Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A36832
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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.
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Du Moulin, Lewis, 1606-1680.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing D2533; ESTC R25012
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54,163
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74
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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
nor learned enough to give a right judgement about matters of Religion Carneades said that the State of Athens was unhappy in which wise men made fair Overtures and gave good Counsels but Fools judged of them and ordered all things according to their idle and extravagant fancies And indeed Wise men may consult but it is the greatest number or the longest and best sword that determines which is too often in the hands of those who have more strength of power than force of judgement so that by this establishment of a National Ecclesiastical Government thousands of Christians and faithful Souls are as much obliged to submit themselves to the Religion of a whole Empire according to the establishment which shall be made of it by an Idolatrous Rehoboam by an Arrian Constantius by an Apostate Julian by a Popish Mary Queen of England as to that which shall be set up by a David by a Constantine the the Great and by a Queen Elizabeth of ever blessed memory which Inconveniencies neither can nor ever will be able to happen in a place where the Congregational way shall be established It may be one Soveraign who shall be as Heretick as Constantius will issue forth his commands for the establishment of his heresie in all the places of his dominion as Theodosius the second made another for that of the Orthodox Faith when he commanded that all the Subjects of his Empire should receive the faith from Damaseus of Rome and from Peter of Alexandria But it may likewise fall out that that same Emperour to wit Theodosius the second might make two Ordinances which may mutually destroy one another for he convoked the first Synod of Ephesus which condemned the Opinion of Nestorius and some years after he convoked the second Synod of Ephesus which contradicted it and allowed the opinion of Nestorius 2. THIS same inconvenience is verified by the establishment of the best reformed Churches in the World I mean that of Luther and of Calvin For as the Reformation was that of a National Church of the same extent with that of the Territory of the Soveraign where it was established so likewise did it carry the Obligation into Germany Sweedland and Denmark that they should submit to Consubstantiation without any bodies having the liberty to form assemblies to themselves which may reject it which Churches might do if they were Independant The same inconvenience is happened and must happen from the National establishment of the Reformation which Calvin hath made in England Holland some parts of Germany and elsewhere and how pure soever the Reformation was as for the Doctrine of that holy man it is extremely defective as to the Discipline the power Ecclesiastick and that Tribunal which he Erected in Geneva distinct and Independant on the Magistrate by vertue of a pretended Divine right and power which hath been the cause of all those infinite disorders confusions and even Schisms in England Scotland Holland and Geneva even in the time of Calvin as we read in his Epistles 3. ONE great convenience which is found in the Establishment of a National Government is that it is always grounded upon humane principles cruel and barbarous as to constrain to persecute and even to burn those who in matter of Religion do not embrace that of the Ecclesiastical State or of the Magistrate that establishes it and do not conform to all the practices that he appoints and commands 4. THEY say that this National establishment of Ecclesiastical Government deprives Man of his Reason and his natural and Religious liberty in the choice he ought to make of his God and of the worship he ought to render him and to which he should not be constrained but perswaded neither to be brought to it by custome nor by birth nor likewise by the Law of the Magistrate unless he be convinced that his Ordinances and commands in matters of Religion are conformable to the word of God for they press mightily upon this consideration that this establishment divests Man of the same liberty in his religious life as he hath in the Civil where he is not restrained by any Law of the Magistrate to choose his house his Wife his Master his Servant his Lawyer his Physitian his Calling nor any one particular manner how to govern his Family provided it may be done without breaking the publick peace 5. THEY say that how unjust or how extravagant soever the Laws of the Magistrate might be for the regulating of Politie yet there is nothing unreasonable neither in the Magistrate generally to command the practice of them nor in all Subjects submitting to them without reserve or exception so long as the importance of those Laws do not extend beyond the present life but if it reaches further and Conscience and Eternal Salvation be concerned therein they believe that an uniformity of Faith and of Religion which should be imposed upon us how good so ever the thing might be in its self it would be wicked and unreasonable because it would do violence to the Conscience of which the Magistrate is not the Master nor the Arbiter as he is of the Bodies and estates of Men. CHAP. III. That upon the ground of this Hypothesis That every Supream Authority either in the Popish or the Presbyterian Church is subject to Error Monsieur de Condom hath reason to approve of the Congregational way and the Independency of particular Churches on any other Authority than that of Jesus Christ in his VVord BUT there is nothing which does more reasonably establish the Independancy of particular Churches nor which more powerfully destroyes this Authority in the Church by a divine right and the necessity there is that a person or a particular Church should depend upon its Ordinances unless that Supream Authority is infallible for if it be subject to Error it must of necessity do violence to the Christian liberty of the faithful and so degenerate into a Tyrannical Authority there is nothing I say which establishes more reasonably the Independency of particular Churches nor which more powerfully destroyes their dependency than the account which the Bishop of Condom gives of the judgements of the Independants and of the Sentence that the Synod of Charenton pronounced against them THEY believe sayes he that every faithful Member ought to follow the illuminations of his own Conscience without submitting his judgement to the Authority of any Body nor any Ecclesiastical Assembly and they do not refuse to submit to the word of God nor to embrace the decisions of Synods when after a due and through Examination of them they find them reasonable That which they refuse to do is to submit their judgement to that of any Assembly because it is a Society of Men that are subject to Errour THE Gospel it self is not more true than this perswasion of Independants and that Bishop could not approve of one more reasonable to wit that a particular person or Church ought not to submit