necessary warnings nor Faithful Ministers let fall their Ministrations in the foresaid Cases on pretence of preserving unity or preventing Schism in the Church 2. Secondly it is another just ground to break off from them if they make unrighteous usurpations and incroachments the Terms and condition of their Communion Both Bishops and Churches may turn Tyrannical and Arrogant Usurpers upon their Brethrens Liberties not admitting their own Members to their Communion without acknowledging and submitting to their unjustly and illegally assumed powers nor other Churches unless they will give up their own rights and freedoms and become their Subjects And when they will allow Communion to none unless they are content to purchase it at such rates good Christians may pass them by and unite themselves to other Churches where they will be more justly and fairly dealt with The Communion of Christians is a Commuuion of Brethren upon Brotherly terms not of Captives who must submit to any terms or bear what hardships and incroachments are put upon them by their Conquerors They are not bound to purchase unity by enslaving of themselves or any brethrens communion by receiving their yoke and giving up their own rights and liberties as the Church of Rome demands all other Churches both of the East and West should do to purchase hers And thus St. Paul declares he would not give up their liberties when false brethren turn'd invaders thereof viz. the Judaizers in their pressing the Circumcision of Titus to whom he gave place by subjection no not for an hour when they sought to bring them into bondage Gal. 2. 4 5. CHAP. IV. Heresy a just Ground to break off Communion THe last ground which I shall mention of breaking off or of being set loose from the Communion either of Bishops or Churches is though none of the foresaid obstacles can be pleaded against the Terms of their Communion if yet 3. Thirdly Heresy can be justly objected to their persons and Doctrines Church Members are not bound to keep dependant on the persons of their Bishops nor one Church to keep Communion with other Churches if once they defect from the true worship and Doctrine of Christ. This worship and Doctrine are the Ground and Foundation of Christian Society and unity The Church is a Body of Men Associated for them And must be one Society by keeping united under their Bishops or Associated with other Churches in them They must keep one in standing together upon this bottom not in going off or departing from it For clearing these matters it is to be observed that our Saviours first end in coming into the world was to publish a Religion I am come a light into the world saith he of himself Jo. 12. 46. I must Preach the Gospel for therefore am I sent Luk. 4. 43. On this account he calls himself the Way the Truth and the Life Joh. 14. 6. And tells Pilate that for this end was he born and for this cause came he into the world that he should bear witness unto the Truth Joh. 18. 37. And this Truth or Religion lyes in his Doctrine of worship faith and Practice Or in his Teaching all his Disciples what way they are to worship God what they are to believe concerning him or other things which concern their Eternal Salvation and what they are to do for him Now this Doctrine was like to be most advantageously profess'd and this Worship to be best paid if it were not left to single persons or to scatter'd Families to do it separately by themselves But had its several professors incorporated into one Regular society and united body for the joynt profession and performance thereof Such Regular society would hold it out by more orderly and effectual Ministration and keep men to it by the Authority of Discipline and be a common help and spur to excite and aid each other mutually and carry them on and a cover and shelter to back embolden them therein A Regular Society or Church incorporated for the Profession thereof St. Paul says is a Pillar and Ground or Stay to publish and support it Accordingly when Religion was left to be born out by smaller societies and sometime even by single families as in the Patriarchical Age we see it was sometimes almost lost and always made a very small progress But when a whole Nation was incorporated into one Church for the profession and payment of it as it was among the Jews it spread further in power and influence and gain'd more proselytes And lastly when all Nations as fast as they turn'd Christians were embodyed in one society for the same intent as a Light set upon a candlâ—stick or as a City placed on a hill it desplayed its force far and near and strengthen'd incomparably more hearts in it and drew more eyes after it And therefore our Lord intended and ordered in the next place that all who embraced this Religion should incorporate or unite together in one Church or Society for the Profession of it Accordingly he has made baptism wherein every professor takes upon him this Religion to incorporate him or enter him a member of this Church Baptism as St. Paul notes uniteing us all in one body