THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS About the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GRACE AND MORALITY Printed in the Year 1676. THE JUDGMENT OF NON-CONFORMISTS c. WHAT advantage the Enemy of God and Man hath got against Truth Holiness and Love by the Divisions of Christians and especially by the Contentions of their Teachers Experience hath been long telling the Christian World by smart and sorrow Where Envy and Strife hath begun Confusion and every Evil Work hath followed Little Breaches tend to greater The Cause which first made them will make them wider by calling in more Causes to its help and service Distinct Parties have their distinct Interests as to Commodity and Reputation And alas what work will selfishness and fleshly interest make What Moralities what Untruths Injustice and Unmercifulness is it pregnant with What Evil so great that it will not first venture on and then palliate and next justifie and lastly propagate if God do not mortifie or restrain it The foresight of this Danger to the Land of our Nativity moved some of Us to strive for the prevention of it while we thought there was place for our Endeavours But as our labour did but exasperate the Disease 〈◊〉 our doleful and dear-bought Experience of the prog â—â—ss and calamitous Fruits of Discord in the space of more than two Apprentiships hath wrought no perceived Cure on Mens Minds nor deliverance to the Church The Discord which began about Worship and Discipline is by some now pretended to be also in Doctrinals and about the Principles of Civil Government and Humane Society and Peace And whither increasing Discord by the power of Interest and Envy may yet carry the Charge or how much wider yet Dividers may perswade the Ignorant that the Difference is we cannot foretel But because we are sure that all tendeth to the ruine of Brotherly Love and that he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and hath not eternal life abiding in him to save as many on both sides as we can from such a damning sin we take it to be our duty to detect the Errours of Contentious Dividers and to hinder their farther widening of the Breach Which we shall here attempt about this Question much agitated of late Quest Whether the Parties called Conformists and Non-Conformists do really differ about the nature and sufficiency of Morality compared with the Grace of Christ Neg. As to the Explication of our Terms 1. What we mean by Conformists and Non-Conformists we have lately shewed on another Question we mean not that if a Papist or Socinian or Quaker should join either with the Conformists or Non-Conformists they would not herein differ from others but that they that are now called Conformists and Non-Conformists herein differ not 1. Formally qua tales 2. No nor Materially qui tales being meerly such 2. We speak only of the Parties For as to some individual persons it cannot be expected that any Parties in the World should be wholly made up of men so wise as that none among them have Ignorance enough to wrangle in the dark 3. The Terms Grace and Morality must be anon explained in our Proof Which Proof as in our last Case we fetch I. From our common consent to the sacred Scriptures the ancient Creeds and the doctrinal Articles and Homilies of the Church of England which surely contain all that is needful to be held about the difference of Grace and Morality Nor hath either Party declared their dissent by any contradiction of any of the aforesaid Articles or Doctrines II. Our second Proof is by a sufficient explication and enumeration of the Points in which we are agreed I. The word GRACE is taken 1. EFFICIENTLY 2. OBJECTIVELY 3. SUBJECTIVELY I. EFFICIENTLY Grace is taken 1. For the Efficient Principle 2. For the Efficient Action of the first Cause 3. For the Efficient Means and its operation 1. Grace taken for the Efficient Principle signifieth God's efficient Favour Love Mercy or Will to do good freely to the Unworthy 2. Grace taken for God's Efficient Action signifieth the same Good-will of God ex parte sui but as connoting the Effect in fieri vel facto esse The former is considered as Decreeing or meerly Willing but this as Effecting 3. Grace taken for the Efficient Means is an effect of God's free Love and a second Cause of Man's sanctification and hath many parts of which CHRIST as Mediator is the Head or Chief and his Gospel Ministers Sacraments and Providences are inferior subservient parts All which are the Efficient Grace of God II. OBJECTIVELY Grace is all God's free-given Mercy as it is offered and proposed to Man's actual Belief Acceptance and Improvement or use Even as the word Fides signifieth 1. The fidelity or trustiness of God the Promiser or Revealer 2. The fidelity or trustiness of the Word promising or asserting 3. The Belief or Trust of the Believer Fidem promittentis fidem promissi fidem credentis So the word GRACE hath the like three significations 1. The Grace of the Giver 2. The Grace of the extrinsick Gift 3. The intrinsick Grace of the Receiver This Objective Grace or Free-Gift is 1. God himself as offered us Relatively through Christ to be our reconciled God and Father with his Love and our Relation to him as his Children 2. Christ himself to be our Head and Saviour and our Relation to him as his justified saved Members 3. The