouths upon her: She was at a very low Ebb, and the Channels were seen at God's chiding, at the rebuke of the blast of his Displeasure. But none of these things moved the excellent Bishop, or diverted his purpose. He knew full well, that such breaches were advantageous to the common Enemy; and therefore the healing them by due Argument and Authority, was the only way to stop their Mouths. And I have been informed, those few Bishops surviving in that dismal overthrow of our Church, Summoned the Doctor to the house of Doctor Duppa, at Richmond, who was then Lord Bishop of Sarum, where he submitted, and made his acknowledgement.  
3. When some Puritans at Frankford, had opposed the Government and Liturgy of our Church, and set up their own in its room; Doctor Cox first, and then Dr. Horn, undertook them; notwithstanding they were little better than banished Men, and the Marian Persecution raged at home, which made England too hot for them all. No pleas of Peace and Unity ought to prevail for the complying with, and countenancing those who oppose the received Doctrines, and Constitutions of that Church, whereof they are Members; every good and knowing Man will withstand such to the face, although they do in many things unite with him against the common Adversary. And those that understand the nature and constitution of the Church of Christ, as a distinct Society, and its obligations upon Christians, believe also its Laws, equally established and binding, when the Secular Power frowns upon and disowns her, as when it maintains and protects her: and that confusion in all things (as you are pleased to express it) or a Laxation of outward reward or penalties, gives no liberty to any one man to choose his own way; but much less does it authorise and indemnify any one particular Doctor, or more, to draw up new Schemes and Modes of Worship; or make easier Terms than were before required, for the bringing Men in unto them. Under these circumstances Dissenters are least of all to be born with, and tenderness towards them is to have no place. And it is judiciously observed by the Author of Religion and Loyalty, Part 1. p. 566. that under the Reign of Julian the Apostate, the Church more strictly united than she had done before, in executing her Discipline, and that power which Christ had enstated on her; she than put an end to the vexatious Arian Controversy, established the Nicene Faith over all the Christian World, and prevented new Schisms and Factions, that were at that time breaking out in the Christian World. And then to be sure the Eusebian Latitude-Trimmers had no favour showed them, because of the present Confusion.  
4. The Romish Doctors themselves gave us these like instances; and the most sober of them do not think, that their Unity (in which they so much boast) is violated, or any occasion of Scandal and Offence given to those which are without, in that the errors of particular Doctors (tho' otherwise deserving from their Church) are openly taken notice of and refuted; but, on the other hand, conclude such proceed necessary, and useful for the preserving their Faith laudable in the unity and peace of it. It is but the other day that Mr. White, and Mr. Sergeant, (who are known to have been great Zealots for Rome, in this Kingdom) published some Tenants injurious (as it was thought) to the Romish Faith; for this they were severely censured, and a Book came out against them, Autore M. Lomino Theologo, Printed at Gaunt, 1675. whose Title is, Blackloanae Haeresis Historia & Confutatio, so called from Blacklo, a name by which White used, sometimes, to be called. Upon this Publication, the Blackloists made great clamours, and not only they, but the Roman Catholics at large, and who were not engaged in the Controversy: As, That these were not times for Catholics to write one against another, admonishing, that, Tempori ac Haeresi cedendum, way is to be given to the Time and the Heresy together; the danger of Schism is now hanging over our heads, and that the Orthodox will be hereby laughed at by the Protestants, because disagreeing. To whom Lominus, in his Preface, gives this answer, which being of so full weight, and able to satisfy any Man in this or the like case, I will here Transcribe; thus Translated.  

Doleo vehementer hoc unicum Blackloistarum effugium (ultimum utique morientis jam sectae gemitum, quo commiserationem movent imprudentibus) tam patienter audiri. Itane vero? nec detegendi, nec damnandi sunt Novatorum errores, ne scilicet Pharisaicum arripiant scandalum Haeretici, dicantque imperiti, Ecclesiam ob haereseôn censuram esse dividendam? Ad quid ergo supra muros Jerusalem posuit Dominus custodes qui tota die & nocte non tacebunt? ad quid sunt Episcopi & Pastores, nisi ut Haeresi obstent, ac invigilent gregi; rationem pro animabus sibi commissis reddituri? si oportet haereses esse, oportet ut haeresum oppugnatores in Ecclesia non taceant. Fas ne erit Thomae Albio & Joanni Sargentio fidei Christianae fundamenta convellere, & non licebit Georgio Leyburno, & Archiepiscopo Dubliniensi, hos scriptores & illorum fautores redarguere, ac monere fideles, ut sibi caveant à lupis ovina pelle contectis? Diuturna Schismata in Haeresin tandem converti, testatur maximus Ecclesiae Doctor Hieronymus; at nemo qui Orthodoxus est, dixerit, per haeresum detectionem ac damnationem nem gigni Schismata. Fidei Catholicae unitas, corporisque Ecclesiae compago, & integritas, non in eo consistit, ut nullus à fide cadat, nullus Haeresin doceat, sed in eo maximè, ut casus non dissimuletur, aut pravum dogma cum sana Doctrina non confundatur; rescindi oportet membrum putridum, priusquam corpus corrumpatur; exeat igitur expellaturque à nobis innovator, etsi olim noster fuerit. Scio charitati Christianae maximè consentaneum esse, ut infirmos in fide foveamus; sed charitati Christianae minimè contrarium est, imo valde conforme, ut alienos à fide & calamo & censuris feriamus. Eoque vel baculo pastorali insigniti sunt Episcopi, Apostolorum Successores. Dum baculo & calamo utitur Ecclesia contra haereticos, sana & una est fides, nec tam delicatae sunt oportet fidelium aures, ut disputantium sono ac strepitu contra ingruentes haereses offendantur; in castris sumus, in castris inquam Ecclesiae militantis, & merito irridetur is miles, qui armorum strepitum non ferens, praeliorum id genus adhortamenta reformidat.   

I much lament this only refuge of the Blackloists (as the last groan of a dying sect, thereby to move pity from imprudent People) is heard so patiently. Is it so then? are the errors of the novelists to be neither detected nor condemned, lest that Heretics may take a Pharisaical Scandal, and those that are unskilful say, The Church will be divided by reason of the censure of Heresies? To what purpose then hath the Lord placed Watchmen upon the Walls of Jerusalem, that shall not hold their peace day nor night? For what use are the Bishops and Pastors, unless to withstand Heresy and watch over the Flock; as those that are to give an account of the Souls committed to them? If there must be Heresies, it is fit that the oppugners of Heresies in the Church do not hold their Tongues. Shall it be lawful for Thomas White and John Sergeant to pull in pieces the Foundations of the Christian Faith, and shall it not be lawful for George Leyburn, and the Archbishop of Dublin, to reprove these Writers and their Abetters, and to warn believers, that they take heed to themselves, by reason of Wolves in Sheep's clothing? That eminent Doctor of the Church, Jerome, doth witness, that daily Schisms at length turn into Heresy: But none that is Orthodox, hath said, that Schisms are produced by the detection and condemnation of Heresies. The unity of the Catholic Faith, and close joining together of the Body of the Church and its integrity, doth not consist in this, That none fall from the Faith, or none teach Heresy; but herein especially, That the Fall be not dissembled, or that their corrupted Doctrine be not confounded with the sound; a rotten Member ought to be cut off, rather than the Body be destroyed; let then the Innovator go out, and be expelled from us, though heretofore he was ours. I know it is mostly agreeing with the Christian Faith, that we nourish the weak in the Faith; but it is no ways contrary to Christian Charity, but every ways conforming, that we strike with the Pen and Censures, such as are Strangers to the Faith. And therefore the Bishops, and Successors of the Apostles, have also a Pastoral Staff committed unto them. When the Church uses the Staff and the Pen against Heretics, the Faith is one and sound; neither ought the Ears of the Faithful to be so delicate, as to be offended with the sound and noise of those that dispute against Heresies coming in upon us; we are in the Tents of the Church militant, and that Soldier is deservedly laughed at, who not enduring the noise of Arms, fears the provocations of Battles of that nature.   
But why should I wonder at your deal with me, since you are so bold with the best of Kings and Men? I mean Charles the First, and the Martyr; whom you hale in as a Party to that most false Assertion, which he always opposed, viz. That, the Form of Church-Government is mutable: Or that, there is no certain Form of Government prescribed in the Word. It is the least that he meant by those Words, that you take the confidence to produce, or that any Man can interpret him to have meant by them; and this will appear all along in his several Writings, and Declarations of his Judgement in the point. I will at present, for evidence of it, confine myself to his Majesty's final answer concerning Episcopacy, delivered in to the Commissioners of Parliament, the first of Novemb. 1648. where he contends for the Immutability of the two Orders of Bishops and Presbyters, to whom he assigns distinct, appropriated, incommunicable Offices and Acts; and bottoms it, first, upon the Scriptures, and then upon this very Apostolical primitive Practice (which you say he recommended only as a decent rule to your Arbitrary Modellers of Church-Government, to be followed by them, as they shall be pleased) resolving in his own practice never to vary from it: Or in the true application of your Words, Whose sufferings could never make him warp from what his judgement directed. And the injury you have done to his Sacred Memory and Reputation (as also to the Church of England) will be farther notorious to him that consults the Twelfth and last Chapter of his Royal answer; where he tells the Commissioners, That, until one of these three things can be clearly evidenced unto him, (viz.) Either that there is no certain Form of Church-Government prescribed in the Word; or, If there be, that the Civil Power may change the same as they see cause; or, If it be unchangeable, that it was not Episcopal, but some other; he thinks himself excusable in the judgement of all reasonable Men, if he cannot as yet be induced to the utter abolishment of that Government in the Church, which he found here settled to his hands, which hath continued all over the Christian World, from the times of the Apostles, etc. Now, his Majesty never did receive any satisfaction from them in any of these three things, as he farther declares, and thereupon complains of their shyness and unwillingness to discover their minds in a matter of so great and necessary consequence: And therefore, he cannot be conceived to have allowed Church-Government to be changeable; or that Humane, or Christian prudence hath any thing to do in the erecting or abolishing of any one sort of it, as Doctor Stillingfleet represents him to have done. Some modes in the execution might, but the two orders did not fall under time and circumstances, in the opinion of this wise King, and eminent Martyr. I confess, how it would have fared with his Majesty, as to these points, if the great boldness and resolution, which since appeared in our Rector of Sutton, had been in the Commissioners, though in a lesser measure, is uncertain. Or had Providence so ordered it, that himself in person had been in Commission with them, Who knows but that he might have made a Convert of his Majesty, and become thereby an happy instrument in preventing the most horrid of Murders, which was, within a very little while after, committed upon him: For in all likelihood, if the King would have submitted in any one of the forementioned points, the Scandal and Dishonour in cutting off his Head, had never fallen upon these three, thereby most unfortunate, Kingdoms. It is certain, that he opposed the change of the Government in the Church, as well as in the State, with his last Blood. But I shall have another opportunity to insist more at large on these things, in my Vindication of his Majesty, and the most eminent Bishops and Doctors of our Church, whom he hath defamed all at once, in that last Chapter of his Irenicum, which I intent to make public in a little time, if God give me Health, and my Superiors give me leave, and therefore shall forbear at present. I'll only add,  
That since you have dealt thus familiarly and plainly with a King, and profess to have assumed your errors from him, I hope your Friend Doctor Burnet will not fall foul upon me any more, for want of Modesty, or for being over-lofty; because I once borrowed a Figure from a Crowned Head, and applied to myself an instance of Policy, that a King of Israel once used. A crime which I do not think so great (in any other eye, but the worthy Doctor's,) as to need a purgation, tho' he urgeth it over and over in his Letters. It is our Duty to imitate the King of Kings in Heaven; and there is something in his Vicegerents on Earth, which may become our imitation also. It is true, that some attributes in God are incommunicable, and unimitable; to attempt them is the height of presumption: and so have Kings their Prerogatives, which no Subject can copy out but by Invasion: And yet the Divinity is again imitable in other attributes, and so are Kings too, in many of their Perfections; and in none more than in their common rules of Policy and Reputation, or in those advices of the like nature with this which was given to King Saul, viz. That he would not employ his Strength against David, who was already at his Footstool; or attempt a Victory by which no advantage could return to him. But it is very usual with a sort of Men, to make shows and jealousies for some things, as the enclosures of Princes, which are not really such, or bring no benefit and security unto them: And again, on the other hand, tread upon that which is really sacred and separate; when they'll inroad and invade without any scruple their Crowns, Dignities and Prerogatives. There are a sort of Men, who start at the biting of a Flea upon a King's hand, and with no concern pour out his Blood upon the Scaffold. They come too near Kings, that do it without a Figure, who stain their sacred Memories, by imputing to them their grosser Errors; who assault their Guards, and confine their Persons, or lead up a Field Conventicle against them. It was one of the usual Aphorisms of King James the First, of blessed Memory: God keep me from my Friends, and I know how to keep myself from my Enemies. If the Doctor please he may say again, The application is somewhat extraordinary: But nevertheless I have made it to myself; and do declare, That I have imitated both the Warlike King of Israel, and the Wise King of England; and it was part of my design in publishing my Discourse of Church Power (which is the very bottom of the Doctor's course Behaviour towards me) to give caution to the People of England, that they beware of their Friends: i. e. a sort of People within ourselves, who go to the House of God with them as Friends, but betray and give up the Rights and Powers of the Church of God to the will of its Enemies; and if they'll do this, they need not fear what their Enemies can do unto them. And I am certain withal, that, that Wise Prince, if he were again among us, would account me neither immodest nor lofty, for imitating his Prudence, and using his Aphorism. But if my Figure be too lofty, and Application extraordinary, in comparing myself to Kings, Doctor Burnet's Figure is as much too low and mean on the other hand, when he compares the King of England to a Postilion; for so he calls Henry VIII. The Postilion of the Reformation, and concludes the Character to befit him too, in his Preface to his History of the Reformation, etc. Surely, however, the waxed Boots and oiled Coat became Luther, or whoever it was represented him in them, they are Robes no ways becoming that great and magnificent King: Besides, not only the dignity of Majesty, but the merit of the Reformation, is much abated and diminished thereby. The Postilion is altogether at the direction, and under the discipline of one in the Box, who commands with a Lash in his hand, and is really his Auriga, Gubernator, sits at the Helm and governs him: And if you had called this great King, the Coachman of the Reformation, the Metaphor had been much more apt, and agreeable. And the reason of the Figure fails also; for, the Reformation was not managed at the rate, and with designs, as when Men ride through thick and thin: That suits a Desperado much better, and describes one that makes strength the Law of Justice, and regards neither right nor wrong; but the aim of the Reformation was, to remove the filth and mire, and purge it away, by casting off the Pope's Supremacy, and other encroachments; and to reassume that supreme Right of our Kings, annexed by the anteceding Laws of our Land to their Crown Imperial. And since he has lighted on so unseemly a Similitude, taken from the puddle, the Scavinger of the Reformation had been a more apt and proper Epithet. Furthermore, I will appeal to the whole World, whether it be not more pardonable to imitate a King in his laudable Actions and Policies, performable by him as a Man, than to resemble him to so base and abject a person, as a Postilion is known to be. The Doctor very well knows, that this is one rule always to be observed in taking a Metaphor, That it be not from any thing filthy or sordid, especially when the Translation is to Kings; and it is very much to his disrepute, that he who values himself at so great a rate for his stile and oratory, should so grossly fail in the common and known rule of a Similitude. And yet I will not be over rash, and impute all to his mistake. The intimacy that he says he had with Mr. William Petit, Councillor of the Inner-Temple; and that he had his Assistance and Directions, as to the Laws and Customs of this Nation, in writing his History of the Reformation, give some suspicion, that he might have no very high thoughts of our Kings. Mr. Petit's late Printed Book indicateth too much of his Temper, and his choice of Doctor Burnet; for the digesting and publishing his Collections, argue too much of Doctor Bunnets also; and there's no question to be made, but that they consulted together, as, in order to the composing of the History of the Reformation of the Church, so, for the writing of that History of the Reformation of Kings, which Mr. Petit a little after published under the Title of, The Ancient Rights of the Commons of England, etc. in the Preface to which, he delivers this as an undoubted and authentic story. Apud Britannos populus magna ex parte principatum tenet, pag. 4. and pag. 6. De minoribus rebus principes consultant, de majoribus omnes. Among the Britain's, the People have the Government for the most part. The [Princess] consult concerning the lesser things, but [All] concerning the greater. And further says, That Parliaments were instituted to hear and determine the Complaints, and the wrongful Acts of the King, the Queen, and their Children. Now all this very well agrees with the Metaphor of the Postilion; and we may also hence conclude, That it was not from the Doctor's principles of Government, but some other particular interest (which is easily discerned) that he publicly declared at the King's-Bench in Westminster-Hall, He did not believe that part of the late most hellish Plot, against the Person and Dignities of our late Sovereign King Charles II. of blessed Memory, which was laid for seizing his Person, and giving him only some due Chastisement.  
Your disingenuity to your Superiors in the Church, is as great as your injustice to King Charles the First: of which an higher instance cannot be given, than to represent them as Patrons to your Errors, because they have been civil to your Person. There is, I see, great care to be taken of treating some Men with common kindness: And the arguing seems more particularly unbecoming those of your Complexion, or Moderation; whose temperamentum ad pondus, or just mixture, consists in this, viz. To indulge every Man in his particular judgement, and treat him with a fair converse, when retaining quite different sentiments from him. And I am very confident that yourself will take it very ill from that Man which shall call you Fanatic, because you have trimmed for them, and drawn up a scheme of comprehension, and had so frequent meetings with them at Doctor Burton's Chamber. Besides, the grand Case at the King's Bench-Bar at Westminster-Hall, last Summer, has made it fully appear, That a Man may be under a heavy guilt, and yet, such be the circumstances as to persons and things, that his Superiors cannot, with prudence, call him to an account, and retribute to him his condign punishment; nay farther, so hard may the necessity be, as to enforce from them a civil treat, and with more especial kindness.  
You plead, That before the Church was reestablished, you received Episcopal Orders from an excellent Bishop of this Church: which may be true; and I question not but that it is: But it is no proof that you were then an Episcopal Divine. Several in those days took that prudent way, upon this consideration; because, tho' some denied a Presbyter to be a Bishop, yet all owned a Bishop to be a Presbyter; and consequently must accept of your Ordination: The divine appropriated Right of the Bishop, and singular Power, enstated on him by Christ, might not be considered by you in that action.  
And in the last place; you are very unjust to me, in adding to all your other Calumnies, this one, viz. That I am therefore so severe unto you, and enhaunse your supposed crime, because an Offender myself; as if it were some atonement for my own miscarriages, to be always finding fault with my Brethren. And tho' this Scandal be of less concern to the public, than those other which you laid upon the Royal Martyr, and your Church Governors; yet it is every way as groundless and false. Whatever my other failings have been; yet I dare appeal to, and do provoke my greatest Enemies to produce one instance wherein I have declined, or warped from any one public duty, interpretable to be incumbent upon me, as a Subject or a Churchman: But those Men that answer Books by Reproaches, and purge themselves by Recriminations, must be allowed to make use of all the Topics that are within that compass; and to improve their design by the general advantages it tenders to them. A method used by your predecessor Dr. Burnet, who after this manner discharges his Gall upon me. You are pleased to acquaint the world, That you received Episcopal Orders in the late Confusion; and think it sufficient to vouch your early Zeal for our Church and Episcopacy. I can say more, That in the year 1658, I was made a Deacon by that most worthy Father and reverend Prelate, Brian, than Lord Bishop of Sarum; and within that year had the further Power of the Priesthood conferred upon me: And by virtue of this power I served the Church in the daily Ministrations, according to the Rubrics and Law established, but not protected, among us, the secular Power being disenabled to do it, by reason of that most horrid Rebellion which was then prosperous. I served the Church when she was not able to reward me; when without a prospect of it; and have had the honour to attend Mr. Peter Gunning, at Exeter Chapel, with the Chalice: One that then looked the Tyrant in the face, 
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. Clem. Strom. 4. p. 480.  and whom the Church of God, in ancient times would have placed among her most renowned Martyrs, tho' he died in his Bed, full of years and honour but the other day; being Lord Bishop of Ely. And thus I have answered those little pleas you have given in for yourself; and wiped off those Calumnies that you laid upon me; and finished my first part.  
