offend all Therefore be not many Masters too imperious or too censorious towards dissenters and the infirm lest ye receive the greater condemnation Jam. 3. 1 2. GOD who is One hath made the creatures MANY and divers And the further they go from Him the more they run into multiplicity and diversity It is admirable in Nature to see that among the millions of persons in the world there are no two that differ not sufficiently to be discernable from each other And among the bruits and inanimates it is so too Among horses and oxen and sheep and all creatures yea though non ovum ovâ— similius be a proverb yet there are no two that do not differ No nor among the millions of stones which lye scattered over the surface of the earth There are no two persons in all the world who are just of the same intellectual complexion and degree nor no two who are in all things of the same opinions or apprehensions No nor any one man who is in all things long of the same apprehensions and opinions with himself Nor is there any man whose thoughts and affections do perfectly consent with themselves in matter and order any two hours in all his life And if multiplicity and diversity have so much cause in nature how much more must needs be added by the common corruption and pravity of nature When all mankind hath so much ignorance of the mysteries of Religion and so many degrees of enmity and unsuitableness to holy things a great difference of judgement is an unavoidable consequent of this And mens various educations and converse and employments must needs cause a great variety of apprehensions As their nature so their education may agree in some generals But there are no two persons at age in the world whose educations have been the same in all particulars Though they were children of the same parents and bred in the same house and time yet all that they have seen and heard and medled with hath not been in all points just the same the same in matter and time and order and all circumstances And we see what great diversity of judgements any one of these doth daily cause To have parents of several minds and tempers To be bred in families where there is great diversity of knowledge and practise To live among company of contrary principles and practise when one man heareth one thing talkt of and maintain'd in his daily converse and another the contrary When one hath a teacher of one opinion and another of another Or one hath a teacher that is cold and another one that is servent one a judicious one and another a rash and intemperate one what diversity of apprehensions may arise from any one of these And so there may from variety of passions of the mind through a diversity of bodily temperatures One that is naturally fearful is apt to apprehend a thousand things as terrible and consequently to be filled with scruples and to run away from doctrines and practises as dangerous where another doth apprehend no danger And one that is dark or incredulous or rash or stupid or hardened by any sinful course is apt to conceive that he is safe in every dangerous way and to sleep quietly at the brink of death and hell and to laught at them that tell him of his peril As men sit under the same instructions with variety of affections of fear or hope of Love or hatred of joy or sorrow so variously are they disposed to apprehend what they hear seeing recipitur ad modum recipientis And variety of Gods disposing providences must needs also have some such effect While one is rich and another is poor one hath crosses of divers sorts and another hath prosperity one is full and another is hungry one is observed admired and honoured and another is taken little notice of or is vilified and despised One hath many friends and another many enemies One hath friends that are kind and constant and the other such as are unkind and mutable One is preferred by Rulers and the other is ruined or oppressed All these will occasion variety of apprehensions As it was with the Lady who coming in very cold in a frosty day pitied the naked beggars at the door but when she was well warmed chid them away We all find that our apprehensions are very apt to vary in sickness from what they were in health and in poverty from what they were in plenty and when we are angred displeased or abused from what they were when we were pleased Yea when we have but read a lively book or heard a lively Sermon from what they were before our affections were so excited Also variety of Temptations may occasion great variety of apprehensions When one mans temptations are all alluring to lust or gaming or stage-playes or Romances or drunkenness or gluttony or pastime and anothers temptations are all to melancholy and inordinate at sterities and despair When one man is tempted to errours of one kind and another to the contrary Even he that overcometh in the main yet seldome so far conquereth as to receive no misimpression upon his mind Moreover variety of Callings studies and employments occasioneth variety of apprehensions A mans mind is much wrought upon by the business and objects which he is daily conversant about And therefore we find that usually the Courtier the Souldier the Sea-man the Citizen and the Country-man much differ in their apprehensions And usually though not every individual yet as to the most part all men are wisest in their own professions Lawyers are wisest in matters of Law