Tribes, it was doubted, not which of them were citizens, but whether they were made citizens unjustly. If you should find a company of true Christians in Utmost India, would you stand upon terms, and enquire how they became so? While they have what is necessary for that heavenly profession, what need your curiosity trouble itself with the means?

SECT. 9.

Constraint requisite.

You see, then, what an idle plea Constraint is in the constitution of a city, the ground of all your exception.

"But it is otherwise in God's city, the Church:"

Why then doth his doctorship parallel these two? And why may not even constraint itself have place, in the lawful constitution or reformation of a Church? Did not Manasseh, after his coming home to God, charge and command Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel? 2 Chr. xxxiii. 16. Did not worthy Josiah, when he had made a covenant before the Lord, cause all, that were found in Jerusalem and Benjamin, to stand to it; and compelled all, that were found in Israel, to serve the Lord their God? 2 Chr. xxxiv. 32, 33. What have Queen Elizabeth or King James done more? or what other? Did not Asa, upon Oded's prophecy, gather both Judah and Benjamin, and all the strangers from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon, and enact with them, that whosoever would not seek the Lord God should be slain? 2 Chr. xv. 9, 12, 13.

What means this perverseness? You, that teach' we may not stay princes' leisure to reform, will you not allow princes to urge others to reform? What crime is this, that men were not suffered to be open idolaters; that they were forced to yield submission to God's ordinances? Even your own teach, that magistrates may compel Infidels to hear the doctrine of the Church; and Papists, you say elsewhere", though too roughly, are Infidels.

But you say, "Not to be members of the Church: God's people are of the willing sort:"-True, neither did they compel them to this. They were before entered into the Visible Church, by true Baptism, though miserably corrupted. They were not now initiated, but purged. Your subtle Doctor can

* Edesius et Frumentius pueri, à Meropio Turio philosopho in Indiam deporfati, postea ibi Christianum religionem plantarunt. Ruthin. 1. i. c. 9. Fæmina inter Iberos

Barr. against Gyff. Brown, Reformation without Tarrying.

Greenwood. Conference with Cooper. Brown, Reformation without Tarrying. Conference with Doctor And. M. Hutch.

* Conference with Doctor Andr. Reformation without Tarrying.

tell us, from Bernard", that "Faith is to be persuaded, not to be compelled:" yet, let him remember, that the guests must be compelled to come in, though not to eat when they are come": compelled, not by persuasions, for these were the first invitations; therefore by further means: though this conceit hath no place with us, where men were urged, not to receive a new faith, but to perform the old; to abandon that wicked idolatry which had defiled them, and to entertain but that truth which the very power of their Baptism challenged at their hand.

But this was the old song of the Donatists: "Far be it from our conscience, to compel any man to the faith." If God did not draw us; and, by a sweet violence bend our wills to his, when should we follow him? Either you have not read, or not cared for the practice of the Ancient Church; and Augustin's resolution concerning the sharp penalties imposed upon the Donatists (would God none of your kindred) in his time; with his excellent defences of these proceedings'.

SECT. 10.

Constitution of the Church of England.

BUT, tell us then, what should have been done?

"The Gospel should have been every where preached. All converts should have been singled out, and have given a voluntary and particular confession of their faith and repentance." I answer you: The Gospel was long and worthily preached, in the days of King Edward; enough to yield both Martyrs to the stake, and Professors to the succeeding times. Were their holy sermons, their learned writings, and their precious blood (which was no less vocal) of no force? Afterwards, in the beginning of famous Queen Elizabeth's reparation, what confluence was there of zealous Confessors returning now from their late exile! How painfully and divinely did they labour in this vineyard of God! How did they, with their many holy partners which had shrouded themselves during that storm of persecution in a dangerous secrecy, spread themselves over

• Ber. Fides suadenda, non cogenda. Counterpoison.

P Dirit Paterfamilias servis, Quoscunque inveneritis, cogite intrare, &c. Aug. Epist. 48. Pless. de Eccles. c. 10.

Aug. Quòd si cogi per legem aliquem vel ad bona licuisset, vos ipsi miseri à nobis ad fidem purissimam cogi debuistis: sed absit à nostrá conscientia, ut ad fidem nostram aliquem cogamus. Aug. Epist. 48. et 68. Qui phreneticum ligat, et qui letharg, excitat, ambobus molestus ambos amat. Ibid. Clamant, Neminem ad unitatem cogendum: quid hoc aliud, quàm quod de vobis quidum, Quod volumus sanctum est ?

Barrow and Greenw. passim.

this land; and each-where drew flocks of hearers to them, and with them? Is all this nothing to their ungrateful posterity? If you murmur that there were no more, take heed lest you forget there were so many: for us, we do seriously bless God for these, and triumph in them.

All this premised, now comes a Christian Edict from the State, that every man shall yield obedience to this truth, wherein they had been thus instructed. It was performed by the most, whose submission, what was it but an actual profession of their faith and repentance? And, since such was their face, who dares judge of their hearts? More than this, if ever can be shewed absolutely necessary in such a state of the Church to the very Constitution and repaired Being thereof, I do here vow never to take the Church of England for my Mother.

We know, and grieve to see, how scornfully your whole sect, and amongst the rest your resolute Doctor', turns over these gracious entrances and proceedings of these two royal and blessed Reformers.

And whom should he find to raise his scoffs upon, but that saint-like historian, M. Fox?

"Now," says M. Fox", "a new face of things began to appear; as it were in a stage, new players coming in, the old thrust out."

"Now," saith your Doctor's comment*, "new Bishops came in; as players upon the old stage of the Popish Church;" as if the Church were no whit altered, but the men. Shall we say this is too much malice, or too little wit and conscience?