Secondly, I shall make it appear that the account you give of your Irenicum, is not fair nor true, and that you conceal your crime as much as in you lies in the representation; the Design and Plot of it being mostly laid, if not altogether, against the Church of England. And this I undertake to make good in these following Particulars.  
1. The main subject of your present debate, you say, is this, Whether any one particular Form of Church-Government be settled upon an unalterable divine Right, by Virtue whereof, all Churches are bound to observe that individual Form? or, Whether it be left to the prudence of every particular Church, to agree upon that Form of Government, which it judgeth most conducible within itself, to attain the end of Government, the Peace, Order, Tranquillity, Setlement of the Church? as is to be seen in the latter end of your Preface, and Part 1. c. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 4. The first you determine in the Negative, the second in the Affirmative; the issue of both is this, That God by his own Laws hath given Men a Power and Liberty, to determine the particular Form of Church-Government among them; (you had done well if you had produced this Law of God, and what the express words of it are; none other being sufficient for a lasting divine institution by your own Rules: but this is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉) That tho' one Form of Government be agreeable to the word, it doth not follow that another is not; or because one is lawful, another is unlawful, but one Form may be more agreeable to some parts, places, people, and time, than others are: That the case is the same as to Church Government, whether by many joined together in an equality, or by subordination of some persons unto others, as it is to dipping or sprinkling in Baptism, whether thrice or once? As to attending the Lords Table, whether at Supper time, or in the Morning, fasting or after meat? (You add, whether kneeling, or sitting, or leaning:) and as to preaching the word, you mean doubtless, Whether by an Hourglass, or not? Vid. Part I. Cap. 1. Sect. 1. pag. 3. §. 2. p. 9, 10. Part. II. Cap. 4. §. 2. etc. And hence it is as plain and obvious as words and consequences can make it: That by the Law of God, enstating Mankind with this perpetual indefectible Power, the Independent Congregational Form of Government, is equally to be received as the Presbyterian and Classical; and either of them, as the Episcopal and the Papal, hath as firm a bottom as any of them all; any one of them ought to be called, and really is, the Church of England, and of God, within this Dominion, if the Pastors, or the Magistrate, or (when these are knocked o'th' head) the People, or any one prevailing interest or faction, shall appoint and settle it among us. So that now you are for a Toleration of several Forms of Government, by the Authority of the Church of England: And it is plain whence our Sects had it, when with so much confidence they said upon each occasion (having obtained an indulgence from his late Majesty) That they were the Church of England, they meant according to Dr. Stilling fleet's Irenicum. And indeed according to this Principle of yours, Richard Baxter's Conventicle in St. Martin's Parish in the Fields, was once as much of the Church of England, as Dr. Stillingfleet's Church in St. Andrew's Holborn: Neither is this the only Case that they use your Authority in, thereby to rend in pieces this Church; and I did not speak improperly, nor without reason, when I called that Treatise an unlucky Book. This issue is plainly and clearly set down by Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan, Part III. Cap. 42. pag. 299, 300. and upon your very Principles, to whom you had an Ear no doubt; From this consolidation of the Rights Politic and Ecclesiastic in Christian Sovereigns, it is evident they have all manner of Power over their Subjects, that can be given to Man, for the Government of men's external Actions, both in Policy and Religion; and may make such Laws, as themselves shall judge fittest for the Government of their own Subjects, both as they are the Commonwealth, and as they are the Church: For both Church and State are the same Men, (which is your very notion, as will appear anon.) If they please therefore they may (as many Christian Kings now do) commit the Government of their Subjects in matters of Religion to the Pope; but then the Pope is in that point subordinate to them, and exercises that charge in another's Dominion, jure civili, in the right of the civil Sovereign, not jure divino, in God's right; and may therefore be discharged of that office, when the Sovereign for the good of his Subjects shall think it necessary. They may also, if they please, commit the care of Religion to one supreme Pastor, or to an Assembly of Pastors, and give them what power over the Church, or over one another, they think most convenient; and what Titles of Honour, as of Bishops, Archbishops, Priests or Presbyters, they will;— and these Rights are incident to all Severeigns, whether Monarches or Assemblies: For they that are representants of a Christian People, are representants of the Church; for a Church and a Commonwealth of Christian People, are the same thing. The inconsistences and most pernicious, insufferable consequents of this Principle, are abundantly represented to the World, by a most judicious Hand, in the Case of the Church of England, Part III. more particularly pag. 246, 247, etc.  
2. You deny Episcopacy in particular, or a Disparity of Power in the Ministry, to be by the Laws of Christ, always binding and immutable; wherein you oppose, to be sure, the Church of England: And further, the overthrowing the immutable Right of Episcopacy, seems to be the main thing you aim at throughout the whole Discourse, (tho' you pretend more;) for the management of which, you all along mingle Fire and Water together, urging any thing that will give a varnish, or make a show of Argument in order to it, tho' really destructive to the common Christianity we all profess; but either lightly touch, or designedly pass by, the most credible motives, even demonstrations to the contrary; even those which have been owned for such by yourself in the like cases. This will appear to him that weighs these following Considerations.  
To avoid this prelatical Power, or Superiority of our Bishops, you tell us, That tho' it be proved that the Apostles had a Superiority of Order, and Jurisdiction over the Pastors of the Church by an Act of Christ; yet it must be farther proved, That it was Christ's intention, that Superiority should continue in their Successors, or it makes nothing to the purpose, Part I. Cap. 1. §. 8. pag. 25. Where, you do not consider, That tho' it be proved that St. Peter and the other Apostles had, by an Act of Christ, the power of the Keys delivered unto them, and thereby were invested, in their Persons, with the Ministerial Authority; yet, upon the same terms, it must be farther proved, That it was Christ's Intention that the same power should continue in their Successors, or it makes no more to the purpose for a settled Ministry, than it does for a fixed Episcopacy; and this same Argument which overthrows a Superiority of Churchmen over one another, for want of an Express of Christ's intention to continue it always, overthrows also the Ministry itself, both having the same bottom and alike promises. This the Independent and Socinian saw, and considered full well, and upon your own grounds reject them both together with the two Sacraments; because there are no express Texts declaring their Perpetuity. But this is agreeable enough with the Rector of Sutton; who, as he makes all Gospel-Laws for Church-Government an Escheat to Westminster-Hall: so is he to be supposed to receive none as perpetually obliging, except those that are made and conveyed in the Hall-Phrase, and by its Precedents, with an express Declaration, Entailing them upon the Heirs and Successors for ever.  
But, because Apostolical practice still presses you hard, whose force, apart from the Act and Donation of our Saviour, seems to infer a divine Right (the matter of Fact being apparent and beyond contradiction, That the Apostles were invested with a Superiority beyond Bishops and Presbyters, and did accordingly execute it.) Hereupon, with a deep design, but very Superficial Policy, that is easily seen through and baffled, you place their juridical consistorial Acts and Practices, amongst those other Acts and Practices of theirs, that were purely occasional, and with regard to the present times and circumstances; such as, abstaining from Blood and things strangled, eating or not eating, the order of Widows, the Love-Kiss, Celibacy, St. Paul's working with his own Hands, Preaching the Gospel freely, Circumcising Timothy, etc. all which are confessedly mutable, and did alter in a very little time, both in their Practice and Obligation. But your Error is not only in ranging these quite different Practices, under the same head and order, whose distant natures are so plain and obvious; but in that you do not consider that the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism, will, for the same reason, come under that head of Indifferencies, and Practices mutable: and therein (besides the ill consequences in Religion) you plainly contradict yourself, who tell us at the same time, and in the same Section (and in doing of it dart yourself through with your own Weapon) That tho' there be no particular express Revelation for the Lord's Day and Infant-Baptism; yet Practise Apostolical, or of Persons guided by an Infallible Spirit, is sufficient to enact and declare them perpetually obliging. For, surely, Apostolical practice, guided by an infallible Spirit, is equally manifest son a Superiority in the Ministry, as for those two: It is far more notorious and frequent; but your Plot that was laid against the Immutability of Episcopacy, engaged you to take no notice of it, vid. Part I. Sect. 3. Part. II. §. 20.  
Farther yet, That you may be every ways secure in your design, and wholly baffle and defeat all Plea for a divine and immutable Right from Apostolical Practice in the point of Episcopacy; you go on in a sure way, treading Antiquity under your Foot, and impleading the most holy Primitive Bishops and Confessors of Defectiveness, Ambiguity, Partiality and Repugnancy, that hereby you may root out their Order, and destroy it from the Face of the Earth; and you say in so many words, That we cannot have that certainty of Apostolical Practice, as to constitute a Divine Right. It is not my business to argue points, but to collect your particular Opinions, or rather to write the History of your Theology; otherwise I might here reply by demanding, How, and by what hands it is that we have any certainty of the Apostolical Writings? or know their minds and intentions there? The Church hath all along received the Canon, and Sense of the Scriptures, from the Faith and certainty of Antiquity, and the repute and integrity of these holy Bishops, Martyrs and Confessors: Our Church of England certainly does so, and they are her Rule in Reforming, as to both: and when the Authority of some Books of the New Testament were called in question, the Tradition of Faith alone declared them Canonical, and they remain such upon that Testimony, in the account of the whole Christian World to this day. And why then is the same evidence defective and less authoritative concerning their practice, and sense in the point of Government? But thus you expose the Scriptures, their Authority, their Sense to every Atheist and Enthusiust, to uncertainties and conjectures; or at the best to the intemperance of each violent, heady and sceptical undertaker: And thus it comes to pass that so much work is made for a Nicephorus Calisthus, a Simeon Metaphrastes, the very Jacobus de Voragine of the Greek Church, those Tinkers that think to mend a hole, and make three instead of it; you taking away hereby the great evidence and muniments of our Christianity, both as to the matter of Fact, and the intent of it; that which is next to the Foundation, is cast down, and what can the Righteous do? Hence so many Whimsies and Forgeries of men's Brains, and monstrous Opinions fill up our Bodies of Divinity (and your many forms of Government, as by Divine Right are no less portentous than any of them) as Geographers do Maps with some fabulous Creatures of their own Inventions. Our Church of England, I say, in her Reformation supposes certainty and sufficiency in the Records of the Primitive Church; and, that matter of Fact is faithfully transmitted down unto us, with the true sense of the Scriptures and Apostolical Practice, both in matter of Doctrine and Government; and her Reformation is received by the Civil Power, and made Law in the Kingdom upon these terms alone; viz. As bottomed on the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and what the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have thence collected, particularly in the Four first General Councils, or any other Council, X. Elizabethae, Cap. I. Sect. xxxvi. And yet upon a Scandalous Interpretation of Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. Lib. 3. Cap. 4.) perverting his Sense, quite contrary to his plain words and design, (which is to set forth the Succession of Bishops immediately from the Apostles, over the known Parts of Christendom) you blast the credit of all Antiquity, and that with as much show of rancour and contempt, as the scornfullest manner of expressing yourself can declare. What becomes then (with our Rector of Sutton) of our unquestionable Line of Succession of Bishops of several Churches, and the large Diagram made of Apostolical Churches, with every one's name set down in his order, as if the Writer had been Clarenceaux to the Apostles themselves? Is it come to this at last, that we have nothing certain, but what we have in the Scriptures? And must then Tradition be our rule to interpret Scripture by? An excellent way to find out the truth, doubtless; to bend the Rule to the crooked Stick; to make the Judge stand to the Opinion of his Lackey, what Sense he shall pass upon the Cause in question; to make Scripture to stand Cap in Hand to Tradition, to know whether it may have leave to speak or no. Are all the great outcries of Apostolical Tradition, of personal Succession, of unquestionable Records, resolved at last into Scripture itself by him, from whom these long Pedigrees are fetched? Then let Succession know its place, and learn to veil Bonnet to the Scriptures; and withal, Let Men take heed of overreaching themselves, when they would bring down so large a Catalogue of single Bishops, from the first and purest times of the Church: For if Eusebius professeth it so hard to find them, well might Scaliger then complain, that the Interval from the last Chapter of the Acts, to the middle of Trajan, in which time Quadratus and Ignatius began to flourish, was tempus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, as Varro speaks, a mere Chaos of time, filled up with rude conceptions of Papias, Hermes, and others, who like Hannibal, when they could not find a way through, would make one either by force or fraud. Rare embellishments of stile and choice Oratory all along! When others plead for a Succession of Persons in Apostolical Power, out of Irenaeus, and Tertullian, you shuffle them of, and say, That those Fathers are to be interpreted of Succession in that Apostolical Doctrine, which was so eminent and notorious at Rome, Smyrna, Corinth, Philippi and Ephesus: Now you deny the truth of Succession, as to Doctrines also; but you are in an high strain of Oratory, which is a kind of natural Enthusiasm or worse, and your indisposition plainly appears, in that you give such grave advice to these traditional Doctors; that they place not Succession before the Scriptures: You can only mean, that they deduce it not from Felix or Pontius Pilate, Annas and Caiaphas, the High-Priests, or the Jewish Sanhedrim. And have not Scaliger and you finely combined together, in giving a Character of the times immediately after the Apostles, as filled only with fraud and force? And for this reason alone, Lest an unquestionable Succession of Bishops from the Apostles should appear, and their Divine Right become thereby undeniable, vid. Iren. p. 2. c. 6. §. 15, 16, 17.  
Besides, it hence plainly appears what your purpose was in writing this Treatise, in that you have sided all along with the foreign Divines, and used their Arguments against the Divine Right of Episcopacy. It is the common policy, when Men design to divest any Person or Order of that superior power which they cannot well bear, or rather desire to have enstated on themselves, first to set up for a level, and the Project works mightily. Thus we know the thing aimed at in the beginning of the great Rebellion here in England, was, That the King, Lords, and Commons were three equal States. And when by this stratagem they had wrested the King's Prerogative out of his hands, they then soon made themselves uppermost, assumed and appropriated that very power, they had so violently contended against, as what ought not to be fixed, except in the three Estates in conjunction. So here, your shame is, That all forms of Government are equally practicable; no one being of Divine Right, in that nature as to exclude another; but any one may be established, as Persons, Times and Places accord thereunto. But then your Eisotericks, or that which you effectually recommend to your particular Friends and Confidents, is, The perpetual fixation of the Presbyter, as by Divine Right unalterable; and having hereby lowered the Bishop's topsail (in your own expression) and removed from him all that which hath been heretofore appropriated to his Order, asserting him to be an accidental humane creation only; in this Stirrup the Presbyter sets his foot, and ascends; (as the Assembly-men did at Westminster.) You invest him with the full power of Order and Jurisdiction; and accordingly thus determine, Part II. c. 4. §. 12. That every Presbyter (from Christ, and perpetually fixed, Cap. 2.) hath the whole Ministry derived unto him in actu primo habitualiter; viz. The Power of Preaching the Word, Visiting the Sick, Administering the Sacraments, of Visiting Churches, Taking care that particular Pastors do their duty, of Ordination and Church Censures, and making Rules for Decency in the Church: (The severest Asserter of Episcopal Power cannot invest his Bishop in more.) And the same in effect you say over again: That every Presbyter (whom you call a fixed Officer in the Church) hath a radical,  Power of Order in himself: And further, That every one, being himself advanced into the Authority of a Church Governor, hath an internal Power of conferring the same upon Persons fit for it; and accordingly every one did exercise this Power in the Churches first State and Period; or, In the first Primitive Church, before the Jurisdiction of Presbyters was restrained by mutual consent; by way of accumulation, upon one Person, of a power more than he had; not by a deprivation of themselves of that inherent Power which they enjoyed.— It would be very strange that any Officers of a Religious Society, should be upon that account Outlawed of those natural Liberties, which are the results and products of the free actings, (pag. 252.) To which you add, That whole Churches, and Nations were without Bishops for several Years together; some of which had only Presbyters at their first Planting; and in those Churches where Episcopal Government was settled, Ordination by Presbyters was looked upon as valid, notwithstanding; which could not be, unless their Ordainers had an intrinsecal Power of Ordination; or, had they not been a fixed Order, under no prohibition by Scripture; (Part II. c. 6. §. 13. pag. 273, 275. cap. 7. §. 6, 7.) In all which, I say, (whatever you have pretended against the divine perpetual Right of any one individual Government, that the Bishop might fall with more gentleness and plausibility) You set up a fixed lasting Government in the Church by Presbyters, as unalterable as the Ministry itself; in whom you place the whole Power of the Ministry, never to be alienated or lost by any authority, or under any accident, they receiving this Power with their Ordination in actu primo habitualiter, radicaliter, intrinsically: and their execution of it is effectual, at any time, and in any place, even to Ordination itself; and the Church hath approved and accepted of it; as when Paphnutius (tho' but a Presbyter) Ordained Abbot Daniel and Colluthus Ischyras, etc. (pag. 379.) And hereby you give to many of the principal Patrons of the Presbyterian Parity, (as Calvin, Beza, Chamier, Gersom, Bucer, Du Moulin, even Salmasius, Blondel and Daillée) what they desire and contend for; they having all along allowed of our Hierarchy upon your terms: And all the advantage the Church of England receives by the Irenicum, is, You make Bishops for her, as the Common-wealth-men make Kings, by Accumulation, not Deprivation (in your Expressions just now mentioned;) and consequently, retaining the Power entire to themselves, they unmake them again when they please; or, (to express it farther in your own words, which are the aptest I have met withal) When Persons and Circumstances, Prudence and Discretion, or the Interest of the Government requires it. And so the Bishop (like those inferior Officers of old, as Subdeacons, Acolouthi, Doorkeepers, etc.) may be outed, as the Perpetual Presbyter shall see occasion. Mr. Prolocutor to the Assembly-men at Westminster, never spoke more bravely to the point. And to fix all this surely on the less wary, and inconsiderate Reader, as a Nail driven by the Masters of our Assembly also, you bring in several of our own Bishops for evidence against themselves, and their Order, in the days of Edward VI and our whole Church established by Law, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth: As is to be seen in your Manuscripts, and those other Citations throughout your last Chapter. And when you had with so much ease and scorn rejected the Doctrines of all the Primitive Bishops in the case, it was no small piece of confidence to think to carry your Cause by the testimony (whether true or false) of our own Prelates of the last Age. But you are not content to overthrow their Order, unless you may fix such a Scandal upon their Persons, as the Betrayers of it.  
And, indeed, your stating this case of the mutability of Episcopacy, can be only a design to fool and baffle it, and thereby render it a very Babel or Idol, in the language of its madder Adversaries; and in the conception of every one else, so trivially accidental a thing, that it cannot be really contended for upon a Church account; every accident giving occasion (though Prudence will always be pretended) for its abolition. And it is observable, That there are not any of your judgement that conclude themselves under an obligation to adhere unto it, any longer than it supports and serves them by the advantage of the secular Power. As the Church is that Tree in the Psalmist; so Episcopacy is one of its bearing Boughs, in which you can be content to sit and sing, so long as you fill your Pockets; but when the gathering time is over, it is to be cut down as that which cumbereth the ground: And you plead the same express directions for it our Saviour once gave concerning the Figtree in the Gospel. I'll state it together with the Presbyterian and Episcopal Hypotheses, thereby to make it obvious upon the naked prospect. The Presbyterian asserts, That each Presbyter hath the whole Power of the Ministry, and is enabled to discharge every Church-Office; and that a restraint or enlargement is sinful. The Episcoparian asserts, That this Power is placed in the Bishop and Presbyter; but unequally: And that the Bishop hath some instances of it, peculiar to his Order, as Prerogatives, and Incommunicable; which if laid aside, will be Sacrilege in him, as also if assumed by the Presbyter. You assert all that in the Presbyter, and lose all that from the Bishop, that the Presbyter desires and contends for: only here is the difference; You allow the Presbytery, upon some occasions, and in some instances of their Office, to make a Deputy, with a reserved Power to recall the Deputation at pleasure, or upon each suspicion of his undue behaviour. And this is the honour and service you do the Church of England; These the Dissenters, you tell us, you designed to gain upon; and that your design did not want success both here and in a neighbouring Kingdom. If you mean our Northern Neighbours, I hope Episcopacy is settled there upon better grounds: if it be not, some of the thanks for it are due to you. If you mean our Neighbours in the South; they came over indeed, but it is with their own Presbyterian Orders, which they still adhere to as their commission from Christ: The Episcopal Ordination which they receive here, only enabling them for the Loaves; to which they could have no right otherways, by the Laws of our Kingdom. And accordingly D. Blondel first offered his assistance to Archbishop Laud, to write in defence of our Episcopacy, whilst it was uppermost; but upon the ensuing Rebellion he deserted it; nay he turned his weapons against it: Witness his Apologia pro Hieronymo, which he Dedicated to the Rebellious Parliament, and Schismatical Assembly at Westminster; owning thereby the Usurpation of the Regal Power in one; and of the Episcopal in the other. Salmasius did, in effect, the same; and within the space of four Years, both applauds and condemns Episcopacy, and the Rump Parliament for removing it, according to his present subject and design; and John Milton, the worst of Men, takes from thence a just occasion to harangue and vilify him, in the Preface to his worst of Books, Entitled, Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio. And the reasons for it are plain, as themselves state the case: the Bishop's Consecration being only an humane Rite, performed at his Deputation and Enlargement to the execution of that Power which he had before, when he was made a Presbyter; by virtue of which, there is no farther power conferred; but only a Church Blessing, with Imposition of Hands; a legally qualifying him for possession, according to the particular custom of that Kingdom in which he is to exercise his Episcopal Function. And lastly, for our own Countrymen; it may be wished some of them have not on this score also received Episcopal Ordination; and then they may be bound to thank you, because they kept their Benefices thereby, and had farther accession of Church Dignities, upon his late Majesty's blessed return: But I cannot think it is for this, that your Superiors in the Church have for so long a time been pleased to treat you with that kindness you seem to boast of. Sure I am, all the kindness you have done hereby to the Church of England and her Bishops, may be put in their Eyes, and they see never the worse for it. Tho' I will not say so of the unkindness she hath received from you.  