and Divines in matters of Divinity Opportunities of study and instruction make exceeding great differences in the world The Lawyer and Physician perhaps may on the by have bestowed a few years time in Divinity in the midst of other interrupting studies When the Divine hath studied almost all his life and drawn out his meditations in one uninterrupted thred And so we discern that Lawyers and Physicians have oft different apprehensions of matters of doctrine worship and discipline from those of the best Divines And diversity of Interests maketh no small difference of apprehensions And those that are advantaged by their helps and studies may be disadvantaged by their interests And therefore we say the Magistrate and the subject the Lawyer and the Divine the Prelate and the Presbyter the Papist and the Protestant both Princes Prelates and People so strangely differ in their thoughts that one seemeth certain of that which another seemeth certain to be false and one ventureth his salvation on that which another ventureth his salvation against Interest worketh secretly and too much with the best but openly and predominantly with the worst And then the interest and opinion of the several Kingdomes Churches Pastors parties or Sects which men are related to or are engaged with doth strongly tend to different apprehensions in all matters which those interests are concerned in And
quench it and hath these fifteen hundred years but especially these thirteen hundred been the wolvish Scatterer of the flocks of Christ And must that be now the way to build it which hath so long been the way to pull it down It is Love that must be our Union and Love that must cause it or we shall never have the Union of a Christian Church By this shall all men know that you are Christs Disciples if you have Love one to another If you believe not this pretend not to believe in Jesus Christ who doth affirm it I confess I am so far guilty of superstition my self that if I had been one of the Changers of our ancient Government I should have been somewhat the more backward for his Name sake to the beheading of Christopher Love lest it should be an ill Omen both to Church and State but especially to the Actors of it 8. Another of the Motives of this Discourse is because I know that times of most temptation are times of greatest danger and commonly of greatest sin And all faithful Pastors must know what are the special Temptations of the Time and Place which they live in When had we ever greater Temptations to Love-killing principles and practices than now except in the times of the miserable Wars I need not name them to you The harder it is for men to Love them that hate them that censure them unjustly that revile them and reproach them and make them odious or that hurt them the more cause have Ministers and all Christians to set a double watch upon their Love Lest before they are aware a flaming and consuming zeal do tell others that they know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9. 55. 9. Yea it is not only a time of great Temptation to this sin but of common guilt They are multitudes that are overtaken already with this sin Is not the Land in a continual heart war Are there not parties against parties and cause against cause and heart-risings and passions and censurings of Dissenters to say no worse And is it not time to bring water when we see the flames 10. And I perceive few know so heinous a sin to be any sin at all But all factions and parties are still justifying their Love-killing wayes and reproaching those whom they have wronged As if when they have sinfully withdrawn their Love from them it were no crime to take away next their good names and all that they have but power to take away And when they have cast their brethren out of their estimation and affection they think it a piece of commendable zeal or justice to cast them ouâ— of Christian communion and if they could out of the Land and of the world And shall Ministers stand by and see men take such sin for duty and serve God by abusing his Servants and look for a reward for dividing and pulling down his Church and never tell them what they are doing 11. And the old Non-conformists who wrote so much against separation were neither blind nor temporizers They saw the danger on that side Even Brightman on Rev. that writeth against the Prelacy and Ceremonies severely reprehendeth the separatists Read but the writings of Mr. Iohn Paget Mr. Iohn Ball Mr. Hildersham Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Baine Mr. Rathband and many such others against the separatists of those times and you may learn that our Light is not greater but less than theirs and that we see not further into that cause than they did and that change of times doth not change the truth nor will warrant us to change our Religion unless we will make our Religion subject to the wills and interests of men and change it as oft as the times shall change 12. Lastly if your friends tell you not of your faults and errours in Love those whom you account your enemies will do it in wrath And though all sober Christians should learn by the keenest rebukes of their Adversaries yet passion and prejudice maketh it so difficult that it usually hardeneth men more in their sin And this is another thing which causeth me the more to abhor division and to long for the reconciling of the minds of all