CHAP. Church to compromise. To compromise any law of the XVIII. kingdom to dispute of divines upon this principle, is no more, than to oblige either popish or fanatic recusants either to stand to the result or to suffer penalties competent to their disobedience; and the hazard, which the public peace runneth, when the peace of religion is disturbed. If that, which hath been pretended, be all that is intended,— that some small things are scrupled;-let the legislative power be satisfied, that the preservation of religion, and of the authority of the Church (in which the preservation of religion consisteth), is only sought. The interest of the parties to give and to receive mutual satisfaction, is so great, that, if there can be ever hope of peace by dispute, this is the time and ours the case, wherein to hope for it. CHAPTER XIX. PROBABILITY OF RECOVERING THE PRESBYTERIANS. FOR I cannot have so hard an opinion of men, whose zeal for the advancement of discipline in the Church I have always esteemed", as to think them resolved to ruin the common Christianity without hope of doing their own business: seeing this to be the unavoidable consequence of holding up the difference on foot, rather than taking up with so much of their own pretensions as the state of the catholic Church will allow. Let them consider, in the first place, the recusancy of the fanatics as well as those of the Church of Rome; what hope their principles can give them, either to make their recusancy punishable by the law of the land, or to reduce them by convicting them of that sense of the Scripture, which they "Much of what Thorndike says about discipline with respect to holy communion, might almost have been written by Baxter: see the passages of Thorndike referred to in Due Way of Composing Differences &c., § 50, and Just Weights and Measures, c. xxiv. § 6-10.-The power of ministers, i. e. priests, for instance, to repel unworthy communicants, and to refuse Christian burial to those who died in such a state that they ought to have been excom municate, are two among the points on which the Nonconformists laid greatest stress. See above, Plea of Weakness and Tender Consciences &c., sect. v. § 12, 13. The difference between them and Church writers lies of course in the tribunal to which such cases are to be referred: whether to the parish-priest with an appeal to the presbytery of which that priest is a member, or with an appeal to the bishop. 93 XIX. 9-12, xi. Rev. xiii., xvii.] only allow themselves to convict them with? I set aside for CHA P. the present those prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation, 94 by which they pretend the pope to be antichrist and the [Dan. viii. papists idolaters. For I must argue in due place, that the 36-39; recusancy of the papist cannot be punishable by law upon this account. But how will they either reduce the recusancy of the papist by those punishments, which the recusancy of the fanatics must suffer; or give the kingdom, God, and the world, a reason for the why not? which the best of them is here challenged to undertake. Then let them consider the wantonness of these times, and the wits of them, that think it good sport to call in question the foundation of Christianity upon the belief of original sin by introducing the præ-existence of souls": that think it but sport to make ready their studies in divinity for the pulpit by Episcopius his works (denying original sin both name and thing, and making the faith of the Holy Trinity unnecessary to salvation); or rather by the works of the Socinians, collected and united together in Holland, on purpose to prepare us for the same apostasy to Socinianism, which they are in so much danger of there'. Let them consider, what hope they have to make the Universities good presby95 terians, that have sowed the seeds of this danger in them by the dissatisfaction they had of their doctrine when they were in possession there. Then let them tell me, what we shall say to the papists, to persuade them to come to church; whenas they shall say, that they cannot be secured that their curate is no Socinian or Origenist. For the Arminian congregations in Holland having admitted the Socinians into their communions; and the canon of the Church making all • See above, True Principle of Comprehension, sect. ii. note r. P See ibid., note x. 4 See ibid., notes y, z. The works of Socinus, Crellius. Wolzogenius, and other. Socinians, were published at " Irenopolis post an. Dom. 1656," i. e. at Amsterdam in 1668, in several folio volumes under the title of Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum, with a preface by Andr. Wissowatius. See Sandius, Biblioth. Anti-Trinitar., p. 79. The terms of communion offered by (not Arminius himself but) Episcopius, Curcellæus, Limborch, Le Clerc, &c., who after Arminius' death consti tuted the Arminian sect, may be seen p. 328 of Limborch's Life of Episco- XIX. CHAP. Socinians, in the eye of the Church, that communicate with Socinians: how shall they be secured against those, that take their doctrine from the Socinians; or from them, who communicate with Socinians? Besides, let them but remember the time, when they had the ball at their foot,— an ordinance of parliament for setting up their presbyteries"; —and how much they gained upon the people (whom they had disordered out of all ecclesiastical government), when they came to be at what they would be at. I think they will be at so great despair of reducing the world to their intent (having nothing in the law of the land to favour it), that they will think, that they have cause to thank God of a good opportunity to bring them off from an engagement, in 96 which they are like to gain so little by hazarding the common Christianity. As for the clergy of this Church, I suppose there is none of them so little a Christian, as to repute it a loss to the party, to see their adversaries capable of that trust in the Church and those rewards of it, which