Besides, it will farther appear with what affection and bias you wrote this Treatise, if we consider your different behaviour to the Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England; and the Presbyterians, Independents, even Anabaptists and Quakers, upon each occasion. It is but a little to reflect upon those slender civilities, which you show all along to that great and eminent Divine, Dr. Henry Hammond, one that was every ways great and considerable, provoking reverence and respect from his Adversaries, that were in any measure civilised: Such was his Learning, Integrity, Courage, in those perilous times he lived in; the Ark itself rested peculiarly upon his Shoulders. But, I say, your unhandsome behaviour to him may easier be passed by, because he was but one single Doctor in our Church; you seem to treat him with disdain (tho', all things considered, there was then as great a distance betwixt him and the Rector of Sutton, as there is now betwixt the Vicar of Cosmus Blene, and the Dean of St. Paul's;) you reject at once his Five and thirty Testimonies, produced out of St. Ignatius in the behalf of Episcopacy, as inconluding: Even that one, which seems to have some Semblance, you say is clearly mistaken; and your proof is so precarious and inconsistent, that there needs no other evidence of your partiality, and that your Plot was only to expose Him and the Cause. (Part. II. c. 6. §. 17. p. 309.) And no wonder when you have rejected Ignatius himself, as Spurious and Counterfeit; and the story of him (as much as it is defended with his Epistles) as not to seem any of the most probable; placing it among the uncertain fabulous narrations of Antiquity, (§. 16. p. 298.) When you have derided all Antiquity at once, you go on against our most worthy Doctor, rejecting what is offered by him, as that which hath neither evidence nor pertinency enough to stop the passage of one who is returning to his former matter: that is, in plain English, it is not worth the consideration of your pondering self, employed on a more pertinent and advantageous subject, and which hath better motives of credibility. (Sect. 9 pag. 260.) You farther yet represent him (if possible) more contemptible, and as one that betrays the Reformation by his infirm Hypothesis, which was built upon reasons of greater strength and evidence, than what he hath pleaded. (§. 9 p. 258.) Once more, and which may go for all, You represent him as a Rattle Head, without any show or appearance of Reason, and his performance (with the embellishment of your rare Similitude) is thus expressed, Only the Wind-Egg of a working Fancy, that wants a shell of Reason to cover it: When all may be true that he there asserts, notwithstanding your Eight Reasons that are brought against it, (Cap. 6. §. 3.) However your Metaphor is to be admired, especially for the great humility of it: It is not like that lofty Similitude some have used, borrowed from a Crowned Head, but from an Egg shell; and nothing but another of your own can parallel it, only the strain is a little higher, and you strike at all Mankind therewith, which doth not think, opine, reason (in the words of the Leviathan, and with the same haughtiness) as you do: Which prejudice being the Yellow-Jaundice of the Soul, leaves such a Tincture upon the Eyes of the understanding, that till it be cured of that Icterism, it cannot see things in their proper colours. (Sect. 2. c. 5. p. 200.)  
You go on from Dr. Hammond to the whole Church of England, which you hit at one blow; and enquiring more strictly into the causes of the great Distances and Animosities, which have risen upon this Controversy, you fix upon the Episcopal Men, as the Troublers of Israel, whom you thus divide. Those whom the prevalency of Faction and Interest overruled, their Revenues having come from the Rents of the Church (which is the odious old way of Characterizing (for scorn and contempt) to the People the ancient and zealous Bishops and Clergy of our Church) and others of greater Integrity; (you mean that were less Covetous and Rapacious, and believed their Order to be more than their Revenues;) but descend also with this false Principle or Hypothesis, which Men are apt to take for granted without proving it, viz. That it is in no case lawful to vary from that Form, which by obscure and uncertain Conjectures, they conceive to have been the Primitive Practice. (Part I. c. 1. §. 1. p. 4.) And as you begin, so you end, fixing this farther Character upon them, in your last Chapter; I know it is the last Asylum which many run to, (meaning such as found all things upon a Divine Right,) when they are beaten off from their Imaginary Fancies, by pregnant testimonies of Scripture and Reason, to shelter themselves under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of some particular persons, to which their understandings are bored in perpetual Slavery: But if Men would once think their understandings at age to judge for themselves, and not make them live under a perpetual Pupillage, etc. rendering hereby our most eminent Clergy as such Ignaro's, that they understand not the State of their own Church, which they have Subscribed and Sworn unto, and as she determined in the days of Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, (from pag. 384. to p. 394.) And the greatest part of that Chapter is spent in representing our Bishops and Doctors to be against themselves, to their manifest injury, reproach and dishonour, as I shall make it appear in public in a very little time, if God continue me Life and Health. And if at any time you give a Church of England Man his due, or a favourable Character, it is when he is on your side, or the question of Divine Right is not under debate, or you design thereby to advance your own cause; and you range him with our Reverend and Learned Mr. Baxter in his Christian Concord; and then he must be a pure Church of England Man in your conceptions of him.  
But when you have to deal with any of the other Parties, even to Anabaptists and Quakers, your behaviour towards them is after another rate; you argue as one that is evidently biased, and with apparent shows of tenderness and affection; the same hand, and at the same time, grants their pardon, that contends with and opposes them: They are not represented to be the Men that are overruled by Faction and Interest, or their Church Rents, with understandings bored in perpetual slavery; but as Men of great Moderation, whose Errors are the Religious weakness of well-meaning but less knowing People. (Part I. c. 2. §. 11. pag. 63. to 70. c. 6. §. 4.7. pag. 122, 128, etc. Part II. c. 7. §. 2. pag. 339, 348, etc.) In short, in the very first Chapter of your Book, you appear particularly cautious of preserving your reputation entire with the Presbyterian Party, at least the mobile of them; and confess so much in your Epistle Dedicatory to my Lord of London; acquainting his Lordship, That when you set yourself to answer their Arguments for a Perpetual Right of Presbyterian Parity, you did it without mentioning their Books. The meaning of which can only be this, That it was done with as little disadvantage to the Party as you could: That you made no such signal Remarks, Exclamations and Excursions against the Divine Right of Presbytery and its Maintainers, as you did against the Divine Right of Episcopacy, and those that asserted it. Nay, you state the case and apply it directly and solely against Episcopacy, or a Superiority of Order and Jurisdiction over the Pastors of the Church, (Sect. 8. p. 25.) which was not fair, nor consequently a due means to bring those over to a compliance to the Church of England, (than likely to be reestablished,) who stood upon the supposition, That Christ had appointed a Presbyterian Government to be always continued in his Church. And it is easily observable, that you have omitted nothing that was pleaded by them, whereby Prelacy might be rendered detestable as an unlawful Usurpation: but whether you have done the same, thereby to render Presbytery as such, I appeal to that very Chapter. You are so far from it, that the same design is managed throughout the whole Book, where your Plea is against the Divine Right of any one individual Form of Government; but the instance is mostly against Episcopacy: Presbytery is seldom mentioned with any mark of disrespect; or if it be, it is accidentally. I do not remember any one set discourse particularly leveled against it, as there is sometimes against the Independents, but all along against the Church of England; both in this and several other of her most considerable Tenants, and Articles. Nay, you expressly, and in so many words, give the precedency to Presbytery, founding it upon one of your necessary and unalterable Divine Rights, (Part I. c. 1. §. 7, 8. pag. 23, 26.) and say, That the Presbyterians seem more generally to own the use of General Rules, and the light of Nature, in order to the Form of Church-Government, as in the Subordination of Courts, Classical Assemblies, and the more moderate sort, as to Lay-Elders: And to the Independents in the next place, who plead the general Rules of Scripture, and evidence of natural Reason. Now all this you must be supposed to remove from the Episcoparians, because therein you place the opposition, if you do any thing. And besides, you say further, The Episcopal Men will hardly find any evidence in Scripture, or the Practice of the Apostles, for Churches consisting of many Congregations for Worship, under the charge of one Person in the Primitive Church for the Ordination of a Bishop, without the preceding Election of the Clergy, and at least consent and approbation of the People; and neither in Scripture nor Antiquity, the least Footstep of a delegation of Church-Power; and leave them no other Foundation, but the Principles of humane Prudence, and those not very well observed. (Pag. 416, 417.) So then, upon the winding up of your Book, the Church of England is represented, without evidence of natural Reason, and the Rules of the Light of Nature, with little evidence from Scripture, or the Practice of the Apostles, in some instances of her Worship and Discipline; but with none in others; neither is Prudence her constant Guide. And was not this a hopeful way and delicate means to bring over Dissenters to a compliance with the Church of England, then likely to be established? But none of it is to be wondered at, if we consider the account you have given of the Government of our Church, in the name of the Foreign Divines a little before, (pag. 409.) and the inconveniencies it is liable unto, as a step to Pride and Ambition, and an occasion whereby Men might do the Church injury by the excess of their Power, if they were not Men of excellent Temper and Moderation; insomuch, that our Bishops are begged rather to lay down their Power, than to transmit that Power to those after them, who, it may be, were not like to succeed them in their Meekness and Moderation; and at last they are left to the Judgement of those who have the Power, not only to redress, but prevent abuses encroaching by an irregular Power.  
And yet you have not left her barely to her Judges, (or the Civil Magistrate, for such you can be interpreted only to mean,) to stand and fall at their discretion; yourself appear as Council against her, prepossessing them with new fears and jealousies; to which purpose you produce a ridiculous Prediction of Padre Paulo, viz. That the Church of England would then find the inconveniencies of Episcopacy, when an high Spirited Bishop should come once to rule the Church: A Prophecy, that in all likelihood was forged in the Brain of some Puritan; and my reason for it is, Because I find it placed in the front of a Latin Treatise, writ by one of great intemperance and violence against the Church of England; the Title whereof is, Irenaei Philadelphi Epistola ad Renatum Virideum, in qua aperitur mysterium iniquitatis novissimè in Anglia redivivum, & excutitur liber Josephi Hall, quo asseritur Episcopatum esse Juris Divini. Eleutheropoli, 1641. The design of it is to inveigh against the praetorian Authority of Bishops, with their Pride and Usurpation over the Clergy: and he states the case just as you have done in your Irenicum, viz. against their Solitary appropriated Power by Divine Right, allowing a Ministry by the Law of Christ; and that general Rules are given in Scripture, for the great ends of Peace and Order. But the particular Form depends upon the choice of the Presbyters, and as they do judge it best agreeing with that Kingdom or Commonwealth in which it is settled. So than it seems, the Presbyterians first instructed and brought over you, not you them; (as you told my Lord of London.) And this also confirms what I said before, viz. That you come up to the principles of them all, excepting some of the rigider Scots, who believe that no Church is duly administered, where there are Bishops; from whom my Worshipful Author declares his dissent, tho' he is never the nearer to the Church of England for it; (that is purely your mistake;) and he, notwithstanding, follows on his design against our Church, with all manner of indecency and dirty Language: He gins with Archbishop Land, and takes occasion to vilify him by reason of his Book against Fisher, as worth no Man's reading, and that it is unsaleable 
(a) Quis enim operam perdere voluerit in evolvendo hoc libro quem audio fidum esse custodem officinae bibliopola●um? : thence he goes on to Richard Montacute, Bishop of Norwich; upon whom he empties his Spleen, calling him a Chief Coal-blower 
(b) 〈◊〉 ciniflones Archiepiscopalis culinae primas tenet.  in the Archbishop's Kitchen; reviling him as wise in his 
(c) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉.  own Eyes: swelled with Pride and Malice; with a little learning, but more of self-conceit. Bishop Andrews is his next Man; whom he accuses of Plagiarism, and for stealing his determination against Usury out of Rivette; upbraiding him for his ill stile 
(d) De ferreo stilo, per scabra decurrente. : adding that Du Moulin and Rivette are as much before him in Learning, as he thinks a Bishop to be above a Presbyter, and placeth him at length amongst the Men, mediocris Doctrinae, of mean Learning: The last I shall produce (tho' there be many more against whom he raves at the same rate) is Bishop Hall, and he impleads him for want of Prudence, in that he wrote his Book of Episcopacy, carried on to it with an unseasonable itch of Scribbling, casting Oil thereby on that pile in which the Church of England was burning; and thereby had cut off all hope of a Reconciliation (your Plot then, it seems, was not like to have Success,) and that the Bishop of Exon had not duly consulted the Reputation of Joseph Hall.  
And tho' it is really sad to consider, That such eminent Professors are thus rudely treated; yet there is some pleasure in reflecting, with what sort of Arguments our Episcopacy was encountered in 1641. and the multitude thereby incensed and enraged against it: and to me there is something peculiar in it, because that your Advocate Dr. Burnet, and yourself, have treated and opposed me at the same rate; and upon the same occasion, viz. Because I wrote, as Bishop Hall did, (all the other concurring with him) in defence of the Divine Right of Church-Power and Episcopacy. How frequently do you upbraid me also in the same manner? As that I am wanting of Prudence and common Discretion: That few read my Book. It can hurt no body but the Bookseller and myself; but mostly the Bookseller, because you have not heard that the Chancery ever gave Equity against an Author for an unsaleable Book. That I and my Book are under great neglect. That I discharge my spleen on two such eminent Men, whose Works (as well as their Persons) will be had in honour, long after both I and my Book shall be forgotten. That I am indeed proud of assaulting two such eminent Men. My stile is unintelligible, barbarous, whose embellishments are not to be envied. It is, indeed, hairy all over: And so rough is the shag, that it will not submit to the Discipline of a Comb. It is overgrown with Hair. In short, I writ neither True English, nor Good Sense. I do not produce one considerable Argument, which you had not made use of to that purpose in a Discourse published above twenty years since.  
But the Malice and Rage of Philadelphus doth not rest here, in that he hath thus revile●●he Persons of so many of our most eminent Church men, and represented them in their Offices, as Tyrants and Usurpers over their fellow Brethren, the Pastors of the Church; but he goes on raving and running mad upon them, as dangerous in respect of the State also, to Kings and Secular Governors, out of whose hands the Sceptre will be wrested by them, with the first opportunity, as they have already snatched the Government of the Church from their fellow Presbyters: so that the Kings of England are in danger, by reason of the Episcopal Power here among us: The Horse is already equipped, and the Rider hath one foot in the stirrup. And for proof of which, he produces the very same impertinent Prophecy of Padre Paulo, which you thought so considerable, that it is (in effect) translated in the Irenicum, and urged for the same purpose; (and withal to let the World know, that it was the Opinion of wiser heads than your own) That the Episcopacy in England was dangerous to the Monarchy of it; as a step to that Pride and Ambition, which, at length, would get the upper hand of it: And all the difference betwixt you and him seems to be but this; He had more discretion than to put his right Name to it. I will here transcribe the whole Prophecy, as it is placed in the Wast-page of his Book; and leave it to others to judge how far thereby you have served the Church of England, or rather Faction, and Sedition, and Schism, and the Opposer of it; tho' you pretend quite otherwise in your Epistle Dedicatory.  
Anglis ego timeo. Episcoporum magna illa potestas, licet sub Rege, prorsus mihi suspecta est; ubi vel Regem facilem nacti fuerint, vel magni spiritus Archiepiscopum habuerint, Regia autoritas pessundabitur, & Episcopi ad absolutam Dominationem aspirabunt. Ego equum ephippiatum in Anglia videre videor, & ascensurum propediem equitem antiquum divino. Verum omma Divinae Providentiae subsunt.  
But there is no wind that blows not some profit; and I have hereby another advantage as to my own particular; for, nothing is more certain, than that I did not take all those considerable Arguments, which you allow to be in my Book, out of the Irenicum; it being my design and business there, for several Sections, to make it evident, That Kings are in no danger by the Episcopal Power; but on the contrary, Episcopacy and Monarchy are every ways compitable and consistent; they strengthen and support one another, and were owned so to be and to do by the Empire itself.  
Dr. Burnet seems the honestest Man of the three; because speaking out his mind, and plainly, (unless he speak your sense too in that Paragraph, and that he may easily be supposed to have done; to be sure you approve of it in the Epistle Dedicatory, and 'tis very likely he was but your Journeyman) for in his last Letter he tells us, whose the Horse is (thus fatal to our Troy) and who equipped him; and the particular Place and Person, that our Bishops are riding whip and spur unto. As for the Zeal that all this sort of Men pretend for the Crown, the Book that is the foundation of this stir is a good indication of it.— There is another Sect besides Presbytery, that has first wholly degraded Kings from their Ecclesiastical Supremacy, and after that point was gained, made them Reign at the mercy of the Church, and at the Pope's courtesy. It were too bold to attempt both at once; and it is ingeniously enough done, to seem to yield up the one wholly, till the other is gained. Pure Irenaeus Philadelphus, who together with Doctor Burnet, and the Rector of Sutton, are the Triumvirate in the cause: But as long as Archbishop Laud, Bishop Montacute, Bishop Andrews, and Bishop Hall ride along with us, we are well enough; there is no true Church of England man will be ashamed of their company; but will repute it his greatest honour and triumph.  
And as to that which the Doctor adds here, viz. That I fall so evidently under a Praemunire, as he hears an honourable person has observed, That I own my not being questioned for it, to his Majesty's Clemency: I could Cap it, with that I heard an honourable person observe upon him, That, for Six Pence, Barbara, a noted Scold in the neighbourhood, would answer my Book better than he hath done: But I am not now inclined to so much mirth. Tho' it may not be in raillery to consider what black guilt, and worse malignancy, Dr. Burnet's Crimes were made up of, which, Charles the Merciful could not forgive, but banished him his Royal Palaces of Whitehal and St. James' many years since; and a little before his death, by his own Royal Edict, silenced him at the Rolls; and since, England is become too hot for him.  
But what can be expected from Men of this complexion, who answer Books, made up of matter of Fact and Argument, with only Revile, and personal Defamations? Or, indeed, from yourself in particular, when your Younger years were seasoned with such kind of Authors as they appear to have been. I'll instance only in two, Irenaeus Philadelphus, and Robert Parker, unless Martin Mar-Prelate be adjoined: Men so unplacably seditious and revengeful against our Church; especially, since you are to this day, of an Opinion, That you served the Church of England in writing your Irenicum. An Erynnicum is more likely to be an effect of such studies: And I wish that Book had made less heart-burnings and contentions among us; and you had less promoted them by so many Impressions. In fine, if such a procedure, as I have in part made yours already appear to be, and shall more fully declare in this Epistle, be the way to re-establish the Church of England, and your Zeal and Affections be thus only indicated; then, they were for the Succession of the Crown, who still attended the Earl of Shaftsbury, and dined twice a Week with the Lord Russel, making the rest of that Conspiracy their daily Associates and Confidents; who kept the Green-Ribbon Club, sided all along with Ignoramus Jurymen, and abhorred all Mankind besides: That supplied Johnson's courses, that he might with more Dispatch answer Dr. Hicks, and defend his Julian, lest the Party complain, and grow weary of their tedious carryings on; or be discouraged and beat off by the Strength of the Doctors reasonings, and demonstrations against it; who had West for their standing Council, and Rumball for their Maltman, and bought their Tables and Wainscot of the Protestant Joiner, as we know he declared at the Gallows at Oxford, of whom he had some of his Doctrines.  