and as many as are baptized into Christ are all one in Christ Jesus And requires of every professor of this Religion that he Keep on professing it in the unity of this Church And that all of his Religion pay this worship and profess this Doctrine not separately by themselves but socially in joynt Communion with others So that all who come to embrace the Christian Religion must perform the worship and profession thereof in Christian Society or in the Unity and Communion of Christs Holy Catholick Church But we are first to be all of this Religion and then to profess and perform it in the Unity and Communion of this Church The Doctrine and Worship I say which makes us Christians are the Foundation of that Society and Unity which is to be upheld in the Christian Church Thus on Peters Confession our Lord declares he would build his Church Mat. 16. 16 18. And the Uniteing of Christians into one Temple St. Paul says is by their being built on the Apostles and prophets i. e. On their Doctrines about worship faith and practice Eph. 2. 20. 21. And when our Saviour prays so earnestly ly for the Unity of his Church at what time he was about to leave it he limits it to this that they may be kept one in Gods Name Joh. 17. 11 and calls the Gathering or Uniteing together of Christians in Congregations wherein he will be in the midst of them their gathering together in his Name Mat. 18. 20. In his Name that is in his Doctrine or Profession of Faith and Worship Name with relation to Masters and Teachers being usually put for Doctrine As to bear my Name before the Gentiles is to bear my Doctrine Act. 9. 16. and teaching in
OF Christian Communion To be kept on In the Unity of Christs Church and among the Professors of Truth and Holiness AND Of the Obligations both of Faithful Pastors to Administer Orthodox and Holy Offices and of Faithful People to Communicate in the same Fitted for Persecuted or Divided or corrupt States of Churches when they are either born down by Secular Persecutions or broken with Schisms or Defiled with Sinful Offices and Ministrations In three Parts Printed Anno Dom. 1693. THE PREFACE Reader 'T IS a sad thing when any Kingdoms are divided about the Payment of their Allegiance and Civil Duties which must needs bereave vast Numbers of the Innocence and more of the Comforts and Quietness of Humane Life But it is still worse when this grows into a Division of Churches and Breach of Religious Communions For besides that Religion is the chief of all things which can concern us and whereon we must Build all our Hopes of Good in another Life Religious Exercises and Assemblies should be the properest Cordial to Revive our Spirits and the best and surest Refuge for us to flee unto in the greatest civil Distractions But such Division of Churches and Communions unsettles and distracts the Hearts of Good and Pions People about this and makes them at a Loss where to serve God and say their Prayers And this must put all who pretend to seriousness or a Religious Spirit on shewing Compassion and some on endeavouring Relief and on reaching out such things as may direct and be of use to them in a Safe and Conscionable Guidance of their Steps at such times And this is the Design of this Treatise Wherein my Business is not at all to Dispute the particular Titles to any Crowns or to examine the Claims of the several Pretenders to them In that I leave every Honest Mind to other ways of Informing and Satisfying themselves and of Forming such Judgments thereof as Truth and Justice shall happen to require in their particular Case But when by those Ways they are come to be resolved therein I endeavour to shew them what things lie most upon Conscience either their Pastors or their own as to Church Ministrations and what way they are to take about Religious Offices and Communion on such unhappy Divisions These Matters I Treat of not as they are State Points like one who seeks only to be a Stickler in Civil Differences or to help those who on such Breaches Study only to make a Bustle in State Parties But as they are Matters of Religion and concern all who would keep in the Favour of God and in the right Way to Heaven For my Design and Study all along is to shew how they who desire nothing more than to save their immortal Souls may keep free from Guilt and Eternal Danger in these particulars My great Care for them and for my self in these Matters being how we may truly and acceptably Serve God more than any Temporal Interest or the Cause of any Persons or Parties in this World And this I offer to the Conscientious who prefer Religion before Worldly Ends and Eternity before this Life And who in these Differences are Willing and Desirous to take the sure Way to Future Peace and Everlasting Bliss however the same may expose them here to Worldly Difficulties Uncomfortableness and Persecutions As for the Ways and Practices here spoken off I have given warning of their Gullt and Danger with planeness And this is necessary in all good Christians especially in Ministers who are not to call Evil Good or to give soft Names to ill things and to palliate Unrighteousness instead of exposing and exploding it which were to take part with Wickedness and to sew Pillows for the Bolstring up of Sinners I am sensible what need there is of Charity and Candor at all times especially on the Bursting out of Differences And how indispensable Christian Duties these are not only in Men at Ease but in Confessors and Sufferers for Righteousness towards their Persecutors If I keep not Charity though I give my Body to be Burned and Suffer Martyrdom it Profiteth me nothing 1 Cor. 13. 