and heresies in meer opposition to their afflicters I know that the great objection is That under pretence of Love I would bring ungodly persecutors into reputation and tempt men to unlawful Communion with them and that I make an ill application of good principles to hide the odiousness of their sins that care so little for the souls of men as their usage of Ministers and people doth openly declare If I had only perswaded you to unite in Love to one another and not to think better of the destroyers of the Church nor to comply with them in their Idolatrous way of worship you could have born it Brethren will you that take it for injustice in a Iudge who will condemn a man before he hear him speak for himself be intreated but to repress your passions for a little while till you have calmely considered these things following 1. Did I ever perswade you to think well of the faults of other men while I perswaded you to love their persons unless you call the Communion a fault of which we are to speak anon Did I ever seek to abate your dislike of the sins which you most speak against Either malignity cruelty persecution or any other 2. The thing which I perswaded men to in that book was Communion with all Christians but differently as they differ in degrees of purity That which I motioned and pleaded for I summed up in the latter end with the contrary extreams which you may there read in five propositions 1. To adhere to the primitive simplicity and make nothing necessary to our Concord and Communion which is not so 2. To love your neighbours as your selves and receive those to Communion whom Christ receiveth and that hold the foresaid necessary things be they Episcopal Presbyterian Independents Anabaptists Calvinists Arminians Lutherans c. so they be not proved heretical or wicked Peruse the rest When you come to your selves you will confess that this was no unreasonable nor unchristian motion Which of all these Parties is it that you are angry with me for perswading you to Communion with Must every one of the Parties renounce Communion with all the rest O how unlike is this doctrine to that of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 1. 10. 3. 1 2 3. Rom. 14. 15. c. If not every one which of them is it Is any one of all these Parties the whole Church of God who dare say so Why should I refuse Communion with any one of these while I scruple not Communion with all the rest Or if it must be but with one sort how shall I know which of them it must be I know some men judge of others by their Own opinions and self interest But is that indeed the Christian Rule Some of the Episcopal way are angry with me for including the Independents when I doubt not but the far greater part of them are the sincere servants of Christ And since their Synods late moderation I know not many Churches in the world besides the Waldenses of the Bohemian Polonian and Hungarian Government who are neerer to my own judgement in Order and Discipline than those in New England are and none that for Piety I prefer before them Some are angry with me for taking in the Anabaptists when it is not such as the Munster Anabaptists that we have to do with but godly men that differ from us in a point so difficult that many of the Papists and Prelatists have maintained that it is not determined in Scripture but Dependeth on the tradition of the Church I am not of their mind and I have given them my reasons in my book for Infant Baptism But having had more invitation to study the point throughly and treat of it largely than most of those that are offended herein let them give me leave to say that I know it to be a very difficult point And I know as good and sober men of that mind as of theirs that are most against them And I know that in the dayes of Tertullian Nazianzene Augustine men had liberty to be baptized or to bring their children when and at what age they pleased and none were forced to go against their Consciences And I know not that our Rule or Religion is changed or that we are grown any wiser or better than they I once motioned terms of Concord to the Anabaptists and was in as hopeful a way for Peace with them as with most others till Some are offended that I put in the Arminians when I am confident that there is not one of many hundreds whoâ— are against Communion with them that know what Arminianisme is and truly understand the difference And the same men refuse not Communion with those Anabaptists who are Arminians And it hath been the work of not only Mr. Dury but many other excellent men for many years to reconcile the Lutherans with the Calvinists and it hath justly been thought a blessed work to draw them to Communion with each other And yet the Lutherans are not only of most of the Arminan opinions but also have superintendents liturgies ceremonies exorcisme Church-images c. When so much labour hath been bestowed in this work and so many excellent Treatises written for it by pious Dury Junius Paraeus Calixtus Ludov. Crocius Joh. Bergius Conrad Bergius Hattonus Amyraldus Hall Davenant Morton c. When all sober Protestants have prayed for their success or approved this design are we now come to that pass that those that seem the zealousest for the Church and mutuall Love shall think it to be a sin either to hold Communion with the Lutherans or to write for it But the great offence is that I put in the Episcopal as fit for our Communion which I suppose is principally because of their manner of worship in which we must have Communion with them Which foreseeing I answered more objections against this than against the rest which hath occasioned some falsly to affirm that I write only to draw men to Communion with the Church of England I will therefore here proceed to some further expostulations of this point 3. Is there ever a word in all my Book perswading you to Communion with a Diocesan Church as such 4. Is there one word in it for your Communion with a national Church that hath one political spiritual Constitutive Head under Iesus Christ though the Kings supremacie none of us question Do I once meddle with any such thing 5. Is there a word to perswade you to Communion with Persecutors Though I am forced to displease you by answering that objection and telling you that we should be Impartial and remember what most parties or many have done to others which you were not able it seems to bear though it was plainly necessary to the due resolution of the Case in question whether any Persecutors may be Communicated with 6. Is there one word to perswade you that every Parish is a true Church and fit to be Communicated
confess to you brother that though I once hoped that we should have been great gainers by our sufferings the fruit of them now appeareth to me to be such in many as maketh me more afraid of imprisonment for the sake of my soul than of my body lest it should stir up that passion which should bear down my judgement into some errors and extreams and corrupt and destroy my Love to them by whom I suffer And truly Brother I am fully convinced that many that think their sufferings are their glory and prove them better men than others are lamentably lost and overcome by their sufferings I think your companion and you are no gainers by it who presently by preaching and writing thus bring water to the extinguishing of Christian Love I think those two Gentlemen before mentioned that turned Quakers in prison and left their Religion as many more have done were losers by it And I think many thousands in these times that are driven into various errors and extreams and have lost their charity to adversaries and dissenters have lost a thousand times more than their liberties and money comes to Woe be to the World because of offences And woe be to them by whom offence cometh Experience of too many maketh me less in love with sufferings than I have been And to think that the quiet and peaceable preaching of the Gospel though under many other disadvantages if God would grant it us would be better for our own souls EXCEPT XIX Answered You proceed But Mr. B. being once got into the chair of the scornful will not easily out and therefore goes on It is an odious sound to hear an ignorant rash self-conceited person especially a Preacher to cry out Idolatry Idolatry against his brethrens prayers to God because they have something in them to be amended Whereas we do not therefore think any thing to be guilty of Idolatry because it hath something in it to be amended but because it is used in the worship of God without any command of God to make it lawful And this we must tell our Dictator is a species of Idolatry and forbid in the second Commandement And if he will not receive it so it is to use his own arrogant and imperious words because he understands not Christian sense and reason Answ. 1. The charge of Idolatry against the Liturgie and Conformable Ministers I found in Iohn Goodwins book and Mr. Brownes and others But this Brother carrieth it much further 2. He contradicteth himself in his Negation and Affirmation For whatsoever is to be amended which is used in Gods worship hath no command of God to make it lawful For it is sin But whatsoever is used in Gods worship without any command of God to make it lawful he affirmeth to be Idolatry Ergo whatsoever is used in Gods worship which is to be amended he maketh to be Idolatry 3. Reader if this one Section do not make thy heart grieve for the sake of the Church of Christ that our poor people should be thus taught and our Congregations thus distracted and unholyness that is uncharitableness fathered upon the God of Love and our sufferings and non-conformity thus turned to our reproach and wrath and reviling pretended to be Religion thou hast not a true sense of the concernments of Christianity and the souls of men I shall propose here these few things to thy consideration Quest. 1. Whether an Idolater be not an odious person and unfit for Christian Communion That these men think so their practise sheweth Q. 2. Whether he that writeth and preacheth to prove others Idolaters do not write and preach to make them so far seem odious and to perswade men from loving them and having communion with them as Christians Q. 3. Whether he that preacheth up hatred causelesly and preacheth down Christian love do not preach down the sum of true Religion and preach against God who is Love Q. 4. Whether preaching against God and Religion be not worse than talking against it in an Ale-house or in prophane discourse And fathering all this on God and Religion be not a sad aggravation of it Q. 5. Whether this brother that affirmeth this to be Idolatry that he speaketh against should not have given us some word of proof especially where he calleth me that deny it a Dictator And whether both as Affirmer among Logicians and as Accuser among men of justice the proof be not incumbent on him Q. 6. Whether here be a syllable of proof but his angry affirmation Q. 7. Whether thou canst receive this saying of his if thou have Christian sense and reason so far as to believe that all the Churches of Christ fore-named the Greek the Abissine the Armenian the Coptics the Lutherans and all the Reformed Churches that fall under his Charge are Idolaters And couldst bring thy heart accordingly to condemn them and separate from them And whether thou canst take all the holy Conformists of England such as Bolton Preston Sibbes Stocke Dike Elton Crooke Whateley Fenner c. for Idolaters yea and all the non-Conformists that used and joyned in the Liturgie Q. 8. Whether thou canst believe that this same brother himself that writeth at this rate do use nothing in Gods worship which hath no command of God to make it lawful Is all this reviling all this false doctrine all his untruths commanded of God Or doth he not make himself an Idolater Q. 9. Whether if he teach true doctrine there by any Church or person in the World that worshippeth not God with Idolatry I give my reasons 1. There is no one but sinneth or useth sin in the worship of God But no sin is commanded or lawful Ergo there is no one according to his doctrine but useth Idolatry in the worship of God 2. There is no one that useth not some things not commanded to make them lawful in the worship of God Therefore if he teach true doctrine there is no one but useth Idolatry The antecedent I have oft proved by many instances The method of every Sermon and Prayer the words the time and length the translation of the Scripture whether it shall be this or that the dividing of the Scripture into Chapters and Verses the Meeter of Psalms the Tunes Church utensils Sermon notes which some use Catechisms in forms c. the Printing of the Bible or any other books c. none of these are commanded And all these are used in the worship of God And must all Christians in the World be taught to fly from one another as Idolaters Is this the way of Love and Unity Q. 10. Why should this brother be so extream impatient with me for calling Dividers weak and pievish and censorious Christians If in his own judgement all men be Idolaters that use any thing in Gods worship not commanded Is not this to censure all men as Idolaters And yet is a censure of previshness on these Censurers a justifying of persecution Q.
Christians and in particular between the Non-conformists and Conformists 1. The General Part or Introduction Chap. 1. A Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned mens displeasure of both sides against me The Reasons of my omitting the Narration of those former Actions which Mr. Durel and many others have reported falsly because they wrote of that which they knew not The Reasons of my earnest displeasing endeavours with the Bishops for Reconciling and Uniting terms in 1660. Our Common Profession about a Liturgie at that time and about this Liturgie and my practiee ever since How the Non-conformists must be united among themselves Of our judgement about Communion in the Liturgie and Sacrament with the Parish Churches in aâ— 1663. My ends in opening this 27. Reasons for the writing and publishing my Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions A word of the Debatemaker Of the filse reports that have been vented of my Book aâ—d me and of some Inferences to be noted by the Reporters Chap. 2. The state of the Controversie which I specialy managed in that Book with thâ—se that I called Diâ—iders Chap. 3. Objections and Questions about this subject Quest. 1. Doth not the second Commandment and Gods oft expressed jealousie in the matters of his Worship make it a sin to communicate in the Liturgie Quest. 2. Doth not the Covenant make it now unlawfull Quest. 3. Whether the case be not much altered since the Old Non-câ—nformists wrote against separation then called Brownisme And whether we have not greater Light into these Controversies than they had Quest. 4 Is it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down what we have been building Quest. 5. Will it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Quest. 6. Will it not divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Quest. 7. Shall we not countenance Church Tyranny and harden Prelates in their usurpations and invite them to go further and make more burdens of Ceremonies or Forms to lay upon the Churches The manifold danger of feigning the Scripture to be a particular Rule where it is none The Contents of the Answer to the Exceptions Except 1. False Worship distinguished and opened Whether I speak very little against persecution Exc. 2. Whether I was as guilty as any one whatsoever in stirring up and fomenting the War Whether it be unbecoming a Minister to blame the sin which he hath been guilty of or to blame the Effects if he encouraged the Cause Whether nothing of the late Military Actions be to be openly repented of Whether I never mention the prophane but with honour Exc. 3. Of partial tenderness as to Reproof Whether my prayer was jesting c. Exc. 4. Of the supposed Expressions of my Pride Exc. 5. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 6. What separation Scripture calleth us to and what not Exc. 7. Of the Corruptions in the primitive Churches and of Imposing Exc. 8. Whether I be a Revealer of mens secrets Exc. 9. Whether the Universality of Christians ever took the Pope for their Head Of my Dispute with Mr. Johnson alias Terret on that point Whether all History be uncertain Whether it be intolerable to say that the Papists understand not that answer which is Christian sense and reason Exc. 10. Of Local Communion of separating from the particular Churches which we were never members of Exc. 11. Of Censurers requitals Whether a Papist can go beyond a Reprobate Exc. 12. Of Scandal and of Pauls case 1 Cor. 8. explained Exc. 13. More of my revealing secrets and other of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 14. Whether by Separatists I meant the Independents as such Exc. 15. Whether I speak slightly of Prayer in comparison of Study Whether it be a slighting of Christ to say that he increased in wisdom which is opened Whether Christ needed not prayer but as a pattern to us c. Exc. 16. Of expounding Scripture by the Impressions set upon our minds in Melancholy How the Spirit cureth our fears and giveth us comfort by twelve acts Exc. 17. Whether my saying that God hateth neither extemporate prayers nor forms be as if I could never speak meanly enough of prayer Whether I be a Trifler that neither believe the Scripture or my self for saying that in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and prayers by habit were used and that Christ yet made no question about them Seldens words upon the Iews Liturgies Exc. 18. Whether I did ill in disswading men from jeering and jesting at other true Christians manner of Worship And whether I purposely justifie persecution Exc. 19. Whether all be Idolatry which is used in the Worship of God without a Command of God to make it lawful The unhappy consequents of making so many Christians and Churches Idolatrous Exc. 20. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 21. Whether our presence at the prayers of every Church be a professing of consent to all that is faulty in those prayers Exc. 22. Of not silencing any truth for peace Exc. 23. Of imprudent speeches to superiours Exc. 24. Whether there â—e any weak ignorant and injudicious Christians and whether they hereby have been any cause of our divisions And whether these be vile Epithets not to be given to Christians but instead of them all Christians are to be told that they have the anointing and know all things Twenty proofs of such ignorance And the greatness of their sin especially Ministers that would hide it or deny it at this time manifested in forty aggravations Exc. 25. Whether any hearers use to be more moved with the affectionate delivery of meaner than with a colder delivery of more excellent things Of my forsaking the Lords work Exc. 26. Whether there be any Article necessary to salvation unknown to the universal Church Whether in points of difficult speculation one clear judicious well studied Divine be not to be more hearkened to than the Major Vote Whether the perfection and plainness of the Scriptures prove all Christians to be of equal understanding or to need no others help Exc. 27. Whether honest people be not in danger of following others into error and sin And whether to say so be enough to make people afraid of being honest Exc. 28. Whether it be new or intolerable to advise men not to imitate Religious people in the sins which they are most prone to What it is to flatter Professors of Religion and what it is in them to expect it Exc. 29. Of the name of a Sect. Exc. 30. Whether we must avoid that good which is owned by bad men Exc. 31. Of his accusations of my unsetledness in the point of Church Government and suspectedness in the point of Iustification Exc. 32. Whether we can speak bad enough of corrupted Nature Twenty instances of speaking too bad of it Whether I understand by the flesh only the sensitive Appetive Whether I be strongly inclined to deny Original sin