Thirdly, You take all Power out of the hands of the Church Officers, for determining Indifferencies, and making occasional Laws, for the better Ruling and Governing their Body, and ending Controversies as they arise, and place it wholly and solely in the Magistrate, or Secular Governor, as the only Power and Person that can make Church-Laws binding the Conscience. And this you have done deliberately, upon full thoughts, and after a thorough enquiry and debate, in order (as you tell us) to the laying a Foundation for Peace and Union. (Part I. c. 2. §. 6, 7. and c. 6. §. 7. pag. 106, 127, 131.) I'll recite these principal passages for the satisfaction of the Reader. You place in him the external Imperative Power of Jurisdiction, concerning matters of the Church; or (as you explain yourself) the Nomothetical Legislative Power, as it is distinguished from that which is properly called Politicial: And you say the same again; in matters undetermined by the word, concerning the external Polity of the Church of God, the Magistrate hath Power of determining things, so they be agreeable to the Word of God. That no other Persons have power to make Laws binding Men to obedience, but only the Civil Magistrate; withholding nothing from him, but Preaching the Gospel, and Administering the Sacraments; in which two things, you say, consists the Authoritative Exercise of the Ministerial Function, derived by Christ unto his Ministers, making the Magistrate his own Guide, according to the Word of God in the Administration of his Function, (and by consequence his own Preacher) not subject to the Power of the Ministers; that is, he is to interpret the Scriptures to himself; which comes very near to that of Mr. Hobbs in his Leviathan, (Part III. c. 4. p. 252.) No Man ought in the Interpretation of Scripture, to proceed farther than the bounds that are set by their several Sovereigns. As also (p. 295. c. 42.) That the right of judging what Doctrines are fit for Peace, and to be taught by Subjects, is in all Commonwealths inseparably annexed to the Sovereign Power Civil, whether it be in one Man, or in one Assembly of Men. You go on at the same rate, and say, The Power of declaring the Obligation of former Laws, and of consulting and advising the Magistrate for settling of new Laws, for the Polity of the Church, belongs to the Pastors and Governors of the Church of God; but they have no more Authority to make any new Laws or Constitutions binding men's Consciences, than a command from the Supreme Authority, that inferior Magistrates should be obeyed, doth imply in them any Power to make new Laws to bind them. Power arising from mutual compact and consent of parties, is most agreeable to the nature of Church-Power, being not coactive but directive: And such was the confederate discipline of the Primitive Church, before they had any Christian Magistrate; thence the decrees of Councils were called Canons, and not Laws. The great use of Synods, and Assemblies of Pastors of Churches, is to be as the Council of the Church to the King, in matters belonging to the Church, as the Parliament is in matters of Civil Concernment. Elective Synods, substituted in the place of Authoritative Power, to determine Controversies, are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, will never be sovereign enough to cure the distemper it is brought for, (that is reserved for your Weapon-Salve,) and bind no farther than the party concerned doth judge the Sentence equal and just. So that they help us with no ways to end Controversies in the Church, any farther than the Persons engaged are willing to account that just, which shall be judged in their Case; they having no juridical Power. The Church Power, as to divine Law, is only directive and declarative, but being confirmed by a Civil Sanction is juridical and obligatory. As for that time when the Church was without Magistrates ruling in it, in those things undetermined by the Word of God, they acted out of principles of Christian Prudence, and from the principles of the Law of Nature. And the reasons that you give for all this are many, I'll instance in but two. First, Because Churchmen have no Authority, but are bound up to the commands of Christ, already laid down in his Word; (and why may not the same be said of the Magistrates, and that they are equally tied up to the Laws of Christ?) For a Power to bind men's Consciences to their determinations, lodged in the Officers of the Church, must be derived either from a Law of God, giving them this Right; or else from consent of Parties: For any Law of God, there is none produced with probability of reason, but that, Obey those that are over you in the Lord. But that implies no more than submitting to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Gospel, and to those whom Christ hath constituted as Pastors of his Church, wherein the Law of Christ doth require Obedience to them, that is, looking upon them, and owning them in their Relations to them as Pastors; but that gives no Authority to make Laws, etc. Secondly, He who can null and declare all other Obligations void, done without his Power, hath the only Power to oblige; for whatsoever destroys a former Obligation, must of necessity imply a Power to oblige, because I am bound to obey him in the abstaining from that I was formerly obliged to: But this Power belongs to the Magistrate. (I might here also again demand, By what Law in your Sense? But it is your bare Opinion I am now to relate, and the Reasons you produce, not to show the rottenness of them.) For suppose in some indifferent Rites and Ceremonies, the Church representative, that is, the Governors of it, pro tempore, do prescribe them to be observed by all, the Supreme Power forbids the doing those things; if this doth not null the former supposed Obligation, I must inevitably run upon these absurdities: First, That there are two Supreme Powers in a Nation at the same time. Secondly, That a Man may lie under two different Obligations as to the same thing; he is bound to do it by one Power, and not to do it by the other. Thirdly, The same action may be a Duty and a Sin; a Duty in obeying the one Power, a Sin in disobeying the other. Therefore there can be but one Power to oblige, which is that of the Supreme Magistrate, (where, by the way, I note that these last reasons are the very same that Mr. Hobbs urges against this very Branch of Church-Power, in his Leviathan, Part II. c. 29. and Part III. c. 10. pag. 248.) The sum of all is this, and I choose to express myself in the words of a very Learned and Judicious Writer upon the like occasion; You distinguish betwixt the Sacred Function, which you grant to be the proper Office of the Church, and the Power over Sacred Things, which you annex entirely to the Civil Power. By which distinction, you leave the Governors of the Church no other Power, than to administer the Offices of Religion, without any Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion. I confess (Part. I. c. 8.) you own the Church to be a Society distinct from other Societies, with Laws, Ends and Governors of a distinct Nature, (and you had done the same before, (Cap. 2. §. 3. p. 35.) just, almost, before you entered upon this grand determination) and with punishments distinct from the Civil, and for Spiritual ends, which you call Excommunication, or an Exclusion of the offending Person from Communion with the Society; and say, That this Power is peculiar to the Church: But this reacheth not to the point, as to Church-Laws, or to the Power of punishing Offenders against the Laws of Religion. Besides, you have called this Church the Magistrate all-along; and invested him alone with Church-Power, or a Power distinct from that properly called Political, which can be no other than Ecclesiastical: and you have instanced only in Preaching the Word, and Administering the Sacraments, as the two Offices, in which the Authoritative exercise of the ministerial Function, derived by Christ to his Disciples, doth consist: But all this I have showed to be contrary to the judgement and Practice of the whole Church of God, both Bishops, Fathers, and Councils, of the Emperors themselves, in the best Ages of the Church, and when they were her Defenders; to the determinations of our own Church, and the Laws of our Kingdom: It is the design and subject of my whole Book, and I am also mightily secured that I did not take one Argument that Doctor Stillingfleet had used before, to be sure, in his Irenicum.  
Fourthly, You give to the Prince, and enstate on him, as his right and due, those very Offices and Acts, which you have appropriated to the Pastors of the Church, as their peculiar Authoritative Power; such as to Ordain, to Excommunicate, Baptise, etc. and undertake to censure every Man, exposing him as ignorant of the State of our own Church, that is not of your judgement; wherein you and Mr. Hobbs so exactly jump together (for I consider what you produce out of the Manuscripts as your own particular Opinion) that I have here placed your words in two distinct Columns, desiring the Reader to compare and judge of them.  

Irenicum, pag. 391, etc.  
All Christian Princes have committed unto them, immediately of God, the whole cure of all their Subjects, as well concerning the Administration of God's Word, for the cure of the Soul, as concerning the Administration of things Political and Civil Governance.  
And in both these ministrations they must have sundry Ministers under them, to supply that which is appointed in their several Offices.  
The Civil Ministers under the King's Majesty, in this Realm of England, be those whom it shall please his Highness, for the time, to put in Authority under him: as for example, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord Great-Master, Lord Privy-Seal, Mayors, Sheriffs, etc.  
The Ministers of God's Word, under his Majesty, be the Bishops, Parsons, Vicars, and such other Priests as be appointed by his Highness to that Ministration: as for example, The Bishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, the Parson of Winwick, etc.  
All the said Officers and Ministers, as well of the one sort as the other, be appointed, assigned and elected in every place, by the Laws and Orders of Kings and Princes.  
In the admission of many of these Officers be divers comely Ceremonies and Solemnities used, which be not of necessity, but only for good Order and seemly Fashion: For if such Offices and Ministrations were committed without such Solemnities, they were nevertheless truly committed.  
And there is no more Promise of God, that Grace is given in the committing of the Ecclesiastical Office, than it is in the committing of the Civil. In the Apostles time, when there was no Christian Princes, by whose Authority Ministers of God's Word might be appointed, nor Sins by the Sword corrected, there was no remedy then for the correction of Vice, or appointing of Ministers, but only the consent of the Christian Multitude among themselves, with an uniform consent to follow the Advice and Persuasion of such Persons whom God had most endued with the Spirit of Wisdom and Counsel. And at that time, forasmuch as Christian People had no Sword nor Governor among themselves, they were constrained of necessity to take such Curates and Priests as either they knew themselves to be meet thereunto, or else as were commended unto them by others, that were so  with the Spirit of God, with such knowledge in the Profession of Christ, such Wisdom, such Conversation and Counsel, that they ought even of very Conscience to give credit unto them, and to accept such as by them were presented. And sometimes the Apostles and others, unto whom God had given abundantly his Spirit, sent or appointed Ministers of God's Word; sometimes the People did choose such as they thought meet thereunto. And when any were appointed, or sent by the Apostles or other, the People of their own voluntary will, with thanks did accept them; not for the Supremity, Empery and Dominion that the Apostles had over them, to command as their Princes or Masters; but as good People ready to obey the voice of good Counsellors, and to accept any thing that was necessary for their edification and benefit.  
A Bishop may make a Priest by the Scriptures, and so may Princes and Governors also; and that by the Authority of God committed unto them; and the People also by their Election. For as we read that Bishops have done it, so Christian Emperors and Princes usually have done it: And the People before Christian Princes were, commonly did elect their Bishops and Priests.  
In the New Testament, he that is appointed to be a Bishop or Priest, needeth no Consecration by the Scripture; for Election, or appointing thereunto is sufficient.  
If it fortuned, a Prince Christian learned to Conquer certain Dominions of Infidels, having none but the Temporal learned Men with him; it is not against God's Law, that he and they should Preach and Teach the Word of God there: And also to make and constitute Bishops and Priests, that the Word of God should be there Preached; and the Sacrament of Baptism, and others be administered. But contrary, they ought, indeed, so to do; and there be Histories that witness, That some Christian Princes and Laymen unconsecrate have done the same.  
A Bishop or Priest by the Scripture, is neither commanded nor forbidden to Excommunicate. But where the Law of any Region giveth him Authority to Excommunicate, there they ought to use the same in such Crimes as the Laws have Authority in. And where the Laws of the Region forbidden them, there they have no Authority at all: And they that be no Priests may also Excommunicate, if the Law allow thereunto.   

Leviathan, pag. 295, etc.  
Christian Kings are still the Supreme Pastors of their People, and have power to Ordain what Pastors they please, to Teach the Church; that is, to Teach the People committed to their Charge.  
Again, let the Right of choosing them be in the Church; for so it was in the time of the Apostles themselves; even so also the Right will be in the Civil Sovereign Christian. For in that he is a Christian, he allows the Teaching; and in that he is a Sovereign, (which is as much as to say, the Church by representation) the Teachers he Elects, are Elected by the Church. And when an Assembly of Christians choose their Pastor in a Christian Commonwealth, it is the Sovereign that Elects him, because it is done by his Authority; in the same manner as when a Town choose their Mayor, it is the act of him that hath the Sovereign Power: For every act done, is the act of him, without whose consent it is invalid.  
Seeing then in every Christian Commonwealth, the Civil Sovereign is the Supreme Pastor, to whose charge the Flock of his Subjects is committed; and consequently that it is by his Authority, that all other Pastors are made, and have Power to teach, and perform all other Pastoral Offices: It follows also, that it is from the Civil Sovereign, That all other Pastors derive their Right of Teaching, Preaching, and other Functions pertaining to that Office: and that they are but his Ministers, in the same manner as Magistrates of Towns, Judges in Courts of Justice, and Commanders of Armies, are all but Ministers of him that is the Magistrate of the whole Commonwealth, Judge of all Causes, and Commander of the whole Militia; which is always the Civil Sovereign.  
If a Man therefore should ask a Pastor, in the execution of his Office, as the Chief Priests and Elders of the People (Matth. 21.23.) asked our Saviour, By what Authority dost thou these things? and who gave thee this Authority? he can make no other just answer, but, That he doth it by the Authority of the Commonwealth, given him by the King, or Assembly that representeth it: All Pastors, except the Supreme, execute their charges in the Right; that is to say, by the Authority of the Civil Sovereign, that is, Jure Civili. But the King and every other Sovereign, executeth his Office of Supreme Pastor by immediate Authority from God; that is to say in God's Right, or Jure Divino.  
But if every Christian Sovereign be the Supreme Pastor of his own Subjects, it seemeth that he hath also Authority not only to Preach (which, perhaps, no Man will deny) but also to Baptise, and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and to Consecrate both Temples and Pastors to God's Service. There is no doubt, but any King, in case he were skilful in the Sciences, might, by the same Right of his Office, read Lectures of them himself, by which he authorizeth others to read them in the University.  
And lastly concludes, That Imposition of Hands is not needful for the authorising a King to Baptise, and Consecrate, or Exercise any part of the Pastoral Function; every Sovereign, before Christianity, having the Power of Teaching and Ordaining Teachers; but it only directed them in the way of Teaching Truth: And consequently, they needed no Imposition of Hands (besides that which is done in Baptism) to authorise them to exercise any part of the Pastoral Function, as namely to Baptise and Consecrate.   
So that upon the whole matter, whereas before you only contended, that the sole Power of making Laws relating to Religion, was subjected in the Magistrate, taking it quite out of the hands of Churchmen; now you place in him the whole Priesthood, and allow its Offices to have no force, excepting, by the Power which is derived from him: and the dispute is brought to this issue, not that the King may govern the Church by a parity, or imparity of Officers; but that he may govern it without any, or consecrate whom he please. And this you deliver not only as your own Sense, but as the Synodical Resolution of the Church of England, in the days of Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth.  
Fifthly, After that you have thus invested the Magistrate with all Church-Power 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, in the full latitude and extent of it; You at length abdicate the Magistrate himself, and take from him, in effect, all Power in Religious things, placing it in Believers in common, who are supposed to have a Power antecedent to all positive Injunctions; which you call a Liberty of Judgement, and Liberty of Practice: That is, (in my plain way of expressing myself) they are under no Obligation, either to take notice of what he says, or to obey what he commands, or to abstain from what he prohibits, and so are their own Lawgivers. It is (you say) the Prince's duty to defend and protect the publicly owned and professed Religion of a Nation, to restrain Men from acting publicly, tending to the subversion of it: (pag. 39) But it is no bodies duty to obey him unless he please, or cannot help it: And consequently the enactments of Empires, are not Laws but Canons, like the decrees of Councils, (as you have termed them;) and as the use of the Assemblies of the Pastors of the Church, are the Common Council of the Church to the King; so the Assembly of the King, and his Ministers of State are the Council to the People; as Elective Synods, so Elective Parliaments are a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which will never be Sovereign enough to cure the distemper that it is brought for; and bind no farther than the Party concerned, doth judge the Sentence equal and just. So that, these too, will help us no ways to end Controversies in the Church, any farther than the persons engaged are willing to account that just, which shall be judged in their Case: And the Power of the State is no more Juridical and Obligatory, than the Power of the Church. And in pursuance to this, it is laid down as a rule, (Part I. c. 6. §. 6. pag. 117.) Where any Church retaining purity of Doctrine, doth require the owning of and conforming to any unlawful or suspected Practice, Men may lawfully deny conformity, etc. Whereby you evidently take away the Obligation of all Laws; because a suspicion of unlawfulness gives Men a lawful ground for their denial of Obedience and Conformity to them, which the ignorant always may have, (not to say, will have) and the wisest may always pretend to: And it is not in the power of the Lawgiver to teach and convince them, nor consequently to punish and coerce them. You argue on to this purpose in the same Section, That as it justified our separation from Rome, because the Pope commanded things unlawful, as conditions of Communion; so it will justify other men's Nonconformity, in things supposed by them unlawful, and it may be as lawful to withdraw Communion from one as the other. It is the highest Usurpation to rob Men of their Liberties of Judgements. That every one hath a judicium privatae discretionis, which is the rule of Practice as to himself: And though we freely allow a Ministerial Power, under Christ, in the Governors of the Church; yet that extends not to an obligation upon Men, to go against the dictates of their own reason and conscience: Their Power is only directive and declarative, and in matters of duty bind no more, than reason and evidence brought from Scripture by them doth. A Man hath not the Power over his own Understanding, much less can others have; if Governors must be Judges, what things are lawful in this case, what not, the Power will be absolute: for to be sure what ever they command, they will say is lawful. If every private Person must judge, (as when all is said every private Man will be his own Judge in this case, in things concerning his own welfare) than he is no farther bound to obey, than he judgeth the thing to be lawful which is commanded, And at last, after other Arguings of this nature, you conclude: So that, Let Men wind and turn themselves which way they will, by the very same Arguments, that any will prove separation from the Church of Rome lawful, because she required unlawful things, as conditions of her Communion; it will be proved lawful, not to conform to any suspected or unlawful Practice, required by any Church-Governors upon the same terms; if the thing so required be after serious and sober enquiry, judged unwarrantable by a Man's own Conscience. You particularly accuse the present Government and Governors of our Church, (because not complying to offers of union and accommodation,) as wanting of that tenderness and prudence, that was visible in the first Primitive Church; in our Church at the composure of her Liturgy; and in the French Churches at the making of theirs. I will repeat your own Words, because I would not lie under a suspicion of doing you injury. Were we so happy but to take off things granted unnecessary by all, and suspected by many, and judged unlawful by some; and to make nothing the Bonds of our Communion, but what Christ hath done, viz. one Faith, one Baptism, &c, allowing a Liberty for matters of indifferency, and bearing with the weakness of those who cannot bear things which others count lawful; we might, indeed, be restored to a true primitive lustre far sooner, than by furbishing up some few antiquated Ceremonies, which can derive their Pedigree no higher, than some ancient Custom and Tradition. God will convince Men one day, that the union of the Church lies more in the unity of Faith and Affection, than uniformity of doubtful Rites and Ceremonies. Were there that Spirit of mutual condescension, which was most certainly in the first and primitive Church, in the Apostles time, our breaches, as to this thing too, might soon be closed up, and the voice of Schism be heard among us no more.— Certainly those Holy Men, in the composing our Liturgy, who did seek by any means to draw in others, at such a distance from their Principles as the Papists were, did never intent, by what they did for that end, to exclude any truly tender consciences from their Communion. That which they laid a bate for them was never intended by them as a hook for those of their own profession. The same reason which at that time made them yield so far to them then, would now have persuaded them to alter and lay aside those things, which yield matter of offence to any of the same profession with themselves now: It cannot but be looked upon as a token of God's severe displeasure against us— if any fair offers of union and accommodation be coldly embraced and entertained.  
