theirs who are unreconciled to almost all the Churches of Christ or to multitudes of their Brethren because they are not of their way yea that make their Communion the very badge and means of their uncharitableness and divisions Sirs these are not matters of indifferency nor to be indulged by any faithful Pastor of the Church 7. And I know that these principles are as mortal to the Churches as they are to Souls And that if ever the Churches have peace prosperity or healing it must be by the means of Love and Concord and by destroying the principles which would destory them One thinketh that it must be by a Spanish Inquisition and by forcing or killing the dissenters And another thinketh it must be by Excommunicating them all and making them odious and making their own party seem thereby to be better than theirs But I know that it must be by revived Love or it will never be I know it and whoever is angry with me for it I cannot choose but know it When the Papists had murdered so many hundred thousands of the Albigenses and Waldenses who would have thought but they had done their work When the French Massacre had murdered 30000 or 40000 and dispatcht the Leaders of the Protestant party who would have thought that they had but strengthened them When the Duke D' Alva had done so much to drwon the Belgick Protestants in blood he little thought that he was but fortifying them Queen Maries Bishops little thought that their English Bonfires were but to light men to see the mischief of their cause and like the firing of a Beacon to call all the Land to take them for the Enemies of mankind and that the case would have been so quickly altered When the Irish had murdered two hundred thousand they little thought that they had but excited the Survivers to a terrible revenge I will come no nearer but you may easily do it your selves If we bite and devour one another we shall be devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The question is but who shall be devoured first and who reserved for the second course If any man have an ear to hear let him hear He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity He that killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword Here is the Patience and Faith of the Saints Rev. 13. 9. 10. God Ruleth the world still when he worketh not miracles Have we not seen a proud Victorious Army dissolved without a drop of blood and have we not seen that God approveth not of proud self-exaltation and violating the Sacred power of our Governours and usurping their places of Authority Hath not the drunken world had yet experience enough to teach them that the Church of God is not to be built up or repaired by their tumultuous quarrellings and frayes How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools who know not what Holiness or Healing is but think that victory over mens Bodies must be the cure of their Souls and that hurting them is the way to win their Love or that a Church is constituted of Bodies alone while Souls are absent or no parts who will make themselves the Rulers of thy Flock in despite of thee and of thy Cause and Servants without thy call or approbation and think that the work of a Soldier is the work of a Father and a Physician whose cures are all by amputation and whose piety consisteth in flying from each other and esteeming and using their Brethren as their foes who scatter thy flocks on all the mountains when Christ hath prayed that they may all be one Perhaps Reader thou art one of them that thinketh that the settlement and happiness of the Church must be won like a game at foot-ball and therefore scruplest not to toss it in the dirt and tumultuously to strive with and strike up the heels of all that are against thee so that peaceable passengers cannot safely come near your game or pass the streets But when you have got the Ball have you done the work Are you still so ignorant as not to know how uncertain still you are to keep it and that one spurn can take it from you And suppose you could secure all your conquests are the Churches healed ever the more Mens hearts must be conquered before this healing work is done And therefore the Apostle saith that we are more than Conquerours when we are killed all the day long and accountea as Sheep to the slaughter Rom. 8. 34 35. that is it is more gain and honour to our selves to suffer in faith and patience by our enemies than to conquer them in the field And it is more profitable also unto them and tendeth to a more desirable conquest of them Because when Conquerors do but exasperate them and if we hurt their bodies we harden them the more against our cause and against the means of their own Salvation our patient Martyrdom and suffering by them may â—end at last to open their eyes and turn their hearts and save their souls by shewing them the Truth the Goodness and the Power of Christ and of his Word and Spirit This is the meaning of being more than Conquerours The Irish are conquered by us but not converted The Scots and English were conquered by Cromwell but their hearts were not conquered nor their Religion changed by him They that think that if they could get and keep the upper ground and have Dissenters bodies and estates at their will they could soon settle the Church in Unity and Concord do tell all the world how ignorant they are of the nature of Christianity and of the fear of God and of the means of the peace and Concord of the Church Either you would give up your own judgments and Consciences or practice your selves to the will of men if you were in their power or not If you would not why should you think that others will If you would you do but tell the world that you are Atheists and have neither a God nor Conscience nor Religion But it is not evidence enough of your folly to say in your hearts there is no God and to fear them that can but kill the body more than Him that can punish both body and soul in hell but you must also shew that you know neither God nor Man by thinking that all others are Atheists also and judging of them by your selves as if they set their Souls and their everlasting hopes at as base a price as you do yours I tell you again that a Battel or a Footâ—ball skuffle will not settle the discomposed and divided Churches unless you think that a heap of Carkasses slain in the field possess the quietness and concord which you desire The Soul is the man and Love is the Christian Life and the true Cement of the Churches unity And Love must cause Love as fire causeth fire And hurtful wrath doth most powerfully
