Christianity have found it most to their advantage of Edification to unite with such a Congregation of Christians All these or any of these may create an obligation to such conjunctions But because the hottest disputes in relation to Christian Practise so as to conserve Peace and Order have risen in this very juncture of particular Societies of Christians I will endeavour to settle upon an indisputable state of things and leave out what is more intricate and controversal that we may see how far the Laws of Christ extend here to Love and Peace in these following Assertions 1. That Our Lord hath given Rules for such Holy Grave and Honourable Societies under the name of Churches as must needs invite all of the same excellent Christian Temper into their Communion according to the opportunities they have to joyn with them their Doctrine Worship and Practice so Pure and Heavenly so evidently for the good of mens souls so composed to all true Decency Prudence and a Discipline so Humble Natural Strict only to the truest benefit of those that are under it that it cannot look like a secular Dominion but for the service of Faith the help of Joy the safety of Souls and their eternal Interest This I am sure every one will yeild is the Frame and Constitution of a Christian Church let it be found whereever it can be found Let every Church see to it self whether it be so Tempered and Constituted or not How then does it seem possible that when there are such Societies Christians should not fly to them as the Doves to the windows seeing Christianity improves the sociableness of Humanity into the truest publickness of Spirit and desire to enjoy Good with more than in solitude 2. It is the express Command of Christ and his design in all his institutions that there should be such Assemblies of his people and servants for the Glory of his Father for his own Glory for the Salvation of his People for Divine worship for the discharge of the several Duties of Christians for the Communications of their Gifts and Graces so that the forsaking of the Assemblies of our selves together as Heb. 10. 25. the manner of some was is very little distant from Apostacy it self How can there then be but Churches where there are Christians seeing so much of the concerns of Christianity lye therein and who indeed possess'd with those concerns does not rejoice in them and bless God for his unspeakable Gift in the Constitution of them 3. Yet is there no Law of Christ that main force should be us'd upon men to bring them into any Assembly of Christians at all much less into one rather than another especially when the main Reasons or Motives of uniting with Assemblies according to the Laws of Christ present themselves to mens Apprehensions and Consciences more in some than others Indeed mens over-zealous Affectation of some and unworthy neglect of others as one for Paul another for Apollos another for Cephas another for 1 Cor. 1. 12. Christ as if these Ministers by whom they believed were to set up for themselves as Heads of Christianinty and to rival Christ himself as if but upon the same level with them was very justly and severely chastiz'd by the Apostle but a true value for all the Stewards of Divine Mysteries and 1 Cor. 4. 1. Churches and a particular value for those Pastors and Congregations wherein God hath vouchsafed especial Blessings for mens Souls or gives opportunity to receive such is very agreeable to the Gospel as the Apostle though he refus'd undue measures of Honour yet assumes that of being 1 Cor. 4. 15. 1 Cor. 9. 2. a Father as above thousands of Instructors Christianity and the Ministry of it being so Holy and Humble a state that no one acting according to it either Arrogates or Envies so he that hath much of the Honour of it hath nothing over or above the measure of a Steward and he that hath least should have nothing under that measure if he be found Faithful So the Congregations have the equal Glory of being of the Body of Christ and Churches to be little Representations of and imbodyed with his own Catholick Church in the grand Vnion of all Christians with the Head Here then is the ground of Christian Peace and Union in Churches 4. It is a Principle in Nature and much Confirm'd and Exalted by Christianity that the Worship of God and the Salvation of mens Souls should be made as Publick and Vniversal as may be Go Preach the Gospel to every creature and Baptize all Nations was the very Commission Christ gave to his Apostles and first Embassadors and is continued to all his Ministers to the end of the world not of Mat. 26. 19. the world of that Age only but to that end of the world which is till his second coming until which he hath promised his presence The Great Congregation is the most natural Receptacle of Divine Truth the state of Religion under the Gospel is rarely spoken of especially when declared Psal 100. 1. 117. 16. 