the dangerous guilt of Adding to the Word of God under pretence of strict expounding it and defending its perfection and extent 3. By the same Rule as they deal thus by one Text as the second Command they may do so by all And if all or much of the Scripture were but thus expounded I leave it to the sober Reader to consider what a body of Divinity it would make us and what a Religion we should have 4. It altereth the very Definition of the holy Scripture and maketh it another thing That which God made to be the Record of his holy Covenant and the Law and Rule of Faith and Holiness and the General Law for outward Modes and Circumstances which are but Accidents of Worship is pretended by men to be a particular Law for that which it never particularly medleth with 5. It sorely prepareth men for Infidelity and to deny the Divine Authority of the Scripture and utterly to undo all by overdoing If Satan could but once make men believe that the Scripture is a Rule for those things that are not to be found in it at all and which God never made it to be a Rule for he will next argue against it as a delusory and imperfect thing He will teach every Artificer to say That which is an imperfect Rule is not of God But the Scripture is an imperfect Rule For saith the Watch-maker I cannot learn to make a Watch by it saith the Scrivener I cannot make a Legal Bond or Indentures by it saith the Carpenter I cannot build a House by it saith the Physician I cannot sufficiently know or cure Diseases by it saith the Mathematician Astronomer Geographer Musician Arithmetician the Grammarian Logician Natural Philosopher c. it is no perfect particular Rule of our Arts or Sciences The Divine will say It tells me not sufficiently and particularly what Books in it self are Canonical nor what various Readings are the right nor whether every Text be brought to us uncorrupted nor whether it be to be divided into Chapters and Verses and into how many Nor what Metre or Tune I must sing a Psalm in nor what persons shall be Pastors of the Churches nor what Text I shall choose next nor what Words I shall use in my next Sermon or Prayer with abundance such like Only in General both Nature and Scripture say Let all things be done in Order and to Edification c. Spiritually Purely Believingly Wisely Zealously Constantly c. He that believeth it to be given as such a particular Rule and then findeth that it is silent or utterly insufficient to that use is like next to cast it away as a delusion and turn an Infidel or Anti-scripturist 6. This mistake tendeth to cast all Rational Worship out of the Church and World by deterring men from inventing or studying how to do Gods work aright For if all that man inventeth or deviseth be a forbidden Image than we must not invent or find out by study the true meaning of a Text the true method of Praying or Preaching according to the various subjects Nay we must not study what to say till we are speaking nor what Time Place Gesture Words to use no nor the very English Tongue that we must Pray and Preach in Whereas the Scripture it self-requireth us to meditate day and night to study to shew our selves workmen that need not be ashamed to search and dig for knowledge c. Do they not err that devise evil but mercy and truth shall be to them that devise good Prov. 14. 22. I Wisdom dwell with Prudence or subtilty and find out knowledge of witty inventions Prov. 8. 12. The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words Eccles. 12. 10. Banish study and you banish knowledge and Religion from the world The Spirit moveth us to search and study and thereby teacheth us what to judge and say and do and doth not move us as I play on an Instrument that knoweth not what it doth 7. This Opinion will bring in all Confusion instead of pure reasonable Worship While every man is left to find that in the Scripture which never was there and that as the only Rule of his actions one will think that he findeth one thing there and another another thing For it must be Reality and Verity which must be the term of Unity Men cannot agree in that which is not 8. Yea it will let in impiety and error for when men are sent to seek and find that which is not there every man will think that he findeth that which his own corrupted mind brings thither 9. And hereby all possibility of Union among Christians and Churches must perish till this Opinion perish For if we must unite only in that which is not in being we must not unite at all If we must all in singing Psalms agree in no Metre or Tune in the Church but one that Scripture hath prescribed us we shall sing with lamentable discord 10. And hereby is laid a snare to tempt men into odious censures of each other Because studied Sermons printed Books Catechisms and Forms of Prayer are Images and Idolatry in these mens conceits all Gods Churches in the world must be censured as Idolatrous And almost all his Ministers in the world must be accounted Idolaters Children must account their Parents Idolaters and disobey them that would teach them a Catechism Psalm or Form of Prayer Our Libraries must be burnt or cast away as Images And when Ministers are diminished and accounted Idolaters if Satan could next but perswade people against all the holy Books of the Ministers of Christ such as Boltons Prestons c. as Images and Idols had he not plaid a more succesful game then he did by Iulian and doth by the Turks who keep the Christians but from humane Learning 11. Hereby Christian Love will be quenched when every man must account his Brother an Idolater that cannot shew a Scripture for the hour the place of Worship the Bells the Hour-glasses the Pulpit the Utensils c. or that studieth what to say before he Pray or Preach 12. And hereby backbiting slandering and railing must go currant as no sin while every Calvin Cartwright Hildersham Perkins Sibbs c. that used a Form of Prayer yea almost all the Christians in the world must be accused of Idolatry as if it were a true and righteous charge 13. And all our sins will be fathered on God as if the second Commandment and the Scripture perfection did require all this and taught Children to disobey their Parents and Masters and say your Prayers and Catechisms are Images and Idols c 14. It will rack and perplex the Consciences of all Christians when I must take my self for an Idolater till I can find a particular Law in Scripture for every Tune Metre Translation Method Word Vesture Gesture Utensil c. that I use in the worshipping of God When Conscience must build only in the air and rest only on
with scorn Are not we Commanded not to reveal the secret of another which pious and prudent Mr. Baxter hath not scrupled to sin against c. Prov. 25. 9. As you abuse the text which speaketh of an individual person who is supposed to be hereby injured because known so you speak untruly in saying I revealed anothers secrets For to pass by that I reveal not the persons who are still unknown it is not true that they were secrets When I disputed almost all day with such both Souldiers and others in the publick Church at Amersham above 20 years ago was that a secret which they so fiercely proclaimed When I disputed daily almost with such in Cromwell's Army was that a secret When I disputed with Mr. Brown an Army Chaplain and his adherents for the Godhead of Christ in a publick Church at Worcester was that a secret When I disputed in the publick Church at Kiderminster with the Quakers was that a secret When the said Quakers and many other Sects have come to my house and have oft assaulted me in many other places openly and vented their ignorance with fierce revilings and raging confidence was that a secret When I have openly Catechized men was that a secret Do not all sound Protestants believe that they are fundamentals which our Quakers commonly contradict and are ignorant of especially Foxes party whom Smith and Major Cobbet accuse to deny Christ and the Resurrection c. And are there not Assemblies of such in London And do not many turn to them of late And is that a secret which their books and their assemblies tell the World Who is it now that is put to shame EXCEPT IX Answered I must now answer for what I say against the Papists too I Confess they are separatists or recusants too But le ts hear the Charge You say They are very unweighed and rash words when he saies Shew me in Scripture or in Church history that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the World as the Papists call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn Papist We think none can write thus but declares a great unsteadiness in his Religion for none that knoweth Church history but can prove that such a Church as the Romane hath been neer 1300 years actually in being Answ. 1. My foregoing words are these The Pope hath feigned another thing and called it the Church that is The Universality of Christians headed by himself Whereas 1. God never instituted or allowed such a Church 2. Nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping head Now when you say there hath been such a Church as the Romane either you mean what I denied such a Church as they claim and feign and I described Or only such a Church as they are which is another thing If the later why will you grosly abuse your Reader by such a deceit which tendeth to tempt him unto Poperie What 's that to my words which you seem to contradict But if you mean the former and indeed contradict me then 1. You prevaricate in befriending Popery 2. You here set down three more Untruths in matter of fact 1 That there hath been neer 1300 years or ever was such a Church that is that the Universality of Christians did acknowledge the Pope for the Universal Constitutive and Governing Head 2. That there is none that knoweth Church history but can prove this 3. That they are very unweighed words in which I assert what I did And all this I have given the World full proof of in my Dispute against Mr. Iohnson the Papist of the Visibility of the Church Had I not weighed the words I had not so many years ago so largely proved and maintained them And I have there fully proved that the Romane Church was only Imperial or of the Empire and the Countreys that after fell from the Empire such as we call national because under one Prince That de facto the Persians the Abassines Indians part of Armenia and many other Churches or Christians never acknowledged him their Constitutive or Governing Head that the Emperors who called the General Councils had nothing to do with the subjects of other Princes nor used to call them That the General Councils consisted only of the subjects of the Empire and those that had been of the Empire except one Iohannes Persidis and one or two more inconsiderable persons that no account can be given of who they were or how they came thither Godignus himself will tell you enough of the Abissines All the Papists in the World are never able to answer this publick Evidence of fact with any sense Mr. Iohnson's Reply I take not to be worthy of an Answer with any man that can make use of an answer when his shift is so gross as to instance in the Bishops of Thracia as out of the Empire and such as they which every novice in history and Geographie can Confute Unless I was Confuted in London at a publick Play where that you may see who influenceth them a Tutor in Geographie was as I am credibly informed brought in telling his Pupill that Prester Iohn's Countrey of Abassia was of the same Latitude with a place in Worcester-shire called Kederminster Now seeing reason forbiddeth me to interpret you as speaking of the Church of Rome as a Sect or Party when I spake of it as the Universality of Christians headed by the Pope your Context shewing that it is my words that you gainsay therefore I must number these three also with the rest of your untruths You adde We wonder that any Protestant should be found though but by the equalling of Church history to Scripture as if the uncertain tradition of the one were to be as much accounted of and followed as the Divine and infallible Revelation of the other Answ. 1. Because this wonder plainly containeth an affirmation that I do so I must say that it is your tenth untruth Prove such a word if you are able 2. It is not true that this Historie is uncertain though not to be equalled with Scripture Is the Case of a vast Empire of Aethiopia as big yet after the decay saith Brierwood as Germany Italy France and Spain uncertain when the World knoweth that they have not had so much as Converse with the Pope and at Oviedos attempt did not know who he was And so of Persia India c. If you will needs be so much wiser than your neighbours as to prove all historie uncertain even that there was a Caesar or a William the Conqueror 1. While you befriend the Papists in this one point you will incommodate them in others 2. And you will promote Infidelitie by making that historie uncertain by which we know the Canonical books of Scripture and that they are delivered down to us the same and uncorrupt When I had given in few words a full
you avoid what you injuriously impute to others when you cry out What could Parker c. have spoken more reproachfully c. Sure you thought I had spoken against fervent preaching it self or else you would not have talk'd as you do Here also after some mention of my Pride and Folly you adde two more gross Untruths 1. That what I spake of individual persons without respect to any party Conformists non-Conformists or Separatists and instanced in many of my own acquaintance some of which now Conform yea are zealous Conformists who were the ferventest loudest Preachers that ever I knew in all my life If I will not tell you who they are alas man did you never know such you must think it concerns all that are at this day engaged in a Gospel separation Answ. Had you said We will think so it might have been true But 1. I had made no mention at all of separation in the whole Direction nor intended any more than I expressed But only meant to direct people to avoid that error in the choice of Teachers which prepareth them for any seduction and division 2. I had largely spoken there for affectionate Preaching 3. I am not acquainted with very many such as in England have been known by the name of Separatists that go no further But those few that I do know I take to be colder duller Preachers than those that are called Presbyterians byfar for the most part of them so far was I from meaning them But Quakers and Fifth-Monarchy men and some Anabaptists I know and many revilers of the Ministry I have known in Armies and Countreys that were just such as I describe 2. It is an untruth that you had no pretence of Reason for that I can think of that I have left off the Lords work and instead of helping it forwards with you am weakening your hands and disgracing the builders If you mean that I preach not in the Pulpit no more do you If you mean that I have not a separated Church I never had one on your principles at least If you mean that I preach not in London 1. I cannot if I would 2. I never had any Pastoral Charge nor place in London but preach'd one year up and down for others and another year took but a voluntary Lecture 3. London I was forced eight years ago to forsake for my health and life 4. Gods work is not only in London 5. I have no call thither nor any people related to me as a Pastor there 6. There are very many worthy men there that want both employment and maintenance whom I will not injure Are not all these reasons enough But if you think otherwise 7. Are not all the Preachers in England forsakers of Gods work that preach not in London 8. I think you preached not for many years when you lay so long in prison Did you then forsake Gods work But I must confess Brother I have alwaies been too slothful and unprofitable a servant and still am Yet I can say that I know no other employment that I have and that I spend no more time in other things than necessities of life require I play away none and I idle away but little and preaching were it oftner is a small part of my work and that will be proved to be the Lords work which you think is against him as all have done that ever I wrote against almost And I love you much the better for being zealous for that which you do but think is the Lords work But I am past doubt that it will prove at last that such doctrines passions and practices as yours will be the weakeners and hinderers of the builders EXCEPT XXVI Answered p. 16. I intreat the Reader to peruse my words which you except against so angrily and I am assured he will find them useful to him in the great Question Who shall be Iudge And to help him out of his perplexities 1. It is a notorious untruth that you say It is altogether a new way of deciding Controversies to affirm Dictator like in all points of belief or practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church Be it right or wrong who knoweth not that knoweth what was held of old that it is the way that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Hierome Augustine Optatus and abundance more have largely written for And which Vincentius Lirinensis wrote his book for Quod semper ubique ab omnibus c. 2. Note Reader that he leaveth out that I said here no man must be Iudge no not the universal Church but only that they are our associates and that here every Christian maketh the Articles of his Faith his own and upon no mans authority c. But I maintain that it is no Article of absolute necessity to Salvation that hath been unknown to the Universal Church till now for then it were no Church But saith our brother who shall tell us what is the Universal Church And where shall we find it Answ. Are these Questions now to be answered by me Did you never before hear it done by others The Universal Church is the Universality of Christians It is to be found militant on this habitable earth Did you not know this But you ask How comes the Scripture not to be mentioned Answ. Because it was not seasonable or pertinent I was not defining the Church If I had it was definable without the naming of the Scripture at least before the Scripture was written And whence think you did I mean men should make the doctrine of Faith their own past controversie but by the Scripture Good brother till you have written more books for the authority of Scriptures than I have done or preach'd more for it own not such disingenuous intimations 2. You say that what he addes is much more conceited and singular In matters of high and difficult speculation the judgement of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the Major Vote Answ. It is another Untruth that this is singular My very words are almost verbatim in Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. elsewhere cited Why do the Scotists so far follow Scotus and the Nominals Ockbam and the Dominicans Aquinas c. if this were a singular opinion Do not all the Peripateticks say the same of Aristotle in Philosophy And the Atomists of Epicurus Democritus and Lucretius and the Cartesians of their Master Doth not Dr. Twisse say the like of Bradwardine and of Piscator And do not many besides Rutherford think the same of him Do not the Ramists say so of Ramus Do not the Protestants say so of Calvin as to all that went before him Nay is it not almost the common opinion of all Learned men And a thing beyond dispute Did ever any man put such points of high speculation to the Major vote Alas brother that you should