dissenting Christians Because while they take each other for adversaries nothing that is written or said by any is like to do the Adversaries any good Nay I must confess when I see an adversary tell men of their sin especially with furious spleen and wrath mixing together words and swords I am greatly afraid lest by that temptation Satan will draw the reproved to impenitency and greatly harden them in their sin and make them glory in that as a virtue which such a person doth so reprove But if you will neither hear of your sin nor duty by adversaries nor friends by fair speeches nor by foul you fasten the guilt upon your selves Remember I pray you that I am not kindling fires nor drawing Swords against you nor stirring up any to do you hurt but only perswading all dissenters to love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intollerable to you the Lord have mercy on your Souls III. And now without a spirit of Prophecy I will foretel what entertainment this Paper must expect 1. Some on the one side will say It is sharper and rounder dealing than all this that must cure the Schismes in the Church And if you would heal our Divisions why do you not conform you self but stand out as one of the party that divideth 2. Some on the other side will say that it is an unseasonable time when so much anger is breaking forth against those that we account Dividers to mention their faults and so to stir up more I will give these men no other answer than to bid them read the last part of this Book or else do not talk till they know of what 3. And some will say that I am doing that which will prove a hurt to my self and others For if I should draw the People to Communion with the Conformists there would little compassion be shewed to the Ministers that cannot conform But selfish wisdome must be shut out of the Council when we are consulting about the healing of the Churches and the good of Souls And indeed there is little danger of this consequence as long as the people are far more averse to Communion or Concord with the Parish-Churches than the Non-conforming Ministers are But suppose it prove true should we not do good to Souls and save men from sin and heal divisions at the dearest rate What though it cost us more than is here mentioned The reviving of decayed Love and the closure of any of the Churches wounds is a recompence worth our liberties and lives 4. And those that are most guilty of the Love-killing principles here detected and are most eminent in self-conceited ignorance will do by me and by
sin which caused it and remember that you have aggravated your own transgression If you are children in parts and goodness your selves you are unfit either to upbraid the people with their childish weaknesses or to cure them DIRECT III. In all your publick Doctrine and private Conference inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace and of the Love of God and Man And make them understand that Love is their very Holiness and the sum of their Religion the end of Faith the heart of Sanctification and the fulfilling of the Law And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him so Love to man must unite us to one another And that all Doctrine or practice is against God and against Christ and against the great work of the Spirit and is enmity to the Church and to mankind which is against Love aâ—d Unity Press these things on them all the year that your hearers may be bred up and nourished with these principles from their youth IF ever the Church be recovered of its wounds it must be by the peaceable Disposiâ—ions of the Pastors and people And if ever men come to a peaceable Disposition it must be by peaceable Doctrine and principles And if ever men come to peaceable Principles it must be by the full and frequent explication of the nature pre-eminence necessity and power of Love That they may heat of it so much and so long till Love be made their Religion and become as the very Natural Heat and Constitution of their souls And if ever men be generally brought to this it must be by daily sucking it from those breasts which nourish them in the infancy and youth of their Religion and by learning it betimes as the sum of Godliness and Christianity And if ever they come to this the Aged experienced ripe and mellow sort of Ministers and private Christians must instil it into Schollars and into the younger sort of Ministers that they may have nothing so common in their ears and in their studies as Uniting-Love That they may be taught to know that God is Love and thaâ— he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Ioh. 4. 16. And that the Love of God doth ever work towards his image in man 1 Ioh. 4. 7 11 12 20. And that all men as men have some of his Image in their Nature as they are Intellectual Free Agents exalted above the bruits Gen. 9 6. And therefore we must Love men as men and Love Saints as Saints That it is Love to God and man which is the true state of Holiness and the New creature and which Christ came to recover lapsed man to and which the Holy Ghost is sent to work and all the means of grace are intended and fitted for and must be used for or they are misused In a word that FAITH WORKING BY LOVE or LOVE and THE WORKS OF LOVE KINDLED BY THE SPIRIT BY FAITH IN CHRIST is the sum of all the Christian Religion Gal. 5. 6 13 22. 1 Tim. 1. 