1 c. in its Magnificence with a less Publick Character than All People All Nations All Lands the Round World in its whole Circle from the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same All the Earth True Religion aspir'd to it even under the narrow Dispensation of the Law and in this very sense it is most true that the Apostle said in his time The whole Creation groaneth and travelleth in pain until Rom. 8. 19 c. now and the earnest expectation of it waiteth for the Adoption the Manifestation of the Sons of God to be gathered together under the whole Heaven Nor will some of every Nation satisfie the full intention of this Magnificence but that Nations as Nations imbodyed and Kingdoms as Kingdoms shall become the Lords and his Christs is the plenary sense of the Divine Spirit when even as of Israel an indisputably National Church God shall say of Heathen Nations as of Egypt and Assyria known to Israel so well and known so well as Rankly Heathen and therefore chosen as Representatives of the whole Heathen world Yet of these God shall say Blessed be Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands and Israel Isa 19. ult my inheritance for in that day Israel shall be but a third with Egypt and Assyria and there shall be a High-way through them All and they shall serve together there shall be a free passage of Truth through All. A High way of the Gospel throughout and an Vnion of Worship So then if we find so much for a National Religion in the Prophecies of the times of the Gospel in the Old Testament which grasp more than those passages in the New Testament which relate to the then matter of fact only if our Saviours Commission for making disciples and preaching the Gospel extend to all Nations if the Prophetick book of the New Testament the
Midianites Numb 25. 17 18. inclos'd cramp'd and vex'd them first with the Guilt rising up in the Face of Conscience and then with the miserable Consequence of the sudden Wrath of God revealed from Heaven against them This was the Stumbling-block of Iniquity the wicked Man in Ezekiel puts before his Face even the Idols he had upon his Heart These were the stumbling-blocks with the wicked God would cut off and remove in the Prophet Zephaniah This was one principal Point of Scandal the Apostle discourses of to the Corinthians in the Case of Eating 1 Cor. 8. 10. things offered unto Idols and that the Holy Spirit in the New Testament so eminently remarques for Balaam's Doctrine of Scandal The great Abomination and Lie that deceives the World in the Book of the Revelation is the detestable Rev. 2. 14. Antichristian Idolatry the notorious Scandal of the Christian World both within it self and before the Jews Turks and even Pagans who see their own Brutishness acted under that excellent Name This is so great a Point that God hath departed from the Brevity of that Majestick Law in the Second Commandment for the guarding his Worship as with a Flaming Sword every way because in a Case wherein Humane Nature is so prone to fall Whether therefore it be the dividing the Divine Honour to any other though under the Name of Reverence to him as the Original or Supreme or whether it be the carving a Worship for God he does not prescribe for himself whatever be the Dccency or Expediency to help the Devotion whether of the Learned or Unlearned it becomes Scandal and a Snare to those that are so impos'd upon And seeing though the weakness of Passion be far off from God he owns himself jealous we have reason to mistrust every thing when he is so seeing not only foul Debauches but even what is most innocent in all other Cases is suspected in that Hezekiah in the sense of this broke in pieces so venerable a Relique as the Brazen Serpent not only a Ceremony of 2 Kings 18. 4. Miraculous Cure but a Type of Christ and degraded it into a meer piece of Brass when he saw the Israelites scandalising at it and tempted by it to impure Glances When our Saviour perceived so clean and harmless an Usage as Mat. 15. 1. Washing before Meat creeping into a piece of Religion how severely he disown'd it and was careless of the causeless scandalising of the Pharisees by his Doctrine concerning it because he knew there was True and Real Scandal in that Rite so abus'd And when all is said that can be said the Heavenly Pattern is that in Divine Worship and that only of which it can be said That nothing in it can scandalise that is justly scandalise except we think God's Jealousie was a Jewish Style wholly now out of date And yet how hath this Scandal this Stone of Stumbling this Gin and Snare always lain in the way of Humane Imagination and prevail'd upon it As if God living in the Retirement of a Spiritual Nature did not understand how himself was to be address'd by Men nor knew the Points of Honour due to his own Glorious Nature as is most Fashionable and Modish in the World Men take upon them to distinguish things better by the Breeding they have had in this Earthly Country they think God so much a Stranger as not to know how to appoint for himself when Men have to do with him as if what might be well accepted in Heaven would