13. And when we see Men inapparently Wicked and Ungodly Ways or Unrighteous Things done 't is the part of this Charity and Candor to shew Favour and Easiness in Judging of the Dispositions of Mind wherewith they do them Ascribing them so far as it can find any reasonable Colour or Pretence thereof to the most excusable Principles As to their being Mislead by the plausible Arguings of Deceivers or to an Error of their Judgments rather than to their acting all the while against their own Belief and Convictions And to their being over-awed by Fear of Princes or of Popular Violence or being Forced by Worldly Wants and Necessities rather than to their doing the same willingly and of themselves or out of Malice As our Blessed Lord whilst he hung upon the Cross most Candidly imputes the Wickedness of his Crucifiers to their Ignorance Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luke 23. 34. It is also the Part thereof freely to encourage and Friendly to desire and endeavour their Return rejoycing to have them see their Folly rather than to see them suffer for it And without Upbraiding them with the Remembrance of former Errors Amicably to Welcome and carry on the Change when through the Blessing and Grace of God they are wrought upon by whatever Methods of Providence and begin to come to themselves But whist it is so Favourable in judging of the inward Dispositions of the Persons 't is no Part of this Charity and Candor either to think or to speak Favourably of the Ungodly or Unrighteous things themselves whch are set up or driven on at such Times The unlawful Practices themselves it censures with Justice being a Charity that is Pure and Pious and that is careful for God and for the Duties of an Holy Religion in the First Place Out of Love to God and Religion it cannot Favour Vices or softer and take part with any Sin Yea and out of Love to Men it cannot speak softly of destructive Courses or represent any ungodly Ways or Things as less Dishonourable and Offensive to God or as less Dangerous to Souls than in the End they will find them So that they are mightily Mistaken who think it any Part of true Christian Charity and Candor to befriend ungodly Practices or to minee and soften unlawful and unrighteous Things which were to conspire with Sin and Wickedness against God and Religion and to betray the Souls of Men instead of befriending them I am also sincerely and conscientiously srudious of Peace and to keep Men unreproveable in that is one intent though not the only one of these Papers And before open Breaches are made the Love of Peace will spend it self in endeavours to prevent them But if they are made already as they are to a great Hight when the Espousers of ill
Naming of Bishops Conveneing them in Synods Ratifying of Canâ—ns Dispensing with them and the like after once a rightful state breaks the incorporation and puts the true Church from state-protection and endowments into a state of persecution For then the Church and State are divided again as they were in the days of the Ancient Canons and so they may be free as Bishops then were to exercise those powers by the Rule of those Canons as they can and as in prudence they shall see cause But whilst the protection and incorporation holds for the sake whereof it laid down its claim to those powers and suffer'd them to become the States-Prerogatives the Bishops and Ministers are not to pretend to them And so whilst the Church enjoys such incorporation our own Church by its Articles and Canons disclaims the exercise of these powers by it self and confirms them to the Crown as I formerly observed Thus are the Recognitions which Ecclesiasticks ought to make of the Supremacy of Princes and all the Regard they ought to bear to the incorporation of the Church fairly consistent with their Faithful discharge of their Spiritual Ministrations after the State has deprived them in the foresaid Cases They stand bound to Christ there to exercise the same by manifold obligations as I have shewn And no deprivations of Princes though they be Soveraign Governors of all their Subjects and have endowed and incorporated the Chuch can disable or discharge them from it And from this state of these matters it may be easy to clear and take off the Force of those instances which are brought of state-deprivations without the concurrence of Ecclesiastical Synods and to shew they are of no force in the foresaid Cases The instances chiefly insisted on are the Deposition of Abiathar by Solomon and the frequent sometimes Annual depositions of their High-Priests by the Romans when Judea fell into their Hands the depositions of the Patriarks of the Greek Church by the Turks and the deprivation of Queen Maries Popish Bishops by a commission of State pursuant to an Act of Parliament without a Synod at the beginning of the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth 1. First as for Abiathar whom for conspiring with Adonijah Solomon is said to have thrust out from being Priest unto the Lord 1 King 2. 