thou judge thy brother or why dâ—st thou set at nought thy brother we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ. Let us not therefore judge one another any more v. 13. 14. I know and am pâ—rswaded by the Lord Iesus that there is nothing unclean of it self but to him that esteemeth any thing unclean to him it is unclean v. 17. For the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men Let us therefore follow after the things that make for peace v. 22. Hast thou faith Have it to thy self before God Ch. 15. 1 2. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves Let us every one please his neighbour for his good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself v. 5. 6. Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one â—owards another according to Christ Iesus that ye may with ONE MIND and ONE MOuTH glorifie God wherefore receive ye one another as Christ received us to the glory of God Ch. 16. 17 18. Now I beseech you brethren mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them For they that are such serve not our Lord Iesus but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple Act. 20. 30. Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them Joh. 13. 35. By this shall all men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have love one to another 1 Cor. 11. 17 18. I hear there are divisions among you For there must be also heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest Math. 13. 29 30. Nay lest while ye gather up the â—ares ye root up also the wheat with them Let both grow together till the harvest 41. The Angels shall gather out of his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into a furnace of fire Then shall the righteous shine forth as the Sun in the Kingdom of their Father V. 47. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a net cast into the Sea which gathered of every kind which when it was full they drew to the shore and sate down and gathered the good into Vessels and the bad they cast away so shall it be at the end of the world Math. 22. 9 10. Go into the high ways and as many as ye find bid to the marriage or as Luk. 14. Compel them to come in so those servants went unto the high ways and gathered all as many as they found both bad and good and the wedding was furnished with guests And the King saw there a man that had not on a wedding garment and said Friend How camâ—st thou in hither c. Mark thus he will condemn wicked hypocrites themselves but blameth not the Ministers that compelled them or that let them in Gal. 6. 1. If a man be overtaken in a fault ye that are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness Considering thy self lest thou also be tempted Bear ye one anothers burdens and so fulfill the Law of Christ Let every man prove his own work Note that Paul purified himself as having a Vow He circumcised Timothy He became a Jew to the Jews and all things to all men that he might win some Phil. 1. 15 16. Some preach Christ of envy c. as aforecited Phil. 2. 1 2 3. If there be any consolation in in Christ fulfill ye my joy that ye be like minded having the same love being of one accord and of one mind Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves 14. Do all things without murmurings and disputings Ch. 3. 15 16. Let as many as are perfect be thus minded and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you But whereunto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule let us mind the same things 1 Thes. 5. 12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them that labour among you and are over you in the Lord c. and be at peace among your selves Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition avoid knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself Jam. 3. 1 2 13 c. My brethren be not many Masters knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation For in many things we offend all 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 bitter envying and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devilish For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Mat. 12. 25. Iesus said every Kingdom divided against it self is brought to desolation and every City or house divided against it self shall not stand I have cited so many Texts against division and for the Unity of the Church and concord of Christians as one would think by the very hearing of them without expositions or argumentation should utterly mortifie all inclination to divisions and hard censures in all true believers yea so many Texts as I am perswaded many that most need them will think it tedious to read them over And yet I have cause to fear lest many such will feel as little of the sense and authority of them as if there were no such words in the Scripture and none of this had been set before them Out of all these you may gather these reasons of the necessity of Unity and of the evil of schism or division First It is One God One Head One Saviour and One Holy Spirit into whose name we are all baptized Secondly It is One Covenant which all in Baptism make with this One God Thirdly It is One Spirit by which we are all regenerated and One new Nature which is in all the truly sanctified Fourthly It is One Gospel or holy word of God which is to us all the seed of our new birth the rule of our faith and lives and the foundation of our hope and must be our daily meditation and delight and the food on which the children of Gods family must all live Fifthly It is One Body of Christ whereof we are all members As Christ is not divided so his Body that is his Church both as