Neither is this all; but you have equally obliged the Faction in other parts of your Book, and censured our Church after the same manner. Your words are these, (pag. 64.) I am sure it is contrary to the Primitive Practice and Moderation then used, to Suspend or Deprive Men of their Ministerial Function, for not Conforming in Habits, Gestures, etc. which you incomparably prove out of Walafridus Strabo; Because there was no distinction of Habits in the Church in the Primitive times; and then to be sure there was no Suspensions and Deprivations for not wearing them. And you again pretty handsomely gird our Church and Churchmen, as Publick-Prayer-Readers; and for not answering the end of their Ordination; which is, To be Dispenser's of God's holy Word: That the Apostles were not sent forth to Pray, but to Preach; and therein Ministers of the Gospel are to succeed them: That Prayer (among our Churchmen) is esteemed as Sarah, and Preaching almost undergoes the hardship of Hagar, to be looked upon as the Bondwoman of the Synagogue, and to be turned out of doors: That they are setting up the honour of one Person, and make the Offices of the Church a matter of State and Dignity, more than Employment; consulting their Ease and Honour; judging of the Service of God rather by the practice of the Church, when it came to enjoy Ease and Plenty, than by the ways and practices of the first and purest Apostolical times: when the Apostles, who were best able to judge of their own Duty, looked upon themselves as most concerned in the Preaching of the Gospel, (pag. 333.) by which every one knows what you mean; and that you hereby designed to disgrace the daily Sacrifice and Common-Prayers of our Church; even to turn them out of it; and at that time, when the Authority of the Kingdom (the miraculous Providence of God making way) concurred to their restauration; like another Sanballat, using this common highway insinuation thereunto, taken from the scandalous Rabble, and worst of our Enemies. And I have been credibly told, That yourself did neither Subscribe nor Read the Service-Book, till that fatal (as some call it) St. Bartholomew; and you had otherwise been deprived of your Rectory of Sutton.  
And this subject you reassume in your Preface, spending a great part of it with a vehement zeal and ardency in defence of Libertinism; so far, as, That no Church Laws ought to be enjoined as Terms of Communion, but those which Christ hath himself given us, or, those that were immediately directed by the guidance of the Spirit of God. Those things (you say) are sufficient for that, which are laid down as the necessary Duties of Christianity by our Lord and Saviour in his Word, which are sufficient for Salvation. Would there be ever the less Peace and Unity in a Church, if diversity were allowed as to practices supposed indifferent? Yea, there would be so much the more as there was a mutual forbearance and condescension as to such things. The Unity of the Church is an Unity of Love and Affection, etc. Doctrines that are justly called Damnable by the University of Oxford, and condemned (with certain pernicious Books) in their Judgement and Decree passed in Convocation, July 21. 1683. as destructive to the sacred Persons of Princes, their State and Government, and of Humane Society; and presented to his late Majesty, of blessed Memory, July 24. in the Twenty first and Twenty second Propositions; and in these words, viz. It is not lawful for Superiors to impose any thing in the Worship of God that is not Antecedently necessary. The Duty of not offending a weak Brother is inconsistent with all humane authority, of making Laws concerning indifferent things. But yet you endeavour to make them good from these several Topics.  
1. From the Design and Example of our Saviour; whose business was, to ease Men of their former Burdens, and not to lay on more. The Duties he required were no other but such as were necessary. He that came to take away the unsupportable Yoke of the Jewish Ceremonies, certainly did never intent to gall the Necks of his Disciples with another instead of it. What Charter hath Christ given the Church, to bind Men up to more than himself hath done? Or, to exclude those from his Society, who may be admitted into Heaven?  
2. From the Example of his Apostles; who do not warrant any such rigorous Impositions either. We never read of the Apostles making Laws, but of things supposed necessary. When the Council of the Apostles met at Jerusalem, for deciding a case that disturbed the Church's Peace, we see they would lay on no other burden besides the necessary things, Acts xv. 29. It was not enough for them, that the things would be necessary, when they had required them; but they looked on an antecedent necessity either absolute or for the present state, which was the only ground of their imposing those Commands upon the Gentile Christians. All that the Apostles required as to these, was a mutual forbearance, and condescension towards each other in them.  
3. You parallel the Laws of our Church, as to indifferencies, and in limiting of them in particular practices, with those Impositions of Rome, as to the Rule of Faith, and her other Idolatrous Superstitious Practices.  
4. From the Example of the Primitive Church; which (you say) deserves greater imitation by us in nothing more, than in that admirable temper, moderation and condescension which was used in it, towards all the members of it. It was never thought by her worth the while to make any standing Laws for Rites and Customs, that had no other original but Tradition; much less to suspend Men her Communion for not observing them. And you instance in that objected case related by Sozomen, (Eccl. Hist. l. 7. c. 19 and the same is in Socrates, Hist. l. 5. c. 22.) which every one rallies our Church withal, that can but read the Historian in English, or the Libelers of our Church, who in their Pamphlets represent her to them, as you do here, to her disadvantage. It is granted that these Churches there mentioned, as Antioch, Rome, Egypt, Thessaly and Caesarea, did differ from one another in divers Customs and Rites; as in times of Fasting, manner of Meats, etc. and therein they were not to judge or condemn one another: But you must prove that Antioch, Rome, etc. did allow different Rites in their particular Churches; which you cannot do from that place, the contrary is evident there. For, the examples you bring, That there were divers Rites and Customs, not only in different Churches, but in different places belonging to the same Church, and many Cities and Villages in Egypt, differed from the Mother Church of Alexandria, prove nothing against us. For the Diocese of Egypt (as the Notitia informs us) had abundance of Provinces in it, which had also their distinct Metropolitans and Laws. And Alexandria (however it might be the Patriarchical See, or Mother Church, in relation to them all) was otherwise but the first Church in one of these Provinces, called Provincia Aegypti primae, and so a Sister Church. And Socrates farther tells us, That the People of Thebais (which is a distinct Province also of Egypt, with its Metropolitan) had this different custom from Alexandria: And those whom he calls Neighbours to the Alexandrians, were in all likelihood another of the Egyptian Provinces. Socrates plainly severs them one from another as distinct Provinces. All this will be fully exemplified in the Diocese of Carthage, in the days of St. Cyprian; where there were several Provinces, with their particular Bishops, whose Primate he was: But yet every one of those Bishops had his distinct and appropriated Power in his Province. Neque quisquam nostrum se Episcopum Episcoporum constituit.— Quando habet omnis Episcopus libertatis suae arbitrium proprium, etc. Vid. Concil. Carthag. de haeret. baptizand. inter opera Cypriani. But then, tho' the Bishop had this Power in his own Province, to establish what Rites and ways of Worship he judged most convenient; yet no Man but yourself, or with your design, ever hence asserted, that each Village or Parish Church in the Province, had the same Power, or might erect their own mode of Worship also. I remember immediately after the Conference at the Savoy (which was the first Summer, upon his late Majesty's happy return) there came forth a large stitched Quarto, containing the Dissenters Reasons and Argumentations against the re-establishment of our Church; it was without a name, but drawn up, as was supposed, by Richard Baxter: And one of his principal heads which he much insisted on, was this passage in Sozomen and Socrates. I fear me you had been dabbling here; and so transcribed it for authentic History in their sense of it; a thing in those days too usual with you. And yet St. Cyprian with St. Augustin, and St. Jerom are brought for farther instances of this supposed admirable Temper in the Primitive Church, and for freely allowing Liberty to Dissenters from them in matters of Liberty and Practice; whom you hope our Church of England (then upon its re-establishment) will follow in not imposing Rites; but leaving Men to be won by the observing the true order and decency of Churches, whereby those that act upon a true principle of Christian ingenuity, may be sooner drawn to a compliance in all lawful things, than by force and rigorous Impositions; notwithstanding those Testimonies of St. Austin, etc. speak as if they had foreseen the case of our Church, and had designed so to determine on her side, as to stop the mouths of all gainsayers. For as they allow of different Rites (in things not unlawful) in distinct Churches, so they as strictly require compliance from all the Members of a Church, with the Rites of its own Church; and they are so far from allowing any difference as to these matters in one and the same particular Church, that in case any of their Members travel to another Church, they are directed to comply with the lawful Rites of that Church, although different from the Rites of that Church of which they more particularly own themselves, that so no division might be made. And this I take to be the Doctrine of the Church of England, and the very way of arguing; and the occasion, and the design of those Testimonies do so palpably confirm it, that nothing but a Man, who had Sacrificed his Judgement either to his Passion or the humour of a Party, would have set himself to pervert them thus quite contrary to their meaning.  
5. You tell us, That those who first broke this Order in the Church, were Arians, Donatists and Circumcellians, whilst the true Church was known by its Pristine Moderation, and Sweetness of Deportment towards all its Members. So that the worst of Heretics, the worst of Christians, and the worst of Men, (and such were these three Sects) are the only persons to be found in all Antiquity, that restrained Men, by Laws, from being of what Religion they pleased, and reduced them to an Uniformity in the Worship of God. Or thus, That Church-Laws, laying limits to men's practice in God's Service, are from the same rise, as Usurpation, Rebellion, Murder, Burglary, Schism, Sacrilege, Church-robbing, Spoiling Men of their Possessions, all manner of Profanation of Holy Things and Persons, forcing Mankind to Heterodoxies in Religion, Immorality in Manners, and Rebellion in Government, Perjury, Hypocrisy, Deceit; for these were the constant Practices of those three Sects, and the Laws and Rules that they proceeded by in their pretended Reformations, and attempts to reduce, what they called, Christianity: And the Canons, Rubrics, and Injunctions of our Church (and the whole Christian World beside) take away and invade Christian Property and Liberty, equally as those worst of Heretics and Schismatics did. I do not now wonder that you have showed so much dislike to that part of Dr. Parker's Book of Religion and Loyalty, where he makes it appear, That Eusebius and his followers, that Spawn of the Arian Heresy, were for Comprehension; and therefore opposed the Holy Athanasius, and the first Council of Nice, because limiting the Christian profession of Faith to Laws and Canons, and denounced the anathemas of the Church against all such as should violate them.  
6. And lastly, You magnify the indulgence which was granted at Breda by King Charles II. as the effect of his excellent Prudence and Moderation; when it was purely his misfortune and necessity that engaged him to it, occasioned by a sort of Men in this Nation, no ways behind the Arians, Donatists and Circumcellians, those Cutthroats of Christendom; and therefore the Wisdom of the Nation (to whom he at first referred it) immediately advised him against its farther establishment, and it was re-called. Neither was he the first Christian Prince that complied with the like necessity; the very Gentile Worship having been indulged for some time, and for the same reasons, and by good Emperors, by Constantine himself, as is evident in Church-Story. And yourself would deride your own inference, if another did make it; viz. That therefore the Heathen Worship ought not afterward to have been silenced; and that the succeeding Imperial Laws, to that purpose, were unwarrantable Innovations.  
And so you have my account of this your unlucky Book: I own, that it was not my first design to make it thus public; and I had not done it now, had I not been provoked to it, in part, by your indirect and unscholar-like deal with me, in that, (instead of an answer to matter of Fact and Argument,) you have only Libelled me to a principal Bishop of our Church, in a Twopenny Paper; to which is tacked (and therein your farther disingenuity appears) one of your Four-Penny Sermons, that it may with the greater dispatch and advantage be posted over the Kingdom, and I be certainly condemned by Bell, Book and Candle, of those (even your Female Admirers) into whose hands the main Controversy never came, nor, indeed, are they competent judges of it: And whether my stile or your usage of me in this affair, be more Barbarous, I appeal to the common Reader. You have outdone Dr. Burnet's rudeness, who only cried me about London Streets, tho' these Artifices never take long, and a due discovery only breaks their Necks more surely: But I was mostly prevailed with, in that you have not only defamed me, but vindicated this Book, to that eminent Bishop, your Diocesan, as serviceable to the Church of England, and designed to that end by you. If this be to serve our Church, by using and urging all sorts of Arguments, whereby her Form of Government by Bishops is represented without any bottom and foundation as from Christ, cheap and contemptible; their Offices rendered suspicious to the Civil Magistrate, and as his Supplanter; their abetters and maintainers slighted and ridiculed; their manner of Worship vilified, and described as set up in opposition to the Primitive Example; their power wholly taken from them, and a Liberty granted to all Pretenders: In a word, Where your chief design seems to be leveled against them, than you have done it in the Irenicum; and yet these are not all the Heterodoxies, and dangerous Doctrines therein contained. It is a  or mixture of all Religions; in which something is to be found for the defence of each Sect, that hath infested us since the Reformation, and only the Church of England is constantly opposed: I may safely say, It has perverted many Thousands, (should I add Millions I did not exceed,) which otherwise would have been true Sons and Adherers to her Doctrine, and Worship, and Discipline. It is the very centre of Puritanism, and Epitome of Fanatic madness, rendering us guilty of the same Schism in respect of the Dissenters, as the Church of Rome is charged with in respect of us.  
If it be objected, that you have in some particular passages of this Book, declared yourself in a different manner than is here represented. I answer, My business is not to reconcile every contradiction in your Book; that were impossible: These Tenants which I have here given an account of, are what you have deliberately determined, setting yourself on purpose thereunto, and, which is more, repeated in your Preface, (at least the most considerable of them,) which, tho' Printed in the head of the Volume, yet is always composed last, and a sure indication of the Sense of the Author. I have observed your own rule in the like case, by which you give your judgement of St. Jerom, who had some little flights against Truth, and his constant opinion, as you have here for it, and against yours. (pag. 278.) I would fain know whether a Man's Judgement must be taken from occasional and incidental Passages, or from designed and set Discourses; which is as much as to ask, Whether the lively representation of a Man by Picture may best be taken, when in haste of other business he passeth by us, giving only a glance of his Countenance; or when he purposely and designedly sits in order to that end, that his Countenance may be truly represented? And I must hence conclude, that you are as much for those particular points, because giving a glance of your Countenance towards them, as passing by, as you have concluded St. Jerom to have been for the Divine Right of Episcopacy, which you then certainly believed him not to be.  
Thirdly, I come now, in the last place, to consider what satisfaction you have made, for these your Heterodox defamatory Tenants; thus in opposition to the Doctrines, Laws, Discipline and Practice of our Church; together with your vainer and ill-natured jealousies and fears that you have insinuated against our Bishops, their Power and Office, as hazardous to Kingdoms; together with your defamations of our most eminent Doctors; some of which first promoted our Reformation, and sealed it with their Blood; others zealously defended and maintained it against all manner of Dissenters. The late account that you have given to my Lord of London of your Irenicum is a strong prejudice against you, that you are still satisfied with that performance: I am sure that acknowledgement and retractation, which the reason and equity of things, and the Laws of God and Man require at your hands, is not to be met with there. You are so far from it, that you justify what you have written concerning Episcopacy, and by the greatest of humane authorities: For you say, If you have erred therein, it was with a most excellent Prince, and a true Friend to the Church of England, whose sufferings could never make him warp from what his Conscience and Judgement directed, King Charles the First. And thus, when you have slandered all our Princes and Bishops since the Reformation, to amend the matter you here make the unparallelled King Charles the First, and elsewhere, all our present Bishops, of your party: What thanks the latter will give you I know not, but scarce any good Man will forgive you the fixing so bold a Slander on the former: Nor can your Friends of the Presbytery take it well at your hands, that you should attempt to persuade the World, they brought that Glorious Martyr to the Block for being a Presbyterian. But the asserting the same thing over again, you think to be proof enough against me, especially if it be eeked out with some ill Language.  
I have had this account of Dr. Pocklington, a noted Divine of our Church, in the days of the blessed Martyr just now mentioned; That when he was accused and censured for delivering in a Sermon (probably, that which he Preached before the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, at his Lordship's Visitation at Ampthill in the County of Bedford, Aug. 17. 1635. called Sunday no Sabbath,) some Tenants concerning the Lord's Day, which were thought to be Heterodox, (or rather thought convenient that they should be declared so, by a Faction which then prevailed, by reason of their compliance with the Puritan Party;) his Penance was to make a Recantation, which he began thus, If Canto be to Sing, Recanto is to Sing again, and so went on with a defence of his Sermon. If you designed your Epistle Dedicatory for the same purpose, that he was enjoined to Preach a Second Sermon, your performance is the same, or a Singing the Second Part to the same Tune; it being only a Self-justification: And for the better seeting it off, I am brought for the foil, whom, by the embellishments of your Wit and Oratory, you abundantly represented as a Knave and a Fool, Malicious and Ignorant; and this is the whole subject of it. But, notwithstanding, I have considered that the Epistle was written in a great Passion, and indeed it is mostly a discharge of your Choler upon me: and designing to be as favourable to you as I can, I have set myself to a particular examination of your other Writings, which were made public since the date of your Irenicum, to the time that my Book of Church-Power was put into the Press, (which was September 1683.) when your thoughts may be supposed more calm, and your Meditations less disturbed. (For if since you have made any notable retractations, I am not in the least concerned in them.) But alas! little of amends is to be found here either; in some instances, you have offered nothing like a satisfaction; in others, nothing plenary, and as might be expected form a person of your Learning, Dignities, and Quality in the Church. I do therefore thus farther charge you, and produce yourself for my alone evidence;  
1. That you have made no satisfaction for the Manuscript which you have Printed; and thereby done so much injury to our Church in general, in the days of King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, and to our most eminent Doctors in particular. In all your works there occurs not one word that mentions it; much less that either by confession, sorrow or satisfaction, makes any thing like an amends for it: And tho' it may be disputed, whether any one of these alone are sufficient; yet, where there is no one of them, to be sure is no repentance. Nay you are so far from any remorse, or sense of the black guilt that is upon you, for this great and groundless Scandal, that you have to your utmost, made it more public and authoritative: For, it was by you delivered to Dr. Burnet, as he owns in his Preface, and Printed, by your order, in his Collection of Records, with the Title of Doctor Stillingfleet's Manuscript, and with the approbation of both Houses of Parliament; and this was Eighteen Years after the first publication of it in your Irenicum, (a sufficient time for Second Thoughts;) and your continued fixed Judgement is thereby notoriously made known to all Men. And so, this vagrant, illegitimate Script, without any date of its own, as to time; without any original, to make it a Record; all your account of it being only this, That by the hand of Providence it happily came to your hands, (which account is very scandalous, Providence being the Sanctuary for every Impostor,) is placed in the History of the Reformation of the Church of England, with the time and year when the Conference was held, and hath the Character (as well it may upon your terms) of an Authentic Writing; and hereby Dr. Burnet is equally dishonoured as an Historian, with yourself as a Divine of the Church of England.  
And first; that your own reputation, as a Divine of the Church of England, must be shrewdly called in question hereby, is most manifest, because, this Manuscript, upon your alone authority, and with the Character of stupendae eruditionis theologum, is made use of by the most rigid and rude of the Presbyterian Party, to prove, That our first Reformers did not believe a Bishop and a Presbyter to be two distinct Orders; but that it is in the power, and at the pleasure of the Prince to Govern by Bishops and Presbyters, or by Presbyters without them: And they farther hereupon assert, That our own Divines were generally of the same Opinion, during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth; tho' Bancroft and Laud have since maintained the contrary, and asserted Bishops to be by Divine Right, and a distinct Order. This is to be seen in Mr. Hickman's Apologia pro ejectis in Anglia ministris, vulgò Non-conformistis; but a particular of this passage in it, is given by the Reverend Dean of Windsor, Dr. durel, in his Ecclesiae Anglicanae Vindiciae, cap. 28. I might add, because the Erastian Party is hereby much confirmed and strengthened. Now, can any Man think that a true Son of the Church of England (who by his relation to her alone, must be supposed to believe, that the Power of the Prince is quite another thing from the Power of the Church, as also the Power of a Bishop, from the Power of a Presbyter) would willingly, and under such circumstances as these, have given this great advantage to the Adversary, that you so manifestly have done by reprinting this Manuscript, and with the approbation of the two Houses of Parliament; and not add one Note in the Margin; disowning the evil consequents have been drawn from it? Is it not rather a yielding to them, and complying with the objection, giving new Strength and Sinews unto it? Or, is it not a thankful acceptance of the honour that was done you by the Presbyterians in the Quotation? And I fear you were over-tickled with that higher Eulogy, and wonderful commendation they bestowed upon you. Sure I am, you could not have served them, and their design, more advantageously. I must confess I was startled at the first reading of it.  