they have suffered for themselves. For if the necessity of the kingdom hath required an Act of oblivion, much more must the necessity of religion (which cannot be attained without a cordial conspiring of those that are to manage it) enforce a mixture of interest. And that being considered, let any man tell me, how that can be made but by a third, in which all are alike interessed; that is, by owning the faith and the laws of the catholic Church, whereby the papist is either reduced or left punishable as the fanatic. CHAPTER XX. THE CURE, BY REPAIRING THE REVENUE OF THE CHURCH. BUT all this is but a cure for the symptom. Should such a conference take effect, the cause of the disease would re See Due Way of Composing Dif ferences &c., § 3, 17; and Just Weights and Measures, c. xxv. § 2, note a. u Scil. A.D. 1615, 6; see Epilogue, Bk. III. Of the Laws of the Ch., c. xvi. § 5, note a:-see also above in the Let ter conc. the Present State of Rel., § 1, 2; and True Principle of Comprehension, sect. ii. note g. 12 Car. II. c. 11. A.D. 1660. An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion. XX. main entire. For the cause of our divisions is not these CHA P. differences; which are too inconsiderable to produce so incomparable a mischief as that of schism. It rises and is fomented by those interests, which the imperfection of two laws of Henry VIII. hath created". So that the Reformation is no way obliged to answer for them; only, if it refuse not to mend them, now that time hath discovered the mischiefs which they have produced. I call them two laws, not as if they were comprised in two Acts of parliament; but because they concern, one of them the endowment, the other the rights, of the Church. We all know, that, when the monasteries were given to the crown, the endowment of those 98 churches, which had been impropriated to those monasteries, was transferred by the crown into those hands, that could not officiate the cure of parishes; as the monasteries by some of their members or by their vicars had done. And though the right of the crown (which could be no more than the monasteries had) could not abate the original right of the bishop, in settling a reasonable portion upon the vicarages: yet in the hands of those, that claim under the crown, it hath appeared so strong, that such vicarages are generally impoverished; but where the cure lay upon the convent, there there now remains no endowment, no provision for the cure of souls which falls out most in cities, and places that were most frequented with monasteries, as well as with people. What the consequence hereof hath been, it is plain enough: even a sort of mongrel clergy of lecturers; who being authorized by the bishop's orders and license, but paid by the people, to supply the office of preaching, which the benefices of the Church were not able to maintain, like a pack of dogs, that are ruled by the huntsman that feeds them and sets them a work, not by the master that provides for 99 them, no marvel that they own not the bishops for judge of their preaching whether according to the law or not. He, Scil., on the one hand, the Acts by which the monasteries were confiscated; on the other, the Acts which constituted the king head of the Church, to the exclusion of the pope. See next chapter; and Bramhall, Schism Guarded, sect. i. c. ix. (Works, Pt. i. Disc. iv. vol. ii. pp. 452, sq.), and Just Vindi cation, c. iii. (ibid., Disc. ii. vol. i. pp. See The True Principle of Com- XX. CHAP. that sees not that this was the source of the late war; of him is the proverb that says, "No man so blind as he that will not see." And the worst is, that so great a part of the gentry, as have shared with the crown in the spoils of the monasteries, think it their interest to hold up that party, which they think would justify their title in point of conscience; whereas it is found by experience, that those very preachers, that would reform the Church by force of the people, would question their tenure, as soon as they saw themselves in condition to do it. Now I intend not here to dispute, that foundations to intents of false religion (as for redeeming souls out of purgatory) are ipso facto forfeit to the true. God Himself hath recommended this course to [Num. xvi. the Church, in the case of the censers of Core, Dathan, 37-40.] and Abiram; which He challenges for His own to the use of the altar, though consecrated to the use of their schism. But the Christian emperors of the primitive Church, enacting those penalties upon the conventicles of heretics and schis- 100 matics, which we read in the last book of Theodosius his Code, the fifth title De Hæreticis, have confiscated the places where they met in nine laws, and forfeited them to the Church in five. Whereby it appears, that the primitive Church, living under those laws, did not think, that goods so consecrated do of necessity escheat to the Church. My present purpose obliges me only to suppose, that the tithes, -which all the world saw that they had been consecrated to God for maintaining the cures of the parishes,—these, if there be any such thing as a Church, could not be alienated from it without sacrilege. But I say not therefore, that they can never be held bona fide; which is that which makes the jealousy incurable in those, that find their estates consist much of them. And yet I undertake not to warrant generally the holding of them; only [I] think, that in some particulars it may be warrantable. For when they are come into such hands, that the support of estates depends neces Cod. Theodos., lib. xvi. tit. v. De Hæreticis, legg. 3, 4, 8, 12, 21, 30, 33, 34, 36, 58 (ten in all), confiscating heretical places of worship; and legg. 43, 52, 54, 57, 65, assigning them to the Church. See Gothofred. ad loc. See Bingham, V. iv. 11. e See Rt. of Ch. in Chr. St., c. iv. § 49-52: Epilogue, Bk. I. Of the Pr. of Chr. Tr., c. xvi. § 14, sq. and Bk. III. Of the Laws of the Ch., c. xxxii. § 27-29. |