Of free-will Exc. 33. 34. Of other mistakes of the Excepter Exc. 35. Whether no persecution may consist with love Exc. 36. 37. Of the fewness of believers c. Exc. 38. More of his mistakes Exc. 39. Whether the same Spirit may not now use the ancient Prayers and Responses which first brought them in or used them Exc. 40. Of my comparing Ol. Cromwell to Maximus and whether I dedicated a flattering Book to his Son Exc. 41. Of his imputation of levity The Conclusion with some advice to the Excepter and a lamentation for the decay of Love A POSTSCRIPT SHewing how far as Mr. Jacob and the old Independents so the New England Pastors and Elders and Magistrates are from approving of the Principles of Separation Reasons why I am against the new terms of Church-membership and the approaches of some Independents toward Separation Reasons why the Independent Churches should as much fear the principles of Separation as any THE PREFACE TO THOSE READERS Who are of the Excepters mind and are offended at my Book called THE CURE OF Church-Divisions BRethren why should I wonder at the fruits of those weaknesses which we are all subject to some more some less in this state of imperfection and which I so lately told you of at large in my Character of and Directions for Weak-Christians If a spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in Paul and other the Apostles of our Lord could not overcome these lamentable failings in their hearers and followers in the Primitive Church why should such as I look for more success If Paul thought his Galatians foolish and bewitched Gal. 3. 1. and his Corinthian Christians to be babes yea Carnal and not Spiritual because there were among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 envying strife and divisions or as the words signifie zeal or emulation strife and separations or factions or dividing into several parties while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos what wonder if we are no better now But our sins are not the less because that others had the like but the greater because we take not warning by them when the spirit of God hath so smartly reprehended them I have as little reason as you to be ignorant what provocations the present militating and exasperated parties do give each others and how fair pretenses uncharitableness hath obtained And I know but few of you that have either more openly put themselves into the breach and attempted more to have prevented both severities against you and the present divisions among us than I have done or that have undergone more wrath and calumny to mention no other kind of sufferings for such attempts than I have done you cannot justly think that it is for want of your provocations and temptations to discontent that I am not of your mind I have had as many and great provocations as most of you all And I am not naturally without those passions which would take advantage by such usage A multitude of fierce and reproachful Volumes are written against me many of them abounding with gross untruths in matter of fact to all which I have for peace sake been silent to this day And none that know me do think that it is to escape mens wrath that I have been more for peace and unity than you I will do that right to them that have done me but little as to testifie that I verily believe could my Conscience comply with their Opinions and wills I could as soon have their favour as most among you But God is still the God of Love and Peace and Concord and so must all his servants be He changeth not and we must not change from this which is his Image This is my Religion and if any mens provocations must change me from this they must change my Religion I am not for such fruits of suffering as some late eminent prisoners in London were who turned Quakers in prison and lost their Religion with their liberty nor will I pretend Conscience for the defiling of my Conscience and the forsaking of the sacred life of Love Do you not your selves condemn a Carnal state Remember then that they are Carnal who are contentious dividers in the Churches 1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3. You will I doubt not joyn with me in disallowing of a fleshly mind and life Remember then that the workes of the flesh are these as adulteries fornications c. So also hatred or enmities variance emulations wrath strife seditions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dividings into parties heresies envyings c. I know you will confess that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Remember then that the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of Love Love to God and man is that Divine nature which God indueth all Christs members with The fruit of the spirit is Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Gal. 5. 20 21 22. When we think our selves wiser than those we differ from let us not shew it by masterly censoriousness or contempt but by being as much more Loving and peaceable than they are My brethren be not many Masters knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation And when other mens faults rise up before you watch both your passions and your tongues remembring that In many things we all offend And if any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if ye have a bitter envious zeal and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devillish For where envying zeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 1 2 13 14 15 16. Brethren no change of times will allow me to change from this which is my Religion No injuries from men will excuse me if I forsake it I hope I shall not be such a changeling in this which is the Great Command of the Gospel and the fulfilling of the Law and the very Heart of all Religion as to turn from it for a prison or a voluminous calumny and reproach I confess I must change but I hope it will be to turn still to more and more Love and Concord and not to Less It is not thank worthy to Love those that Love us nor to speak well of those that use us well nor to take it patiently when we are bussetted or punished for our faults But if we suffer for well doing and lose none of our Love or patience or integrity by our sufferings happy are we Alas how sadly do many mistake that fear only yielding to those whom they suffer by and do not fear those passions which would quench their Love and turn them unto sects
if they that hold more things to be lawful must agree in practice with them that hold the fewest lawful than such must 1. Forsake their own understandings and live in many sins and 2. They must be alwayes at an uncertainty in their practice because some may yet arise that may count more things unlawful And so the whole party may change their practice every year as new scruples or errors arise in any 3. And so the most scrupulous though the most erroneous must be the Standard and Rule of all the rest 4. And so we should tempt others still to new scruples and to make more and more things sinful that so they might obtain the Rule of all I ever thought therefore that without any combinations our way is every man to know the truth as well as he can and practice accordingly and live in Love and Peace with those that differ from him in tollerable things And thus I hope most Non-conformable Ministers do In the year 1663 divers learned and reverend Non-conformists of London met to Consider how far it was their duty or lawful to Communicate with the Parish Churches where they lived in the Liturgie and Sacrament and we agreed the next day to bring in our several judgements in writing with our reasons Accordingly I brought in mine in which I proved four propositions 1. That it is Lawful to use a form of prayer 2. That it is Lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the use of the Liturgie 3. That it is lawful to joyn with some Parish Churches in the Lords supper 4. That it is to some a duty to joyn with some Parish Churches three times a year in the Lords supper They being long I read over to them the last only which being proved by 20. Reasons included all the rest Upon Consideration whereof no one of the brethren seemed to dissent but to take the reasons to be valid save only that one Objection stopt them all to which I also yielded and we concluded at the present to forbear Sacramental Communion with the Parishes And that was because it was a time when great severities were threatned against those that could not so far Conform and most of the Independents and some others were against it And our brethren verily believed that if we should then Communicate those that could not yield so far would be the sharplier used because they yielded not as far as we I yielded to them readily that God will have Mercy and not Sacrifice and even Gods worship otherwise due as prayer or preaching or sabbath-keeping may be omitted for an act of Mercy even to pull an Oxe or Ass out of a pitt And therefore pro tempore I would forbear that sacrament which was like to cause the imprisonment or undoing of my neighbour In mentioning this these three things are my end 1. To tell the world the judgement of these Ministers who are misjudged by their actual forbearance of publick Communion that they take it for a thing unlawful whereas they are thus accidentally hindered from it Besides many other accidents not here to be mentioned this before named is one 2. To shew the Prelates who and what it is that hath hindered mens nearer Communion with them And that while rigor and severity is trusted to as the only means to further it it proveth the principal means of hindering it 3. To shew the Independents that we have been so far from dealing hardly or uncharitably with them that we have forborn that Communion which else our own judgements would have charged on us as our duty either only or chiefly for fear of being the least occasion accidentally of their sufferings And if yet they are impatient with us for obeying our Consciences who can help it What the rest did after this consultation in their practices I enquired not But for my own part on the same argument I forbore Communion with the Parish Churches in the sacrament a long time till at last I saw that the Reason seemed to me to cease and I durst not for I knew not what go against my judgement But lest it might possibly have any such hurtful consequents I chose a very private Country Parish to Communicate with where I sometime sojourned and where there was neither that nor any other reason to hinder me But yet after many years further observation lest men that know not of my practice should be scandalized or insnared to think that I forbore Parish Communion as unlawful and so to do the like themselves I once chose an Easter day to Communicate in a very populous Church in London purposely that it might be the further known But having some reasons to forbear at the Parish where I lived most constantly it so far provoked the Parson that I may suppose no Independent suffered so much through my Communicating as I have done by forbearing for their sakes At last in the year 1667. observing how mens minds grew every day more and more exasperated by their sufferings and whither all this tended and what was like to be the issue I wrote this book called The Cure of Church-Divisions the Reasons whereof I am next to give you But being not used to publish any thing unlicensed nor thinking it fit to break the Law of Printing without necessity nor knowing how to get it Printed unlicensed if I would I knew that if I put any thing into it very provokingly it would not be licensed and would frustrate all the rest And yet my Conscience told me that it looked so like partiality to tell one party of their faults and call them to their duty and not the other that I resolved to say as much to the Bishops and Imposing Clergy as should signifie my judgement plainly to any intelligent man and tell them what sense I had of narrowing Impositions and Severities and what is the way of Unity and Peace though not to cloath it in exasperating language And if they would not not license it all together I purposed to cast it all aside And to confess the truth the deep sense of the sin and infatuation of this age hath long made me desirous to have written one Book with the Title in dying Bradfords words REPENT O ENGLAND and that in several parts professing first my own Repentance in several Particulars then calling severally the Bishops and Conformable Clergy the Presbyterians the Independents and the Sectaries Corporations and Country to Repent But I knew the Bishops would not endure it and I could not get it Licensed or Printed and I had greater things to write and many wise men whose judgements much rule me disswaded me and laughed at my weakness that I should think that such men would regard what I said or that it would have any better effect than exasperation And I long purposed not to speak to one sort till I might speak to all to avoid partiality and evil consequents But at last considering that by this rule I might
related to me by Mr. Vaughan a worthy Minister lately discouraged and come from thence would make a Christian heart to bleed To hear how strict and regular and hopeful that plantation once was And how one Godly Mininister by separation selecting a few to be his Church and rejecting all the rest from the sacrament the rejected party are grown to doleful estrangedness from Religion and the selected party much turned Quakers and between both how wofull are the fruits But the Case of England Scotland and Ireland which I foretold in my book of Infant Baptisme is yet a more lamentable proof what separation hath done against Religion so full a proof that it is my wonder that any good man can overlook it 16. Yea it tendeth to make Religiousness contemptible and the professors of it a common scorn when we are perceived to place it in unwarrantable separations and singularities and when we make men think that the greatest difference between those that they call Precise or Religious and others is but this that one of them prayeth without book and the other by the book that one of them will not joyn with those that use the Liturgie and the other will If we let men see that in indifferent things we are indifferent and that lesser evils we avoid as lesser and greater evils as greater and that the great difference between us and the ungodly is in our seriousness in our Christian profession and in our heavenlyness and true obedience to Christ it would much convince them of their misery and honour Religion in the world But when they perceive that the greatest contention which our houses and our streets do ring of is whether we shall hear a man that conformeth or not Or whether we shall pray with them that use the Liturgie Or whether we may sometimes Communicate with a Parish Church or not This turneth the thoughts of the careless and carnal the worldling and the sensualist from the necessary condemning of himself for his ungodliness and sets him on thinking that these stricter people do differ from him in things of no importance and that they are but an erroneous self conceited sort of persons and that he is much the wiser man Thousands in England are hardened into a neglect of Godliness to our suffering and the apparent danger of their own damnation by occasion of the unwarrantable singularities and the scandalous sins especially of those professors that have been most addicted to sinful separations 17. I am not causelesly afraid lest if we suffer the principles and practices which I write against to proceed without our contradiction Popery will get by it so great advantage as may hazzard us all and we may lose that which the several parties do contend about Three waies especially Popery will grow out of our divisions 1. By the odium and scorn of our disagreements inconsistency and multiplied sects they will perswade people that we must either come for Unity to them or else all run mad and crumble into dust and individuals Thousands have been drawn to Popery or confirmed in it by this argument already And I am perswaded that all the arguments else in Bellarmine and all other books that ever were written have not done so much to make Papists in England as the multitude of sects among our selves Yea some Professors of Religious strictness of great esteem for Godliness have turned Papists themselves when they were giddy and wearied with turnings and when they had run from sect to sect and found no consistency in any For when they see so many they say How can I tell that this or that is in the right rather than the other This it is that they ring continually in our ears Which of all these sects is in the right And what assurance have they of it more than all the rest that are as confident And how small a Church doth any one sect make And â—f hâ—w late original for the most But the poor deluded souls consider not that in going to the Papists they go but to another sect that is worse than any of the rest And though greater yet not past the third part of the Christians in the world And that Christianity is but one And that the way to rest is to unite upon the common terms of simple Christianity 2. And who knoweth not how fair a game the Papists have to play by the means of our divisions Methinks I hear them hissing on each party and saying to one side Lay more upon them and and abate them nothing and to the other stand it out and yield to nothing And who is so blind then as not to see their double game and hopes viz. that either our divisions and alienations will carry men to such distances and practices as shall make us accounted seditious rebellious and dangerous to the publick peace and so they may pass for better subjects than we or else that when so many parties under sufferings are constrained to beg and wait for liberty the Papists may not be shut out alone but have Toleration with the rest And shall they use our hands to do their works and pull their freedom out of the fire We have already unspeakably served them both in this and in abating the odium of the Gun powder plot and their other Treasons Insurrections and Spanish invasion of which read Thuanus himself that openeth all the mystery 3. And it is not the least of our danger nor which doth least affect me lest by our follies extremities and rigors we should so exasperate the Common people as to make them readier to joyn with the Papists than with us in Case of any competitions or their invasions or insurrections against the King and Kingdoms peace Sure I am that the Parliaments and peoples resolutions against them after the late fire and in the time of the last war when they were so much feared did discourage and depress them more than all the rest of their opposers And though we cannot rationally believe that the people of England much less wise and sober Governors will ever be such enemies to themselves as to subject themselves to the Romish Tyranny and to forget what Ireland and England have seen and felt yet because it is not only oppression that maketh wise men mad let us do nothing by unlawful alienations and singularities or fierce and disobedint oppositions which tend to make the people like better of the Papists than of us 18. I am not able to bear the thoughts of separating from almost all Christs Churches upon Earth But he that separateth from one or many upon a reason common to almost all doth virtually separate from almost all And he that separateth from all among us upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgie and the badness of all our Ministry doth separate from them upon a reason common to almost all or the far greatest part as I conceive 19. Though Ministerial Conformity be to us another
thing by reason of the new impositions than it was to our predecessors yet to the people conformite is the same if not easier especially to them that I now speak to For it is the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministry that most alienate them as I said before and not so much the subscription against the obligation of the Covenant And the Liturgie is a little amended as to them by the change of the Translation and some little words and by someâ—onger prayers And the Ceremonies are the same and thirty years ago there was many bare Reading not Preaching Ministers for one that there is now Therefore our case of separation being the same with what it was of old I take it to be fully confuted by the antient Non-conformists And I have so great a veneration for the worthy names much more an estimation of the Reasonings of Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Baines Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langley Nichols Hering and many other such that I shall not think they knew not why they chose this subject and wrote more against separation than the Conformists did Nor do I think that the reasons of Mr. Iohnson and Mr. Canne can stand before them And it pittieth me to hear now many that differ from them say we are grown wiser and have more light than they when as our writings upon the same subjects shew that we are far in that below them And in other parts of knowledge alâ—s what are we to Reignolds Ames Parker and several of the rest But the world knoweth that the turn of the times put most of us into the sudden possession of our opinions without one half of the study it may be with most not the hundredth part which Cartwright Ames Parker c. bestowed upon these points And I never yet saw cause to believe that our present Dividers do learn more in a days study than those learned holy men did in twenty Nor do they shew more wisdom or holiness in the main I am very glad that the Pious Lectures of Mr. Hildersham Mr. R. Rogers and such other old Non-conformists are in so good esteem among good people where they will read them urging the people not only against separation but to come to the very beginning of the publick worship and preferring it before their private duties As for them that say If Dod Ames Hildersham c. had lived till now they would have been of our mind I desire them to prove it or not affirm it Is not the Liturgie Ceremonies and Ministery the same And what signs of such mutability did they shew Could your Reasons have conquered them more than Mr. Ainsworths Iohnsons or Cannes They were not so Light to be changed causelesly And I pray you mark that if you are wiser in this point of separation than all these old Non-conformists were than Iohnson and Canne and Howe were wiser also in that than they which doth not appear to us by their writings And then for all the greater Light that you think you have yet Iohnson Canne and Howe had as great Light and were in this as wise as you though Ames and the rest of the Nonconformists were not O that our brethren would but seriously read over the writings of these men especially Iacob Paget Ball and Bradshaw and Gifford against the separatists and try whether the case was not the same 20. Yea I must confess that when I think what Learned Holy Incomparable men abundance of the old Cenformits were my heart riseth against the thoughts of separating from them If I had come to their Churches when they used the Common-prayer and administred the Sacrament could I have departed and said It is not lawful for any Christian here to Communicate with you What! to such men as Mr. Bolton Mr. Whateley Mr. Fenner Mr. Dent Mr. Crook Mr. Dike Mr. Stocke Mr. Smith Dr. Preston Dr. Siâ—bes Dr. Stoughton Dr. Taylor and abundance other such yea such as Bishop Iewel Bishop Grindal Bishop Hall Bishop Potter Bishop Davenant Bishop Carlâ—tâ—n c. Dr. Field Dr. Smith Dr Iohn White Dr. Willet c. yea and the Martyrs too as Cranmer Ridley Hooper himself Farrar Bradford Philpot Sanders c. To say nothing of Luther Melanebthon Bucer and the rest of the forreign worthies Could I separate from all these on the reasons now in question Yea Calvin himself and the Churches of his way were all separated from by the separatists of their times 21. At least I cannot easily condemn the ancient Independents who were against separation as well as the Presbyterians Mr. Henry Iacob is accounted the Father of the English Independents And he hath wrote a book against Mr. Iohnson the separatist or thâ—s Title A Defence of the Churches and Ministery of England written in two Treatises against the Reasons and Objections of Mr. Francis Johnson and â—thers of the separation Commonly called Browâ—â—â—s And in the end he hath A short Treatise concerning the truness of a Pastoral Calling in Pastors made by Prelates And I intreat the Reader to note that Mr. Iohnson there chargeth the Church of England and their worship with no fewer than 91. Antichristian abominations And I would ask any of the dividers whether they have more than 91. Antichristian abominations to charge upon it now I am content that those I write to now will cast by my book if they will but read Mr. Iacobs And Dr. Ames was half an Independent and yet against separation I need not mention the great moderation of New-England where their late healing endeavors greatly tend to increase our hopes of reconciliation O that the rest of the Churches were as wise and happy Whose experience hath possessed them with a deep dislike of the spirit of separation and division Yea if any thing may be believed which I have not seen Mr. Ph. Nie himself hath writen to prove the Lawfulness of hearing the Preachers in the Parish assemblies And yet it is as confidently confuted by another of the Brethren as my book is by this Excepter And he that proveth it Lawful to joyn with them that profess themselves a Church in their ordinary Doctrine and pulpit prayers and Psalms of praise I think can never prove it unlawful at all times to joyn with them in the use of the Liturgie or in the Sacrament supposing the scruple of Kneeling removed For the most of the Liturgie is the reading of the Scripture it self and the rest is sound matter though in an imperfect mode and fashion of words 22. Is sects and heresies increase among us the blame of all will be laid upon the Non-conformists And so it now is They commonly say It is you that open the door to them all And how injuriously soever this be said it becometh our duty not only to see that it be not true but also to do our part against them And this was one great reason why the old Nonconformists wrote and preached so much more thâ—â— the Bishops