Again, the reputation of Dr. Burnet is equally at the Stake also, as an Historian. The grounds and reasons produced by the Dean of Windsor, in his forementioned Vindiciae, cap. 28. upon which he suspects the Manuscript to be a fraud, and not the writings and determinations of Cranmer, and those others, whose names it bears, seems to me very considerable; they amount indeed to a demonstration; his words are these, Nam quifactum, etc. For how comes it to pass that these things, in that Manuscript, were altogether unknown to John Fox, that most diligent compiler of the Acts and Monuments of Cranmer and the other Martyrs, (a Man over much addicted to the Faction of the Puritans,)" and the other most diligent writers of the Church of England? Whence is it that Cartwright, and other ancienter Puritan heard nothing of them? And they are to be believed to have heard nothing, since they have made no mention of them. How happens it that no one Historiographer of that time, hath remembered so memorable a thing, as was that Conference of so many illustrious Men, concerning the affairs of so great moment? For, (if we may believe the Manuscript) there was enquiry of many, and the principal heads of Religion, as of the Rights of the higher Powers about holy things; and those most eminent Men, and learned Prelates, did there dispute of them all. I'll add, how came Mr. Hobbs not to find it out? He was a Man well acquainted with English Story; and the concurrence of Archbishop Cranmer, and so many of our first Reformers, in his Scheme of Government, (which I have showed to be the same with this in the Manuscript,) would have been very pleasing unto him: He did not hate our Church and Divines so much, but that he was glad, on each occasion, to serve himself of them, and did so. Surely a wise Man would have considered these things, some way or other; the Doctor wanted full thoughts and a thorough consideration here, to be sure; and it shall go for part of his punishment, for that he hath so much despised them in others: Surely not one would have gone to the Press without laying these things together, and their consequences, but he who looks upon himself as the very Pillar of Truth, which will bear out any inscription it is entitled withal, and his own Authority, as sufficient to make credible whatever he shall think fit to recommend to Mankind. And this his Arbitrary, Precarious, Self-authoritative way of writing History, and Record-making, is so much the more culpable in the Doctor, because he hath particularly blamed Peter Heylin (a Man much better and honester than himself) upon the like (as he supposed) occasion. His words in his Preface (after many severer Animadversions upon him) are these; In one thing he is not to be excused, that he never vouched any Authority for what he writ, which is not to be forgiven any, who writ of Transactions beyond their own time, and deliver new things not known before; so that upon what grounds he wrote the greatest part of his Book we can only conjecture: For surely it is much safer, and a great deal less disingenuous, to produce no Authority, but leave Men to their own conjectures, than to produce and vouch that Authority which is false, and hath no bottom at all, except that of one single Doctor; or, in his own Language, a Sceptical injudicious Youth, who vouches Providence for it; by which he can only mean, that the Manuscript came to his hands immediately from Heaven; for, no humane hand reached it unto him: All Historians, all Men of what sort soever, that can be conceived to have been concerned in things relating that way, being altogether silent about it. And I shall hereafter no more believe him, in whatever it is that he delivers, (unless I see the originals with mine own Eyes, or have them vouched by a better Authority than his own,) than I believed the late Dialogue between him and the Groaning-Board. The old malicious Fable of the Nag's-Head-Ordination, (by which the Emissaries of Rome defamed our Church one way, as you have by your Manuscript another) carries much more likelihood of truth and credibility in it. For, our Bishops and Divines had a meeting at the Nag's-Head-Tavern; but it was only to Dine there, when the confirmation performed at Bow Church, was over: But there is no show or semblance of so much as a meeting of these Churchmen that can be produced, of whom your counterfeit Manuscript gives a Relation. For my part, I cannot imagine which way he and you could have more effectually contrived, whereby to cast dirt in the Face of our Reformation: You have most certainly given two of our present and principal Adversaries those advantages their Predecessors never were ware of; and the best services you can propose in the Printing of it, will not countervail the certain and most notorious damage it has brought to our Church. I'll here tell what I sometime since met with in Livy, l. 40. c. 30. In the ground of Petilius, the Scribe, were found two Chests, the one had a bundle in it containing seven Books in Latin, de jure Pontificio, or relating to Religious matters; they were perused by several, and, at last, read to the Senators, who immediately condemned them to the Fire, (and they were accordingly burnt before the People,) because in many things tending to the dissolution of their Religion. The Wisdom of that Government knew full well the ill consequences of admitting such loser Papers into competition with their received Worship, supposed at first to have come from Heaven, and made afterwards the Law of the Kingdom. And if every musty Script, really motheaten by time, or disguised by design (as were the Gibeonites Shoes and Bread) be received as an Authentic Manuscript, reached forth by the hand of Providence, the World will never want abuses, and providential Provisions of that nature.  
But admit the Manuscript is really such as you represent it to be; and those Bishops and Doctors did actually meet at such a Conference, and make those determinations; yet, you and Dr. Burnet are not discharged, but stand accused of Unfaithfulness, and underhand Dealing in the Printing and Publishing of it; and that upon these two accounts: 1. For altering the general method of it. 2. For leaving out Bishop Cranmers Subscription to Dr. Leighton's Opinion concerning Church-Power, by which he retracted his first Erroneous Judgement. The first is granted by Dr. Burnet (viz. that the method is altered) in his preamble to the Manuscript; the other is urged against you by Dr. durel in his Vindiciae, cap. 28. whose Narrative of the matter of Fact I only repeated; accusing you but of the same Unfaithfulness, he before had told the World you were guilty of, upon his own knowledge and perusal of the Manuscript in your presence. Dr. Burnet takes a great deal of pains to vindicate himself and you herein, in his several Letters; but he does it with such an imbittered Spirit, so great rudeness of Language, and such struggle and convulsions within himself, even apparent contradictions, that he must be concluded upon sight to have the worse cause; and, withal, a load of guilt upon him. I thought to have left him to the due chastisement he hath already received from a judicious hand, in two Letters; but having a fresh provocation in the last Paragraph of your Epistle Dedicatory, I look upon myself as engaged to say something more. You seem to boast e'er the harness is put of, and to triumph before the Victory, in these words following: As to his accusation about Archbishop Cranmer 's Manuscript, I think he hath heard enough of that already, and he owes me a Public Recantation upon his own terms, for charging me with Unfaithfulness therein, for the Scandal and Offence hath been very public. Pray how comes it that I own a Public Recantation more than Dr. durel? Or in what have I charged you, or given such Public Scandal and Offence, which he had not done before? I only produced his Words, and alleged his Authority. It seems very strange that you should not be sensible of this heavy Charge, Scandal and Offence till now; or, if sensible, that it was not removed. Dr. durel wrote his Vindiciae at least Fourteen Years since, and yet your story is told without naming him; and all the Folly, and Madness, and rude way of Disputing with his Brethren is laid at my Door. I confess I did not treat you with those most ample magnificent Titles that he did; and if that omission be the instance of my rude way, you might have said so. But there are reasons why you did not accost him: A Vicar in the Country is trod upon with more ease and acceptance, than a Dean, who is your equal: And I find a general prejudice against me, because I have not a Stall in a Cathedral. And that you may not think that I speak this at random, I must here tell you, That there is a Dean of a Cathedral in this Kingdom, and of your acquaintance, that has openly and passionately exclaimed against me, without any consideration of the matter of my Book, as guilty of unpardonable audaciousness; and farther said, That, all the Deans in England were concerned in it: So that it is with me not altogether unlike what the Bishop of Salzbourgh said of Luther; And let a Dean say what he will, it is an unsufferable thing that he should be told of it by a Country Vicar: But I am inclined to believe your chief reason to be, that you were so Opinionated, as to presume yourself really to be the King in Israel, and all other, whether Deans or Vicars, to be but as Fleas, when coming out against you.  
But after all, What is this Publicly, Scandalous, and Offensive charge, that Mr. Dean of Windsor and I have conspired against you in? The thing is matter of Fact, which may easily be adjusted, if allowed a fair Issue. Your Accusation is this; That when you Printed Archbishop Cranmers Manuscript, first, in your Irenicum, and then in Dr. Burnet's Church-History; you dealt Unfaithfully, because, that notwithstanding the Archbishop had retracted his first Opinion concerning Church-Power, wherein he was Erroneous, and subscribed to Dr. Leighton's Opinion with his own Hand, setting Th. Cantuariensis below the Doctors, and blotting out his first subscription. You have wholly omitted all this, without giving an account of it to the World. And does not Dr. Burnet, acknowledge it in his Letter to me upon that occasion, and in his two other Letters? For he there argues to this effect; That tho' he left out Cranmers Subscription that was under Leighton's, concerning Church-Power; yet he placed it with Leighton's at the end of the last question, concerning Extreme Unction; which was in effect the same, as if he had placed it under that of Church-Power; his disign in putting Th. Cantuariensis to the last Article, being, not that it should be interpreted, as if he Subscribed only that one Article with Dr. Leighton; but, as his Subscription to all the questions preceding; and accordingly he set down on the Margin of the last question, over against Cranmer 's Subscription; [These are the Subscriptions that are at the end of every Man's Paper:] And hereupon, in those his clamorous Lines, he does not accuse me, in that I said that he left out that particular Subscription and Recantation of Cranmers, without giving any account of it; but that I Accused him uncharitably and Slandered him falsely, in that I said, That he concealed and denied Cranmers Subscription and Recantation, because he had omitted it there: Whereas, it was set down in durel's own Sense, (tho' with some variation in the Words) under the question of Extreme Unction. Hence he proceeds, as upon a Victory, insulting, and calumniating; he bids me go read the Epistles and Gospels more carefully, and learn to practise the Rules of Justice and Christian Charity, not to speak of Prudence and common Discretion, at this rate exercising his Talon of Evil-speaking upon me.  
But, the worthy Doctor, cooling by degrees, and brought to his second thoughts, by a due Correction, in two Letters, for this Extravagance (the advices of his Friend prevailing more with him than his own heats,) changes his Note, and tells a new Story; viz. That, 'tis true, a Man's Subscription belongs to every line in his Letter; but by this same Art of reasoning, it will not therefore follow, that, one Subscription at the end of Seventeen Questions of different Subjects, in sundry particulars, opposing one another to contradictions, can be his assenting to all the Opinions contained in them; hereupon the Scene is altered, and another Plot comes upon the Stage; he owns, That Cranmers name was Subscribed under Leighton's in the question of Church-Power; (tho' left out by himself and Dr. Stillingfleet;) but not by way of Recantation; but all that he can make of the Subscription is, that he might, according to a Rule that some Ministers of State have observed, set his hand to those Papers, as a mark that they might not be altered; and as to Leighton 's Paper, there may be this particular reason for it, that Leighton's not being in the Commission, Cranmer, who it seems ordered him to write answers to those Queries, might have set his hand to his Paper, as a warrant to him for having writ them. And is not this fine juggling? Or rather, it is no juggling at all, but downright bare-faced impudence: And the Doctor is resolved to say any thing rather than give up his bad Cause. You may assure yourself, that however these conjectures (for he professes them to be no more) or rather dreams, may be received, as of force enough to put an end to the whole matter, (whereupon he has resolved not to write one word more on this Subject,) by those of your own Party, who, as so many absorbed Stars, move only in your Vortex; yet, there will be found some considering Men in the Kingdom, that will not be caught with such baits; who do not shelter themselves under the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of some particular Persons, to whom their understandings are bored in perpetual Slavery, believing their understandings of age to judge for themselves. (You see I make your Writings a pattern for my stile.) And since the Historian has no more to say for himself, it can avail very little with others, That a very eminent Person took the direction of the whole into his Care; or to say farther, the method becomes the exactness of his Judgement who advised it. And he farther brags, (which no doubt but he mentions as the particular of his merit) That no Person had ever observed before him that Cranmer had changed his mind, so that without his evidence it cannot be proved to this day; and the Erastians' may still cite him on their side; it seems to be but a mere shame; because no Man but he ever accused him in that nature, and he brings for it only the Authority of your Manuscript; so that in effect he feigns him guilty, and pleads his own merit in acquitting him; makes a Plot and then discovers it.  
Had you (Sir) designed ingenuously in this affair, and with that integrity Men use, who aim at Truth only, you would not, upon Printing the Manuscript in Dr. Burnet's Church-History, have passed over with silence, the account that Mr. Dean of Windsor gave to the World concerning it: Neither would you have waved, as you did, that after notice and opportunity that I gave you, in my Letter dated May 1. 1682. of consulting with him about it, for he was then alive; and a Journey from London to Windsor is not so great and expensive, but that a full compensation might thereby have been made to yourself, if not to the Public: And in truth, so bad do your circumstances appear in every respect, that I must tell you plainly, I have not met with a more notorious Artifice, and palpable abuse in all my reading; unless, I accept that of the Pope's Legates in the Council of Carthage, for the Adulterating of the Nicene Canons: And there seems but one way left, whereby in any measure you may vindicate your Reputations; it is by Printing the Manuscript entire, (tho', how Dr. durel will be answered at this time o'th' day, if any thing be otherwise than he hath represented it, I cannot tell,) it is the advice, as I have been informed, some of your Friends have given you already; a●● that you replied, You had lost it; but that cannot be, for it is one of the Topics, whence Dr Burnet, in his Letter, aggravates my supposed Crime, in accusing him of Unfaithfulness; because refusing to give my own Eyes that satisfaction, which he desired a Neighbour Clergyman of mine to offer me: Now, tho' this is very false, as that Neighbouring Clergyman has satisfied him by Letter; yet he must be a falser Man if he had not it then by him. Besides, it is well known, that the only revenge he pretended to take, was, so soon as my Book was made public, to fix the Manuscript upon the Bookseller's stall: I did joyfully expect it, and am confident that Mr. took would not have sued him for it, either at the Chancery or Common Law, as rendering thereby his Book unsaleable. I was so fair as to produce my Authority at the first, and upon the producing of yours, if it be found better, I shall willingly and hearty submit.  
2. You have not made a just satisfaction for those very Erroneus and Heterodox Opinions, which you have published and maintained, concerning that Power enstated by Christ on his Church-Officers, for making of Laws, as occasion, and their Prudence directs them; whether as to matters of Indifferencies, or Faith, or Manners. Which Power you have either translated to the Civil Magistrate, or, in effect to the People, or Believers in common.  
The Appendex to your Irenicum is the Treatise, to which, as I have been informed, you still refer all those who require better satisfaction from you as to those points. And, to be sure, this is your Discourse, out of which, you say, I have taken all my considerable Arguments to prove the Church a distinct Society; for there is none published by you above twenty years since, except this, that treats of the same subject. And it may be expected to find some amends here, if ever you have made, or designed, any because it seems to be added to the Irenicum, on purpose to rectify what appeared amiss, or to supply something wanting in it. Now he that duly and seriously considers it, will find the whole performance to consist of these two Heads: And that, you there assert, the Church a distinct Society from the State, always to subsist by a Charter from Christ, in the outward visible profession of Christianity; tho' the Powers and Laws of the World are against it; and this in opposition to the Leviathan, who says, That the precepts of the Gospel are not Law, till enacted by Civil Authority: And your arguments are common but good, by which you prove it; which he that treats on the same point, cannot well omit, all agreeing so far, that really own Christianity. Again, you farther assert, That our Saviour, by a special Charter also, hath enabled some of this Society to govern; commanding all the Members of it to obey, and which comes to the very point now in hand. But this Power, which is fixed by you on the Pastors of the Church, is also limited to the Power of Excommunication, as the argument of it (answering to the Title) speaks; but you leave all other Acts and Offices of the Church, where you had placed them before in the main Treatise; i. e. (excepting the Offices of Teaching and Administering the Sacraments) in the hands of the Civil Magistrate. So that, as I said above, the Power over Sacred Things is annexed entirely to the Civil Power: And the Church Governors are only to administer in the Offices of them, without any Power, whereby to punish offenders against the Laws of Religion. And this is with Dr. Stillingfleet, To defend the fundamental Rights of the Church; or his asserting the just Power of the Magistrate in ecclesiastics as well as Civils, in opposition to the extravagances of those, who screwed up the Church-Power to so high a peg, that it was thought to make perpetual discord with the Commonwealth; and others, that melted down all Spiritual Power into the Civil State, and dissolved the Church into the Commonwealth; as you tell us, in the entrance to the Treatise. And so, tho' the discourse, as to the main, is Sound and Orthodox; yet in the present design of it, it is a collusion and fallacy put upon the Reader. It seems of the same nature with that lie of Ananias (and it is to the Holy Ghost) whereby, as he kept back part of that possession, which he sold for the use of the Church, and said it was the whole; so have you kept back part of the Power of the Church, and said you have given in the whole. And the reply that Peter gave to Ananias, may not unfitly be returned to you also: Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine Heart? Thou hast not lied unto Men, but unto God. Acts 5.1, 2, 3, 4.  
The next Treatise that I have made enquiry into, for the finding out your after judgement in these points, is, Your Vindication of Archbishop Laud; in which I find little amends for these your Erroneous Irenicum Doctrines; but, rather, an evident confirmation of many of them, if not doing worse. In your First Part. Cap. 2. Sect. 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. your work is to overthrow that Erroneous Assertion in the Church of Rome, viz. That, the Definitions of the Church are to be believed to be as necessary to Salvation as the Articles of the Creed. In order to which, you take a most secure and effectual way; and assert, That the Being of the Church itself is not necessary to Salvation; (meaning thereby the Church Organical, consisting of set Officers, as may be gathered from your following Discourse, tho' you ought to have set out the opposition in the entrance of it; for want of which, the terms in your conclusion are perplexed and involved; and you talk of a Church antecedent to a Church, and of a true Church out of a true Church, without any Specifications) for the proving of which, you take a great deal of pains to inform us, what things are necessary to the Salvation of Men, as such, or considered in their single and private Capacities; or (in your own words and sense) out of the Church Society, or Ecclesiastical Communion: And having concluded, That believing in Christ and walking in him; or an hearty assent to the Doctrine of Christ, and a conscientious walking according to the precepts of it, are that Faith and Duty indispensably necessary to the Salvation of Private Persons. You than add, That, that which we call the Catholic Church; or, as you farther speak, the being of a Church, supposes this antecedent belief in Christians, as to these things necessary to Salvation, it being only a combination of Men together, upon that belief, and for the performance of those Acts of Worship which are suitable thereto. You go on, and say, whatever Church owns these things, (where by a Church you can only mean those which are not a Church, but out of the combination, and in their private capacities, or antecedent to it; but you are to look to your terms, not I,) which are antecedently necessary to the being of a Church, cannot so long cease to be a true Church (where the contradiction recurs, and you ought thus to have expressed it; That Men in their private and personal capacities, believing these necessary things, cannot cease to be true Christians, tho' out of that Church and Combination; for such is your meaning) because it retains the foundation of the being of the Catholic Church. Again, the distinction that you use is equally unintelligible, and contradictory; viz. Here we must distinguish those things in the Catholic Church, which give it its being, from those things which are the proper acts of it, as the Catholic Church: As to this latter, the solemn Worship of God in the way prescribed by him is necessary; in order to which there must be supposed lawful Officers set in the Church, Sacraments duly Administered; but these I say, are rather the exercise of the Catholic Church, than that which gives it its being, which is the belief of that Religion whereon its subsistence and unity depends; and as long as a Church retains this, it keeps its being, tho' the integrity and perfection of it depend upon the due exercise of all Acts of Communion in it. How these things can be said to be in the Catholic Church, and give it its being, as Faith, etc. whose being you told us, a little before, supposed them, and to which they are antecedent, you, not I, are to make out when you can: Or how the exercise of Church Communion is the perfection of Faith and good Works. I have always learned the contrary; viz. That Faith and good Works are the perfection of Church Communion, in attendance to the ordinances. You say farther, That the Union of the Catholic Church depends upon the agreement of it, in making the Foundations of its being (that is, Believing in Christ and walking in him) to be the grounds of its Communion: From whence it necessarily follows, that whatsoever Church imposeth the belief of other things, as necessary Articles of Faith (and not only agreements for the Church's Peace) which were not so antecedently necessary to the being of the Catholic Church, doth, as much as in it lies, break the Unity of it, and those Churches, who desire to preserve its Unity, are bound thereby not to have Communion with it, so long as it doth so. To which you add, That nothing aught to be imposed as a necessary Article of Faith to be believed by all, but what may be evidently propounded to all persons, as a thing which God did require the explicit belief of. As also, That nothing aught to be required as a necessary Article of Faith, but what hath been believed, and received for such, by the Catholic Church of all Ages. All which, whoso please may read more at large, from Page 48. to Page 57 I having only digested it, and put in as narrow a room, and with as much perspecuity as I could: For, since the rule is, He that gives must take, I venture to be so bold as to tell you, It is there all along very roughly and incoherently, both as to matter and form, even contradictorily put together by you; tho' not altogether so unintelligibly, but that it is plain and evident, that you have quite overthrown the Jesuit: For, as I said before, If all Articles of Faith necessary to Salvation, be antecedent to the being of the Church, and its Governors, the Pastors of it; they cannot then, how great soever that Power is, wherewith they are enstated by Christ, be conceived to have created any one of them: But the main doubt is, How you will answer for those many and palpable injuries our common Christianity suffers thereby, and rescue yourself from the perverser conclusions, which are the immediate result of your Arguing. As,  
1. That a Man may be a Christian, and not a Church Member.  
2. That true Faith and Obedience may be attained out of the Church.  
3. That the being of the Church is not necessary to Salvation.  
4. That the Church is a subsequent Combination for Acts of Worship.  
5. That Church Officers are not of the essence of the Church.  
6. That the exercise of the Communion of the Catholic Church adds only to her perfection. And by consequence,  
7. That the Church doth not cease to be a Church without it, any other ways, than a Man ceaseth to be a Man without a Hand or a Foot.  