Holy Ghost to be our Sanctifier our Relation to him and his Grace as offered This is the Grace offered and given us in Baptism by Covenant on Gods part Under these are the Objective Means the Gospel as it is to be believed the sanctified Mercies of this present life the Ordinances as to be used c. and ultimately Heaven as the end of all Glory freely given being the perfection of subjective Grace and as proposed and offered being the perfection of objective Grace III. SUBJECTIVELY GRACE is 1. Gracious Dispositions and Habits 2. Gracious Acts viz. 1. Of the Intellect 2. The Will 3. The Executive power in practise The word GRACE hath in the use of Divines all these significations besides several sub-divisions which the Schoolmen ordinarily make And in Scripture I. For Efficient Grace see Exod. 34. 6. and 33. 29. Num. 6. 25. Neh. 9. 17. 31. Joh 33. 24. Psal 86. 15. and 103. 8. and 112. 4. Isa 30. 18 19. Joel 2. 13. Jon. 4. 2. 1 Pet. 2. 3. Heb. 4. 16. and 10. 29. Eph. 1. 6 7. and 2. 5. 7 8. and 6. 24. 2 Cor. 12. 9. Rom. 11. 5 6. and 5. 2. and 1. 7. and 4. 16. Acts 15. 40. Heb. 29. II. For objective Grace see Gal. 1. 6. and 5. 4. and 2. 21. Jud. 4. 1 Pet. 3. 7. and 1. 10. 13. Joh. 1. 17. Acts 20. 24. 32. and 14. 3. Rom. 6. 14 15. Tit. 2. 11. Heb. 12. 15. 1 Pet. 4. 10. and 5. 12. III. For Subjective Grace see 2 Pet. 3. 18. 1 Pet. 5. 5. Jam. 4. 6. Heb. 12.
by Christ on us and as used by us towards Christ as the Mediator Faith in Christ is to kindle in us the holy love of God and obedience to him Love therefore as the final and everlasting Grace is preferred by the Apostle 1 Cor. 12. last v. and 13. throughout 5. Even our Faith in Christ and our Obedience to the Gospel in Preaching Sacraments and such like are neither only of natural nor only of supernatural Obligation but mixt Christ and his Ordinances are supernaturally revealed but being once revealed with the Evidence of Divine Authority natural Revelation then telleth us that it is our Duty to believe and obey 6. That which is of Natural Revelation and Obligation must be performed by supernatural Grace Though Nature prove that all Men should love God as God it is Grace that must dispose and enable them to do it 7. We call Grace supernatural not only because it is not essential to Nature no not to Adam in innocency but because in our lapsed state it is not conveyed to us by Natural Generation but Nature in the state of pravity is deprived of it and because God worketh it by the free gift of his Spirit in a manner beyond the search of man and by it as an effect of his love doth make us lovely in our union and relation to Christ who sanctifieth and justifieth us it being his Image on the Soul which no meer Natural Causes without this operation of God's Love and Spirit can effect But yet 1. We all agree that Holiness is Nature's health or rectitude and therefore sutable to it as its perfection as health is to the Body 2. And that the Spirit of God doth ordinarily make use of his appointed means and especially his Word for our sanctification And these being second Causes which have their proper Natures may so far be called natural Causes And that thus far Grace may be said to be Natural 8. This Holy Love being the final Act on God the final Object and so being man's felicity it self it followeth that all men have so much happiness constitutively as they have holy love to God and Goodness and that no man can be damned that hath the said predominant holy Love while such And that such have no cause to fear damnation any farther than they should fear lest by forfeiting Gods Grace they should lose that love 9. The Mediation of Christ and our Faith in him who is the Glass the Messenger and the great Gift of the Fathers Love are the Means appointed by God to sanctifie us by the effecting of this Love with all its Concomitants and Fruits 10. Therefore as God is called All in All so Christ is called All in all Col. 3. 11. to Believers as being the Way the Truth and the Life 11. Therefore they that would bring men to the holy and felicitating Love of God must preach Jesus Christ and his Grace to them as the means and bring them to believe in him and to take it for their Wisdom to know Christ crucified and glorified and to learn of him and obey him and trust in him and daily to use him as their Mediator for access to God acceptance with him and communication from him 12. To preach up the blessedness of Saints and excellency of holiness without teaching men how to attain it by Christ is but to commend health to the sick without directing them to the Physician and the Remedies And to hear of a Sanctity and Felicity not attainable is to be tormented by despair And to think to obtain it by our works or endeavours without a Mediator and his Grace or by any other Mediator than Christ is the way to lose it by false presumption and neglect of the necessary means It being Christ that is made of God to us Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification and Redemption 13. As Christ on Earth did purchase us this Salvation by his meritorious Righteousness and Sacrifice and is now in Heaven our Head and Intercessor and the Treasury of Grace and Life to Believers so he sanctifieth us by his WORD and SPIRIT and herein differeth from all other Teachers that ever were in the World 1. That his Gospel Doctrine Precepts and Covenant-promises are singularly suited to this sanctifying work 2. That he sendeth forth his Spirit with it to work the Souls of men to that which he teacheth and commandeth that so they may be effectually taught of God Without the Spirit of Jesus no word or means will sanctifie and renew a Soul 14. Therefore all Preachers must jointly preach GOD and holy LOVE trust obedience and delight in him as the END and CHRIST and faith in him and learning of him and obeying him in the use of his healing Remedies as the MEANS This being life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Joh. 17. 