5. He that crieth up Holiness and Zeal without a â—ue commemoration of Love and Peace doth first deceive the hearers about that very Holiness and Zeal which he commendeth whilest he lamely and so falsly representeth and describeth it and doth not make them know how much of Holiness consisteth in Love nor that true zeal is Love it self in its fervâ—ur and intense degree And so people are enticed to think that Holiness is nothing but the passions of fear and grief and earnest expressions in preaching and praying or scrupulousness and singularity about some controverted things or some other thing than indeed it is And they are tempted to think that Christian zeal is rather the violence of partial passions and the fervor of wrath and the making things sinful which God forbiddeth not than the fervors of Love to God and man And when the mind is thus mocked with a false Image of Holiness and Zeal it is cast into a sinful mold and engaged in the pursuit of an erroneous dangerous course of life And at last it cometh to an enmity and contempt of that which is Holiness and Zeal indeed For it accounteth Love but a Moral-vertue which they ignorantly take for a diminutive title of the great and primitive duties required by the light and law of nature it self And zealous Love is accounted by them but a carnal and selfish compliance and temporizing and a pleasing of men instead of God And â— zealous promoting of Unity and Peace is taken but for a cowardly neutrality and betraying of some truth which should be earnestly contended for And on the other side they that preach up Love to man and Peace and Concora without putting first the Love of God and a Holy and Heavenly mind and life they will cheat the poor ignorant carnal people by making them believe that God and Heaven may be forgotten and good neighbourhood to each other is all that is needful to make them happy And they will tempt the more religious sort to sin more against Love and Peace than before Because they will think that it is but a confederacy for Satan against Christ and a submission to the wills of proud usurpers to strengthen their worldly interest against godliness which these preachers mean when they plead for peace And thus as I have known ungodly Preachers by crying down Schism bring Schism into request while it was no such thing as real schism which they meant in theâ—r exclamations till at last the true eruption of schism with its monstrous effects made good people see that such an odious sin there is Even so I have known that a carnal Preacher contemning Holiness and crying up Love and Peace hath tempted the people to have too light thoughts of Love and Peace because it was but a confederacy in sin with a neglect of godliness which the preacher seemed to cry up Till riper knowledge better taught good people to perceive that Love and Peace are more Divine and excellent things than carnal preachers or hearers can imagine The wisedome from above is first pure then peaceable Let it therefore be a true conjunction of Holiness and Peace which you commend DIRECT IV. If others shew their weakness by any unwarrantable singularities or divisions shew not your greater weakness by passions impatiency or uncharitable censures or usage of them especially when any self-interest doth provoke you NOne usually are so spleenishly impatient at the weakness of Dissenters or Separatists as the Pastors are And what is the cause Is it because they abound most in Love to the souls of those who offend or them who are endangered by them If so I have no more to say to such But when we see that the Honour and Interest of the Pastors is most deeply concerned in the business and that they are carried by their impatiency into more want of Charity than the other express by their separations and when we see that they
many very good men think that publick interest may be allowed much power upon their minds though private and personal must be denied Is it not a wonder to see not only that almost all Christians are incorporated into one sect or party or other but how easily the inconsiderable reasons of their party can prevail with them and how hardly the better reasons of their adversaries seem to them of any weight or worth Not only the parties of Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Reformed c. shew this but in the same Church the Regulars and Seculars the Bishops and the Jesuits the Dominicans and Jesuits the Thomists Scotists c. declare it And the difference made by natural capacities is yet more than all this When one man is born to a duller understanding and another hath a quick and clear apprehension All that these men read and hear and meditate on is like to make different impressions on their minds And this is the greatest thing of any one which maketh many controversies endless and maketh both Divines and people run away from one another as dangerously erroneous If a few men have clearer understandings than the duller and unstudied sort they are like to be the minor part For the dull and slothful and yet self-conceited will ever be the greater part many to one till the golden age return And when all the world feeleth the consequents of this difference can we doubt of it or so far dote as to think it possible to cure it Yet the various degrees of the Grace of God do certainly also make great variety of apprehensions When God giveth to some those true illuminations those â—hirsting desires after truth