8. That the Union of the Catholic Church depends upon its agreement in the Foundation; or in that assent and belief which is antecedaneous unto it. Or thus,  
9 That Schism, which is a breach of the Church's Union, does not relate to Church Officers, in their Church Laws and Canons.  
10. That all necessary Articles of Faith are antecedent to the Catholic Church; and consequently, that Article of the Holy Catholic Church in our Creed.  
11. That the being of a Ministry is not the object of a Christian Man's Faith, so as necessarily to be believed by him.  
12. That, that Church which imposeth it as such, as much as in it lies, breaks the Unity of the Church: And other Churches are not bound to have Communion with it, so long as it does so.  
13. That the Church Explanations of Faith, are not a necessary object of Faith.  
14. That the Church ought not to explicate any one Article of Faith, or deliver and recommend it in any other words, for the assent of Faith, than those we find in Scripture.  
15. That when any such Explication of Faith is made, it must be made evident to all persons, that God did command that Explication, and require the explicit belief of it.  
16. That the determinations of Faith made by any Council, but more particularly, by the Four first General Councils, are an Usurpation, and Imposition upon Christendom; because, there is no Declaration of God's will, that those higher Articles should be so explained and imposed on Christians, as in those Councils they are determined.  
17. That Athanasius and the Homoousians were the imposers upon the Church of God, in that great Controversy betwixt them and the Arians.  
18. That, Universality as to persons, time and place is not that which makes a necessary Article of Faith; because, all necessary Articles of Faith are supposed by you to have been antecedent to the Catholic Church, as to persons, time and place; and consequently, you must either say, That the Article of the Catholic Church, is no necessary Article, or object of Faith; or those conditions are not necessary to the making such.  
19 That the placing some Books of the New Testament in the Canon, which were not once there, for some time of the Church, is an imposition.  
20. That all the Laws and Definitions of the Church, concerning the highest Articles of Faith, oblige no otherwise, than when concerning an ordinary Ceremony.  
21. That there is no more guilt in denying the Doctrine of one Substance, than in not standing up when the Nicene Creed is said, supposing that a Rubric hath enjoined it.  
22. That the Church of England hath put the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds into her Church service, and enjoined them for an instance of her Confession of Faith, when she does not require that we believe them; or if she do, she goes beyond her Authority.  
23. That she greatly errs, not only in imposing the Athanasian Creed for our Confession of Faith, which, either she does not require us to believe; or if she does, we ought not to believe; but turns out the Apostles Creed, upon certain days, to bring that in its room.  
24. That her breach of trust, together with the affront, is much more unpardonable; because the Athanasian Creed is commanded to be said in the room of the Apostles, on the highest days, and in the highest Offices of our Christian Service and Worship; viz. The great Festivals of the Year, as Christmas-day, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, Trinity-Sunday; when a more particular, signal Confession of our Faith, with the greatest Zeal and Ardency, Courage and Resolution, is implied to be a Christian Man's Duty.  
And lastly, That, herein and hereby, you give support and countenance to the many Sectaries that are among us; as, Anabaptists, Socinians, Independents, Quakers; who, upon these very grounds that you have laid down to oppose the Church of Rome, quite fling off the Ministry, or Church of God, as altogether useless as to its public Acts of Worship, or Decrees and Declarations: Or else, they, to be sure, look upon it as that which cannot be supposed absolutely necessary to Salvation. And, indeed, the consequence comes unavoidable upon you; for, if that which is necessary to the Salvation of all Men, be antecedent to Church Society, or Ecclesiastical Communion, and attainable without it, you will find very little left, whereby to persuade Men to submit to that Society.  
It is yielded, that Believers, in some sense, are antecedent to the Church, viz. as the Church is a Society vested by God with Power to oblige the whole; because, this Power cannot be received, and vouched, as true, and not an imposture, but upon a presumption of the Scriptures being God's revealed Word, approved as such by Signs and Wonders, to the Sense and Reason of all Men; there being no other way, whereby the truth of any Power pretending from Heaven, can be tried, and vouched: That, by which, a thing is tried and made manifest, must be before that which is tried by it. We must first believe that God hath erected such a Society or incorporation, ere we can be satisfied, that it is our duty and interest to enter into it. But, surely, no Man was ever reputed a Christian, (or Society of Men a Church,) till actually entered into that Church Communion and Combination; nothing less can be interpreted, believing in Christ, and walking in Christ, in the ordinary way; (and of extraordinary or exempt cases you cannot be understood, for that would be no answer to this Adversary, who was disputing of what was, or aught to be, ordinarily,) nor is there any coming to Heaven in a personal capacity; i. e. not a Church Member. And that Doctrine which maintains otherwise, is the centre of all Enthusiastical Fanatic madness; to talk of a true Church, with all things necessary to the being of a Church, antecedent to this Church-Membership, and not in relation to visible Communion, and visible Duties, under visible Officers and Persons, is an Eutopian Scheme, or building of Castles in the air. Those that expect any benefit by the Redemption of Jesus, out of the visible Church, would do well to plead with those Gnostics in Irenaeus, That they are rendered invisible to their Judge also, at the last day. Adu. Haeres. lib. 4. c. 9  
You are so ingenuous in your Irenicum (Pag. 32.) as to caution the Reader, That all the Rules and Practics you there draw from the Laws of Nature, were but the fictions of your own Brain, and a Scheme of Nothings. Your words are these, A State of Nature I look upon as an Imaginary State; for it is confessed by the great asserters of it, That the Relations of Parents and Children, cannot be conceived in a State of natural Liberty, because Children so soon as Born are actually under the Power and Authority of their Parents: And it is some engagement in order to the obtaining his pardon, for the impertinence and extravagances in that nature, he was to meet with. I think the same caution would have been equally seasonable here also; for your State of Nature is not more Imaginary than your State of Grace: And it will be as difficult to meet with a Christian out of the Church, and independent to his Spiritual Father and Governor, as to find a Child without a Father, or in no tye of Duty to him. Christianity is a Body by God's institution and command, and not purely by after voluntary Acts of Men; it can neither suppose nor leave Men at Liberty; no Man lays limits to the Power and Mercy of God; those that have no Law, he may save without the Law; and those Christians whose unhappy circumstances, and harder necessity, have cast them into that dry Land where no Water is, or out of Church Privileges, and it was not in their choice to obviate and prevent it, will be saved by the Mercy of God. But then no Man ought to enlarge that, which God, by his Revealed Will, hath bound up and limited; or, (where his Church, in her Offices and Administrations, is in actual being and settled) give to any the promise and assurance of Salvation out of it, and take upon them the confidence to prescribe what things are necessary to the Salvation of Men, as such, or considered in their single and private capacities, or out of the Church Society and Ecclesiastical Communion.  
It is your own observation, from Father Layne the Jesuit, at the Council of Trent, (Iren. p. 133.) That it is not with the Church as with other Societies, which are first themselves; and then constitute the Governors. But the Governor of this Society was first himself, and he appointed what Orders, Rules and Laws should govern this Society. And wherein he hath determined any thing, we are bound to look upon that, as necessary to the maintaining that Society. And, as our Saviour had all Power in Heaven and Earth committed to him of the Father, and to him alone, it was confined to his person, as Mediator; so, he transmitted it to a certain Succession of Men only; viz. the Apostles, who were Governors of his Church in his absence, and derived the same Power to their Successors, to be continued till his coming again, for the governing and guiding Mankind into all truth, that brings Salvation. And so far were the first Propagaters and Planters of Christianity, from consenting to your methods of Salvation antecedent to this Ministry, or Government, that they pitched upon the quite contrary Rules; and Church combination, under its Officers, and in its Ordinances, seems to be the first Christian Principle they taught those Candidates to whom they were sent, and their first work was to settle a Ministry. So St. Clemens in his Epistle to the Corinthians, tells us, That they constituted approved Men to be Bishops and Deacons, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, over those Regions and Persons that had submitted to the truth of the Gospel upon its general motives, and designed to go on to perfection; unto which they could alone attain (i. e. to a believing in Christ and walking in him) by the help and co-operation of their Ministry. And when St. John returned out of Patmos, it is said, That he betook himself to the Neighbouring Provinces, and constituted Bishops, setting whole Churches in order. Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 3. c. 23. And the only notion that the Ancients have of a Church, is, as made up of Pastor and People. Ecclesia in Episcopo & Clero & omnibus stantibus, Cypr. Ep. 27. Ecclesiam esse plebem Sacerdoti suo adunatam, & gregem suo pastori adhaerentem, Ep. 69. Ecclesiam non esse quae non habet Sacerdotem, Hieron. Adu. Lucifer. Ecclesia sumitur pro coetu fidelium cum Episcopo, sine quibus privatim congregare Anathema esse, Conc. Gangr. Can. 6. An Essential Church, that is not organical, appeared not in these Coasts.  
I confess, your unusual improvement of this Argument against the Church of Rome, with so much disadvantage to the Church of England, was so surprising unto me, that I was inclinable to persuade myself, the Fairies had changed these particular Sheets, as some talk they do Children at Nurse; or else, that some unlucky Jesuit had Transubstantiated them. But reading on, I met with Reasons that made me believe it might be the Genuine Product of your own Brain; you having farther declared yourself with the like Liberty, in these following particulars: As,  
That the Church hath no declarative Power in matters of Faith; or, supposing any Article obscure to us, or inverted and involved by Heretics; so that the matter of it hath not been explicitly acknowledged in all Ages of the Church anteceeding, when the present Church gives the true meaning of it, according to the tradition of Faith, evidencing thereby the Sense of the Article; or, which is the same, the sense of Scripture, on which the Article is founded, and engages the assent of all Christians thereunto: That, hereby, she creates a new Article of Faith, (pag. 75, 945.) as if there were no mean betwixt the Power of the single Church of Rome, who resolves all her actings into her own immediate Authority, and the true Power of the Catholic Church of God, which determines antecedent truths, that were (tho' less known, or misinterpreted) from the beginning; and, when the reason of her decree is not from her own Authority, but the Tradition of Faith, delivering the sense of the Holy Ghost down unto us.  
That, the Church representing, and the Church diffusive are all one; nothing can make the Church teaching and representative, but the belief of what is necessary to Salvation. (Pag. 86, 87.) I thought a distant Power, by Ordination, had constituted the Pastors of the Church. You go on at the same confused rate, Pag. 251, 252. I'll only write out your words at large, and let the Reader judge of them; That which being supposed a Church is, and being destroyed, it ceaseth to be, is the formal constitution of it; but thus it is as to the Church, The belief of Fundamentals makes it a Church, and the not believing them makes it cease to be a Christian Church: I speak of an essential, not an organical Church: And I know not who those persons are, who out of those places (Luk. 10.16. Matth. 28.19, 20. Joh. 14.16.) do infer the perpetuity of an organical Church; nor if they did, doth it thence follow, they must suppose an infallible assistance, beyond an essential, ('tis strange that nothing should be found betwixt these two in your own sense of them, to constitute Pastors of Christ's own sending) to make it an organical Church; for I cannot imagine what necessity can be supposed of infallibility, in order to that which may be sufficiently constituted without it. The perpetuity of the Church, doth rather argue the infallibility of the promise, than of the Church. Supposing then, that the promises, by you insisted on, should be so far extended as to imply a perpetuity of a Christian Church, what doth that argue but only this, that to make it appear that promise is infallibly true, there shall always be a Succession of Christians in the World? Suppose I grant that the being of a Christian Church doth suppose the assistance of God's Spirit, is there no assistance but what is infallible? If not, no one can be a Christian without infallibility; for we speak of no other assistance, but what is necessary to make Men Christians; for what makes them such severally, take them conjunctly, makes them a Church. But if you, besides what assistance is requisite to make Men Christians, do suppose somewhat more to make them a Church, I pray name what it is? And whatever it be, it will not be owned by such who infer a Perpetuity. But if in order to that, no more be meant (as no more can be meant) than what is necessary to make Men Christians; then infallibility will grow so cheap and common, (I add, and Church-Power and Offices together with it) it will not be worth challenging by you for your Church; neither will a Ministry be worth challenging by us either. But this is agreeable enough with the Title you still give the Archbishop in this Treatise; and as if he had no other Prelation, but what is derived from his Majesty, and is purely Secular, you call him his Lordship only. I much question, Whether it might not have discomposed the Calm that most exemplary Prelate died in upon the Scaffold at Tower-Hill, if he could then have been ware that he should have had such a Vindicator. I cannot hear but repeat it again, tho' it be so very Offensive, How gladly I should see the Church of Rome opposed, and our common Christianity not struck at with the same blow and hand: Surely the due Power of God's Church might have been vindicated, and Rome's Usurpations rejected, without this intermingling all as one, both Priest and People, as you have done here most Scandalously.  
And at the same rate you dispute also against the Monarchical Government of the Church, and an infallible judge (Pag. 464.) because Christ not where, that we read of, took care that we should be freed from all kind of Controversies; and we no where find such a State of Christian Church described or promised, where Men shall be of one mind, (only that peace and brotherly love continue, is all that Christians are bound to,) and that every Man have the same Understanding. Which Arguments conclude as forcibly against any other Government, even that of our Saviour himself, and his Apostles, were they upon Earth again, and in the same circumstances, as when here before. Nay, you have used these very Arguments against all manner of Government in your Irenicum. And farther (Pag. 172.) you infer, Because it is not in the Power of the Church of Rome judicially and authoritatively to determine what Books belong to the Canon of Scripture, and what not: Therefore, the Church in this case is but a Jury of grand Inquest, to search into matters of Fact, and not a Judge upon the Bench, to determine in point of Law: And thereby take away all judicial Power from the Church, to oblige her Members or Subjects by, for their assent and submission to her Acts and Decrees, upon a due search of matter of Fact, and full evidence of the Truth and Certainty of those Articles, Rules and Canons, enjoined and commanded. And thus you particularly affront the Practice of our own Church; she having made it Law, that only such a certain number of Books of the Old and New Testament be accounted and received as Canonical, and withal requiring Subscription thereunto (as a judge upon a Bench to be sure) by all that are admitted by her into holy Orders.  
And as you have before concluded, That whatever Power can be supposed by Christ to be promised and derived to his Church, from Matt. 28.19, 20. etc. is that which each private Christian partakes of. So again (Pag. 516.) you say, That whatever Power can be supposed in a General Council, must be first in the Church diffusive, and from thence be derived to the Council. Which in effect is thus, That the Bishops of Christendom (who by right are only to sit in Council, and such Presbyters as have sat and acted there, did it only as their Substitutes, and by virtue of their deputation) receive their Power either from the Presbyters and Deacons; or, which is worse, from the Laity or Believers in common. The Presbyters, indeed, make the lower House of Convocation in our Church of England; but the reason of that is from a particular Law in our Kingdom, which embodies no Canons, giving to them the Secular protection, but such as pass the Votes of all the inferior Clergy of the Nation, represented by the Presbyters that sit there, as well as the Votes of the upper Clergy or Bishops. Such Stuff have you put together, and yet there is worse; for you add, The utmost then can be supposed in this case, is, That the parts of the Church may voluntarily consent to accept the decrees of such a Council; and by that voluntary act, or by the Supreme Authority enjoining it, such decrees may become Obligatory: As pure Irenicum as any in the World.  
I'll add but one instance more, by which it will farther appear, how you run against, or at least evade, the true Power of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church, vested in them by Christ, for the obliging the whole; and it is that of Schism, which (in prosecution of your foregoing notion) you assert (pag. 290.) to be a violation of that Communion, which Christians are obliged to, upon the acknowledgement of the truth of Christian Religion, or upon owning Christianity the way to true Happiness; 

Quisquis ille est, & qualiscunque est, Christianus non est, qui in Ecclesia Christi non est, Cypr. de Novato, Ep. 52.  
Ind enim schismata & haereses oboriuntur, dum Episcopus qui unus est, & Ecclesiae priest, superba quorundam praesumptione contemnitur. Et homo dignatione Dei honoratus, indignus hominibus judicatur. Idem, Ep. 171.  
Et non attendisti inter schismaticos & haereticos, quam magna distantia sit: inde est quod ignoras, quae sit sancta Ecclesia, & omnia miscuisti, Optat. count. Parmen. Donatist. lib. 1.  
Catholicum facit simplex & verus intellectus, singular & verum sacramentum & unitas animorum. Schisma verò sparso coagulo pacis generatur— & deserta matre Catholica, impii filii dum foras exeunt & se separant à radice matris Ecclesiae, invidiae falcibus amputati, errando rebelles abscedunt, nec possunt novum aliquid aut aliud agere, quam quod jamdudum apud suam matrem didicerunt. Haeretici veritatis exules, sacri symboli desertores, etc. de se nosci voluerunt, ideo & falsum habent Baptisma. Vobis vero Schismaticis quamvis in Catholica non sitis, haec negari non possunt, quia nobiscum vera & communia traxistis Sacramenta, ibid. the very Schism in the days of St. Paul at Corinth. For if he that cometh Preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not Preached; or if ye receive another Spirit, which ye have not received, or another Gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him, 2 Cor. 11.4.  
Immanes, non habentes Dei dilectionem, suam utilitatem potius considerantes, quam unitatem Ecclesiae, & propter modicas & quaslibet causas magnum & gloriosum corpus Christi conscindunt & dividunt, & quantum in ipsis est, interficiunt, pacem loquentes, & bellum operantes, vere liquantes culicem, & camelum diglutientes. Nulla enim ab iis tanta fieri potest correptio quanta est Schismatis corruptio, Irenaeus l. 4. c. 62.  
— Sed crimine Schismatis, à quo immanissimo Sacrilegio, nemo vestrum se dicere potest immunem, quamdiu non communicat unitati omnium gentium, Aug. l. 2. Cont. Petil. Donatist. c. 96.  
Quid ergò prodest homini vel sana fides, vel sanum, fortasse solum, fidei Sacramentum. Vbi letali vulnere Schismatis perempta est sanitas charitatis, per cujus solius peremptionem, etiam illa integra trabuntur ad mortem, Idem, l. 1. de Baptismo contra Donatist. c. 8.  
Nobiscum enim estis in Baptismo, in Symbolo, in caeteris dominicis Sacramentis, in Spiritu autem unitatis, in ipsa denique Catholica Ecclesia nobiscum non estis, Ep 48. Vincentio.  
Quisquis ab hac Ecclesia Catholica fuerit separatus, quantumlibet laudabiliter se vivere existimet, hoc solo scelere, quod à Christi unitate disjunctus est, non habebit vitam, sed ira Dei manet supra eum, Ep. 152.  