Even in the Lord Protector's days, that holy man reports, that, after the Scriptures restored and Masses abolished, greater things followed these softer beginnings, in the reformation of the Churches. Learned and godly Divines were called for from foreign parts: a separation was made (though not so much willing, as wilful) of open and manifest adversaries from professors, whether true or dissembled. Commissioners were appointed to visit every several Diocese. Every Bench of them had several godly and learned preachers, to instruct the people in the truth, and to dissuade them from idolatry and superstition: the Pope's Supremacy not thrust, but taught down: all Will-Worship whatsoever, oppugned by public sermons: Images destroyed; Pilgrimages forbidden; the Sacraments enjoined to be reverently and holily ministered; Ecclesiastical Persons reformed in life, in doctrine: Processions laid down; Presence and Attendance upon God's Word commanded; the holy expending of Sabbath-days appointed;

H. Ainsworth. Counterp. * Counterp. 226.

"Act. & Monum. Edit. 5. p. 1180.
' P. Martyr, P. Fagins, Bucer, &c.

due Preparation to God's Table called for; set times of teaching enjoined to Bishops and other Ministers; all Shrines and Monuments of Idolatry required to be utterly taken from public and private houses. All this, before his Parliament. By that, all bloody laws against God's truth were repealed, zealous preachers encouraged; so as, saith that worthy historian, God was much glorified, and the people in many places greatly

edified.

What need I go further than this first year? Hear this, and be ashamed; and assure yourselves, that no man can ever read those holy Monuments of the Church, but must needs spit at your Separation.

After that sweet and hopeful Prince, what his renowned sister, Queen Elizabeth, did, the present times do speak; and the future shall speak, when all these murmurers shall sleep in the dust. The public disputations, zealous preachings, restorations of banished religion and men, extirpations of idolatry, Christian laws, wise and holy proceedings, and renewed covenants with God, are still fresh in the memories of some, and in the ears of all: so as all the world will justly say, you have lost shame, with truth, in denying it.

Yea, to fetch the matter yet further: if the reader shall look back to the days of their puissant father, King Henry the Eighth, he cannot but acknowledge, especially during the time of Queen Ann and before those Six Bloody Articles, a true face of a Church, though overspread with some morphew of corruptions; and some commendable forwardness of reformation: for both the Pope's Supremacy was abrogated, the true doctrine of Justification commonly taught, confidence in Saints untaught, the vanity of Pardons declared, Worship of Images and Pilgrimages forbidden, learned and godly Ministers required, their absences and misdemeanours inhibited, the Scriptures translated, publicly and privately enjoined to be read and received, the Word of God commanded to be sincerely and carefully preached. And, to all this, holy Master Fox addeth, for my conclusion, such a vigilant care was then in the King and his Council, how by all ways and means to redress religion; to reform errors; to correct corrupt customs; to help ignorance; and to reduce the misleadings of Christ's flock, drowned in blind Popery, superstitious customs, and idolatry, to some better form of reformation: whereunto he provided not only these Articles, Precepts, Injunctions above specified, to inform the rude people; but also procured the Bishops to help forward the same cause of decayed doctrine, with their diligent preaching, and teaching of the people.

C

Six Articles. 1547.

Act. & Monum. pp. 999 and 1000.

Act. & Monum. Edit. 5. p. 1002.

a

Page 1182. col. 2. 60.

Go now, and say, that suddenly, in one day, by Queen Elizabeth's trumpet, or by the sound of a bell, in the name of Antichrist, all were called to the Church. Go, say with your Patriarch, that we erect religions, by proclamations and parliaments d.

Upon these premises I dare conclude, and doubt not to maintain against all Separatists in the world, that England, to go no higher, had, in the days of King Henry the Eighth, a True Visible Church of God: and so, by consequent, their succeeding seed was, by true Baptism, justly admitted into the bosom thereof; and, therefore, that, even of them, without any further profession, God's Church was truly constituted.

If you shall say, that the following idolatry of some of them, in Queen Mary's days, excluded them: consider, how hard it will be to prove, that God's covenant with any people is presently disannulled by the sins of the most, whether of ignorance or weakness; and, if they had herein renounced God, yet that God also mutually renounced them.

All

To shut up your Constitution, then, there is no remedy : either you must go forward to Anabaptism, or come back to us. your Rabbins cannot answer that charge of your rebaptized brother: If we be a True Church, you must return; if we be not (as a False Church is no Church of God) you must rebaptize. If our Baptism be good, than is our Constitution good.

Thus your own principles teach. The outward part of the True Visible Church is a vow, promise, oath, or covenant betwixt God and the Saints. Now, I ask, Is this made by us in baptism, or no? If it be, then we have by your confession (forsomuch as is outwardly required) a True Visible Church: so your Separation is unjust. If it be not, then you must rebaptize for the first Baptism is a nullity; and, if ours be not, you were never thereby as yet entered into any Visible Church.

SECT. 11.

The Answerer's Title.

Sep. "To the title of a Ringleader, wherewith it pleaseth this Pistler to style me, I answer, that, if the thing I have done be good, it is good and commendable to have been forward in it; if it be evil, let it be reproved by the light of God's Word and that God, to whom I have done that I have done, will, I doubt not, give me both to see and to heal mine error by speedy repentance. If I have fled away on foot, I shall 4 Barr. against Gyff.-Conference with Sperin. and M. Egerton.-Greenw. and Bar. Arg. to Master Cartw. Master Travers, Master Chark.-Brown, Reformation without Tarrying. Principl. and Infer. p. 11,

⚫ M. Smith against R. Clifton.