those heart-experiences those delightful relâ—shes those powerful effects and victories which he giveth not to others they are made to differ must needs have different apprehensions of such things In which sense Christ saith that he came not to send peace but division that is to be such an object and preach so holy a doctrine and give such grace as would â—ccasion divisions by making his sanctified ones differ from the world and occasioning the erritation of the worlds malignity And indeed the grand difference between the seed of the woman and of the serpent the holy and the carnal seed is that which is the root of the greatest and sorest divisions in the world which will never be reconciled till Christ at the day of judgement shall say to one part Come ye blessed and to the other Go ye cursed For the carnâ—l mind is enmity against God and is not subject to his law nor indeed can be in sensâ— compâ—sito Rom. 8. 6 7 8. It was not for nothing that God permitted that great eruption of it in the first man that ever was born into the world against his innocent brothers life on the bare account of their religious sacrifices And the Cainites are still too strong for Alel's successors and too numerous And why did he kill his brother But because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous Gen. 4. 10 11. 1 Joh. 3. 12. And as Paul saith of the two sons of Abraham as he that was born of the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now Gal. 4. 29. For the flesh fighteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other Gal. 5. 17. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3. 6. And they that are of the flesh do savour mind or understand the things of the flesh and they that are after the spirit do mind the things of the spirit Rom. 8. 5 6. Our heavenly teacher told his disciples that if they were of the world the world would love them but because they are not of the world but he had chosen them out of the world the world would hate them even as it hated him Ioh. 15. 18 19 24 25. Ioh. 17. 14. And every one that doth evil hateth the light Ioh. 3. 19 20. Nothing then can be surer or plainer to a believer than that there will be still as great divisions and diversitie of apprehensions as radicated enmity can breed And to prevent many objections let these three things be noted First That this grand difference which lieth in the greatest matters in head and heart must needs have influence upon abundance of inferiour controversies Both as the Persons and main cause are concerned in them Reason and experience have put this past controversie Secondly That this doth not concern only the visible Church and the world but the visible Church within it self For all the Hypocrites and carnal worshippers have still the Cainish serpentine nature Yea those that by advantages and interest are brought over to the Orthodox as well as Christian side And it is a happy Church where the Hypocrites are not the greater part And it is neither great Learning nor degrees nor the Pastoral office nor the profession of the highest zeal which will serve turn to cure the carnal enmity without the sanctifying spirit of grace So that when controversies arise we see not in the hypocrites that carnal mind which in the strictest proâ—ession or greatest learning or most venerable function will work against the interest of holiness But we are sure that there it is though we know not the persons in whom but by the full effects Thirdly And note also that there is a mixture or remnant of this unhappy root and principle even in the sanctified themselves And it is hard in a controversie to perceive in our selves much more in others how much our judgements may be moved by this party and what influence it may have into our conclusions So that all this maketh it but too manifest what a certainty there is of perpetual differences in the Church upon all these foresaid accounts Add also this great and unavoidable cause that one errour leadeth in another And no man being without some and every one being generative and inferring more what will it come to when all those also shall have their off-spring and the further they go the more they will increase and multiply And as the judgement by one is laid open to another even as truth inferreth truth so the will is engaged and espouseth mens own opinions as their interest which maketh them stretch their wâ—ts in study to maintain what once they have received and asserted And alas how often have I heard wise and reverend persons cry out against this pride and partiality in others who in their next discourse or the same have shamefully shewed it in themselves making much of their own inconsiderable reasonings and vilifying cogent evidence against them and being so intent on their own inventions and cause that they could scarce have patience to hear another speak And when they have heard him their first words shew that they never well weighed the