not yet be current upon Earth Here Images Pictures Elevations Adorations of the Host with innumerable Rites and Ceremonies are necessary to beget Devotion due to God the Saviour they will serve Here they that can best judge what is most Stately have determin'd God must not make himself so cheap as immediately to receive Prayers and Supplications or by his Son only as the Mediatour Angels and Saints must intercede and then who can deny them their share of Honour Religion will be neglected and dâ—spised if it have not Sets-off besides it self and the necessary Decency of Humane Actions There must be something unusual to dress it up and amuse But all this is no more than the Greens and Flourishes laid over a Trap to hide it and invite the unwary Passenger God that understands himself so perfectly as to know what will please him understands all Men too and needs not that any should tell him of Man for he knows what is in Man and he hath pronounced it What is higly esteemed among Men is abomination in the sight of God He hath Isa 15. 9. said it In vain do they worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of Men All outward Pomp is but drawing nigh with Lips when the Heart is far off To worship God is to give him the Glory of his own Perfections and not to make him such a One as our selves God is a Spirit and they that worship must worship him in Spirit Joh. 4 24. and Truth in his Spirituality and Truth not in their own Carnality and vain Shew It is not to Paint or Pourtray or Carve a Deity as the Heathen that chang'd the Truth of God into a Lie and the Glory of the Incorruptible God into the Image of Coruptible Man and other baser Creatures because they thought it best and yet worse than that into Names of greatest Infamy and flagitious Turpitudes All frivolous Rites represent Divinity small and impertinent to the Great loss of the Glory due to that terrible Name The Lord our God One great End of Worship is the Conforming the Soul to the Divine Nature by Approaches to and Exercises of the Mind upon it but if this be mis-shapen the Soul is made more unlike to God Blessed for ever as the same Heathen became more licentious by the Pourtraictures they gave their Gods A trivial Temper of Mind naturally results from a trivial Worship even as it forms it first and often meeting it there it daily returns from it confirmed and improved The Sincere Worship directed to in the Gospel is that Glass in which we behold the Glory of the Lord and are changed 2 Cor. 3. ult into the same Image from Glory to Glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. Loosness of Life hath been always noted to be the Fruit of a Corrupt Worship It is naturally so and God curses it to be so God gave Idolaters up to their Lusts and an Injudicious Mind They that Worship him aright according to his Word Psal 36 8. and 6â— â— adhere to him and by regular Conduits drink Life from the Fountain of Life and derive from the River of his Pleasures they are abundantly satisfied with the Goodness of his House even of his Holy Temple They that Worship God after their own Imaginations do but drink out of their own broken or defiled Cisterns that hold no Water and therefore draw nothing but Wind and Air or
according to the undeniable Sense of Scripture Quest But the nearness of these Fathers to the Days of Christ and the Apostles must needs enable them either from what they themselves received warm from their Lips or from what they had from others not quite cold to know the Apostles Doctrine Discipline Manner of Life Purpose their Sense of the Scope and Meaning of those Things wherein they were Divinely Inspired and so to deliver it to After-ages Answ Whatever they have spoken or written giving us more light and advantage to understand and behold Scripture in its own Light ought from them or from any other to be accepted with great regard but if it do not thus it cannot be accepted even from the Writers of Scriptures themselves upon a single or divided Authority They were so bounded by the very Things and Words they themselves had once spoken and written by the Holy-Ghost that all the deference to their knowledge in Divine Things above others was to be made reasonable in the clearest Expounding what themselves and others had written by Divine Inspiration and to be discerned in the very Writings themselves and not to be drawn oracularly out of their Breasts when the Evidences of Divine Inspiration were not upon them For he that is Spiritual i. e. that God vouchsafes Inspiration to or pretends to it must acknowledge all that is either truly written or spoken by the same Inspiration to be the Commandments of the Lord 1 Cor. 14. 