And so in the Apostles Canons, Can 31. The Schismatic is he, that altar aliud erigit, nolente Episcopo, & Can. 6. Conc. Constant. 2. Gen. The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are called Schismatics, tho' of a sound Faith. Schisma est recessio à proprio Episcopo, Can. 13. Conc. 1, 2 Constantinop. And to the same effect, Can. 10. Conc, Carthag. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, contra proprium Episcopum. I'll add but this one Authority more, and it is St. Basil ad Amphiloc. Can. 1. Haereses quidem, eos qui omnino abrupti sunt, & in ipsa fide sunt abalienati: Schismata autem, propter aliquas Ecclesiasticas causas, & medicabiles questiones, inter se dissident.— Schisma autem est, de penitentia dissentire ab iis qui sunt ex Ecclesia. Haereses autem, ut Manichaeorum, & Valentinorum, & Marcionistarum, etc. statim enim de ipsa in deum fide est dissentio.   herein contradicting all the ancient Fathers, Doctors and Teachers of the Church of God, and the whole current of Theology; who still speak of Schism as a breach of the Laws and Canons Ecclesiastical, of which those are guilty, who receive and own the Foundation or the Scriptures, as the indispensable Rule of Faith and Manners, but recede from their Pastors or Bishop; that break the outward peace, when owning the same Articles of Faith, and for little things make divisions: And in this respect it is, that St. Austin lays such blame upon the Donatists, telling them, That a true Faith will avail them nothing; nay, that they are worse than Idolaters. Dr. Hammond, in his Book of Schism, considers it also in this Ecclesiastical notion; and therefore concludes us to be no Schismatics, not because retaining your essentials, or being of a Church, consisting in a belief in Christ, and walking in him; but, because, keeping those due Subordinations, in which our Christianity placed us, in respect of our Church-Governors, whether to the Deacon, or Presbyter, or Bishop; Metropolitan, Exarch or Patriarch; as also that due co-ordination, as fellow Christians, without breaches of Charity made upon one another. And to what end you should give this notion of it, differing both from the Church of God, and our own Doctors, is not conceivable; only, that you designed thereby to gratify and comply with those amongst us, whose Maxim is, That to strike a Schismatic is to hit a Saint. That Schism, in this Church-Sense of it, is a mere Chimaera, invented only by Churchmen, to keep the People in Dependence and Subjection unto them; that Unity does not consist in Uniformity, but in owning the general Truths of the Gospel, and obeying them, or believing in Christ, and walking in him, to which every Man may attain by his personal Capacity, antecedent to the being of a Church and Church-Governors: Or in the words of Mr. Hales (made your own by citing of them) in your Irenicum, pag. 108. Schism is but a Theological Scarecrow, set up by such as hold a Party in Religion. And, by consequence, the Church of England is upon the same terms, in respect of the Church of Rome, as the Dissenters are in respect of the Church of England. The Impositions of both are alike Antichristian, which is again the very Doctrine of the Irenicum.  
Your Answer to several Treatises, etc. is the next of your Writings that I have pitched upon, whence to inform myself and others of your particular Judgement in these points of Church-Power, and its Obligation. And that, which I hence report, will be so much more satisfactory, because in your Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical, etc. you refer him hither, from pag, 260. to pag. 291. as those Pages, in which you maintain as much Authority in the Church of England, as ever the Church of England challenged to herself. But here you have left the Church in the same condition you had placed her in before, and altogether without Power to make her Declarations Law, whether in Council, or out of it; and the Office assigned by you to her Pastors, is, to Teach, Instruct, Propose and Recommend, engaging them in Toil and Labour enough, in order to the search of Truth; but they are not where vested with an Authority to oblige the whole Body of Christians, or the Church diffusive: Each Private Man is left at Liberty to receive or reject, according to his Eyesight; and as he apprehends the Reasons, Motives, Tradition, Context, Criticism or inward Revelation, of that which is delivered. And you say withal, That the ancient Church did not pretend to more Authority, as is to be seen in the Pages foregoing.  
As for that branch of Authority you assign her in making Rules and Canons, about matters of Order and Decency in the Church, it is no more than, in effect, you had said before in your Irenicum, (and accordingly you refer to it, in the point, in the Preface to the unreasonableness of Separation,) where, notwithstanding, you contend with all might and main, sometimes, against the Laws themselves, as Antichristian; sometimes, against the execution of them, that they be not imposed upon doubtful Consciences: (as I have already showed:) And you have since been engaged for a Toleration, or Non-execution of Church-Laws in the said Preface, pag. 83, 84, 85. then, when you had Preached but a little before against Separation; and this is the last, and all the account that I can give of you in this affair: He that is most favourable to you, must yield, that you are wavering and unfixed in your Judgement. And did you really believe, that there is an advantage on the side of Authority, which ought to overrule the Practice of such, who are the Members of that Church, where the Authority is exercised, (as you speak,) you would also be so kind to Dissenters, as to urge, with more constancy, upon them their duty in obeying, as a Private Man, you ought to propose nothing less unto them. Tho' I cannot see why we should less doubt of your good will to them and their Cause, when you drew up those Terms and Articles of Toleration; than of Coleman's kindness to the Papists, when he drew up his Declaration for Dissolving the Long Parliament, in order to a Toleration also: And it will be difficult to determine, which of the two was more presumptuous. I know what course the Ancient Church would have taken with a Private Presbyter, who, after a full debate in Council, seconded with a Church Sanction, and confirmed by the Imperial Constitution, should have dared to have made Proposals, or draw up Rules and Limitations, and make them public in opposition thereunto: and yet, this was not your first attempt of this nature; your good will to Comprehension, Latitudinarian Principles hath all along been manifest and notorious. Those many Meetings which you and your Church of England, and Mr. Baxter and his Church of England had, were not so private but that some took notice of them; where you made Proposals for altering the Church Government, settled and confirmed by all that is sacred in Church and State. And the reason is plain why those Men, afterwards, dealt so severely with you, (of which you complain in the  Preface,) upon that Sermon which was Preached before my Lord Mayor; because after your healing Condescensions in private, you appeared a Revolter and Apostate; and they were to deal with you as one that had broken his Faith. If some other had Preached that Sermon, they might possibly have born with him, (he acting according to his principles) when you were not to be endured, (& tu Brute) their Friend, with whom they took sweet Council together concerning the House of God. I add farther,  
1. That in your Treatise of the unreasonableness of Separation, you no where (that I could take notice of) have pressed Christians to Obedience as they are a Corporation, embodied under Governors and Laws of their own, (which is the original and fundamental Obligation to submission and conformity,) arising from the nature of that Kingdom, which Christ erected by the promulgation of the Gospel, of which Kingdom every true Christian is a Subject. I do not deny but that your performance is competently well done, upon your principles, and so far as it reacheth: You have abundantly set forth the reasonableness of our Book of Common-Prayer, in the Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies, and urged Obedience thereunto from the destructive consequences, that must inevitably follow in that Church or Society of Christians, which retains not an Uniformity of Worship; and more especially this reasonable one, that we have in our Church of England. But all is left still as matter of Dispute, like the Corporation itself, as Arbitrary, and at the pleasure of its Subjects, to retain or reject them; and he that sees not with your Eyes (by your own principles) hath no Obligation for Obedience and Conformity to any one Rubric, Law or Injunction, therein contained. And it is observable in your Epistle Dedicatory, that you beg pardon, indeed, of your Superiors, for going beyond your bounds in your projects of accommodation: But it is not for any one reason relating to them, as your Governors; or because you have been injurious thereby to their Power and Government in the Church of God, which you, in so doing, had inroaded and invaded. But, because (forsooth) the Dissenters would not come up to you, and their untractableness rendered your Project useless, admit you had jumped together, and united in the project, What then? Why you had never begged their pardon: And it was success, not design, was wanting, by your own confession. The very case of Coleman. Besides, is not this a delicate Apology for yourself? After you have Mountebanked and Quacked for full Five and twenty Years, and find your Patient worse and worse under your hands, and that you are unable to work a Cure, you then return him to the Church and her Laws of Discipline, for a just Habit and Temperature. The College of Physicians, I am sure, would not think themselves beholden to such an Empirick.  
2. The reason which you give for that great tenderness you showed to Dissenters, when writing the Irenicum (Preface pag. 84.) or that plenary Toleration all Men ought to have, is, because the Laws were not then Established; and return it upon them, that they have not very well requited you for the tenderness and pity you had for them, and the concernment you expressed to have brought them in upon easier terms than were since required: But pray, was not the Church of England the same under the Rump Parliament and Cromwell, and the Committee of Safety, as it now is? And what had you to do to enlarge or limit her terms then, more than now? It was then a Pragmatic Encroachment, and so it is now. I do not believe that Bishop of this Church, from whom, you say, you received, in those days, Episcopal Orders, gave you any such Directions: I am sure you received no such Authority at your Ordination by him. When the Empire frowns upon the Church, or Anarchy relaxates the due Exercise of her Worship and Discipline, Churchmen, and every good Christian, are to consider what is most necessary to be practised: And some directions are given in the case, by the Author of the Discourse of Church-Power, etc. cap. 5. But none are to think themselves acquitted of their Obedience to Church-Laws, during the Suspension, or Interregnum; much less, that they are Authorized to prescribe easier terms, and acquit the first Obligation. Besides, this Answer and Practice is no ways agreeing with him, who hath told us, That the Church is a peculiar Society, in its own Nature, distinct from the Commonwealth, subsisting by Powers of its own, apart from it; subjected in the hands of its own Officers, by a Charter from Christ, never to be divorced, but remaining formally in the Church, after its being incorporated into the Commonwealth. For how can this Church be disestablished by any confusions in the State, or lose this Power? All that can be said in your behalf is this, (and I am resolved to say what is to be said for you) That according to this reason, you do not believe the Power that is enstated on the Officers in this Body and Association, for governing the whole, to extend to Acts and Laws, restraining their Liberties in these cases; or that the Church is a Body subsisting by her own Laws; but assert the Legislative Power in the Secular Hand; which being at that time so much lessened in this Church and Kingdom; you thereby (amongst the rest of the Arbitrary Subjects) became at liberty to act apart, and did so; conceiving that no Law, as a Churchman, or in Episcopal Orders, did enjoin you the contrary. And hence it's plain, why in the Appendix to the Irenicum (where we have also the  Definition of a Church) you say, That you have slit the Hair betwixt the Church and State, adjusting to each that Power which belongs to them, when you name only Excommunication, and Administration of the Sacraments, as her Rites. And hence it is as evident also, as any thing can be, That I did not Steal my considerable Arguments out of this Appendix, which I used in behalf of that other instance of the Power of the Church, (viz. to govern her own Body by her own Laws) the asserting whereof, makes up the Body of my Discourse. And it farther appears, That, that was not one of those points, concerning which, you saw reason to alter your Judgement in Twenty Years time. As in the Preface to the unreasonableness, etc.  
3. In that Preface (pag. 53.) upon the clamours of Dissenters, by reason of your Sermon against Separation; and that you Preached not for Abatements and Alterations, and taking away Ceremonies and Subscriptions, and leaving them full Liberty to do what they pleased, by which you might have gained their good Opinion, and have been thought to have Preached a very seasonable Sermon: Or, in plain English, because you did not make Proposals for Toleration, as you did a little after. To all this you suggest, supposing my private Opinion were never so much for some Abatements to be made, that might tend to strengthen and unite Protestants, and were consistent with our Nation's setlement; had it been seasonable to have spoken of the alteration of Laws before Magistrates and Judges, who are tied up to the Laws in being? What the Power of Magistrates and Judges is, relating to Church-Laws, I have showed at large elsewhere; and that, according to the constitution of the Empire, when Christian, and the Statute Book of our Kingdom since the Reformation: And I do allow your Plea to be just and good. Christian Magistrates always were, and still are, Preservers and Executors of Church-Laws; the Church owes her support in a great measure unto them. And it is impious as well as unseasonable for a private Man, but much more for a Man in the Pulpit, to make Proposals for Nullities and Repeals of those Laws and Enfranchisements, which the Religious favour of the Prince hath granted God's Church; and the Zeal and Vigilance of good Magistrates, take care to preserve entire and serviceable unto her. But, yet, this is not all the guilt that is contracted, or undecency that is committed by such attempts: There is a Church-Power, which you have defined to be distinct from the State, and remaining in the Church, after its Incorporation into the Commonwealth: And no other reason can be given, why your doing the same before these Magistrates and Judges had not been alike unseasonable; or why you pleaded not the equal regard which you ought to have to them also; only that you in reality are still of your Irenicum judgement; viz. That the other Magistrates are the Church, and all Power to make Church-Laws, or execute them, relating to outward decency and order, is invested in them; and that there is no Legislative Power enstated by Christ on his Officers. You, who could tell your Story, and defame me to your Bishop (whom I honour as one, that is vested with the utmost of Power, that our Saviour was pleased to have continued in his Church till his coming again; and do owe an Obedience in special unto him, and all that are of that Sacred and Superior Order in God's Church) in your Epistle Dedicatory, might have considered also, that he was your Diocesan, or that Spiritual Magistrate, to whom you own a more immediate Subjection; and, in respect of whom, an attempt to alter Established Laws, had been equally unseasonable: Neither did the absence of his Person at the Guild-Hall Chapel, render him less awful and tremendous unto you.  
4. When you come to the Discourse itself (Pag. 134.) you seem, at least, too unwary in your Expression; asserting, That if the whole Nation in Parliament consent to the passing a Law for removal of Pastors, and putting in of others, this is sufficient for the satisfaction of that People, to whom they are appointed as Pastors by virtue of that Power, or for the making them true Pastors. I yield, that the right of Investiture is originally in the Secular hand, and, by consequence, the right of deprivation, upon the breach of those terms on which the Investiture is made. Thus Abiathar was removed, and Zadok put in his room: But the question is, supposing Zadok had not been of the Priestly Line, Whether Solomon's placing him in the High-Priest's Chair, did by virtue of his Kingly Power alone, create him Highpriest, and the People were thereupon bound to own and submit to his Ministry? Or to bring an instance nearer home, supposing an Act of Parliament appoint a certain Person to be Minister in such a Parish, when he is really no Minister, because without Ordination from a Bishop; Whether, by virtue of that Law, he is made a true Minister, and aught to be received as such by that People, to whom, by Act of Parliament, he is sent? No understanding Christian will own him as his Minister upon such terms. We have a great instance of this nature in the Church of Scotland about Fourteen Years since: The Secular Power commanded Dr. Burnet, Archbishop of St. Andrews, to admit into particular Churches, and in the relation of Ministers, certain Men that had no Episcopal Orders, and by consequence, were not of the Gospel Priesthood; the most excellent and exemplary Prelate refused for this reason, Because the Prince may promote to what temporal Possessions he please, but he cannot promote to the Authority which is Spiritual; as to the former he must be submitted to, but not as to the latter. And his Lordship was a great example of the last case; for, denying their Institution, he was Suspended from his Bishopric, and sustained it with a due resignation; tho' the Government, upon second thoughts, restored him with greater honour and estimation, in which he died. But as to the more immediate question, and which occasioned this Section, you ought to have urged, That the consent of the People did not constitute a Minister; neither was it any necessary qualification in order to it, as Mr. Baxter and his Combination pretended: But instead of doing this, you reply, That an Act of Parliament is sufficient to constitute him such, which savours too much of the old Vessel. I confess, the consequents would be really evil in the Government both of Church and State; if he be an Usurper in a Parish, to whom the People do not consent, the disorders thereby must become intolerable; and the consequents would be as noxious on the other hand, if the Parliament had the Power of qualifying for it: For, then the Ministry will be quite swallowed up in the State, and every Usurper (be his Religion what it will) may alter the Priesthood; or, as in the days of Jeroboam, make Priests of whom he please. But thus it fares with your Arguments, and it is their usual fault, That they prove too much. You take away Infallibility and the Ministry at once, in other places, and maintain here the Secular Power, to the destruction of the Spiritual. I'll receive him in Seculars whom my Prince is pleased to set over me; but none in Spirituals, who hath not an Authority, which the Secular hand cannot derive unto him.  
5. But that which crowns all, is, (Pag. 300.) when you scatter those mists, which some pretend to have before their Eyes, that they cannot clearly see what we mean by the Church of England; and tell us, it is so called, because it was received by the common consent of the whole Nation in Parliament. Surely, if now we be not a Parliament Church, we never were in the opinion of any, nor ever shall be. Should any Man ask me what the Church of England is, I would tell him, It is that due Succession of Authority, Doctrine, Worship and Discipline, which are now made Law in the Kingdom of England; but if that Law ceaseth to own and protest them, I should not thereby think it to become less the Church of England. For certain, there was a Church of England when there was no Parliaments in England, according to those who carry their aera or date to the highest pitch: And we say, There was the very Church of England that now is, and neither Parliament nor Pope had appeared in our Coast. Besides, What if the Parliament of England pass a Bill of Abjuration against the present Church, as they did the other day against the Crown of England? The Rump Parliament did it. Why then your definition of the Church of England is much at the same as Socrates defined a Man, Homo est Animal, bipes, implume; A Man is a living Creature, with two Feet and without Feathers. Diogenes' Jackdaw was as good a Man, when he had plucked his Feathers off. The being of the Church of England does not depend upon any such outward advantages, or upon the Votes of the People, whether in Parliament, or out of it. We thankfully own the outward advantages she has had, and now enjoys, by Parliaments; but we own, withal, her separate Being abstracted from them; the Church of God here in England, is antecedent to them all. One while I was willing to think, That this Book was wrote by you at a time, when the general design was on Foot, for enlarging the Privileges of Parliaments, or rather of the House of Commons by the Men of Shaftsbury, and you might think yourself engaged to cast in something; and if so, you add that which is very considerable, making the Being of the Church of England to depend upon their owning and acceptance of it. The Kingdom must have Parliaments once a Year at least, only for this; for, otherwise we may have no Church once a Year. But then again, this seems not to be the reason, because I find you to have been of the same Judgement some years before; and you reckon up this among the Encroachments and Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome; (and spoil thereby a good cause;) viz. That Acts of Parliament were no certain indications of the Judgement of the Church, or the generality of the People in that time. (Answer to Mr. Cressy's Epistle Apologetical, etc. pag. 448.) I must therefore conclude, that you were somewhat discomposed; neither is this the only unwary expression you have let fall within the distance of one or two Pages: For, you there mix the Pastors and People together, as of the same Church diffusive. You say farther, That to assert in every Church a constitutive regent part, as essential to it, is the same as the Pope's universal Pastorship. And again, That the Acts of the Convocation are to be allowed and enacted by the King and the three States of the Kingdom: Flatly against the King's Prerogative, in making Church-Laws by the Convocation alone. As also, your term, National Church, is as incongruous as any. National, Congregational, Classical, are Relatives, and give life to one another.  
6. It doth not appear why you Reprinted that scandalous Manuscript, which so immediately opposeth all Church-Power, in the utmost latitude of it, and by the Authority of so many of our most eminent Reformers: Nay farther, with an artifice to conceal Archbishop Cranmers Retraction, unless it be to give all the seeming Authority you could to the Doctrines there asserted. There is not one Note in the Margin by which it appears, that you had then altered your first conceptions of it, as Printed in the Irenicum. Nay you have owned and justified it in part, in your Epistle to my Lord of London; or if there be any alteration made, it is, lest there might be occasion to suspect that Cranmer had deserted you.  
3. And in the last place, you have made no satisfaction at all to the Church of God, for that Irenicum Doctrine, which equals the Presbyter with the Bishop. There is not any thing like amends for it in all your writings that I have met with. It is true, you often speak of Episcopacy, as the most ancient Government derivable from the Apostles: But you have not any where asserted it in the number of those Institutions and Practices Apostolical, which are perpetual and immutable: And until you say this, all you can say besides is to no purpose. The Bishop is, notwithstanding, at the mercy of your Prince, or your Presbyters, when their prudence sees fit to degrade and depose him. There is no more Obligation to continue the distinct order of Bishops, than that order of Widows, in the Epistle to Timothy.  
And thus (Sir) I have showed, that you have not made due satisfaction for those errors in your Irenicum, concerning the Power of the Church in general, and the constitution of our Church in particular; of which I accused you in my Letter, dated May 1. 1682. I have also showed more at large the grounds of my Accusation. I beg only this Favour of you, That if you think fit to return an Answer, you will do it in a Scholarlike way; i. e. by Argument and Matter of Fact, not Rail and Nicknames; it is really below your quality in the Church to Act Andrew Marvel. It was thought by J. O. to be a thing below him: And therefore, we know on whom he set that Buffoon, when his case was much at one with yours, and he wanted argument. Besides, tho' Dr. Burnet was pleased to assign me the Province, yet I am not at leisure to catch Flies. But if you keep to these terms, I shall certainly make a reply, and you will thereby oblige,  
Novemb. 6. 1685. Reverend Sir, Your Humble Servant, SIMON LOWTH.  
FINIS.