these Additions to Christianity this proud Church-tyranny I doubt not is the great cause of Schism in the world And when I have had opportunity to write against it I have born my testimony against it as is yet legible But it is not that sort of men that I am here most to speak to but to them that profess to be more teachable and willing to know the truth 3. And yet I add though this Book be written principally to save the darker sort of honest Christians from the sin and misery of Church divisions I write it not principally for them to read For I know their prejudice weakness and incapacity after-mentioned But I write it to remember the Teachers of the Churches what principles they have to Preach and strengthen and what principles to confute and to destroy if ever they mean to save the people from this state of sin and the Churches from the sad effects And if Ministers neglect the faithful discharge of so great and necessary a duty let them remember that they were warned if they find themselves overwhelmed in the ruines II. The Reasons moving me to this work are these First It is my calling to help to save people from their sins and Church division is a heap of sins 2. The more I love them that I hope are tender Conscienced and dare not sin when they are convinced of it the more I am bound to endeavour their conviction remembring who hath said Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer sin upon him Lev. 19. 17. 3. LOVE is not an appurtenance of my Religion but my Religion it self God is Love and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him who can speak a higher word of any thing in all the world Love is the end of faith and faith is but the Bellows to kindle Love Love is the fulfilling of all the Law the end of the Gospel the nature and mark of Christs Disciples the divine nature the sum of holiness to the Lord the proper note by which to know what is the man and what his state and how far any of his other acts are acceptable unto God without which if we had all knowledge and belief all gifts of utterance and highest profession we were but as sounding Brass and as a tinkling Cymbal And if all our goods were given to the poor and our bodies to the fire it would profit nothing Love is our foretast of Heaven and the perfection of it is Heaven it self even the state and work of Angels and of Saints in glory And he that is angry with me for calling men to Love is angry for calling them to Holiness to God and Heaven Holiness which is against Love is a contradiction It is a deceitful Name which Satan putteth upon unholiness All Church principles which are against Universal Love are against God and Holiness and the Churches life And he that saith he loveth God and hateth his Brother is a Lyar. To be holy without Love is to see without light to live without life He that said The wisdom from above is first pure then peaceable gentle c. did no more dream of separating them then of dividing the head of a man from his heart to save his life Iam. 3. 17. Nor no more than he that said Follow Peace with all men and Holiness Heb. 1â— 14. No necessity can justifie such a division Holiness and Love to God are but two names for one thing Love to God and to man are like Soul and Body that are separated no way but by death Love and Peaceableness differ but as Reason and Reasoning Love may be without Passive Peace from others to us but never without Active Peace from us to others 4. I have had so great opportunity in my time to see the working of the mysterie of iniquity against Christian Love and to see in what manner Christs House and Kingdome is edified by divisions that if I be ignorant after such sad experience I must be utterly unexcusable and of a seared Conscience and a heart that seemeth hardened to perdition God knoweth how hardly sin is known in its secret root till men have tasted the bitterness of the fruit Therefore he hath permitted the two Extreams to shew themselves openly to the world in the effects And one must be noted and hated and avoided as well as the other I thought once that all that talk against Schism and Sects did but vent their malice against the best Christians under those names But since then I have seen what Love-killing principles have done I have long stood by while Churches have been divided and sub-divided one Congregation of the division labouring to make the other contemptible and odious and this called the Preaching of truth and the purer worshiping of God I have seen this grow up to the height of Ranters in horrid Blasphemies and then of Quakers in disdainful pride and surliness and into the way of Seekers that were to seek for a Ministry a Church a Scripture and consequently a Christ. I have many a time heard it break out into more horrid revilings of the best Ministry and Godliest people than ever I heard from the most malignant Drunkard I have lived to see it put to the Question in that which they called the little Parliament whether all the Ministers of the Parishes of England should be put down at once When Love was first killed in their own breasts by these same principles which I here detect I have seen how confidently the killing of the King the Rebellious demolishing of the Government of the Land the killing of many Thousands of their Brethren the turnings and overturnings of all kinds of Rule even that which they themselves set up have been committed and justified and prophanely fathered upon God These with much more such fruits of Love-killing principles and divisions I have seen And I have seen what fierce censorious proud unchristian tempers they have caused or signified In a word I have long seen that envious wisdom whatever it pretend is not from above but is earthly sensual and devilish and that where envy and strife is upon pretence of Religious precedency of wisdom there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 15 16. And if after so long so sad so notorious experience you would have me still to be tender of the brood of Hell I mean these Loveâ—destroying wayes and to shew any countenance to that which really hath done all this you would have me as blind as the Sodâ—mites and as obdurate as Pharaoh and his Egyptians and utterly resolved never to learn the will of God or to regard either good or evil in the world 5. The same sins are continued in without repentance The same pride and ignorance is still keeping open our divisions And if after such warnings as the world scarce ever had the like we shall be still impenitent