against separation because all this spurious offspring was fathered on them and still laid at their doors And withal because they found how hard it is to stop men that begin to find real faults with other men from fancying abundance more that are not real and to keep men from running into extreams And experience told them that their own party was in danger of running from them and it was not easie to keep them stable in the sober 〈◊〉 of the truth Especially the Independents oâ— this account are obliged to be the greatest disswaders of separation because all sects are fathered on them and too many of their congregations in England and New-England have been lamentably corrupted or subverted and dissolved by them 23. There is 〈◊〉 man that is acquainted with Church history but knoweth that as Christ was Crucified between two thieves so his Church hath been 〈◊〉 and troubled between the prophane malignant persecutors and the heretical and sectarian dividers even from the dayes of the Apostles until this age Insomuch that Paul himself and Peter and Iude and Iohn were put to 〈…〉 as largely against the Dividers almost as the persecutors Iraenaeus Epiphanius Augustine Theodoret besides the rest do sadly tell us in their Catalogues and Controversies how lamentably these Dividers then hindered the Gospel and distressed and dishonoured the Church And the sad stories of Hâ—lland Munster and others in Germany Poland and especially these twenty years past in England do bring all closer to our sense And are not the Watch-men of Christ still bound to tell the Church of their danger on the one side as well as the other Yea in some respects to say more on this side than on that because Religious people are easier and ofter turned to be Dividers than to be Persecutors or Prophane 24. All these dangers lying before us and the Non-conformable Ministers being under great reproaches and lamentable hinderances from their sacred work and called by God to fidelity as in a day of tryal what guilt would be upon us what shame would be our due if we should all be silent whilest we see the principles of Division continually increase The 〈◊〉 principles which the old Non-conformists confuted greatly propagate themselves through the smart which alienateth the peoples minds And Reason doth so hardly prevail against Feeling that all that we can say will prove too little This is the true cause why they cry out now Oh the case is changed It is not with us as it was in the old Non-conformists daies Because they did but hear of what was in those daies but they see and feel what is done in ours Therefore we had so easie a work comparatively to perswade men that the old separatists were mistaken but can hardly now perswade them that the same principles are a mistake because now they smart and Passion is not easily held in by reason I can make shift to hold in a mettlesome horse while he is not provoked But if a Bishop will come behind me and laâ—h him or prick him and then blame the rider if he run away with me I cannot help it But sure if we must needs have to do with such men it concerneth us to hold the reines the harder And if after such grievous judgements as plagues flames poverty reproach and silencings and sad confusions which God hath tryed us with in these times his Ministers should through passion policie or sloth sit still and let Professors run into sinful principles and extreams it will be our Aggravated sin 25. And one reason why I set upon this work was because I saw few others do it If it must be done and others will not then I must take it for my duty 26. And another reason was because I knew but few that I was willing to thrust upon it so forwardly as my self for fear of being the author of their sufferings Many may be abler that are not in other respects so fit Some Ministers are young men and like to live longer to serve God in his Church and their Reputation is needful to their success If they be vilified it may hinder their labours And experience telleth us that the dividing spirit is very powerful and victorious in censorious vilifying of dissenters But I am almost miles Emeritus at the end of my work and can reasonably expect to do but little more in the world and therefore have not their impediment And for popular applause I have tryed its vanity I have had so much of it till I am brought to a contempt if not a loathing of it And whereas some brethren say that Censures will hinder the success of my Writings I answer No man shall do his duty without some difficulties and impediments If my writings will not do good by the evidence of truth in them and if the censures of Dividers are able to frustrate them let them fall and fail And some of my brethren have great Congregations to teach which are so inclined to this dividing way that they cannot bear their information But when I preached in my house to the most I knew scarce any of the Parish that came not to the Parish Church but such as lived in my own house Also many Ministers being turned out of all their maintenance have families and nothing to maintain them but what the Charity of Religious people giveth them Little do some know what the families of many godly Ministers suffer And some Independents are maintained by their gathered Churches and if they cast them off both reputation work and maintenance would fail For those that silence them will neither honor them nor maintain them And though I suppose that these brethren would serve God in the greatest contempt and poverty and self-denial if they perceive that God doth call them to it yet I think it a duty of Charity in me to go before them and do the more displeasing work to prevent the sufferings of such or at least not to thrust them on so hard a service For I have no Church that maintaineth me nor any people whose estimation I am afraid to lose that are dividingly inclined nor through Gods mercy have any need of maintenance from others and therefore may do my duty at cheaper rates than they 27. And I will add one reason more of the publishing though not of the writing of my book When it had been long cast by â—â—ound in the Debater and Ecclesiastical Polititian that the Nonconformists are made ridiculous and â—dious as men of erroneous uncharitable and ungovernable principles and spirits Though we subscribe to all the Doctrine of the Church of England And I thought that the publication of this book should leave a testimony to the generations to come by which they might know whether we were truly accused and whether our principles were not as much for Love and Peace as theirs and as consistent with order and government Is not the Non-conformists doctrine the same with that of the
mens mouths doth never make you scruple their Communion I intreat you do but study an answer to one that would separate from you all upon such grounds as these First for the sin consider of these texts Exod. 23. 1 2. Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest it Psalm 15. 3. He that backhiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour Rom. 1. 30. Backbiters â—aters of God 2 Cor. 12. 20. Lest there be debate strifes backbibitings whisperings c. Prov. 25. 23. An angry counterance driveth away a backbiting tongue Tit. 3. 1 2. Put them in mind to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man 1 Pet. 2. 1. Laying aside evil speakings 1 Tim. 6. 4. Whereof cometh evil surmisings Eph. 4. 31. Let evil speakings be put away from you Jud. 10. These speak evil of those things which they know not Jam. 4. 11. Speak not evil one of another He that speaketh evil of another and judgeth another speakevil of the Law and judgeth the Law Have you more and plainer texts of Scripture agninst the Common Prayer than all these are Now suppose one should say that a people of such sin as this should not be Communicated with especially where there is no discipline exercised that ever so much as calleth one man of them to repentance for it what answer will you give to this which will not confute your own objections against Communion with many Parish Churches in this Land 5. Lastly hence note how still overdoing is undoing By the Principles of Love and Peace conteined in the book which some reproach had they not disowned them they might have had their part in this just Vindication against them that accuse the Non-conformists Principles of Enmity to Love and Peace But they would have no part in it and have cast away their own vindication and so have confirmed their accusers and tempted them to believe that some Non-conformists are indeed such as they described But I must again intreat them to distinguish Many sects go under the name of Nonconformists from whom we differ incomparably more than we do from the Conformists as the Quakers Seekers Bâ—hmenists and some others We are none of those men that because we all suffer together under the Prelacy do therefore more close with these than with the Conformists with whom in doctrine and the substance of worship we agree But because it is their own resolved choice to disown the Principles and Vindication of that book I shall only say I. To our Accusers It is not these Dividers which we Vindicate that will not stand to our Vindication II. To posterity whose historical Information of the truth of matters in this age I much desire If you would know what sort of men they are that these times call sectaries and Dividers or separatists I will give you but their own Character of themselves that you may be sure I wrong them not Peruse the book called The Cure of Church-Divisions for they are persons so contrary to that book as that they take it to be an evil and mischievous thing and greatly to be lamented and detested in so much that some of them say It had been well if the Author had dyed ten years ago and others that this book hath done more harm than ever he did good in all his life So intolerable is it to them to have their Love-killing and dividing principles so much as thus contradicted while they cry out against the Imposing spirit of others The measure of their distaste against these Principles of Love and Unity I leave you to gather out of the exceptions which I am now to answer CAP. 2. The true state as the Controversie between me and those whom I call Church-Dividers BEcause the Excepter carrieth it all along as if he understood not what I say or would not have his Reader understand it I must state the Case as it standeth between us for the sake of them that love not to be deceived nor to be angry at they know not what Know therefore that the design of the Writer of that Book was to restore Love and Unity among Christians which he saw decaying and almost dying through the temptation of our sufferings from some and our differences with others and through the sidings of parties and through the passions which conquer some mens judgements and the hy 〈…〉 e of others who place their Religion in their sidings and in the forms or fashions of the words of their prayers or the circumstances of outward Worship And to acquaint Christians with the wiles of Satan who would kill their Grace by killing their Love whilst they think they do but preserve their Purity And to open to them the secret windings of the Serpent and the workings of Pride and Wrath and Selfishness against the works of Love and Peace And to shew them the great deceitfulness of mans heart which often fighteth against God as for God by fighting against Love and Unity and which oft loseth all by seeming to overcome and forsaketh Religion by seeming valiant for it And I especially intreat the Reader to note that I said much more about Principles than Practices Because I know that as to Communion with this or that Church mâ—ns practices may vary upon accidental and prudential accounts of which I pretend not to be a Judge And therefore I first speak against Love killing Principles and then against such Practices only as either proceed from such Principles or increase them If I see a man stay from Church as I know not his reasons so I judge him not unless as he doth it upon sinful causes and especially if he would propagate those Causes to others and justifie them to be of God when they are against him And whereas Hatred and Enmity worketh by driving men from each others Societies as wicked or intolerable and Love worketh by inclining men to Union and Communion and again mens distance increaseth the Enmity which caused it and their nearness and familiarity increaseth Love and reconcileth them I did therefore think it a matter of great necessity to our welfare to counsel men to all lawful nearness and Communion and to disswade them from all unnecessary alienation and separation from each other Let the Reader also understand that in this my purpose was not to condemn mens separation from the Parish Churches only nor more than any other sinful separation But from any true Church of Christians whatsoever when uncharitable Principles drive them away Whether it be from Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Arminians Lutherans c. Only because that those I deal most with make most exceptions against Communion with the Parish Churches I bestowed most words in answering such exceptions Therefore
observe 1. That it is none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with the Parish Churches alone and no other 2. Nor Whether you should Communicate with every Parish Church or any one whose Pastors are through insufficiency heresie or impiety intolerable which I have written against Dir. 36. p. 202 c. 3. Nor Whether we may hold local Communion in Worship with a Church which denyeth us such Communion unless we will sin This I have oft enough denyed p. 203 c. 4. Nor Whether caeteris paribus local Communion with a purer and better Church be not ordinarily to be preferred before local Communion with a worse which I assert p. 203 c. 5. Nor Whether a man be a Separatist from another Church meerly because he is not locally present with it For then when I am in one Church I separate from all other in the world 6. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove ones dwelling for Communion with a better Minister and Church supposing that we are free p. 204. 7. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove to a better Church without removing ones dwelling in a place where another Church is near to which we may go without any publick injury or hurt to our selves or others which is greater than the benefit pag. 204. 8. Nor Whether we may remove both from Church and Countrey by the occasions of our Callings or Trades or other outward weighty reasons pag. 298. 9. Nor Whether we may keep in Communion privately with our lawful Pastors if they be turned out of the publick Temples Which I have asserted pag. 299. and have said that where the Pastor is there the Church is in whatever place they do assemble p. 250. which Dr. Hide also thought when he began his Book with an assertion of the necessity of separating then from the publick places And so did other Prelatists then and so think the Papists now and most other parties 10. Nor is it any of our Question Whether you should have Communion with a Diocesan Church as such It is a Parochial Church with such others that I spake of and never a word of a Diocesan Church 11. Therefore it is none of the Question Whether you must own our Diocesan Bishops 12. Nor yet Whether you must have Communion with any thing called A National Church as a Political Society constituted of an Ecclesiastical Head and Body and denominated from that form â—r Constitutive Head Though we must own a National Church as it is improperly so denominated from the King that is the Civil Head accidental and not Constitutive to the Spiritual Church And as it is a Community of Christians and a part of the Universal Church united by the Concord of her Pastors who in Synods may represent the whole Ministry and be the means of their agreement 13. Nor is it the Question Whether you must needs hold Communion with those individual Bishops whom you account the Persecutors and Causes of our silence and confusions I have told you in the Story of Martin how he separated from the Synods of thâ—se individual Bishops and from their local Communion without separating from the Office the Churches or from any other Bishops This is a matter that I did not meddle with because it is not their Communion that you are called to but the Parish Churches Indeed to save mâ—ns lives he did yield to the Emperour once to communicate with them But saith Sulp. Severus â—iâ—l 3. p. Bib. Paâ— 254. Summa vi Episcopis nitentibus ut communionem illâ—m subscriptione firmaret extorqueri non potuit And the Angel that appeared to him said Merito Martine compungeris sed aliter exiâ—e nequiâ—ti repara virtutem resume Constantiam nâ— jam non periculum gloriae sed salutis incuâ—reris Ita ab illo tempore satis cavit cum illa Iâ—haâ—ianae partis Communione misâ—â—ri And after finding his power of Miracles abated with tears he conâ—essed to Sulpit. That propter Communionis illius malum cui se vel puncto temporis necessitate non Spiritu misâ—â—isset dâ—trimentum sâ—etire virtutis Sâ—dâ—â—im pâ—sâ—ea vixit annos nullam Synodum adiit ab omnibus Episcâ—porum Conveâ—â—ibus se remâ—vit But this was only from those Bishops who by provoking Magistrates against the Priscillian Gnosticks had brought all strict Religious people under scorn But he separated not from any others 14. Nay I made it none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with any Parish Minister who concurreth with theâ— in the said matters whiâ—h yâ—u â—â—cuse the Bishops of aâ—y farther than by Câ—â—â—orming to the Laâ— For it is but few o◠〈◊〉 Parish Ministers that were Convâ—cation Men or that you can prove did ever consent to our silencing 15. Nor is it any of the Question Whether those also be guilty of separation and divisions whâ— shall make unnecessary Engines of division and â—â—y upon the neâ—ks of any Churches such unnecessary things as have a tendency to divide Who hath said more against this than I have done 16. Nor is it any of our Question Which of the two is the greater cause of divisâ—â—â—s or which of the foresaid persons is mâ—â—t 〈◊〉 Who hath spoken plainlier in this than I Iâ— the Brother that excepteth would maâ—â— you believe that any one of these is the 〈◊〉 iâ— you believe him he doth but deceiive you But whom I mean by Sâ—paratiâ—â— I havâ— plaâ—ly told you pag. 249. 2â—0 c. ☞ And that which I perswade men to is this 1. To love all Christians as themselves 2. To hold nothing and do nothing which is contrary to this Love and would destroy it 3. Therefore to deny no Christians to be Christians nor no Churches to be Churches nor no lawful Worship of any Mâ—de or Party to be lawfull 4. Not to sepâ—â—ate from any others upon any of these three false suppositions or accusations viz. 1. As no true Christians 2. As no true Churches 3. As having no true Worship or as worshipping so as it is not lawful to joyn with them 5. To choose the most edifying Ministry and the soundest Church and purest manner of worshipping God that possibly you can have on lawful terms as to your ordinary use and Communion so far as you are free to choose 6. To joyn with a defective faulty true Church ordinarily and in a manner of Worship which is defective when you can have no better on lawful terms as without the publick injury or your own greater hinderance than help And I prove that this is the worst that you can charge as to this matter of Communion on those Parish Churches in England that have honest compâ—tent Pastors and the same others charge on the Churches of Independents and Anabaptists And that it is a duty to hold communion with any one of thâ—se constantly when you can have no better 7. That if you can statedly have better yet sometimes to Communicate with a defective Church as a stranger may do that is