3. 15. And though the End must be preached as more excellent than the Means yet the Means must be preached as more mysterious and above meer natural Revelation Experience telleth us that all men quickly learn to confess that they should repent of sin and love God as God but they are hardly taught to understand the Mystery of Redemption the Person Incarnation Works Office and Grace of the Redeemer and therefore have here need of longer teaching The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Spirit must be the Preachers subject as it is the Christians benediction and felicity 16. There are things in Aristotle's Ethicks and in the Ethicks of the Stoicks and and some other Philosophers of great worth and use to Christians to shew us what by natural evidence may be discerned But they are all poor defective spirit-less Doctrines and Precepts in Comparison of the Gospel of Christ though to carnal wit they seem to excel it in Method Language and several Curiosities And the Writings of Christians who do but expound and apply Christ's Doctrine do far excel all the Heathens Ethicks 17. We have no reason to think that any of the Heathens understood all that Nature it self by way of proving-Evidence revealeth Yea or that any Christians perfectly understand it because natural evidences are exceeding numerous and none can say that he seeth them all and they are of various degrees some plain and some obscure and even natural verities as they arise from the great Branches into innumerable Partitions as smaller Sprigs are not perfectly discernable by a mortals Eye 18. Therefore no knowledge of Man much less any Heathens Writings are the certain measure of natural verities in Morality by which the number and certainty of the obscurer Particles may be known 19. Though Heathens know and teach that we must Love God and Goodness above all And all that sincerely love God and Goodness shall certainly be saved Yet this Confession will but more condemn them that have not and practice not what they teach but when they profess to know God
is such by Nature or Accident they cannot make Evil and forbid what God commandeth on pretense of judging They have Power to judge that all the Articles of our Faith are true but not that any of them are false They are Judges that the Commands of God must be all kept but have no power to judge the contrary In what Cases we may be bound to obey them when they erre we have opened in another Paper and may partly be discerned from what is here said Pr. 61. The Bishops or Pastors of the Church are above others obliged to exercise paternal tender love to all the Peoples Souls If they are peevish and humorous and quarrelsome and proud and have other vitious Principles it is their Office and Work under Christ to cure them and to use all that gentleness and forbearance which is needful to their cure and to become all things lawful to all men to win and edifie them not doing greater hurt by injuring others or the Publick Good for the sake of those that are few or less considerable If therefore they should either scandalize them and hinder their salvation by things unnecessary or whose good will not countervail the hurt or if they should say we are not bound to forsake our own Liberty no not in a trifle for the sake of such as are inclined to offence by their vitious Principles they seem to us much to forget or renounce their proper Callings as well as Humane Charity to Souls as if a Physician should say I am not bound to medicate any that are sick but only those that are in health And if all that have vitious Principles be so far from under the Ministers 〈◊〉 are we see no Reason why the Kingdom should maintain so needless a Ministry at so dear a rate nor why they should be had in so much honour and why we should not all be silenced at once Pr. 62. The sin of tyrannical abuse of Power is so contrary to the Nature of all Good Rulers and so contrary to their own true interest peace and comfort and final justification before God and so contrary to the welfare of all Mankind and doth at this day so much mischief in the world by serving Satan maintaining Idolatry Mahometanism Popery and Prophaneness and keeping out the Gospel from the most of the whole world that the Flatterers that would for their own ends and carnal interests promote it and make all odious to Rulers that dislike it will one day be known to be the great Enemies of Princes and People of Church and State of Jesus Christ and God the Soveraign Lord of all Pr. 63. And Confusion Anarchy Popular Rage Faction and Sedition dishonouring our Rulers and all Rebellions and Schisms must be odious to all men of Interest Wisdom and true Religion as being ultimately against the God of Order and the Glory