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
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
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
and he makes these two Tribunals so independant one on the other as hotly to maintain that he would rather suffer death or banishment than permit the appeals of Consistorial Sentences to the Magistrate TO be short the Congregational way hath this advantage over all the other establishments of Religion both the National Popish Episcopal and Presbyterian Church these cannot subsist but with a subordination of Consistories Colloquies Provincial and National Synods things which are not practicable but under Secular Powers either which may approve them or else may tolerate them whereas the Congregational way subsists not only under good Emperours as were Constantine the Great and Theodosius the first but also under the Pagan Dioclesians and under an Arrian Constantius for what persecution soever may be raised against this way nothing hinders but that a Minister who watches over a small flock may go to visit the Members from house to house to administer spiritual pasture and food to them for their nourishment and growth in grace To conclude the excellence of this way appears in this that it is far less exposed to persecution than any other and that the Presbyterian and the Episcopal do fall into it when the Magistrate is contrary to them CHAP. IX That the most Judicious Divines of France and other places without any thoughts of it do naturally fall into the Hypotheses of the Congregational Churches Of the Judgment which ought to be made of their Confession of Faith of their discipline and conduct I Could also streng hen all that I have said by the testimony of our new Doctors by that of Mounsieur Rivet Mounsieur Mestrâ—zat Monsieur Pajon Monsieur Claude and others showing that they undesignedly fall into the Opinion and Judgment of the Independants in laying down 1. THAT there is no other visible Church of Divine right than that which is assembled together in one place to attend upon the preaching and hearing of the word upon prayer and the participation of the Sacraments and it is in this manner that the Confession of the Church of England Article XIX defines the Church 2. THAT such a Church is Independant either on other Churches or on Synods that it may very well take from one or other advice and Counsel but it ought not to submit to their Commands 3. THAT no person can be forced to be a Christian nor to joyn with one Church rather than with another 4. THAT this Church hath liberty to do its own business its self or to connect into one body in the same manner as the Churches of France have done that it hath the liberty to retire from that connection or confederacy as the Churches of Metz and Sedan have done 5. THAT this Church to which the Christian is joyned is obliged to seek and to preserve a strict communion of Faith and Charity with the other Churches but yet hath a liberty of having a separate discipline 6. THAT this church ought to receive the fraternal admonitions of the other Churches and of their Synods in the same manner as a Synod of Africk acted upon the dissention which hapned between Innocent the first Bishop of Rome and the Church of Alexandria as Barlaam recites it I could also find these maxims in the Writings of the English Divines and show that in treating of the nature of the Church or of any other matter of divinity they have kept the language of the Independants or at least have approved of their practices The Learned Jackson Chap. 14. of the Church sayes that for these two causes one may lawfully frame Congregations distinct from others to have a separate Communion 1. WHEN they impose such practises as are contrary to Faith and Charity 2. WHEN they forbid wayes that are apparently most edifying and tend more to the increase and strength of Piety and Salvation than those which are now in use Dr. Stillingfleet assures us in pag. 109. of his Ireniâ—uâ—n that when in one and the same Territory Judgments and Churches are different the one from the other a Christian ought to joyn to that which retains most of the Evangelical purity He is bound to adhere to that Church that retaineth most of the Evangelical purity And in pag. 116. he sayes that a Christian is obliged to separate from Churches although Orthodox in the essential matters in case they retain some mixture of corruption in the practise His Words are a mixture of corruption as to the practise I could find the opinion of this Learned Doctour in several places up and down Monsieur Claude his Book where having laid down to us for a principle that the power of the Keyes and that of binding and loosing only is reposed in the faithful people of God he draws this Conclusion from it that private Churches ought to get to themselves such Members as they know to be more particularly the faithful and to remove from it the worldly persons to whom God hath not affixed that power of binding and loosing nor committed the management of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven I could ascend as far as Luther and Melancton to justifie the separation even from Churches that have not any errour in their Doctrine Luther in cap. 4. Geneseos Etiamsi praeterea nihil peccatum esset in Doctrina Pontificia justas tamen fuisse causas cur ab Ecclesiá Romanâ nos sejungeremus BUT the Independants have reasonably outvied Luther and the other Doctors for they hold though the Church of Rome should not have any defects either in Doctrine or Discipline yet they were not to be condemned for separating from Rome and for being independent on the Romish Church and her Synods more then to find fault with the Church of Sedan which is separate from that of Metz in regard of any dependance one upon the others or upon the Synods that were common with them In a word it is a thing as natural and as reasonable for a Church to divide it self into two other Churches which may each do their own business separately as for one family to be divided into two others whereof each hath the liberty to govern themselves according to their own way and fancy THUS you have in all this discourse if I am not much mistaken the Justification of the carriage and government of the Congregational way and very clear and full proofs of their conformity with the Ancient Christians As also their Confession does evidence that which they have with the Apostolical in a more plain free expressive and incontestable manner than any of the confessions that are collected in the Corpus or Syntagma Confessianum so far are they from being the work of persons distracted and Enthusiasts as some of our Divines have fancied that you might altogether with as much reason put among the productions of Fools and mad men the three most excellent and consummated pieces according to the Judgment that Alexander More has made of them the Epistle of Calvin before his Institutions