God hateth every sin in every prayer but he hateth the avoiding of prayer and of due communion much more He hateth every disorder in extemporate prayer And yet he more hateth that Censoriousness and Curiosity which would draw men to forsake the substantials of Worship or Christian Love and Communion on that pretence Gods Jealousie in his Worship is most about the heart and next about the substantials of his own institutions and of Natural Worship and least about the phrase of Speech and order while it is not such as is grosly dishonourable to the Nature of God and to the greater things And though God under the Law expressed his jealousie much about Ceremonies yet that was not for the Ceremonies sake but to controll gross irreverence and contempt of holy things as in the Case of Uzzah the Bethshemites Uzziah Aarons Sons and to keep up an esteem of the Holiness of God and to restrain sacrilegious presumption And under the Gospel it is neither this place of Worship nor that neither this Mountain nor Ierusalem but Spirit and Truth that God most looks at It is not whether you pray by a Book or without by words fore-studied or not by words of your own contriving or of anothers that God is now jealous of For even when you want words he accepteth the groans excited by his Spirit Rom. 8. 26 27. If Christians should plead Gods jealousie about his Worship as Censoriously against thelr own prayers as they do against other 〈◊〉 and Churches in this case they would turn prayer into the fuel of despair and torment For God is so jealous of his Worship that he hateth all the sinful dulness emptiness wandrings vain repetitions confusions unseemly expressions of all your secret prayers and all your family prayers And yet I would advise you neither to think that God therefore hateth you or the prayer it self nor yet to fly from God and prayer nor family Worship where it is no better done Gods jealousie especially under the Gospel is to be minded for to drive us from our sloth and carelesness to do the best we can but not to drive us from him or from prayer or from one another These are Satans ends of minding men of Gods jealousie as he doth troubled souls to drive them to despair And others may scruple joining with your weaknesses and faults in Worship on pretence of Gods jealousie as well as you with theirs What if twenty Ministers be one abler than another in their several degrees and the lowest of them doth weaklier than the Liturgick forms Doth it follow that only the ablest of all these may be joyned with because that all the rest do worse It is granted that we must offer God the best that we have or can do But not the best which we cannot do And many things must concurr and especially a respect to the publick good to know which is the best QUEST II. Quest. 2. DOth not the Covenant make it now unlawful to hold Communion in the use of the Liturgie Answ. To hold Communion in the Liturgie Ordinarily where we cannot lawfully have better and extraordinarily where we can have better is a thing that we are bound to by the Covenant and not at all bound against For those of the Independent way who think as Mr. Eaton writeth that the Covenant bindeth not I need not here say any thing as to their satisfaction For others I say 1. There is no word in all the Covenant expresly against the Liturgie 2. If there had been any word in it against Communion with the Churches that use the Liturgie it had been sin and against our duty and therefore could not bind 3. The judgement of Protestants is that Vowes must not make us new duties of Religion but bind us faster by a self obligation to that which God binds us to without them Therefore though if we should Vow an indifferent thing it would bind yet this could not be taken for the Covenanters intention 4. And it is commonly agreed that if we Vow a thing indifferent it bindeth us not when the indifferency ceaseth which may be by the Magistrateâ— command or by another mans necessity or change of Cases Else a man might before hand prevâ—â—t most of the Magistrates obligations and his Pâ—reâ—ts and Masters too and escape obedience and might say with the Pharisees it is Corban or a devoted thing 5. It remâ—â—neth therefore that no man of us all hath need to go or ought to go to the Covenant to know what is his duty in the worship of God but only to the Scripture seeing if Scripture make it noâ— a duty the Magistrates Law will make the doing of it a sin And if Scripture make it not a sin the Magistrates command will make it a duty But when we know what is duty or sin in our case we may go to our Vows next to prove that it is a double duty or a double or aggravated sin but no otherwise Therefore let the Scripture only decide the first case whether it be lawful or not 6. The Covenant or Vow expresly bindeth us against schisme But the renunciation of Communion which I now dispute against is plaine schisme Therefore we are bound against it by that Vow 7. The Covenant bindeth us against all that is contrary to the power of Godliness and found doctrine But the separating which I plead against is certainly such 8. The Covenant bindeth us to Unity and the nearest Uniformity we can attain But as the world goeth now this Communion is the nearest and needful to express our Unity 9. The Covenant bindeth us to Reformation according to Gods word and the example of the best reformed Churches But to prefer no publick worship or a worse before the Liturgie is deformation and prophaneness And it is greater Reformation to prefer the Liturgie before none than to prefer extemporate publick worship before the Liturgie And all the Reformed Churches in Christendom do commonly profess to hold Communion with the English Churches in the Liturgie if they come among us where it is used Therefore it seemeth to me to be perjury and Covenant-breaking either to prefer no publick worship before the Liturgie or to refuse occasional Communion with the Churches that use the Liturgie as a thing meerly on that account unlawful QUEST III. Quest. 3. WHether the Case be not much altered since the old Non-conformists wrote against separation then called Brownisme And whether we have not greater Light into these Controversies than they Answ. 1. The Case of Ministers Conformity is much altered by a new Act which requireth subscribing new things Declaring Assent and Consent to all things prescribed and conteined in and by three books and by some other things But that part of the Liturgie which the people are to joyn in is made better as is shewed before And if we are returned to the same state that they were then in we are under the same duties that they were under And let
it be remembred that we never Vowed that God should not bring us back to the same case which had been blasphemy And therefore it had been bad enough if we had vowed not to do what was our duty in that state if God should return us to it 2. I earnestly intreat the doubting Reader that thinketh his duty and the Churches peace to be worth so much labour but to read over some of the old Non-conformists books against separation And if you there find the very same objections answered or more and greater than judge your selves whether their case and ours was as to this cause the same The books I would desire you to read are Mr. Iacobs the Independent against Iohnson Mr. Bradshaws against Iohnson with Mr. Gatakers defence of it against Canne Mr. Gifford Mr. Darrel Mr. Paget Mr. Hildersham Dr. Ames Mr. Cartwright Mr. Brightman and last of all and fulliest at the beginning of our troubles Mr. Iohn Ball in three books But of this having spoken already I shall repeat no more but only to profess my judgement that our ordinary boasters that think they know more in this Controversie than the old Non-conformists did as far as I am able to discern are as far below them almost as they are below either Chamier Sadeel Whitaker or such others in dealing with a Papist which of them can say that about Episcopacy as Gersom Bucer Didoclaue Blondell Salmasius have done and so of the rest QUEST IIII. Quest. 4. IS it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down of what we have been building Answ. 1. It is not fit here to enquire who it is that hath pulled down and destroyed Reformation though it be easie to discern it But this is certain that God hath set up the Government that is over us and that our Governours take down by their Laws that which we accounted Reformation This is not our worke but theirs And that they permit us not otherwise publickly to worship God And that a man in Goal doth ordinarily joyn in no publick worship at all And where men do venture on other manner of worship in forbidden assemblies the fears of some and the passionate discontent of others and the disturbances by souldiers and officers and such like do take off much of the edification and hinder us from such a frame of mind as is most agreeable to the work and day And to worship God no where is to go farther from Reformation than to worship him by the Liturgie 2. To do it of choice is one thing and to do it as a duty put upon us by Gods providence and our Governours when we can do no better is another thing It is God that hath pulled down our liberty and opportunity to serve him otherwise and we must obey him It is no faulty mutability to change our practice when God by changing our condition doth change our duty No more than it was in Paul who to the Jews became a Jew and circumcised Timothy and shaved his head for his Vow c. and became all things to all men And no more than it was in Augustine who professeth that he would worship God as to formes and ceremonies according as the Church did with which he joyned where ever he came Nor no more than it is in a traveller or merchant to joyn in several Countries in several fashions and ceremonies or rites of outward worship QUEST V. Quest. 5. WIll it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Answ. 1. We must not make such carnal policies our guides as to forbear that which God doth make our duty for fear of encouraging other men If we take this to be uncharitable factiousness in others to desire rather all these distractions in the Church than that the Non-conformists should be encouraged and strengthned by seeming to have justly desired a Reformation let us not be guilty of what we blame 2. If you will believe themselves it is the unwilling Conformists that they are most in danger of who profess that they conform of necessity and desire a Reformation As Dr. William Smith hath shewed in a book written to that end The Assembly of Westminster that set up the Presbytery were such Conformists 3. It is sinful pride and tenderness of their own honour which maketh some men avoid their duty and wrathfully grudge at them that speak for it because those that are against them thence take occasion to insult over them or reproach them If men do but say you are now turncòats and time servers and where is your reformation now and you are now glad to do as we do they think this reason enough why they should forbear that Communion and worship which is their duty Are these beseeming self denying humble persons Could they suffer death for their duty sake that cannot bear a little reproach for it Object If we knew it were our duty we would suffer for it Answ. But is it not this very suffering and reproach and insulting of others which maketh you think that it is not your duty And so carnal persons use to do They will believe nothing to be their duty which they must suffer by Let Gods honour be all to you and your own be nothing and you will not much stick at such things as these QUEST VI. Quest. 6. BUT will not this course divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Answ. 1. Mr. Tombes did not stick at dividing the Anabaptists when he wrote for Parish Communion And Mr. Philip Nye did not stick at the fear of dividing the Independents when he wrote a M. S. as I am credibly informed for the hearing of the Parish Preachers though another wrote against it presently after And if an ordinary attendance on their publick doctrine be lawful this will go further than many think to prove the rest of the Communion lawful 2. We are already so far divided in our judgements as for one to hold it to be lawful and another to be unlawful And who can cure this division And why should it divide us more if mens practice be according to their judgements rather than for them to sin against their Consciences 3. The great thing in which we differ from the Prelatists yea and Papists too is that we would have our Union laid only upon Necessary things and liberty and Charity maintained in the rest And shall we now contradict our selves and say that things necessary are not sufficient for our union Cannot we hold union among our selves if some go to the publick assemblies and some do not What is this but to have the imposing domineering Spirit which we speak so much against We cannot better confute the uncharitable dividing Spirit of the world than by shewing them that we can hold Love and Union notwithstanding as great differences as this yea and much greater QUEST VII Quest. 7. SHall we not hereby
countenance the Prelates in Church-Tyranny and Usurpation and invite them to go further and to make more burdens of Forms and Ceremonies to lay upon the Churches Answ. Without medling now with the question what guilt it is that lyeth on any Prelates in the points here mentioned I answer on your own supposition 1. That it is the King and his Laws which we obey herein and not the Diocesans 2. How openly and fully have we declared our utter dissent from the things which you suppose that we shall countenance them in Our Writings are yet visible Our Conferences were notorious And is not the loss of our Ministry and the loss of all Ecclesiastical Maintenance and the pinching wants of many poor Ministers and their numerous families and our suffering Volumes of reproach confinements c. a signification of our dissent The case is somewhat hard with abundance of godly faithful Ministers Few that never felt it themselves can judge aright what it is to want a house to dwell in a bed to lye on to have Wives that are weak natured to keep in yearly patience under all such necessities which the Husband can bear himself to have Children crying in hunger and rags and to have a Landlord calling for his Rent and Butchers and Brewers and Bakers and Drapers and Taylors and Shoo-makers calling for money when there is none to pay them there being no fifth part of Church-maintenance now allowed them in the Frost and Snow to have no fire nor money to but it And yet all this is little in comparison of their restraint from preaching the Gospel of Salvation and the displeasure of their Governours against them if they preach And is not all this yet an open signification of their Dissent from the things which they so far deny complyance with If some of their Accusers on both sides were but in the same condition they would think it should go for a sufficient notification of dissent 3. We perswade no man to any one sin for Communion with others no not to save their lives If the thing be proved unlawful to be used and not only unlawful to be so imposed we exhort all to avoid it 4. Yea if an over numerous aggregation of things which singly are lawful should make them become a snare and injury to the Church we would have all in their places sufficiently signifie their dissent or if the number shall turn them into a sin in the users we would have none to use them Though we would not have men censure or contemn one another much less destroy one another foâ— a matter of meats or dayes or shadows yet if any will by false doctrine or Imperiousness say Touch not Taste not handle not and will judge us in respect to Meat or Drink or Holy Dayes or the New Moon or Sabbaths Col. 2. 16. 21. We would have all men to bear a just testimony to the truth and to their Christian liberty 5. But if the defects of publick Worship be tolerable and if Providence necessity and Laws concurr to call us to use them when else we must use none or do worse here Communion doth become our duty And a Duty must not be cast off for fear of seeming to countenance the faults of others We have lawful means to signifie our dissent It is not in our power to express it how we please nor to go as far from the faulty as we can to avoid the countenancing of their faults But we must do Gods work in his own way And we must disown mens sins only by prudent lawful means and not by any that are contrary to Christian Love and Peace or a breach of any Law of God 6. Paul was not for countenancing any of the falsehoods and faults which he reproveth in any of the Churches especially partiality sensuality drunkenness at the very Sacrament or Love Feasts 1 Cor. 11 c. And yet he never bids them forsake the communion of the Church for it till they shall reform There were other wayes of testifying dislike 7. I must not countenance an honest weak Minister or Master of a family in the disorder or defects or errors of his prayer or instructing And yet if they be tolerable errors or defects I must not forsake either Church or family-Worship with him that I may discountenance him 8. There be Errors on the contrary side which are not without considerable danger which we are obliged also to take heed of countenancing I will instance but in two one in Doctrine and the other in Practice 1. There are men otherwise very honest and truly godly and of holy and unblameable lives who think that the Scripture is intended by God not only as a General but a particular Law or Rule for all the very Circumstances of Worship yea some say of the common business of our lives and that the second Commandment in particular condemneth all that is the product or invention of man in or about the Worship of God and that to deny this is to deny the perfection of the Scripture and that all written Books and Printed are Images there forbidden and that all studied or prepared Sermons as to Method or Words whether in Notes or memory are forbidden Images of Preaching and that all provided Words or Forms written or in memory of our own or other mens Contrivance or Composition are forbidden Images of Prayer and all prepared Metre and Tunes are forbidden Images of Praise or singing and that no man that useth any such preparation or form of words in preaching or prayer doth preach or pray by the help of Gods Spirit and that if Parents do but teach a Child a form of words to pray in they teach him this forbidden Imagery yea Idolatry I hope the number is but small that are of this Opinion and that it being commonly disowned by the Non-conformists no justice or Modesty can charge it on them but only on the few persons that are guilty of it But yet I must say that we are obliged to take heed of Countenancing this Error as well as of Countenancing Church-Usurpations For 1. When a few men of eminent integrity are of this mind it proveth to us that many more may be brought to it and are in danger of it Because meer Piety and Honesty is not enough to keep men from it Yea when men otherwise eminent also for Learning and great understanding are of that mind as they are poor ignorant unlearned persons though very godly are not out of the danger of it 2. And if it prevail what abundance of hurt will it do 1. You may read in the new Ecclesiastical Politician how it will exasperate the minds of others and give them matter of bitter reproach and for the sake of a very few how many that are blameless shall be aspersed with it and the cause of the Non-conformists yea with many the Protestant yea and the Christian Religion rendred contemptible and odious by it 2. It draweth men into
