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A27032
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A second admonition to Mr. Edward Bagshaw written to call him to repentance for many false doctrines, crimes, and specially fourscore palpable untruths in matter of fact ... : with a confutation of his reasons for separation ... / by Richard Baxter ...
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Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.
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1671
(1671)
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Wing B1400; ESTC R16242
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98,253
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234
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Principles of Church-division and censorious unwarrantable Separation I Know there is in Holiness a contrariety to sin and Heaven and Hell must finally shew the difference for ever And to reconcile them is as unpossible as to reconcile Light and Darkness I know that it is the endeavour of every faithful Minister of Christ to make this difference plainly known and in Doctrine and Discipline to separate the precious from the vile and to make ungodly men know that they are ungodly and to give to each their proper portion and to keep the Churches as clean as they can by lawful means I know that the ruine of this purging and differencing Discipline is a great part of the lamentable ruine of the Churches and occasioneth that scandal to the Mahometans and Heathens because of the wicked lives of Christians which is one of the greatest hinderances of their conversion And that all Christians should use their utmost skill and power to recover Religion to its primitive Purity and Splendour and Discipline to the most effectual regular exercise And I know that in mens private converse there must be a great care what company we converse with and especially whom we make our familiars And that to be indifferent and to intimate an equality or likeness of the godly and the wicked in doctrine communion and familiarity is a notable sign of an ungodly person And upon these accounts I know that when persons are newly recovered from ungodliness themselves they are very much inclined to fly from the company of such as far as their safety doth require And by this inclination and their ignorance they are frequently tempted to go further from them in Church communion than God alloweth them to do and instead of separating from them in their sin to separate from them in their duty and to separate from the Churches of Christ in his true worship because of the mixture and presence of the bad And this they are drawn to 1. By forgetting the Scripture pattern and state of the Churches even in the purest age and thinking only what they desire rather than what is to be expected or done 2. By forgetting the difference between the Church visible which is alwayes mixt with Hypocrites and offenders and the Church invisible which shall all be saved 3. By forgetting the difference between their private familiarity where they are choosers of their company themselves and their Church communion where the Pastors are the Rulers and Judges of the fitness of the members Or else not understanding that this use of the Keyes and judging of the fitness of the members is indeed the Pastors Office and not theirs 4. By not considering that nothing must be done by Discipline upon Offenders but in a course of Church-Justice upon due Accusations Summons Audience Proof and patient Admonition And not by casting out any irregularly upon the expectation of every one that will say that they are ungodly and scandalous 5. By forgetting the great difference between joyning with men in sinful actions and joyning with them in their duty in which they should be encouraged 6. By forgetting the great difference of keeping in our own place and duty though bad men are present and going out of our place and duty to joyn with them in sin 7. By forgetting that God will have all mens own wills by Choosing or Refusing to have more hand in their Welfare or Misery than other mens And if they mischoose the sin will be their own 8. By forgetting that God hath not left the Church at arbitrary liberty to judge any Godly or Ungodly at their pleasure But hath given us a set Test or Rule to judge them by which is their sober Profession of Consent to the Baptismal Covenant upon which the Adult and their Infants have right to Baptism And being Baptized have Right to Church Communion in all the Acts which their Age and Understanding makes them capable of And it is Church-tyranny to refuse such as shew this Title till they are openly proved to forfeit it by Impenitency in gross sin after publick admonition and due means This is the truth and the method of Christs discipline and the Rule of our Communion 9. By superstitious placing their Religion in indifferent and undertermined things and laying a greater stress on the words of prayer than there is cause Overvaluing their several outward forms expressions and orders in the worshipping of God when instead of provoking each other to faith and fervency to Love and to good works they place more of Godliness in words and circumstances which God hath certainly left free to every mans conscience than God doth place in them And one thinks that he is irregular that prayeth without a set form and another that he is ungodly that prayeth not by the Spirit who useth a set form when both do but speak their own superstition and make Laws and Rules which God never made Superstition and our own additions in Religion even in those that cry out much against it is the occasion of most of our Church-divisions One side supposeth every disorder or unfit expression in free prayer to be a greater fault than indeed it is And that its unlawful therefore to joyn with a Church that hath no set forms Another party supposeth the forms in the Church Lyturgy to be worse than they are and that it is unlawful to joyn in them or to receive the Lords Supper when they are used When as God hath neither tyed us to set forms nor from them save only as unsuitableness to any particular persons may make one less edifying than the other And both free prayers and set forms studied prayers and sudden prayers are all the work of man as to mans part and therefore they must needs be imperfect and faulty as man is And yet in both we may pray by the Spirit even with the holy and fervent desires which the Spirit exciteth in us And the Spirit may ordinarily be a Spirit of supplication in us and help our infirmities in the one way and in the other And therefore though I will not equall them For I prefer some mens free praying before any forms and I prefer the Common prayers before some mens free prayers yet I may say that I will neither Assent and Consent to every word in the one nor in the other no not of any man that ever I heard And yet I will not take it for unlawful to joyn with Church or Family or person in the one or in the other yea upon long experience if I had fully my own choice and liberty I would use free prayer one part of the day or one day and a well composed form another part because I see commodities by both and such inconveniences of either way alone as are if possible to be avoided But when the Mind hath received a prejudice against either way by Education Custom or former distastes no reason how clear soever will overcome it till age and