of his Wisdom and Soveraignty in Government who is to be honoured and obeyed in Kings in Pastors and Parents and all that are under him authorized to Govern us Pr. 64. Perjury justifying thousands in perjury deliberate lying covenanting against great and known Duty corrupting Gods Worship and Church Government cruel denying christendom and salvation to the Infants of thousands of godly Christians and casting out godly Christians from the Churches Communion causelesly for a gesture pronouncing all Atheists Infidels Adulterers and other wicked Persons saved so be it they be not unbaptized excommunicate or make away themselves none of these nor any such other in our judgment will ever be made lawful by any Command or Accident nor will ever be lawfully commanded nor shall we ever number them with Things Indifferent nor revile or persecute any as humorous obstinate disobedient Schismaticks or seditious for refusing them FINIS What Meer Non-Conformity is not THE PROFESSION OF SEVERAL WHOM THESE TIMES Have made and called NON-CONFORMISTS Printed in the Year 1676. What Meer Non-conformity is not THat we may not after near fourteen Years suffering and silence yet tell the World what our Non-conformity is without offending our Superiours and incurring all the censures and farther sufferings which we have reason to expect is more grievous to some of us than all the corporal pressures by Ejections Deprivation of Maintenance Prosecutions Fines and Imprisonment which we have undergone when we consider not only that the little remnant of our opportunities for Ministerial Work the preservation whereof hath done much to restrain us is by the Odium cast upon us made less profitable to Mens Souls but especially how many Thousands do defile their hearts with false uncharitable Conceptions of their Brethren and their tongues with false Reproaches if not their hands with cruel Prosecutions because they are falsly informed of our Cause When we think how Satan is served by this how odious sins are multiplied through the Land how Christian Love is killed and divisions made among all Ranks of Men and in all places When we think how God is hereby provoked the Land dishonoured and endangered and how fast the guilty post one after another into another World where such work will cost them dear with many a heart-tearing groan some of us have long said Must we be silent and see all this In a Christian state must we be condemned imprisoned driven about as Rogues and seditious Persons and our Ministry vilified and that by Clergy-men who think that it is their right to be believed and not have leave once to speak for our selves so far as to tell men what it is that we take for sin and why must we see so many Thousands going in such guilt into another World and distracting a Kingdom that hath been too long distracted and weakening both the Protestant and the Christian Interest and by building and keeping up a Wall of separation serving the great Enemy of both and must we not in compassion speak for peace but only say as Christ Father forgive them for they know not what they do If God forgive Men he turneth their hearts and giveth them Repentance And we are commanded to pray Forgive our enemies persecutors and slanderers and turn their hearts And must we pray and not endeavour At least now at last we shall endeavor to stop them by this short Profession from believing those Tongues or Pens which tell them that we make a Schisme for things which our selves confess Indifferent and that our Non-conformity consisteth in what it doth not If we must not tell them what it is that we think men command and God forbids we may tell them what it is not For this may be some service to themselves But we must premise that if any that are called by other names denoting other Opinions besides Meer Non-conformity or any Persons else whosoever do hold any thing unlawful which we here allow it is none of our meaning to declare their judgements which they are fittest to declare themselves We profess but our own and such as by familiarity we have
though we conform not so far as to declare our Assent and Consent to the use of the Calendar Prescript or Directory which requireth them to be read in the Mornings from Septemb. 27. and 28. till Novemb. 24. even Bell and the Dragon Susanna Tobit when as the Vulgar understand not the word Apocrypha sufficiently to distinguish them from the sacred Scriptures when they are equally called the Lessons and read in the same order And we are confirmed in this part of our Non-conformity by the Articles of Religion which discard the Apocrypha and by the Learned Treatise of the late Bishop Cousins who hath fully proved that the ancient Churches received not those Books into the Canon and by many Doctors of the Church of England that charge them with Untruths Some of us have seen the Writing as on good reason is supposed of a present Learned worthy Bishop who sheweth that the words of the Angel in Tobit are a Lye who said that he was the Son of Ananie of the Tribe of Naphtali And that so is his saying that the smoke of a Fishes heart will drive away all Devils that they shall never return when Christ tells us of some that go not out but by Prayer and Fasting XXXVI We are far from designing any abasement of the Clergy nor do we deny or draw others to deny any due Reverence and Obedience to them And though we know that the bare Title and Office will never preserve sufficient respect for the honour of the Clergy and the success of their work without competent qualifications and labours of the persons yet would we rather hide than open or reproach the faults of such as are tolerable in that sacred Office and would do our best for their work sake to promote the esteem even of those that differ from us and of some that persecute us We know that the People are exhorted to know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and to esteem them highly in love for their work sake 1 Thess 5. 