a word which never was 15. It will have a confounding influence into all the affairs and business of our lives 16. Lastly It will affright poor people from Scripture and Religion and make us our Doctrine and Worship ridiculous in the â—ight of all the world The Doctrine which we hear maintained which hath no better fruits than these must be avoided as well as the contrary extream which would indeed charge the Law of God with imperfection and cause man to usurp the part of Christ. And we must first know How far God made the Scripture for our Rule and then we must maintain its sufficiency and perfection II. Also on that extream we must do nothing to countenance those Practices which tend to alienate Christians hearts from one another and to keep up Church-Wars or to feed bitter censures scorns and reproaches And we that must not scandalize the Religious sort must avoid all that thus tempteth them which is the real scandal But of this I have said enough in the Book which I am now defending Part II. An ANSWER to the Untrue and unjust Exceptions OF THE ANTIDOTE Against my TREATISE for LOVE and UNITY DEar Brother for so I will call you whether you will or not the chief trouble that I am put to in answering your Exceptions next to that of my grief for the Churches and your self by reason of such Diagnosticks of your Malady is the naming of your manifold Untruths in matter of fact It is it seems no fault in your eyes to commit them but I fear you will account it unpardonable bitterness in me to tell you that you have committed them If I call them Mistakes the Reader will not know by that name whether it be mistakes in point of Fact or of Reason And Lies I will not call them because it is a provoking word Therefore Untruths must be the middle title EXCEPT I. Page 1. Tâ—e whole dâ—sâ—â—n of this Book being â—â— make such as at this day are carefull to kâ—â—â— themselves Pure from alâ— defilements in False worship Odiâ—us it may well be affirmed iâ— was neither seasonable nâ—r hâ—nest Answ. THat 's the fundamental Untruth which animateth all the râ—â—â— when 〈◊〉 had got a false apprehension of the design of the Book you seem to expound the particular passages by that Key That which you call The whole design is not any part of the design but is expresly and vehemently oft disclaimed and protested against in the Book And whoever readeth it without a Partial mind will presently sâ—â— that the whole design of the Book is to deliver weak Christians from such mistakes and sins as destroy their Love to other Christians and cause the divisions among the Churches 2. False worship is a word of various sensâ—â— Either it signifieth 1. Idolatry in worshipping a false God 2. Or the Idolatrous worshipping of Images as representations of the true God 3. Or worshipping God by Doctrines and Prayers that consist oâ— falshoods 4. Or devising Worship-Ordinances and falsly saying they are the Ordinances of God 5. Or making God a Worship which he forbiddeth in the subâ—â—anâ—e and will not accept 6. Or worshipping God in an inward sinful manner through false principles and ends as hypocrites do 7. Or in a sinful outward manner through disorder defectiveness and unhandsome or unfit expreâ—â—ions Oâ— these I suppose you will not charge the Churches you separate from as guilty of the first second fourth or sixth which is out of the reach of humane judgment For I suppose you to be sober As for the third through Gods great mercie the Doctrine of England is so â—ound that the Independants and Presbyterians have still offered to subscribe to it in the 39 Articles according to which if there were any doubtfulness in the phrases of their Prayers they are to be interpreted For the fifth if you accuse them of it you must prove it which is not yet done supposing that you take not Government for Worshipâ— nor can you do it So that it must lie only on the seventh And for that if you will take the word false-worship in that sense do not you also worship God falsly when you worship him sinfully And are not your disorders and unmeet expressions sins as well as theirs Alas how oft have I joyned in Prayer with honest men that have spoken confusedly unhandsomly and many waies more unaptly and disorderly than the Common Prayer is How oft have I heard good old Mr. Simeon Ash say that he hath heard many Ministers pray so unfitly that he could heartily have wished that they had rather used the Common Prayer When did any one of us pray without sin How ordinarily do Anabaptists Antinomians Arminians Separatists c. put their Opinions into their Prayers and so make them false Prayers and so false Worship Nay could you lay by partiality and knâ—w your self a very hard thing you would presently see that you who wrote these Exceptions are liker to Worship God falsly than they that do it by the Liturgie that is in the third sense Because the Doctrine of the Prayers in the Liturgie is sound but if you account this Script of yours to be Worship and why not writing as well as preaching or if you put the same things into your Worship which you put into your writings as is very usual with others then it is false Worship indeed as consisting of too many falshoods If you pray to God to encline men against all that Communion which you write against or lament such Communion as a sin this is falser worship than any is in the Liturgick Prayers And if you will call all those modes of worship false which God in Scripture hath not commanded what a false worshipper are you that use a translation of Scripture a Version and tunes of Psalms a dividing the Scripture into Chapters and Verses yea the Method and words of every Sermon and Prayer or most and abundance such like which God commanded not God never bid you use the words of Prayer in the Liturgie Nor did he ever bid you use those which you used last without it O Brother if you knew your self and judged impartially you would see that whatever you say against mens communicating with other mens tolerable failings as false worship may be as stronglie urged for avoiding communion in disordered prayers that are without book and much more in the prayers of honest erroneous Separatists Anabaptists Antinomians c. which yet for my part I will not so easily avoid I confess if my judgment were not more than yours against dividing from each other in the general I should be one that should be as forward to disclaim Communion with many zealous Parties now received by you and that as false worshippers as you are to disclaim Communion with others I am sure you worship God falsly that is sinfully every time that you worship him 3. But seeing my Book disswadeth you equally from unjust avoiding Communion
consented not to this at all Are we made by it the by-word and hissing of the Nations and the shame and pitty of all our friends And yet is all this to be justified or silenced and name of it at all to be openly repented of I openly profess to you that I believe till this be done we are never like to be healed and restored and that it is heinous gross impenitence that keepeth Ministers and people under their distress And I take it for the sad Prognostick of our future woe and at best our lengthened affliction to read such writings against Repentance and to hear so little open profession of Repentance even for unquestionable heinous crimes for the saving of those that are undone by these scandals and for the reparation of the honour of Religion which is most notoriously injured To see men still think that their Repentance is the dishonour of their party and Cause whose honour can no other way be repaired To see men so blind as to think that the silencing of these things will hide them as if they were not known to the World That man or party that will justifie all these heinous Crimes and still plead Conscience or Religion for them doth grievous injury to Conscience and Religion I have told you truly in the book which is bitter to you that Gods way of vindicating the honour of Religion is for us by open free Confession to take all the shame to our selves that it be not injuriously cast upon Religion And the Devils way of preserving the honour of the Godly is by justifying their sins and pleading Religion for them that so Religiousness it self may be taken to be hypocrisie and wickedness as maintaining and befriending wickedness For my own part I thought when I wasted my strength and hazarded my life in the Army against these fore-named Crimes and afterwards preached and wrote against them so openly and so many years that I had not been so much guilty of them as you here affirm But if I was I do openly confess that if I lay in sackcloth and in tears and did lament my sins before the World beg pardon both of God and man and intreat all men not to impute it to Religion but to me and to take warning by my fall which had done such unspeakable wrong to Christ and men I should do no more than the plain light of nature assureth me to be my great and needful duty EXCEPT II. ib. There is daily much greater prophaneness and the Consequent of prophaneness Immorality acted by those 4 whom yet Mr. Baxter never mentioneth but with honour As if no sins or miscarriages were to be blamed but theirs who are unable to defend themselves Answ. 1. IF this were true I were much too blame it being the very usage of others against my self which I have great reason to complain of 2. But if it was possible for you to believe your own words that I never mention them but with honour I shall think that there are few things that you may not possibly believe Reader if thou peruse the book and yet believe this Author I am not capable of satisfying thee in this nor will I undertake it in any thing else Are these terms of honour Pref. p. 18. How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools c. Do I honour them when I so much display their sin And when in the scheme in the conclusion I describe it And when I tell you of many of such Ministers and that it is a duty to separate from them or disown them And when in the history of Martin I tell you how neer it I am my self as to such as Martin separated from And when I cite Gildas calling such no Ministers but enemies and traytors c. Were you not very rash in this 3. But what if in this book I write neither against the prophane nor the Iews nor the Mahometans Is it nothing that I have written the greater part of above fifty books besides against them 4. What if there be Prophaneness to be reproved doth it sollow that we must not be reproved also Must we not repent because they must repent 5. O how hard is it to please all men What man in Eagland hath been less suspected to be a flatterer of such as he moaneth than my self or more accused of the contrary that hath any reputation of ministerial sobriety Ask the Bishops that Conferred with us at the Savoy 1660 Ask your self that read our Reply then Ask any that ever did Converse with me whether ever I was suspected of flattery or dawbing with men sins 6. But seeing you so far honour me as to vindicate me from other mens accusations I shall confess that it is my judgement both that we should honour all men 1 Pet. 2. 17. especially our superiors and also that in our eyes a vile person should be contemned while we honour them that fear the Lord Psal. 15. 4. EXCEPT III. He alloweth himself a great and masterly liberty to call his brethren fierce self-conceited dividers feaverish persons c. Answ. IF there be none such or but a few I will joyfully confess my error But if all ages of the Church have had such and if this Kingdom have been so troubled by such as all men know and if they yet live in this sin to their own trouble and ours why should it be contrary to meekness to mention it Should I hate my Brother in suffering sin to lie upon him Every paragraph almost inviteth me to remember Christs words to the two fierie Disciples and to say O how hard is it to know what manner of spirit we are of Tell me Reader whether this be not true that if I had called the Bishops sacrilegious silencers of a faithful Ministry murderers of many hundred thousand souls perjurious proud tyrannical covetous formal hypocrites malignant haters of good men c. I might not very easily have come off with many of these angry brethren without any blame for want of Meekness Nay whether they would not have liked it as my zeal when as such a gentle touch upon themselves doth intollerably hurt them Is there not gross partialitie in this Note also that these brethren that plead for Libertie do call it a masterly Libertie in me thus to name their faults And do you think that they would not have silenced my book if it had been in their power Note then whether the silencing imperious Spirit be not common to both extreams EXCEPT Ib. He useth the same frothy and unsavoury words that others prophane Prayer and the name of God by and which at the best is that foolish talking or jesting which we are commanded not so much as to mention Eph. 5. 3 4. Answ. THE words are I am only perswading all dissenters to Love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such
an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intolerable to you the Lord have mercy on your souls Is the matter of this prayer unlawful Or can he prove that I spake it jestingly when I took it to be the serious prayer of my grieved heart Or may we use no words as Lord have mercy on us c. which others use unreverently Or is it true doctrine that this is the foolish talk and jesting forbidden Eph. 5 What proof is there here of any one word of all this EXCEPT IV. p. 2. He doth very often and needlesly insist on many things that may tend to advance his own reputation The instances are added Answ. 1. I Confess Brother I am a great sinner and have more faults than you have yet found out But I pray you note that all this still is nothing to our Controversie whether we should advise men against Church divisions as contrary to Love 2. If a humble Physitian may put a probatum to his Receipt and say I have much experience of this or that I pray you why may not a humble Minister tell England that I and you have had experience of the hurt of divisions and of the healing uniting power of Love Did all the Independent Church-members whose Experiences are printed in a book take Experience to be a word of pride 3. And is it pride to thank the World for their Civilities to me in mixing commâ—ndations which I disown with their censures What! to confess the remnants of their moderation notorious in matter of fact the truth of which you durst not deny in the midst of their many false censures and calumnies 4. Or to tell you how unable I have â—ound back-biters to prove their accusations in doctrinals to my face 5. Or to tell you that some even Independents perswaded me when I was silenced to write sermons for some of the weaker Conformists such as are too many youths from the University to preach Where lieth the pride of these expressions Is it in supposing that there are any Conformists weaker than my self Whether think you this brother or I think meanlier of them Or set our selves at the greater distance from them 6. When I plead against charging forms with Idolatry I say that for my self it is twenty times harder to me to remember a form of words than to express what is in my mind without them If this be not true why did you not question the truth of it If it be why is it pride to utter it as a proof that I plead for Love and not for my own interest Is it pride to confess so openly the weakness of my memory I never learnt a Sermon without book in my life I think I could not learn an hours speech sufficiently to utter the very words by memory in a fortnights time And is it pride for a man to say that he can easier speak what is in his mind Truly brother I was so far from intending it as a boast that I meant it as a diminâ—tion of the over-valued honour of present extemporary expression and to tell you that I take it to be so far from proving that your prayers only are accepted of God before a form as signifying more grace that I take it to be an easier thing for an accustomed man that hath not a diseased hesitancy to speak extempore what is in his mind than to learn a form without book And that they thaâ— do this do serve God with as much labour and cost as you do Do I boast or do I not speak the common case of most Ministers when I truly say That when I take most pains for a Sermon I write every word when I take a little pains I write the heads but when business hindereth me from taking any pains I do neither but speak what is in my mind which I suppose others as well as I could do all the day and week together if weariness did not interrupt them I seek by these words but to abate their pride that think themselves spiritual because they can pray or preach without book Like some now neer me that account it formality and a sign that a Preacher speaketh not by the Spirit if he use notes or preach upon a text of Scripture but admire one neer them that cries dâ—wn such and useth neither 7. Is it pride to say that thâ—se darker persons whom I have been â—ain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding would yet as stiffly defend their most groundless opinions against me when I crost them as if they thought I had no understanding If you do think that you cannot be over-valued or are not so do not I. And I thought my rebuking men for it had been no sign of pride And brother I am confident if you your self did not believe that my understanding and consequently my Writings are over-valued you would never have written this book especially in such a stile against me yea in the end you profess this to be your design to undeceive those that had a good opinion of me If those on the other side had not thought the same my late Auditors at Kederminster had never had so many Sermons and that by persons so high nor would so many books have been written to the same end even to cure the people of this dangerous vice of over-valuing me The matter of fact being so publick invalidateth your exception 8. The last expression of my pride is that I give this testimony even to Christians inclined to divisions that if they think a man speaketh not to the depressing of true and serious religion they can bear that from him which they cannot bear from one that they think hath a malignant end and that on this account in my sharpest reproofs my own auditors have still been patient with me Enquire whether this be true or not Whether I have not preached twenty times more against Divisions to a people that never once quarrelled with it than I have written against it in the book with which you so much quarrel And is this probatum given against malignity a word of pride too You proceed in your Charge that I have great thoughts of my self and have learned little of Christian or moral ingenuity and am unfit to be a Teacher of it to others Answ. 1. Do you not yet perceive that you also have a silencing spirit when you and those that you separate from are agreed that we are unfit to be Teachers because we gainsay you why do you pretend so great a distance even in the point of imperious severity 2. O how hard is it still to know our selves and what manner of spirit we are of Is it pride in me to think that I am righter than you or to express it Why brother do not you think as confidently that you are righter than I and do you not as Confidently utter it I differ no further from you than you do from me And why is it not