Causes oft assigned Nay that which without the comparison I did charge on separation was in these words conjunct Our uncharitable Divisions Alienations and Separations are a crying sin and not of separation by it self or alone 2. And by your opposition thereto you seem plainly to deny the sinfulness of the said Vncharitable Divisions Alienations and Separations Which is a crime of heinous aggravation to be committed and impenitently stood in at that very time when uncharitable divisions have broken us so much in pieces and brought us all so low and silenced so many Ministers and done that which our eyes have seen O dreadful obdurateness that after twenty years such doleful experience we will not confess the sinfulness of our divisions But will suffer and be silenced and ruined and die and yet not acknowledge that so unnatural and pernicious a thing is a sin When the world rings of it When we lye weltring in its sad effects that yet we are justifying the Cause Let not any presume to go on in sin with a purpose to Repent hereafter when it is so hard a thing to make men that think us unworthy of their communion to Repent of the very sin which they suffer by and that in the very heat and continuance of their sufferings Sect. 7. E. B. p. 3. What can make your brethren more odious and more expose them to the peoples fury and to the Rulers Revenge than thus to make them the Causes of the Naâ—ions Calamity R. B. 1. And is there not sin among us even among us also And are the sins of such as we no Causes of our publick calamities And would you thus leave us all desperate in Impenitency May not we Repent and must we not Repent if we will be forgiven When we are freed from the Condition of the Law of Works is Repentance become so intollerable and hard a Condition If we Repent not shall we not all perish Luke 13. 3 5. Do Angels rejoice at a sinners Repentance and shall we take him for their enemy that calls them to it 2. Is not Impenitency a greater Reproach to us in the eyes of those by whom we suffer than our Repentance would be And doth it not exasparate them to see men justifie unquestionable sin 3. What if God Record even good mens sins and tell a David what evil they should bring upon his house and what a plague his numbring the people brought on his Kingdom and so of others Doth he hereby expose them to be odious No but by Repentance would make them amiable 4. Is not sin odious whereever it is found And God is no respecter of persons Must we not loath our selves for it It is he that sinneth that maketh himself odious and he that calleth him to Repentance would take away his odiousness Though the sin of a penitent Manasseh may cause the Captivity And he that justifieth it and fathereth it on Christ and the Spirit and Religion would make Christ and the Spirit and Religion and the Church odious lest he should be known to be so himself 5. And do not most good Ministers and people publickly confess to God that our own sins have been the Causes of our Calamities Read Mr. Pool's Vox clamantis and Mr. Stukeley's Book and judge accordingly of others And do you think that they thereby expose good people to the Magistrates hatred or revenge Or dare you charge them with hypocrisie as if they spake not as they thought Alas man what dayes of Humiliation do you use to keep for the sins and miseries of the Land Do you only confess your adversaries sins How easily can some men Repent if it were other mens only that they were to Repent of if the confessing of such might be called Repenting Adeo familiare est omnia sibi remittere nihil aliis inquit Patercul Sect. 8. E. B. p. 3. If in separating our sin is so great that the place where we live cannot be held innocent but must suffer from the hand of God for our sakes we are certainly a people who deserve to be hated of all and the Confiscations Imprisonments and Deaths which some of us have already felt are no longer to be bewailed and grieved for as persecutions of the innocent but rather to be rejoyced and gloried in as due punishments R. B. Such stuff may go down with those that will swallow all that seems to lift them up But 1. It was not separation from forms of Worship only or chiefly that I spake of 2. None of us are absolutely Innocent but only comparatively and secundum quid 3. Here are two false Doctrines more implyed The first is that they that so sin as is here described deserve to be hated of all For though secundum quid so far as we are sinners we are loathsome and deserve to be hated yet the same person being in Christ and pardoned and having the Spirit and Image of God is amiable And therefore the Phrase must follow that which is predominant in them And according either to fitness or custom of Speech you cannot without falshood say that they deserve to be hated of all whom all are commanded specially to Love Did David deserve to be hated of all because his numbring the people brought the plague Yea or Aaron that made the Golden Calf Do you consider what you write How that thus you make all or most or very many of Gods Servants such as deserve to be hated of all For how few are they who do not so sin as that the place where they live cannot be held innocent but must suffer from the hand of God for their sakes For Chastisements are threatned to them and to the societies that they defile And they are chastned of God that they may not be condemned with the world And how few can say the place where I live is not the less innocent for me nor suffereth ever the more for me 2. And it is false doctrine that Imprisonments and Death are due to all such What kind of Politicks would you write Must every man be imprisoned and put to death who makes the place not innocent where he liveth and hath a hand in bringing down judgements on the Land God afflicteth for what sin he please But Judges must not Hang men for all that God afflicteth the Land for But alas that you should reason for Impenitency Sect. 9. E. B. p. 3. Your next attempt is to free your self from being looked upon as an earnest and active instrument in the late Wars R. B. This is another visible falshood in matter of fact Alas Brother that you should no more heed what you read or write The question that I spake to was only Whether I was as guilty in stirring up and fomenting that War as any one whatsoever And is this comparative question any kin to that which you now falsly father on me Sect. 10. E. B. p. 4. I must confess your bold and