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A36832 The conformity of the discipline and government of those who are commonly called independants to that of the ancient primitive Christians by Lewis Du Moulin. Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680. 1680 (1680) Wing D2533; ESTC R25012 54,163 74

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Saint Paul to Timothy the 1 Epist 4 Chap. and 5 Verse which I lately mentioned that that good practise of reading the holy Scriptures during their repasts succeeded both a good and an evil custome among the Heathen of quality and condition according to the disposition of persons and according to their manners for the debauchees during theirs had as Pliny the Younger tells us their Moriones and their Cynaedos qui inerrabant Mensis to pass away the time and please the Company But those who were serious and more composed as Cicero Cratippus Seneca Pliny the Elder Euphrates and Spurinna had their Anagnostes who read to them the Golden Sentences of Pythagoras and of the other Sages of Greece It doubtless therefore thus came that the Heathen families which were of the disposition of these latter being come over to Christianity as was that of Cornelius the Centurion Publius the Proconsul Philemon and Lydia took this good custome not only to have a Church in their house but to practise there all the Religious duties as well during their repasts as out of them THIS comes very near to the Idea of the Congregational way which is to be considered in two respects either when their Pastors and their people retire and withdraw from the crowd of the world I mean from the Worldlings to live continually in the contemplation and meditation of the works of Creation of Providence and of Redemption in the devotion and elevation of the Soul to God or else when those same persons do form to themselves Religious assemblies distinct from the national Church and Parochial assemblies in a word when they are distinct from the Ecclesiastical Government which is of the same extent as that of the Civil that is establish'd by Lawes though in this last respect their separation be not an absolute and intire abandoning of the profession of the doctrine and life of those who follow the Religion of their Country but of those who condemn that carriage that doctrine and Discipline which retained the most of the Apostolical 'T is a separating of the good Seed from the Chaff whereof there is but too much in parochial Assemblies where one is as much if not more a Christian by the chance of birth of place and of custome than by any inward principle or design fratned for otherwise the people of the Independant Church and their Pastors are no more backward than the Episcopal men or the Presbyterians to participate with them in the Ministry of the parochial Churches provided they do not force them there to practise such things as they do really believe from their Consciences to be contrary to the word of God and provided also that they permit them to believe that if the Churches reformed from Popery where all sorts of persons are received are the true Churches of Jesus Christ in which Salvation may be had they ought to have no less good and charitable opinion of the Independant Churches which are come out from them FOR these reasons all disinteressed persons that have a zeal for all the true Worshippers of Jesus Christ indifferently in what way of communion soever whither Episcopal or Presbyterian or Congregational may easily be perswaded that this last retains more of the Apostolick because it is not only the Cream and best of the others and a part of that good Seed that has the least of chaff in it but also because it hath more goodness love and Charity in the esteem of those who follow it for the way of communion with others and of those who are of it then the others have for the Congregational way 'T is very rarely seen that any one of the Congregation does not love all good men of what Communion soever they be and that they do not speak of them as of the true Churches of Jesus Christ whereas even the more sober and honester party of the Episcopal men and some of the Presbyterians are so strongly prepossessed with prejudices against those of Congregations that they are in their account no better than Hypocrites Schismaticks and men of strange Enthusiasms A Learned Lawyer having cast his eye upon the matter contained in this Chapter assured me that one Mr. Hubbart a grave Barrester in a Cause between Colt and Glover plaintiffs on the one part and the Bishop of Gloucester defendant on the other makes it out that the Assemblies in the Primitive Church were Congregational He hath also acquainted me with an Ordinance of Canutus KING of England in the year one thousand and sixteen which began thus hae sunt sanctiones for the establishment of peace and Justice where it is clear that beside the Ecclesiastical National Government established according to the Model of the civil the Towns were full of little private Congregations which assembled together voluntarily in the Towns and which the King permitted whilest neither Justice nor the publick peace were interrupted He prest me likewise mightily to insist upon the definition which the Church of England made of the Church in its Confession of Faith made in the year 1562. Article the XIX because it is absolutely conformable to that which the Congregational Churches give of theirs to be as I have already a little touched an Assembly of persons together in one place to attend upon the hearing of the word of God and upon the Administration of the Sacraments CHAP. VIII Of the great Benefits and Advantages that come from the Establishment of the Congregational way in the World THUS you see we are insensibly fallen upon the conformity of the carriage and government of the Congregational assemblies with that of the Primitive Christians for their smalness of number and for the way and manner of gaining souls to Jesus Christ by Prayer by Exhortation and by Preaching which they do to a few persons or a few Families as when their Elders inculcated into them every day and line upon line the necessity of leading holy and exemplary lives so that the Christian people made far greater progress in Sanctification by the means and helps of those Elders than when they assisted at publick assemblies where the severities of discipline and the degrees of penitence through which but very few persons went seem'd to retain more of the affected devotion of pride and of worldly pomp than of sincerity and where the fruit of the Bishop's preaching was like to that of which S. Chrisostome speaks in one of his Homilies which resembles the water that is thrown in Buckets upon a great number of Bottles which have a strait Neck and where there goes in but a few drops whereas the fruit of the exhortations which are made in private to a few is the effect of him who having taken the bottles wil fill them by degrees one after another Beside that it is impossible that a Bishop or other person who shares out all his time between his Chamber-studies and preaching in publick and who hath some thousands of persons under charge it