as wasting fire proceedeth from the incendiaries The Texts recited DIRECTIONS FOR VVeak Christians How they may escape the troubling dividing and endangering of the Church by their Errours in Doctrine Worship and Church-Communion IF we had never been warned by the History of the Sacred Scripture or of the former Ages of the Church yet our experience in this present Age is enough to tell both us and our Posterity how great perturbations and calamites may come to the Church of Christ by the miscarriages of the more zealous Professors of Religion and how great a hinderance such may prove to the prosperity of the Gospel to the Love and Unity of Christians to the Reformation and holy order of the Congregations and to all those good ends which are desired by themselves How great a dishonour they may prove to the Christian name and what occasions of hardening the wicked in their contempt of Godliness to their everlasting ruine and the sufferings of Believers Therefore seeing the peace and welfare of the Church is much more valuable than the peace and welfare of an individual soul as I have Directed you how to escape your own disturbance and undoing so I think it as necessary to direct you how to escape being the Plagues and disturbers of the Church and the instruments of Satan in resisting the Gospel and destroying others And you should be the more willing to hear me in this also because by hurting others you hurt your selves and by wronging the Church of God you cross your own desires and ends if you are Christians indeed and by doing good to others and furthering the cause of Godliness and Christianity you do good to your selves and further your own Cosolation and Salvation DIRECT I. FIrst observe this General direction see that you forget not the great difference between Novices and experienced Christians between the babes and those at full age between the weak and the strong in grace Level them not in your estimation It is not for nothing that the Spirit of God in Scripture maketh so great a difference between them as you may read in Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14 6. 1 2. 1 Tim. 3. 6. 1 Iohn 2. 12 13 14. There are babes strong men and fathers among Christians There are some that are dull of hearing and have need of milk and are unskilful in the word of righteousness and must be taught the principles and there are others who can digest strong meat who by reason of Use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Novices must not be made Pastors of the Church It is not for nothing that the Younger are so often commanded reverence and submission to the Elder and that the Pastors and Governors of the Church are usually called by the name of Elders because it was supposed that the elder sort were the most experienced and wise and therefore Pastors and Rulers were to be chosen out of them And why is it that children must so much honour their fathers and mothers and must be governed by them It is not meerly because generation giveth the Parents a propriety in their children For God would not have folly to be the governour of wisdom upon pretense of such propriety But it is also because that it must ordinarily be supposed that Infants are ignorant and Parents have understanding and are fit to be their Teachers as having had longer time and helps to learn and more experience to make their knowledge clear and firm If the young and unexperienced were ordinarily as wise as the aged or mature why are not children made governors of their Parents or at least commanded to instruct and teach them as ordinarily as Parents must do their children The Lord Jesus himself would be subject to his mother and reputed father in his Child-hood Luke 2. 51. Can there be a livelier conviction of the arrogancy of those novices who proudly sleight the judgments of their elders as presuming groundlesly that they are wiser than they Yea Christ would not enter upon his publick Ministry or Office till he was about thirty years of age Luke 3. 23. He is blind that perceiveth not in this example a most notorious Condemnation of the pride of those that run with the shell on their head into the Ministery or that hasten to be Teachers of others before they have had time or means to learn and that deride or vilisie the judgments of the aged who differ from their conceits before they understand the things in which they are so confident It was thought a good answer in Iohn 9. 21. He is of age ask him But they that are under age now think their words to be the wisest because they are the boldest and the fiercest The old were wont to bless the young and now the young deride the old It is the character of a truculent people Deut. 28. 