points that no controversies or opinions will shake his faith or destroy his love to God or man Thirdly He will honour God by upright practise and shew forth the power and excellency of religion in the true success upon the heart and life His Religion which begins in solid faith will grow up into sincere Love and good works Fourthly He will be without partiality a Lover of all the servants of Christ and therefore escape temptations to faction and division because his Religion consisteth in those common truths and duties which all profess Fifthly he will not only safely receive all further truths from these principles but all his knowledge and disputes will be sanctified as being all subservient to faith and love and holiness Whereas he that taketh the contrary course and presently falleth to the study of by-opinions and layeth too much upon them will prove too like a superficial hypocrite and a deceiver of himself by thinking that he is something when he is nothing Gal. 6. 5 6. And he will make a pudder in the world for nothing as children do in the house about their babies and their bawbles He will make but an engine of his by-opinions to destroy true Piety and Christian Love in himself first and then in all that will believe him He will first make himself and then many others believe that Religion is nothing but proud self-conceit and faction And he will be the shame of his profession and the hardener of the wicked in their sin and misery by perswading them that the Religious are bnt a few ignorant whimsical fanaticks These are too sad experienced truths DIRECT XXXII Lay not a greater stress upon your different words or manner of prayer than God hath laid And take heed either of scorning reproaching or slighting the words and manner of other mens worship when it is such as God accepteth from the sincere IT is an easie thing to turn the native heat of Religion into a feaverish out-side zeal about words or circumstances or ceremonies whether it be for them or against them O what a wonder is it that by so palpable a trick as thâ—s the Devil should deceive so many and make such a stir and disturbance in the Church I know that one party will cry up Order the other will cry up Spirituality and both will say that God maketh not light of the smallest matters in religion nor no more must we And in this general position there is some truth But if nothing could be said for both their errours they would then be no deceits nor be capable of doing any mischief Some things that you contend about God hath left wholly undetermined and indifferent And some things in which your brother erreth his errour is so small a fault as not at all to hinder his acceptance with God nor with any man that judgeth as God doth Had you ever understood Rom. 14 15. you would have understood all this It would make a knowing Christian weep between indignation and compassion to see in these times what censures and worse are used on both sides about the wording of our prayers to God! How vile and unsufferable some account them that will pray in any words which are not written down for them And how unlawful others account it to pray in their imposed forms some because they are forms and some because they are such forms and some because that Papists have used them and some because they are imposed when God hath given them no command but to pray in faith and fervency according to the state of themselves and others and in such order as is agreeable to the matter and in such method as he hath given them a Rule and Pattern of But of all quarrels about forms and words he hath never made any of their particular determinations no more than whether I shall preach by the help of Notes or study the words or speak those which another studied for me It is a wonder how they that believe the Scriptures came first to make themselves believe that God maketh such a matter as they do of their several words and forms of prayer That he loveth only extemporary prayer as some think and hateth all prescribed forms Or that he loveth only prescribed Forms as others think and hateth all extemporary prayers by habit Certainly in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and also prayers by habit were used And yet Christ never interposed in the Controversie so as to condemn the one or the other He condemneth the Pharisees for making long prayers to cover their devouring widdows houses and for their praying to be seen of men But whether their prayers were a Liturgy and set forme or whether they were extemporary he taketh no notice as telling us that he condemned neither And it s like the Pharisees long Liturgy was in many things worse than ours though the Psalms were a great part of it And yet Christ and his Apostles oft joyned with them and never condemned them Nay as far as I can find the Pharisees and other Jews were not in this so blind and quarrelsome as we nor never made a controversie of it nor ever presumed to condemn either Liturgies or Prayers by habit I shall now pass by their errour who are utterly against publike prayers from a habit as having spoken of it at large elsewhere when I had opportunity I shall now only answer the contrary extreme Obj. Where hath God given any men power to prescribe and impose forms for others or commanded others to obey them Answ. First where ever he hath given any power to teach their inferiours to pray who cannot do it in a better way He hath given Parents this power where he hath bid them Bring up their Children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Is it not by the Law of nature the Parents duty to teach their children to pray And is not the learning of the words first profitable to their learning of the sense May they not teach their Children the Lords Prayer or a Psalm though it be a Form And why not then other words which are agreeable to their State And he that taught his own Disciples a Form and Rule of Prayer and telleth us that so Iohn taught his Disciples and saith to his Apostles As my Father sent me so send I you by making them Teachers to his Church did allow them to teach either by forms or without as the cause required All the Scripture is now to Preachers a form of Teaching And when we read a Chapter we read a prescribed form of Doctrine And it haâ—h many forms of prayer and praise and forms of Baptizing administring the Lords Supper If you say that the Apostles had an infallible spirit I answer True And that proveth that that their Doctrine was more infallible than other mens but not that they only and not other men may teach by the way of forms All the Books of Sermons now written are