as much sign of pride in you to think you know more than I as in me to think that I know more in this than you The truth is Pride is not a true valuing but an over-valuing our selves and our own understandings If either you or I be in the right and both think our selves confidently to be so he is the Proud person which ever he be that is in the wrong For it is he that over-valueth his own understanding Here therefore the Evidence must decide the Case EXCEPT V. p. 3. Answered Your 5th Exception implieth more Untruths The first is that I did not consider that fault of the Imposers which I have written in that very book so much against and elsewhere and before said more against than any man that I know in England This was not considerately spoken The second is that all or most of those that you separate from made tearing engines and dividing impositions If this be not implied you speak not to the point But you may easily know that in all the Parish-Churches of England there is not one man or woman no not one Minister of very many that ever made or imposed such Engines The third implied untruth is that I plead either for subscribing Assent or for such Communion as cannot be had without subscribing Assent to what you know is sinful when you may joyn as far as I desire you without subscribing any Assent at all EXCEPT VI. Answered 1. As to the sense of 2 Cor. 6. 14 15 16. and Rev. 18. 6. You confess that the Texts do directly and properly concern only Infidels and Idolaters there mentioned 2. You say It belongs to others that are guilty of the same Crimes under the name of Christians proportionally Answ. Very true If it be not a contradiction If any called Christians be notorious Infidels and Idolaters they are not Christians and so not fit for Christian Communion But from the Societies of such we must flie our selves But not from the societies of Christians alwaies when some such shall intrude 3. You say We are commanded strictly to separate from every one that is called a brother if he be covetous or a railer c. Answ. The Church and not a private man must exclude such a one from Church-Communion And you your self must exclude him from your private familiarity But you are not commanded to separate from the Church if they exclude him not I am not bound to separate from the Church where you are for this Book which you have written though I could prove it railing How few separated Churches know you on earth that have no Covetous person or railer Or at least where the people hold it their dutie to separate from their own Church if any Covetous person or railer be there 4. You add that if notwithstanding all admonition any Church will still retain them we are not to own such a Church as a Spouse of Christ and therefore must come out of it c. Answ. 1. I have in that Book proved the contrarie by abundant Scripture instances And in the next exception you your self confess the primitive corruptions and lay the stress of your Separation only on Imposed Conditions of Communion 2. You give us no proof of this naked assertion If a Scolding woman or a Covetous Professor be reteined in a Church otherwise pure you are not therefore bound to separate much less to take it for no Church For that is a true Church which hath the true essentials of a Church But so may one that reteineth a Covetous man or a Scold Ergo By your rule you must Separate not only from Parish Churches but from most of the Separated Churches that ever I was acquainted with I find no particular Church called A Spouse of Christ but the universal only As a Corporation is not a Kingdome but a part of a Kingdome 5. Above twenty Arguments in my book for Infant Baptism shew that you did not truly say that the best argument that all learned men have ever defended it by is the proportion it hath to Circumcision EXCEPT VII Answered You say that I impertinently recite the Corruptions of the Scripture Churches to prove that we are not to separate c. your reason is Because many Errors in Doctrine and life were formerly admitted yet none of them were imposed as conditions of Communion Answ. Do you not see that here you seem to deny what you said so confidently in the last Exception There you say We must come out if they will receive such for members after all admonition and retein them Here you seem plainlie to yield that up and to lay all on imposed Conditions of Communion as if else you could communicate with Churches so corrupt You can bear your own contradiction better than mine 2. What is imposed on you as a condition to your Communion in the Doctrine and Prayers of the Parish Churches but your actual Communion it self If you will say that their bad Minister and their imperfect form is imposed as a Condition because you must be present so they may say that you also impose your imperfect manner and expressions on them as Conditions of their Communion in your Churches And thus you are all Imposers EXCEPT VIII Answered First you say I said that I met with many Conscientious Professors c. That 's your fifth untruth I said no such thing but only many Censorious professors 2. You say It is hardly possible to believe it But that is possible to men that use to be more careful of speaking truth themselves and that are acquainted with the people of England by such means as Conference which is hardly possible to others 3. You ask Ought not such things to be concealed And you abuse Scripture to confirm it But 1. Are you not here partial Is it your judgement that we should conceal the faults or ignorance or errors of the Bishops Conformists and Parish members Or be they not commonly multiplied and aggravated And yet must the Separatists ignorance and error be concealed 2. Do you desire their Repentance and humiliation whose faults you would have concealed And do you imitate Nehemiah and others of Gods Servants that use to Confess the sins of all ranks and sorts of men 3. Do you use in publick humiliations to confess this ignorance of Professors or not If not what a kind of humiliation do you make If you do do not you publickly reveal this secret 4. How grosly are you unacquainted with England that take this for a secret or for hardly to be believed when we have Congregations and multitudes of such and the land and world ringeth of them 5. Do you not thus harden them that charge us with factiousness when you shew your self so solicitous for the Concealment of the ignorance of your party while you have no such care for others 4. But it is your sixth Untruth in point of fact when you say
brethren and not â—o divide the Church of God 2. And that you say He regardeth not your sufferings who suffereth with you and writeth so much as that book containeth against your sufferings 3. And that you should call that your Innoâ—ency which I have proved so largely to be against the new and great Commandement and when you make so poor an answer to the proof I might number these with your Untruths but that I will choose out the grosser sort such as is the next 15th Untruth that I speak slightly of Christ. Is it slighting Christ to speak the words and undenied truth of Scripture Two things I say of Christ 1. That he increased in wisdom in his youth Do you not believe that to be true Surely Mr Ieanes in all his writings against Dr. Hammond of that point did never deny it 2. That he would not enter upon his publick Ministry till he was about 30 years of age Do you not believe that also What then is here that is a slighting of Christ The reason of this later which I humbly conjecture at and elsewhere express is that he might be an example to young men not to venture and enter too early upon the Ministry The reason you alledge from Num. 4. 2 3. I gainsay not though I think it far fetcht that Christ must not enter sooner upon his publick Ministry in his extraordinary office because the sons of Coâ—ah were numbred from 30 years to 50. But you insinuate another untruth yea express it while you flatly say I insinuate that Christ staid till 30 years old that he might be more perfect in wisdome I had no such word or thought My following words It had been easier for Christ to have got all knowledge by two or three earnest prayers than for any of us refer only to the first clause of his growth in wisdom and not at all to the later of the time of his Ministry But you deny that Christ had any addition of wisdom except as to manifestation I believe Gods word And with others he will be as pardonable that believeth it as he that denyeth it I did not expound it But if I must I will I think that according to the present frame of humane nature the incorporate soul receiveth the several objects it must know ab extra by the fantasie and that by the senses and that our acts of knowing exterior things are as Philosophers affirm objectively organical though not efficiently and formally that is that the Intromission by the senses and phantasie is necessary to the right stating of the object And therefore that in all those acts of Knowledge which Christ exercised as other men do 1. The Object 2. The Organical capacity and aptitude of the body were necessary not to the perfection of his humane soul in Essence Power Virtue Inclination Disposition but only to the Act of Knowing And so I think Christ when new born knew not actually as a man all that he aftâ—r knew no nor long after And that he increased in Actual knowledge 1. As Objects were presented 2. And as the Organs increased in Capacity and aptitude and noâ— otherwise Yet I believe that Christ prayed before his Organs and actual knowledge were at the highest and that he could had it been his Fathers will and his own by prayer have suddenly attained their perfection and that Culpable imperfection he never had any nor such as is the effect of sin in Infants now If this be an error help me out of it by sitter means than reviling You adde that Christ needed not prayer for himself but as a pattern to us c. Answ. Christ had no Culpable need nor as God any natural need But brother take heed of the Common error of them that think they can never say too much or do too much when they are once engaged for this is but undoing 1. Do you think that Christs humane nature was not a Creature 2. Do you think that all Creatures are not Dependant on the Creator and need him not 3. Do you think Christs humane nature needed not Divine sustentation in existence life and motion and Divine influx or Communication hereunto seeing that in God we live and move and be 4. Do you think that Christs body needed not created means as the earth the air meat and drink and sleep and rest And that he needed not drink when it is said he thirsted Ioh. 19. 28. I thirst And Ioh. 4. 6. being wearied with his journey c. ver 7. Give me to drink Whether he needed not cloathing and needed not ordinary bodily supplies when it is said that some ministred to him of their substance Luke 8. 3. As our Father knoweth that we have need of all these things Mat. 6. 8. 32. So I think that Christs humane nature needed them and that he gave not thanks at meat for his Disciples only and that he bid them speak nothing but the truth when he said Mat. 21. 3. Mar. 11. 3. Luke 19. 31. The Lord hath need of him And that it was for himself that he prayed three times that the cup might pass if c. though for our instruction Luke 22. 44. Matt. 26. 42. 44. Heb. 5. 7. Whâ— in the daies of his flesh whâ—n he 〈◊〉 offered up prayers and sâ—ppliâ—atiâ—ns with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death and was heard in that he feared though he was a son yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered and being made perfect c. I believe that when he was on the Cross he needed deliverance and when his body was in the grave it needed the Divine power for to effect his resurrection And how a man would have been formerly judged of that had denyed any of this You may learn by the severities of many Councils against the Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites c. I am so regardful of your sufferings that I would not put your mind to any needless grief But yet I heartily wish your Râ—pentance not only for your errors but that you should let out your unknown spirit to such vehemency in your revilings upon such pittiful grounds as when you adde So that to speak so lesseningly of Prayer and Christ to undervalue so much the unspeakable usefulnâ—ss the of one and the incomprehensible Majesty of the other becomes very well the spirit that Mr. Baxter writes with This is but a repetition of untruths EXCEPT XVI p. 9. Answered Having Dir. 27. given five proofs by which I knew many to be mistaken that expound Texts of Scripture by the Impressions on their own spirits I said Dir. 28. It is very ordinary with poor fanciful women and melancholy persons to take all deep apprehensiâ—ns for revelations and if a Text come into their minds to say This text was brought to my mind and set upon my spirit as if nothing could bring a text to their minds but some extraordinary
motion of God and as if this bringing it to their mind would warrant their exposition Whereupon I advise men to know the necessity of the spirits ordinary sanctifying work and not to despise mens pretences of revelation but yet to believe none against Scripture As to the ground of this passage it is such as is not disputable with me being matter of sense so impossible is it for me to escape all the heinous accusations of this brother It is not many years since I have had several persons with me two or three out of one County that brought me books written for the Press and urged me to procure them printed and shewed to the King in which were abundance of Scriptures abused to many daring predictions of things presently to come to pass and all upon pretence of Visions and Revelations and the setting of such an exposition on their hearts And the men were ignorant melancholy and crazâ—d persons and the Scriptures almost all falâ—ly interpreted and the predictions fail And all of them had the fifth Monarchy notion without conference that I could learn with any about it When I lived in Coventrey Major Wilkies a Learned Scot lived in the house with me who professed to have lived many years in a Course of Visions and Revelations and had abundance of Texts set upon his heart and expounded to him by Vision most for the Millenary way and for Prophecies about our times and changes and some against preciseness many of his expositions were considerable some palpably false some of his predictions came to pass and some proved false He was of a hot melancholy temper and as I heard after distracted If this brother had known how many if not many score of deeply melancholy persons have been with me that have had some of them prophecies most of them almost in desperation and some of them comforted by such or such a Text brought to their mind which was of a quite different sense and impertinent to that which they fetcht from it and some of their Collections contrary to the rest he would take heed of doing Gods spirit so much wrong as to father poor crazed peoples deliratioâ—s on it And this is as common I think among the Papists themselves that meddle less with Scripture than we do What abundance of Books be there of the phantasmes of their Fryers and Nuns as Prophecies Visions and Revelations which the judicious Reader may perceive are but the effects of melancholy and hysterical passions improved by ignorant or deceitful Priests But what is the Charge against me here Why he saith He calls them poor fanciful women and melancholy persons that ordinarily receive comfort by suggested Texts of Scripture Answ. This is the 16th visible Untruth Indeed here are are two gross untruths together 1. He changeth the subject into the predicate and then affirmeth me so to have spoken I said It is ordinary for such fanciful and melancholy persons to take deep apprehensions for Revelations and if a Text come into their mind to think it is by an extraordinary motion of the spirit And he feigneth me to say that they that ordinarily receive comfort by suggested texts are melancholy Is it all one to say It is ordinary for melancholy persons to pray to fear to erre c. And They that ordinarily pray fear erre are melancholy Again Brother this is not well 2. He feigneth me to speak of them that ordinarily receive Comfort when I have no such word but speak of them that would draw others into error and separation by confident asserting false expositions of Scripture as set on their mind by revelâ—tion from the spirit This is not well neither He addeth If this be not to sit in the Chair of Scorners what is This needeth no answer For saith he is not this the very language of holy men Answ. Alas brother how impertinent is your question The question is Whether this be the language of no melancholy person or of none but holy men and that as holy Is it not the language of many â— Popish Nun and Fryer that pretend to Revelation Have not I heard it with these ears from multitudes in melancholy and other weakness that have perverted the Texts which they alledged Have I not read it many books of Experiences Is he a scorner that saith that a man may speak the same words mistakingly in melancholy which another speaketh truly Do you well brother to trouble the World at this rate of discourse For charges on me I pass them by And for his saying that the bare recital of their usual words is fitter for a Iester than a judicious Divine and when he hath done to be so angry that they be not all ascribed to Gods spirit I will not denominate such passages as they deserve lest I offend him Lest you deny belief to me I intreat you and the Reader to get and read a book published by Mr. Brown as is uncontrolledly affirmed who lately wrote against Mr. Tombes against the lawfulness of Communion in the Parish Churches concerning the experiences and strange work of God on a Gentlewoman in Worcester whom I will not name because yet living and God may recover her but is there well known This Gentlewoman having been long vain and a constant neglecter of publick worship was suddenly moved to go into the Church while I was there preaching on Rom. 6. 21. The very Text struck her to the heart but before the Sermon was done she could hardly forbear crying out in the Congregation She went home a changed person resolved for a holy life But her affection or passion being strong and her nature tender and her knowledge small she quickly thought that the Quakers lived strictlier than we and fell in among them At last perceiving them vilifie the Ministry and the Scripture her heart smote her and she forsook them as speaking against that which by experience she had found to do her good And desiring to speak with me who lived far off opened this much to me But all these deep workings and troubles between the several waies did so affect her that she fell into a very strong melancholy Insomuch that she imposed such an abstinence from meat upon her self that she was much consumed and so debilitated as to keep her bed and almost famished Mr. Brown and others were her instructers who were very zealous for the way called The Fifth Monarchy and having instructed her in those opinions published the whole story in print which else I would not have mentioned I shall say nothing of any thing which is otherwise known but desire the Reader that doth but understand what melancholy is better than the Writers did to read that book and observe with sorrow and pitty what a number of plain effects of Melancholy as to thoughts and Scriptures and actions are there ascribed to meâ—r Temptations on one side and to Gods unusual or notable operations on the other side In the end he saith And
extreams to consider that If it was a long Liturgie they should not compare the Puritane to the Pharisee in his long prayers as they use to do but to others But if they were extemporate Prayers 1. To one side I say that if Christ had been against extemporate praying he would have put that into his rebukes 2. To the other side I say If the Pharisees had the gift of long extemporate prayers we must take heed of over-valuing such a gift and ascribing it too much to the spirit so that the Pharisees long prayers as a two edged sword cut both extreams in this pievish Controversie 3. This Controversie whether the Iews had a Liturgie is handled so largely by Mr. Selden that I must refer the Reader to him that would see what is said for the affirmative in Eutych Alexandr pag. 35 to p. 63. Where he shews that till Ezra's time there was none but the Scripture Liturgie And that in Ezra's time eighteen Prayers were made and shews how far they might or might not adde Where having cited abundance of Rabbins he shews that however the Jewish Rabbins are fabulous these historical testimonies are our best means of information and are credible and addeth the words of Ios. Scaliger Hic fuit vetus Ritus Celebrationis Paschae temporibus Messiae Quod vetustissimi Canones in Digestis Talmudicis manifesto probant Nisi quis eos neget antiquos esse Quod idem ac si quis capita Papiniani Pauli Ulpiani aliorum Iurisconsultorum in Digestis Iustiniani producta neget esse eorum Iurisconsultorum quorum nomine citantur Quod nemo sanus dixerit EXCEPT XVIII p. 10. Answered Here you except against me if for any thing for being grown so scrupulous and so tender as to be offended if any break jeasts upon Common Prayer Answ. 1. I spake of jesting on both sides at one anothers devotions and not of one alone 2. If you are for that way of breaking jeasts and scorns at other mens prayers with what measure you mete it will be meted to you again They will requite you to the full with jeasts and scorns at yours also 3. Brother do you like this way or do you not If you do what a spirit are you of If you do not why do you quarrel with this advice And whereas you cite my own words in the Reply to the Bishops I must tell you 1. That I know nothing in any of those Papers or Treaty as to the matter that I have changed my judgement in or repent of And I admire that the Prelates that ask so often What will satisfie us and others that carry it to the World as if we had said nothing should to this day leave that Reply and our Liturgie then offered them and our Petition for Peace so much unanswered Which few that knew them will believe is for want of will and fervour or indignation against them 2. That yet the sentence cited by you Whether it be that the common-prayer-Common-Prayer-Book hath never a Prayer for it self I confess is sarcastical and I unfeignedly thank you for calling me to review it and I do unfeignedly repent of it and desire pardon of God and men for speaking words of so much derision Though I then no more perceived my fault than you do yours I mentioned some that were scandalized at the scorns of men at the Liturgie heretofore And 1. He calls it a prophane story fitter for Ranters 2. He challengeth me to tell the names of them that used those expressions 3. He thinks I did greatly sin in repeating them 4. Else he will think I invented them on purpose to make my brethren odious and justifie the persecution against them Answ. 1. If it be so bad why are you so angry with me for being against it and thâ— like or â—ny scorns at other mens tolerable devotion 2. Your challenge is but a drop of your unrighteousness I told you I knew them that were inflamed by those words but not that I knew the Speaker And how should a man know the names of all that look in at a Church-door How oft have I had Quakers in the face of the Market and of the publick Congregation revile me and curse me as in the name of God and speak as bad words as those when I seldome asked what their names were And yet I must name them or be to you a malicious lyar And shall I noâ— be so with you if I obey your challenge Is it not unsâ—voâ—â—y to name men in such stories Well I will thus for this once obey you In 1640. coming up to London to the Physitians I lay at Bosoms-Inn in Laurence-â—â—â—â—e On the Lords-day the Inn-keeper an old man Mr. Hawkshead as I remember his name was came in from Laurence Church with some guests in a very great passion We ask'd him what the matter was He answered that as he went into the Church a fellow look'd in and spake those very words I recited save that he said The Deele instead of The Devil And from very sober honest people I have I believe many score times heard them call the Common Prayer Porridge and say He is not out of his Porridge yet 3. If I sin in repeating them I pray you justifie not that spirit that uttered them Nor be not of the mind of the Councellor of the wicked in this age whose policy is to perswade men to commit such heinous sins Perjury Lying c. which sound odiously in the naming and then no man may ever accuse them lest he be guilty of railing incivility c. 4. Brother a very low degree of ingenuity would have taught you to have judged such a Plea for Love by one that in this book speaketh more against Persecuting you than ever you read I believe in a Licensed book since the printing Act to have come from no malicious persecuting intent Yet as if you were so eagerly set on the Defence of the dividing scandalous miscarriages of this age as to take it for persecution so much as to lament them or pray against them you gather the same conclusion from my very prayers to God for pitty to his Church that is distracted and endangered by such usage And here seeing your sufferings are so much talk'd of and I am numbred by you among your persecutors endure me to tell you that suffering hath its temptations as well as prosperity And that the temptations to passion and to run too far from those we suffer by and to lose our charity to them and their adherents are so much stronger to me I leave others to judge themselves than the temptations to fear and timerous complyances that I was much more jealous of my heart in this when I suffered most than at other times For I knew that it is one of Satans designs to rob me of my Charity and Integrity in which he would more triumph than in depriving me of my maintenance reputation and liberty And I must