27. it doth not appear that Solomon did remove him from the dignity and office of High Priest but only from the exercise thereof For after this sentence was passed upon Abiathar and after Joab the General also his complice and conspirator had been sentenced and suffer'd death and Benajah was made General in his place 1 King 1. 28. 34 35 Abiathar is still reckon'd as Partner with Zadock in the High-Priest-hood 1 King 4. For so in the reckoning up of Solomons Officers when Benajah the Son of Jehojadah was over the Host 't is added and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests v. 4. And as for the debarring him the Exercise of his High-Priests Office that was the natural and inseparable consequent of his Banishment from Jerusalem to Anathoth for his Life For the exercise of that Office was local and fixed to Jerusalem and the Temple In the Temple were all the Priests tyed to officiate whose Ministrations he was to direct and in that was the Holy of Holies whereinto once a year he himself in Person and he alone was to enter and offer the Blood of Expiation and there was the Mercy Seat before which he was to stand with the Urim and Thummim to consult God upon occasion The Exercise of which Ministrations with others required his Personal Residence and could not be discharged by him living in another place So that the banishing him from Jerusalem by mere natural consequent without need of spiritual Jurisdiction excluded him from the Exercise of the High-Priests-Office And this Banishment Solomon inflicted on him as his civil Soveraign for his Trayterous Conspiracy with Adonijah and on like Cause any other lawful Soveraign may do the same And without doubt he not only consented to this Amotion but was thankful for it and that instead of being sent to Anathoth he was not sent out of the World as by Law his Fact deserved So that Abiathar had nothing to contest in his Case nor any mind to do it being justly lyable to suffer so much more at the hand of the civil Power than it was pleased to inflict on him And then as for Zadock who held the High-Priesthood in his Room and whilst he was living that doth not appear to have been by a New Creation For before this extrusion of Abiathar he had been created Partner Vicar or Suffragan with him in the High-Priests Office in Davids time Thus in the reckoning up of Davids Officers they are put together as filling this place Sheva was Scribe and Zadock and Abiathar were the Priests 2 Sam. 20. 25. And hast thou not there with thee Zadock and Abiathar the Priests says David to Hushai when in his flight from Absalom he sent him back into the City to defeat the Council of Achitophel 2 Sam. 15. 35. chap. 17. 15. And in carrying back the Ark into the City David gives command to Zadock the Priest about it 2 Sam. 15. 25 27. and the Text adds Zadock therefore and Abiathar carryed the Ark of God again to Jerusalem joyning them as Partners in this great Act of the Pontifical Charge v. 29. He also commits to Zadock the Priest the anointing and proclamation of Solomon which was another Act thereof 1 King 1. 32 34 38 39. And this is plainly asserted by Josephus who says That Zadock was first created High-priest in the Reign of David And therefore on Abiathars exclusion by Solomon that Zadock only came in to have the High-priesthood and to act therein alone He was then Sagan or Suffragan and Vicar to Abiathar as Grotius and Vatablus conceive When Abiathar therefore by his Banishment for Life in just Punishment of his Treason was incapacitated for any further Exercise of his High-priests-office on such debarring of his Pontifical Exercise there was no new Ordination of another into his Place But Zadock who had been created his Partner in the Priesthood before on his Partners Loss of this Exercise was to exercise the whole himself So that the Authority of a Deprivation of State to unmake one and to make another to be a Bishop in their dominions during his Life is ill-fetch'd from this Instance For neither doth Abiathar plainly appear to have been despoyled of the Honour of the High-priesthood tho' by Banishment for Life he was of the Exercise thereof by Solomon Nor Zadock to have been first advanced and created High-Priest by him but to have been Ordained thereto by the spiritual Powers of the Sanhedrim to whom that Ordination and Investiture did belong in Davids Time Besides 2. Secondly in these alledged State-deprivations of the Jewish High-priests either of Abiathar by Solomon or after they