CHAP. XX. Objections against Parish Discipline answered.

Obj. 1. YOu make this discipline seem more needful than it is. A Church may be a true Church without it. The Helvetians use very little of it at all.

Ans. 1. The Helvetian Divines write for it, though with lenity and they are for denying the Sacrament to the Impenitently wicked, which is not nothing; and they are for Pastoral admonition of the persons that are scandalous. And the rest the Magistrates hinder them from, and Page  187 partly undertake themselves. And verily I take it to be much more in∣ingenuous to let the Magistrate do what he can, and to pretend to no more discipline, than to talk for it, and never use it.

2. A Man may be a true man though he have the Palsie, Dropsie, Gout or Stone, or be dismembred. And are these therefore indifferent things?

3. Whether discipline be needful judge after these Reasons. 1. Other∣wise Bishops are not needful to exercise it, nor any other Pastors, but bare Preachers. Why should Lordships▪ wealth and honours, be allowed Bi∣shops for that which is not needful? 2. If it be needful to be exercised on Ministers, why not on the People also? And if not on Ministers, why have there so great numbers been silenced, suspended, and troubled? Sure somebody thinketh, that our silencing is needful. 3. If it be not need∣ful, why did the universal Church use it, and that so strictly from the be∣ginning? And why do they that say this, pretend a reverence to the Anci∣ent Churches, to the Councils, the Canons, and the Bishops of those times, who went ten times further in their Severities than we do. 4. It is need∣ful by Precept and Divine Canon as may be seen, Lev. 19. 17. Matth. 18. 15, 16, 17, 18. 1 Cor. 5. Tit. 1. 13. and 2. 15. and 3. 10. 1 Tim. 3. 5. 15. and 5. 19, 20, 21 22, 24. 2 Tim. 3. 5. and 4. 2. 2 Thes. 3▪ 6, 14. 5. It is needful to the honour of God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, that he may be declared Holy in the Holyness of his Church, and not by our allowed wickedness be represented as an unholy friend to sin. 6. It is needful to the Churches honour, that it be not as a very stie and sink of wickedness as the Infidel World. 7. It is needful to the Churches beauty, safety, and felicity, that God may delight in it, and not forsake it, as he hath done most of the East, nor make them miserable by his judg∣ments. 8. It is needful to the Honour of Holiness it self, which will be vilified if we difference not the precious from the vile. 9. It is needful to the Conviction and Conversion of Mahometans, and other Infidels and Heathens, who now are kept in their Infidelity, by seeing that Christians as are bad or worse than themselves; and would be more drawn to Christ, if the holy Lives of Christians, and holy State of Churches did invite them. 10. It is needful to the comfortable Communion of Saints, as it is professed by us in our Creed. 11. It is needful to prevent the infection of the Church, and the increase of sin; seeing a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and he that toucheth pitch will be defiled by it. 12. It is needful to encourage and strengthen the Faithful, when they see by this praejudicium futuri judicii, as Tertullian calleth it, the difference that God himself will make▪. 13. It is an Essential part of the Pastoral Office to have the Power of Discipline: And what is the Power for but the Work? yea Power and Obligation are essential to his Office. 14. It is needful to the Holy Administration of Sacraments, and other parts of Divine Worship, that Holy things be not given to Dogs. 15. It is needful to convince the ordinary careless sinners among us, that seeing a difference put between Page  188 the good and bad, they may not think that preaching is but idle talk and falshood, and that they are as safe as others. 16. It is needful to keep the better people from offending God by their familiarity and communion with the notoriously wicked. 17. It is needful to break the Serpents head, that in Christs Church the Devils works may be renounced and cast out, and sin be publickly made a shame, as the Devil out of the Church endea∣voureth to do by Truth and Holiness. 18. It is needful to the ease and peace of Magistrates, that they may not he overwhelmed with the cares, troubles, dangers, that come by multitudes of Wicked Men; but the Pastors la∣bours with the voluntary may prevent much of the Magistrates trouble with the involuntary. 19. It is needful to the safety of Commonwealths and Kingdomes, that they be not poysoned by wickedness, and so expos∣ed to the judgment of God. 20. And lastly, it is needful to the scan∣dalous Sinners themselves, that they may not be suffered to die and pe∣rish in their sin, but have all possible means used to bring them to repen∣tance, that they may be saved. Consider whether all these Reasons prove not Discipline to be needful.

Object. II. But till Constantines time there was no Christian Magistrate, which made it then needful: But since the case is not the same.