11. Whether this kind of talk be not sport to the Papists to hear us call one another Idolaters as well as them and do not make them deride us and harden them in their bread-worship and image-worship as being called Idolatry on no better grounds than we so call one another Q. 12. Whether it be not a great dishonour to any man to suffer silencing because he cannot add to Gods worship the Ceremonies and Liturgie and at the same time to add to Gods word new and false doctrines of our own by saying that It is a species of Idolatry forbidden in the second Command because it is used in the worship of God without any command to make it lawful And if we should suffer such false doctrine and additions and Love-killing dividing principlesas this to go uncontradicted whether we do not betray the truth and our flocks and shew that we were too worthy of our sufferings But that this assertion or definition of Idolatry is false I need to prove no otherwise than 1. That it is unproved by him that is to prove it and 2. That it denieth Christ to have a Church on earth or to have any but Churches of Idolaters 3. That it turneth all sin in Gods worship into one species even Idolatry And so every false doctrine used in Gods worship is Idolatry Every Antimonian Anabaptist Separatist or of any other error be it never so small must be presently an Idolater if in prayer or preaching he speak his error And what man is infallible When your Companion promised in the Pulpit that there should be no more Tythes no more Taxes nor no more King in Worcestershire after Worcester-Fight this must be Idolatry For certainly no error is commanded of God 4. That it maketh the description of a thing indifferent to be the description of Idolatry For as a thing forbidden is the description of sin so to be not commanded speaketh no more but Indifferency Though the prohibition to do any thing not commanded speaketh more if it could be proved 5. It is contrary to the Scripture which never useth the word IDOLATRY in that sense Peruse the several texts and try 6. It equalleth almost all Churches with the Infidel and Pagan World 7. It heinously injureth God who is a hater of Idolaters and will visit their sins as God-haters on the third and fourth Generations to feign him to be thus a hater of his Churches and of them that use any thing in his worship not commanded 8. It tendeth to drive all Christians to despair as being Idolaters and so abhorred of God because they have all some uncommanded yea forbidden thing in worship For by this mans doctrine a sinful wandring thought a sinful disorder or tautologie or bad expression is Idolatry as being not commanded 9. It tendeth to drive men to give ever worshipping God because while they are certain to sin they are certain to be Idolaters when they have done their best 10. It hardeneth the Mahometans in their enmity to Christianity who being the great exclaimers against Idolatry do already falsely brand us with that crime But what ever else it do I am sure it is so pernicious an engine of Satan to kill Love and divide the Church to feign every Conformist how holy soever and every one that useth in worship any thing not commanded to be an Idolater that I may well advise all Christians as they love Christ and his Church and their own souls to keep themselves from such mistakes Were it not that it is unmeet to do great works â—â—rily on such slight occasions in such a discourse as this is I would here stay to open the meaning of the second Commandement and shew 1. That there are abundance of lawful things in Gods worship as circumstances and outward modes that are not commanded in specie or individuo 2. That somethings forbidden in that Commandement indirectly are not Idolatry 3. Much less are they a sufficient cause of separation But this is fitter for another place And I again refer you to Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica EXCEPT XX. Answered This Exception is but a bundle of mistakes and the fruit of your false interpretation of my design 1. That I prove not what I say is not true when the many instances fully prove it and you your self deny them not 2. When I explain my self frequently and fully who I do not mean by Dividers and what separation I allow you feign me to open my mind very unwillingly and to defend those whom I traduce that you may make men believe that I mean those whom I still profess that I mean not and that you know my mind better than I my self This is not true and righteous dealing EXCEPT XXI p. 12. Answered When I say Our presence at the prayers of the Church is no profession of Consent to all that is faulty in those prayers he saith The Apostle thought otherwise in a like â—ase of sitting at meat in an Idols Temple Answ. Brother of all the men that ever I had to do with scarce any hath dealt so superficially without saying any thing against the proofs which I lay down noâ— seeming to take any notice of them How can you choose but see your self that by denying my proposition 1. You make it unlawful to joyne with any Church or person in the World and so would dissolve all Church-Communion and Family-worship For do not all men sin in prayer And must any man consent to sin 2. How do you reflect on God that forbiddeth us to forsake the assembling of our selves together If consenting to sin be unavoidable 3. I told you we Consent not to the faults of our own prayers much less to anothers that are less in our power What work would this one opinion of yours make in the World If we are guilty of all that is faulty in all the prayers of the Church or Family we joyn with yea more do by our presence profess Consent to them and withal if all not commanded in worship be Idolatry what a World are we then in It 's time then to turn seekers and say that Church and Ministry are lost It is these principles brother that I purposely wrote my book against But you speak much besides the truth when you say The Apostle thought otherwise in a like Case For you never prove that he thought otherwise Dare you say I beseech you think on it that Paul and all the Apostles and all the Churches professed consent to all the faults in worship which they were present at How know you that they were never present at any such as Paul reproveth in the Corinthians Yea was Christ a professed Consenter to all that he was present at Or all that he commanded men to be present at when he went to the Synagogues and bade the cleansed go shew themselves to the Priests and offer c. And bade his Disciples hear the Scribes and Pharisees c. I do not charge the
and Universities and humane Learning And Mr. Norton of New England told me that with them A Church separated from a Church or was gathered out of it rejecting their Pastors and choosing unlearned men and would receive and endure none that had humane Learning and that Moses and Aaron as his words were Magistrates and Ministers went down on their knees to them with tears and could not move them to relent unto unity or to receive a learned Minister nor get any answer from them but that is your judgement and this is ours I speak his very words as neer as I can possibly spoken to old Mr. Ash and me before his yet living companion Mr. Broadstreet a Magistrate of New England Now all this the common people are against Must we therefore be against Magistrates Ministers Ordinances and all because the common people are for them How commonly are they against the Quakers and the Familists and the Infidels and Heathens and with us the Papists Are all these therefore in the right Let any Familist deny the Scripture or the immortality of the soul and the common people will be against them Must we deny God and Christ because we live in a land where they are owned Brother consider 1. That some truths the light of nature teacheth all 2. And some common illumination teacheth multitudes of bad men 3. And some good education and the tradition of their fathers and the Laws of the Countrey teacheth 4. And some are better persons among those that you separate from than many are that separate from them Let not us then be bad and more erroneous than those whom you account the worse and all because they are no worse The Text which you wish me to read on my knees I have done so and I thank you for that advice but I answer not your hope of retracting what I have written in that but contrarily 1. On my knees I pray God to forgive you such abuse of Scripture 2. And to give you a sounder mind For the Text speaketh of Infidels or denyers of Christs incarnation and maketh this the differencing Character Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God and so on the contrary But are all these Christians that you plead for separation from and charge with Idolatry Infidels and denyers of Christ And all the Churches on earth that use a Liturgie O brother you use not Scripture oâ— the Church aright We grant that in professed Christians also the carnal mind is enmity to God and they that are most carnal are likest to reject the truth But yeâ— we would not wish you to measure Truth by the quality of the Receiver For Christ is truly Christ though many workers of iniquity shall say we have prophesied in thy name Many hereticks have been strict and temperate when the greater part of the Orthodox have been too loose Yet that did not prove the Christian doctrine to be false EXCEPT XXXI Answered I have little here to do but number your visible Untruths in matter of fact One is 21th Untruth He flyes upon all sides that are for order in any kind When I speak not a word against Order nor against any side but the instances of some mens extreams which all that are for Order hold not Your 22d Untruth is Without expressing himself whether he is for Papal Presbyterian or Independent Government in the Church And if this were not crime enough to seem unsetled in so necessary a point What signification have I given of unsetledness When I have long ago publickly told the World my judgement about all this to the full in my five Disputations of Church Government and in a Book called Christian Concord and another called Universal Concord another of Confirmation besides many more But might not a man be setled that were as I am in the main of the same judgement as is expressed in the Waldenses or Bohemian Government described by Laseitius and Commenius which taketh in the best of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency and leaveth out the worst and the unnecessary parts Are all the Hungarian and Transilvanian and old Polonian Protestants that come neer this order withour Order or unsetled 3. It is your 23d Untruth that I write very dubiously about Iustification whether we are to take it to be by Faith or by works When as all that I was here to say of it is spoken very plainly I have written many books to make my mind as plain as it is possible for me to speak As in my Confession my Disputations of Iustification my Apologies my Answer to Dr. Barlow and in my Life of Faith which was printed before this where I have detected a multitude of errors about Justification and many more And if you expect every time I name Justification I should write the summ of all those books over again I shall fail your expectation though I incur your censure who no doubt ' had I done it would justly have censured such repetition for tedious vanity You adde We fear he is not sound in that point Answ. Your fear is your best confutation and the best assistance that you afford to make me as wise and judicious as your self The Lord say you We hope in mercy to his Church and particularly to those who have been deceived into a good opinion of him will bring this man upon his knees that he may make a publick acknowledgement of his folly Answ. If that be your work it is the same with his that it is said you sometime wrote against so many Volumes have been written already by Papists Prelatists Anabaptists Quakers Seekers and many other Sects for this very end to cure mens good opinion of me as if a man that could but think ill of me were in a fairer hope of his Salvation that if all these have not yet accomplish'd it nor all the famous Sermons that have been preach'd against me I doubt brother that your endeavours come too late You may perswade some few factioâ—s credulous souls into hatred but still those that love God will love one another And I confess of all that ever I saw I least sear your book as to the bringing men out of a good opinion of me unless your name and back-bitings can do it When you say that I say that The presumptuous do boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness in conscience and honesty you should not have left out without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their part Is this just dealing Are there no such presumptuous boasters Or will you justifie them all that you may but vent your wrath on me My judgement in the foresaid point of Imputation of Christs Righteousness I have opened at large in the foresaid writings The Life of Faith Confession Disp. of Iustif c. EXCEPT XXXII p. 18. Answered I said The good of nature is lovely in all men as men even in
and plain answer to the Papists about our separation from their Church and remembred how many Volumes they have troubled the World with by obscuring our plain and ordinarie answer I told them that must have Volumes to hide the sense that if this answer seem not plain and full to them it is because they understand not Christian sense and reason and not for want of plainess in the matter or through defectiveness as to satisfie a reasonable impartial man This brother chargeth this saying to be insolent and from intolerable Pride because I dare so Charge another with want of Christian sense and reason c. Answ. 1. This is his eleventh untruth I only named sense and reason objectively not subjectively It is not because the Answer which I give the Papists and which Protestants commonly give is not full and plain or wanteth sense or reason but because the Papists understand it not He that hath sense and reason may be hindred from using it aright by interest partialitie and wilful negligences which it is no new thing for Protestants to think that Papists are too oft guilty of But how proud am I then intolerably proud that in several books have maintained that all Papists that hold Transubstantiation do make it an Article of Faith and necessarie to Salvation flatly to contradict all the senses of all the sound men in the World that shall judge whether bread be bread and wine be wine How much more insolent a Charge is this But brother Popish absurdities have need of a better defence than to call the adversarie insolent and proud 2. And is the thing I say true or false I prove it true The Answer of the Protestants about Luther's Reformation which I give is Christian◠Sense and Reason But the Papists or any that deny it seriously and take it not to be plain and full understand it not Ergo they understand not Christian sense and reason That is In this For I never said that they understand not Christian Sense and Reason in any other thing nor is there the least appearance of such a sense Now if this brother will deny either of the premises he may expect an answer Till then I adde 3. Are not you brother by your own censure notoriously insolent and intolerably proud if this hold good as well as I Do you not take all that you say against me or some part at least to be plain and full and to be Christian sense and reason And do you not suppose me to think otherwise of it And do you not think that this is because I understand it not Thus some mens hands do beat themselves 4. And do you not implicitly charge all or most Protestant Writers with insolence and intolerable pride as well as me Do they not all think their reasons against the Papists plain and full at least some of them And do they not think that the Papists denie them because they understand not the Christian Sense and Reason which is in them 5. And have not all mankind a deficiencie of understanding And is it pride and insolence to say so 6. But judge of your own spirit by your own rule Do not you think those that you before charged with persecution and making our dividing engines and whose Communion you think it a duty to avoid to be such as understand not Christian sense and reason in the arguings which I and others have used against them And is it not as lawful to think so of the Papists EXCEPT X. Answered I used the phrase of Local presential Communion in Contradistinction 1. To the Catholick Communion of persons absent which is by Faith and Love 2. And the Communion by Delegates and Representatives And our brother here 1. Calleth this phrase insignificant Iargon which was not said through any redundancy of Sense and Reason above othets Nor do I acknowledge his authoritie in the sentence without his reason 2. He saith Unlawful terms are imposed on us Answ. Brother Do you think men must trust their souls on your naked word Where in all this book have you done any thing that with an impartial understanding can go for proof that in all the Parish Churches of England that use the Liturgie that is imposed as a Condition of our Communion in hearing or praying which it is not lawful sometimes to do Answer this as to Mr. Nie about hearing and to me about Praying if you can and do not nakedly affirm 3. You say you do not so much separate as forbear Communion and your reason is for we were never of them Answ. I take you for a Christian and a Protestant Are you not so far of us Is not a member of the same Universal Church of Christ obliged to hold Communion as he hath a special Call or occasion with more Churches than that particular one which he ordinarily joyneth with If you purposely avoided and denied Communion with all the Independent Churches in England save one and wrote to prove it unlawful I think this were a separating from them as they are parts of the Church Universal that are neer you EXCEPT XI Answered 1. The word Sect though oft taken but for one party in a division was not by me applied to all the names before going but to the last named only and such other 2. I spake nothing at all of the truth or falshood of the Censurers words but of the requitals that Censurers have by other mens Censures which may be sharp and passionate and a rebuke to the Censured and modally Culpable when the words are true Yet I am content to undergo the Censure you here cast out of me rather than to censure that a Papist cannot go beyond a reprobate unless you do as Mr. Perkins doth to make it good be so charitable to all the millions else among them as not to call them Papists except they practically hold the most pernicious opinions of their Councils and Divines I confess I affect none of the honour of that Orthodoxness which consisteth in sentencing millions and Kingdoms to Hell whom I am unacquainted with EXCEPT XII Answered Here we have first a meer magisterial dictate without proof that I speak triflingly about Scandal and shew how little I understand it But where 's his reason or Confutation 2. Why all is but this Paul would not eate flesh rather than he would offend his weak brother c. Judge Reader whether the bare citing of these words be any proof that in Scripture Scandal is not taken more for tempting ensnaring and laying before men an occasion of stumbling or sinning than for meer displeasing men which is the thing that I affirmed But sure Brother if you soberly review it you will find that you deal very hardly with the Scripture and the souls of men First the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which our Translators turn make to offend you read offend instead of scandalize And 2. You bring a text against