12 13. And to obey them that have the Rule or Guidance of them and to submit themselves Heb. 13. 17. 24. And that the Elders that Rule well are worthy of double honour especially they that labour in the Word and Doctrine 1 Tim. 5. 17. We that take it for our Duty to honour all men and submit our selves to one another would not deny any due honour to any of the Clergie that have any preeminence either in age grace gifts or by the Magistrates appointment as his Officers as aforesaid or any way given them by Christ We take it not for a Priviledge to be from under Government XXXVII Our Non-conformity consisteth not in denying a National Provincial or other Church Form of mans invention and institution On these Suppositions 1. So it be presupposed that there is somewhat of Divine Institution predetermined by Christ and his Spirit in the Apostles that is 1. That there be such Doctrine worship and Discipline as he hath commanded 2. That there be such Pastors to exercise them whose Office he hath described 3. That there be such stated Congregations or Societies in which they shall be used even Neighbour Christians associated for Personal Communion therein 4. That all these Churches enjoy the Priviledges granted them by Christ and live in love peace and concord and hold such just correspondence as is necessary thereto and to the Common End and Good All this is of Divine appointment 2. So that these Divine Institutions be not violated by Humane or by the power of man 3. So that Humane Churches be not made equal and co-ordinate to the Divine much less superior and superordinate as if they were to Christs instituted Churches what a Kingdom is to a City or a Regiment to a Troop and Christs Churches were but similar parts of the Humane Churches that must rule them But as the King is Episcopus exterior or the Governour of the Churches so far as the Sword is to be used so circa sacra we have before said that he may make his own Officers and consequently Provinces for them and Orders of their exercise And the Churches in his Dominions may be so called one National Church as he is the exterior Civil Governour of them all by the Sword which indeed is but to be a Religious or Christian Kingdom as also ab accidente as these many Churches are under one Christian yea were he an Infidel King and as hereby they have the advantage of fraternal association and correspondency for concord But proper Denominations are from the Essential Form XXXVIII It is no part of our Non-conformity to be against the due Use or Authority of Councils or Synods of the Clergy We hold that when one is cast out of one Church for a cause belonging to the Cognisance of many many may have occasion to take Cognisance of it And the edification of each other the satisfactory Debate of Difficulties the preservation of mutual Love Peace and Concord may make Synods to be useful But yet we hold that the major Vote of Bishops in a Council are not thereby the proper Governours of the minor dissenting part nor of the absent Bishops but that Councils are for Counsel and Concord and not for direct Regiment of each other though together and asunder the Pastors are all Governours of the Flock And some of us have long ago publickly proved that Councils were called General at first but with respect to the Dominions or Empire of one Prince and not as if they were Universal as to all the Christian World and that absolutely Universal Councils never were or ought or can or ever will be called and that to pretend that a Papal or Imperial General Council is the Universal Law-giver of the World and that they have a promise of Infallibility in what ever they determine and that we receive our Faith in Christ upon their Infallibility given by him and so we must know that Christ maketh them Infallible before we can believe that he is Christ These and such other nonsense cheats which some are now agitating are fit to delude none but the grosly ignorant that are prepared for deceit XXXIX Yet we deny not but that God having first bound us to Unity and Concord as far as we can â—ttain with loving forbearance in the rest when a lawful Synod or Council hath determined of a way of Concord on lawful Terms in matters under their Power there is an Obligation on all the particular Members to forbear breaking that Union and violating those lawful Terms of Concord For where there is not a Governing Law there may be an Obliging Contract or Consent And whereas even the Papists now usually teach that even a Councils Decrees bind not the Churches at least those that had no Delegates till by actual reception they consent be it known to the World that on these Terms the Non-conformists in London seem to have some excuse if it