Answ. 1. Down then with Bishops now, if their work be needless. But why then were they set so much higher, and had so much more power since the dayes of Constantine then before? 2. Are you wiser than all the Councils (Nice, Ephes. Chalced. Constance, &c.) which have ever since made Canons for Discipline? 3. Again, try whether none of the fore∣going reasons, be still in force. 4. Read Galaspies Aarons Rod, which fully proveth the continued need of discipline.

Object. III. But discipline is not to be use• on all that deserve it, but only one now and then, one to be a terror to the rest: You are for too much strictness, rigidness and severity.

Ans. 1. I am not for half the rigidness and severity of the Ancient Bishops and Churches, who made the penitents waite at the Church doors, and cast down themselves with cryes and tears to beg absolution and re∣admission, and in many cases to waite thus many years together, and in some, till their death bed. I am for accepting the first credible pro∣fession of Repentance: I am for gentle exhorting them and praying for them long before we cast them out. I am not for troubling any for small faults: Nor for bringing any mans secret sins to light, or making them more publick than he maketh them himself; I am not for imposing such penances as the Papists do. And is a strictness short of theirs into∣lerable to you, that pretend to be more holy than they? Yea more, I am not for the use of discipline at all, where it is notorious to true reason that its like to do more harme than good. And is all this too much strict∣ness? But I am not for keeping it out, and then making such pretences, nor for causing the inconveniences, and then pleading them against the duty.

Page  1892. The Scripture and Canons do not bid you reprove or suspend or re∣ject one blasphemer, or drunkard of many; but all that are such: And do you say that God and Councils dissembled, and bid us do that which they would not have us do?

3. To censure one of a hundred or a thousand, yea, or twenty offen∣ders, will be no terror or warning to the rest; who will look to scape that which falleth on so few.

4. When one of so many only is censured, the Church will be still un∣der most of the forementioned danger and defilement; and this much will not reach the End.

5. Partiality is an odious Character of injustice, and should not be found in civil judges; much less in the Churches of Christ. And it will but harden and enrage those persons whom you deal with, when you enable them to say, you censure me, and let many others alone, in the same sin. Is this your Church justice, or rather malice to me?

Obj. IV. You confess your self that it is so hard to use discipline in one Pa∣rish, that most Ministers did neglect it when the Bishops were out: And why blame you the Bishops then for neglecting it?

Ans. 1. We were to deal with the Parishes in that defiled and unruly state as the Bishops left them: And all great works must have time to be done in. And at last the reformation prospered apace, till they pull'd it down. 2. We were to make use of such Ministers as the Bishops left us, and of young men who were newly come from the Universities. And men cannot get wisdom interest, experience and resolution in a day. 3. The remaining respects which the people had to the Prelates and their way was a hinderance to us that desired, to meddle herein with none but con∣senters. 4. A great number of Sectaries, raised by the distastes of the Prelates wayes, did also hinder us. 5. Yet it was than possible and feasible to Ministers that were wise and willing to do so much as might very much attain the ends of discipline, though not so much as they desired. 6. But is this an Objection fit for the Prelatists to make? or doth it not encrease their condemnation? what would you say to a Physician, a Pilot, a School∣master, that should say, It is not an hundred Physicians, that can do what should be done for all the Patients in this City; nor an hundred Pilots that can well govern all the Navy; nor an hundred School masters that can well Govern all the Schools in the Diocess: Therefore I will get them all turned out and▪ I will be the only Phy∣sician (with my Apothecaries) the only Pilot (with my S•am•n) the only Schoolmaster (with my Monitors and Ushers) my self; for the work can be but left undone? Such rule the Churches must have while God for our sins will suffer it.

The doing it per alios is oft enough answered before.

Obj. V. Many Parish Ministers are young and raw and unfit to govern. Ans. 1. They are unfit who make this Objection, who bring and keep such in, and cast so many hundred out that are better (however ignorant ma∣lice slander them) 2. This also may be said against their preaching, much Page  190 more: For, 3. They may Rule with others, when they cannot preach by others. 4. There may be appeals to the next Synod (or Prelate if you will have it so).

Obj. VI. You would have a Priest to be a Pope in his Parish. Ans. I can call this Objection no better than gross Impudency: For, 1. Its a Contradicti∣on: A Pope is a Head of the Universal Church: And so it is saying, that we make every Minister a Head of the Universal Church to his Parish. 2. We desire more Presbyters than One in a Church. 3. We desire Appeals to the next Synod: and is that to be a Pope? 4. Is not one Minister as able to Rule a Parish, without the help of assistants and Synods, as one Prelate to Rule many hundred Parishes, who likely is a worse man than the Minister? Impudent pride will perhaps say no.