differ one from the other in discipline but that retain and keep all the same foundation and ground of faith and who have for that point a great union and a strict correspondence with other Churches And this being so no more is there any Schism when the Congregationals are Independant on other Churches and on their Synods but when their Churches are so among themselves 4. THERE is no Schism among several particular Churches that agree in one and the fame faith and discipline as are those of Metz and Sedan but do their own business apart independantly not only on one another but likewise on the Synods 'T is with Independant Churches or with several other particular Churches as with several families or Neighbourhoods or those that are pretty distant the one from the other who may all be good friends and live in good Intelligence together without any thing of Schism or rupture between them and yet every one does their own particular business by themselves 5. THE Congregational men are no more guilty of Schism when they form to themselves Congregations distinct from Parishes contrary to the command of the Magistrate 't is a disobedience not to a National Church which Jesus Christ hath not instituted much less invested with either Jurisdiction or power to make Laws in matters of Religion but to the Magistrate whom to disobey is not Schism but a crime of laesoe Majestaetis or rebellion but yet it ceases to be that too when it acts only from this principle of obeying God rather than men NOW this clearing up of the Nature of Schism which strongly establishes the Independancy of the Churches and makes it altogether reasonable does not destroy the Confederation of the Churches into one body even under a national Synod when for the mutual preservation of these Churches against a common Enemy that persecutes them they are constrained to make but one body of State or of Churches such as is the Confederation of our Churches in France But then that necessity does not destroy the natural liberty of every particular Church to be Independant 't is a Confederation established with prudence in that manner as was that of the Cities of Achaida and as is at this day that of the Low-Countries and of the Swizers the conjunction of which into one body and under one and the same jurisdiction does not divest any Town or Province of their natural freedome and liberty to be Independant on one another THERE is however this temper and menage to be observed in this Religious Confederation that it ought to be made not by vertue of the Power of binding and loosing and of the Keys of the Kingdome of heaven which it is pretended that God hath committed to Pastors or Synods but by vertue of a confederated discipline which is in the place of a Magistrate Also the Councel of Monsieur Amyraule should be observed and it is the same that the Cities of Achaia observed before viz. that nothing should pass in the general Assembly but what has been first reviewed and approved of by every particular Church AND this is that wherein the prudence of our first Reformers in France have been wanting when they sat up a discipline by vertue of an Ecclesiastical power distinct from that of the Magistrate and from that which has its operation upon the heart by the Ministry of the word and of a power fastened to the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven and to that of binding and loosing by vertue of which power they depose and excommunicate that is to say as Monsieur Claude says they deliver up a person to the Devil but they also deliver him to him in the name and Authority of Jesus Christ that so the people may not imagine this power to be that of the Magistrate or of the confederate discipline but of Jesus Christ the Mediatour and King of his Church and by vertue of the power that he exercises over it and of which the Pastors and Ministers are the depositers AS to those who blame as much the separation of the Independants as that of the Donatists the Novatians and Luciferians it is ill grounded the vice of the Donatists was in that they owned no other Church of Jesus Christ in the World than theirs for they rebaptized those who came from the Catholick Church to them the Independants are far from these thoughts and practices they do as those who having a particular care of their health withdraw into a better place and sounder Air but yet they do not think but that they may do very well in places where the Air is not so good BEFORE I go to another Chapter I shall take notice that the result of the thoughts and of the practises of the Congregationals their Churches and their Pastors do come to these two Maxims 1. THAT to establish peace and true Religion in the World and among Christians we must go back to the Materia prima of the Congregational Churches which is that every person and every Society hath the liberty to deliberate and consult about the choice of a Religion and of the way to serve God and to take upon that point the counsel of wise and sincere persons provided that that counsel tends not to Irreligion and to some Establishment of such maxims which shock the natural Notions concerning the existence of a God his Providence the Immortality of the soul the necessity of a Divine Worship provided also that the manner which every person and every Church hath chosen to govern it self by doth not trouble the State in which one lives unless that trouble happen by accident in the manner that Jesus Christ sayes of the Gospel which excites troubles and brings Wars and contentions into the World 2. THAT this maxim of a national Church in every Territory with an uniformity of Doctrine and discipline distinct from the civil Tribunals in jurisdiction and officers hath introduced the Pope into the World that it hath been it is and it will be the cause that there never will be a Church in the World in its true purity unless Almighty God reserves some among the Congregational Churches CHAP. VII That the Congregational way has been practised in all Ages of the World I Could easily shew that for above this four thousand years before Jesus Christ and even during the height of Popery and in the bosome of the Church of Rome God hath alwayes reserved some true Worshippers of Jesus Christ by the way of Congregational Assemblies there were an infinite number of them in the Roman Empire during the persecution that was set on foot by the Arrians and when as St. Jerome sayes all the World were Arrians BUT to come more particularly to the thing they have had Independant Churches in all times and in all places before the Law and under the Law in the time of Jesus Christ and of the Apostles and after the Apostles there were of them in the time of Exos the Son of