most after in many places for the meer affectionate manner of expression and lowdness of the Preachers voice How oft have I known the ablest Preachers undervalued and an ignorant man by crouds applauded when I that have been acquainted with the Preacher ab incunabulis have known him to be unable well to answer most questions in the common Catechism And I durst not tell them of his great insufficiency and ignorance for fear of hindering the success of his labours and being thought envious at other mens acceptance I have known poor tradesmens boys have a great mind of the Ministry and we that were the Ministers of the Countrey contributed to maintain them while they got some learning and knowledge But they had not patience to keep out of the Pulpit till they competently understood their business there And yet many of the religious people valued these as the only men And some of them shortly after turned to some whâ—msical Sect or other and contemned the Ministers that instructed and maintained them And all this while understood not half so much as many of our sober Auditors understood This prepareth the poor people to be hurried into any disorder or division when they no better know how to choose their Guides DIRECT XLII Your belief of the necessary Articles of Faith must be made your own and not taken meerly upon the Authority of any And in all points of Belief or Practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church for it were not the Church if it erred in these And in matters of peace and concord the greater part must be your guide In matters of humane obedience your Governours must be your Guides And in matters of high and difficult speculation the judgment of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the major Vote IN several sorts of Controversies and Cases you must prefer several sorts of Guides or Judges It is a grand pernicious Errour to think that the same mens judgments must be most followed in every Case And it is of grand importance to know how to value and vary our Guides as the Cases vary And for the most part every man is more to be regarded in his own way of study and profession than wiser men in other matters of other studies and professions As a Lawyer is to be valued in the Law more than the ablest and most illuminated Divine And a Philosopher in Philosophy and a Linguist in the Tongues and a Physician in Physick c. For instance First Suppose it were a Controversie whether Christ be God or whether there be a life to come or a resurrection c. Here no man must be Judge because if you are Christians indeed it is past controversie with you And you believe this upon the evidences of truth which have convinced you And herein the universal Church are your associates Secondly Suppose it be made a Controversie whether you shall use this Translation or version in publick or another or whether you shall meet at this hour or that at this place or that what words of prayer shall be used in publick what persons you shall communicate with in publick and what not c. In all such your lawful Pastors and Rulers are the Judges and their judgments must be preferred before more learned men that are not related to you Thirdly Suppose the question be among many associated Churches whether this Church or Pastor be to be disowned as Heretical or owned by the rest as orthodox Christians Here the judgement of the Pastors of those associated Churches in Councels is to be preferred as of the proper Judges Fourthly Suppose the question were among a free people that want a Pastor whether this man or that or the other being all sufficient shall be the Pastor of that Church Here the major Vote of the people of that Church should be preferred Fifthly Suppose the question be whether 1 Iohn 5. 7. e. g. be Canonical Scripture or the Doxology after the the Lords Prayer c. here a few learned Antiquaries are to be believed before a major Vote or Councel unskilled in those things who contradict them Sixthly Suppose the question were of the Object of predestination of the naturâ—â— of the wills liberty of the concourse of God and determining way of grace of the definition of justification faith c. Here a few well studied judicious Divines must be preferred before Authority and majority of Votes As one clear-sighted man seeth further and better than a thousand that have darker sight So that you must in such vary your guides according to their several capacities and the Case Obedience hearkneth most to Authority Unity and Concord must depend most on some majority of Votes Hard questions must be decided by the best studied Persons and the quickest clearest sights and not by bare Commands or Votes DIRECT XLIII Take heed lest you be tempted to reject a good Cause because it is owned by some bad persons or to like a bad cause when it is owned by men that are otherwise good And that you judge not of the faith and cause by the persons when you should judge of the persons â—ather by the faith and cause I Confess when we have no other reason to encline us to one opinion or to another but only the reputation of them that hold it caeteris paribus in matters of meer godliness the judgment of godly men is much to be preferred before theirs that are ungodly and they are much liker to be in the right But when God hath given us other means to know the truth we must impartially make use of them It too oft falleth out that honest people are like straying sheep If one leap over the hedge the rest will croud and strive to follow him And therefore errours are like Languages and Fashions that follow the Country where they are bred The religious people in Sweden and Denmark have one sort of errour In Holland and Helvetia perhaps they have another In France and Spain and Italy they have others In Greece and Armenia and Ethiopia they have others And it is an easie matter before we are aware to fall into the common epidemical disease and to think This is best because the best and strictest people are of this mind And indeed sin doth seldome get so great an advantage in the world as when it hath won the major vote among the most religious sort of people If but a Peter separate Barnabas and many more will follow And on the other side sometimes the worser sort of men may hold fast the truth and many ignorant persons are apt to reject it because it is owned by men so bad But if Truth be the Religion of their King and Countrey or of their Ancestors in which they were brought up or if their reputation or peace of conscience lie upon it or if the defence of it shew