37. And as for the newness freshness and life of Truth given by Divine Revelation God graciously providing it should remain as Revelation left it and the Evidences it hath done so appearing with it it is the same in all Ages Divine never loses of its life nor abates of its vigor what it was so many Ages ago that it abides now what the Holy-Ghost spoke so many Ages ago that it speaks now as warmly as then All Divine Truth given is after the power of an endless life the Eternal Increated Spirit lives in it and gives Divine Quickness to it It is yesterday to day the same for ever and so breathes its own sense in Scripture by the ordinary Assistances it vouchsafes to Holy Humble and diligent Waiters upon him in this even as it did in the first Ages though the extraordinary Motions are withdrawn Quest But still the Gifts and Endowments of those Eminent Men with all the Light Truth Grace Learning and Reason they shine to us with ought to be esteemed and improved Answ Yes doubtless For whatsoever Things are true whatsoever things are pure are of Virtue and deserved praise they are Publick and of God wherever they are found And whatever there is in these Elders in their nearness to the First Times their Holiness their Sufferings their great Learning their Encounters of Paganism their Apologies for Christianity their Heavenliness their Contempt of this World all is a Donation and a Grace of God by them to his Church and Mankind in general Quest And does not there arise great Evidence to Christianity and the Doctrines and Practices of it from such eminent Witnesses Answ No doubt there does both to Christianity in particular and to all Religion Virtue and Goodness in general But yet neither their Writings nor Practices can in any wise become Scripture to us they all lead to Scripture and ought to do so they are all to be seen and reflected in Scripture Light and from thence they receive their lustre For though they are a Subordinate Testimony as hath been said yet Christian Religion hath greater Testimony and first enabled them to give a valuable Testimony to it self by Communicating so great knowledge and worth to them And besides all that hath been spoken the Writings of the Fathers are so Voluminous as not to be read over by the most so doubtful in their Genuiness that they cannot be Examined but with great Labour and well prepared Judgment so disputable in their sense that to attain a certainty in it would cut off Time from the greater Imployment of Meditation in the Word of God day and night where Men's Callings lie otherwise so that to receive our Religion from hence were of too remote an assurance to any one much more to those who have not Books and studie for their Profession But every Man whether learned or unlearned is concerned deeply to try his Religion with his own Eyes and not anothers for him and God hath therefore provided a Word nigh him even in his Mouth and in his Heart and hath also taken care by stirring up so many both of the Ancient and Modern Christians to separate themselves to intermeddle with all sacred knowledge that there is a worthy exercise of the learned World herein and great advantages arise thereby for universal knowledge even to the less learned and the very unlearned Quest But did the Fathers themselves distinguish thus their own and one anothers Writings from Scripture Answ It is most evident as hath been already affirmed they put a greatest difference betwixt the most excellent Monuments of Christianity that were but Humane whether their own or others and inspired Pages else Clement Ignatius and others might as well have been Canoniz'd by them as what is from them come down to us for Sacred Canon it self and even as they did we may see the great odds betwixt the one and the other and as we adore God the supreme Author so the Sovereign Preserver of Scripture who by Divine Evidences and by superintending Providence hath divided the bound of Scripture at so great a remove from all the Writings in the World whether Christian or Prophane the Apocryphal Books not excepted which though too adventurously joyn'd so generally in a Volume with Scripture yet are evidently disproportioned in the Majesty of Sense and Divine Eloquence Quest Is there no greater Authority of the First Councils Answ How many Humanes soever meet they cannot make up Divine where it was not before nor can a multitude of Privates constitute a Publick Divine and Publick may be declared but cannot be made so by such Contribution All Determinations of Councils are infinitely outweighed in Value and over-ruled in Authority by Scripture indeed Publick and Divine Quest But in such a number of his Servants may we not conclude God is certainly among them and does guide them Answ Give them all the advantages that can be given and either we must say they are Infallibly guided and then we must receive their Decrees as Scripture and they must be attested to us as Scripture is attested or they are not Infallibly guided and then their Decrees must be tryed as all Fallibles ought to be by a Rule surer than themselves If even Divine Revelation it self was at first tryed and found perfect nay if even all that God proposes to us as from himself comes laden with its own proper Evidences how much more must that which is confessedly humane be tryed by that which is confessedly