50. that they regard not the person of the old that is They reverence not their age How many vehement commands are there in Solomons Proverbs to the younger sort to hearken to the counsel of their Parents The contrary was the ruine of Eli's sons and the shame of Samuels 1 Sam. 8. 1 5. Was Rehoboam unwise in forsaking the counsel of the aged and harkning to the young and rash And are those people wise that in the Mysteries of Salvation will prefer the vehement passions of a novice before the well-setled judgment of the experienced aged Ministers I know that the old are too oft ignorant and that wisdom doth not always increase with age But I know withall that Children are never fit to be the Teachers of the Church And that old men may be foolish but too young men are never wise enough for so high a work We are not now considering what may fall out rarely as a wonder but what is ordinarily to be expected Most of the Churches confusions and diviâ—â—ons have been caused by the younger sort of Christians Who are in the heat of their zeal and the infancy of understanding Who have affection enough to make them drive on but have not judgement enough to know the way None are so fierce and rash in condemning the things and persons which they understand not and in raising clamours against all that are wiser and soberer than they If they once take a thing to be a sin which is no sin or a duty which is no duty there is no person no Minister no Magistrate who hath age or wisdom or piety enough to save them from the injuries of juvenile temerity if they do not think and speak and do according to their green and raw conceits Remember therefore to be always sensible of the great disadvantages of youth and to preserve that reverence for experienced age which God in nature as well as in Scripture hath made their due If time labour were not necessary to maturity of knowledge why do you not trust another with your health as well as a studyed experienced
about our Godliness or Goodness 1 Pride of our understandings worketh thus First a man that was formerly in darkness is much affected with the new-come light and perceiveth that he knoweth much more than he did before And then he groweth to a carnal and corrupt estimation of it valuing it more as Nature is pleased with it than as it is sanctified by it Delighting in knowledge for it self more than for the purity Love and heavenliness which it should effect Then he looketh about him on the ignorant sort of people who know not what he knoweth and seeth how far they are below him And he thinketh with himself what a difference hath God made between Me and Them And because Thankfulness is a duty he observeth not how Pride doth twist it self with it and creep in under the protection of its name And how Thankfulness and Pride have the same expressions and both of them say I thank thee O Father that thou hâ—st hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes I thank thee O God that I am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this Publican Luk. 18. 11. And then he is so taken up with the things which he knoweth that he perceiveth not what knowledge yet he wanteth And the deep affection which his knowledge worketh in him or the tickling pleasure which he hath in knowing joyned with this ignorance of his ignorance in other things doth make him over-confident of all his apprehensions as if every thing which he imagineth were an absolute certainty And so he wanteth that humble suspicion of his own understanding which a true acquaintance with his ignorance would have caused in him And thus he groweth to over-value all his own conceivings and to under-value all the opinions and reasonings of others which are contrary to his own And thence he proceeds to corrupt his Religion with such mis-apprehensions and his rash unsuspected understanding entertains one errour first and then that lets in many more till he have espoused a self-chosen frame of doctrine instead of the sacred truths of God and method of the Gospel And from hence he proceedeth to choose his Religious exercises also according to these mis-apprehensions These make him Duties which are no Duties and sins which are no sins And thus he calleth evil good and good evil and putteth darkness for light and light for darkness bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter And having made him a Religion of his own he confidently thinketh that it is of God And next he valueth all men that he hath to do with according as they are nearer or farther off from this which he accounteth the way of God He chooseth his Church or party whom he will joyn with by the test of this Religion which his pride hath chosen He zealously declaimeth against the opposers of his way as against the adversaries of truth and Godliness and consequently of God himself He prayeth up his opinions and preacheth them up and contendeth for them and prayeth and preacheth and dispâ—teth down all that â—s against them He laboureth to strengthen the party that is for them and to weaken that which is against them And thus he divideth the kingdom and family of Christ He destroyeth first the Love of his brother and neighbour in himself and then laboureth to destroy it in all others by speaking against those that are not of his way with contempt and obloquy to represent them as an â—â—lovely sort of men And if the interest of his cause and party do require it perhaps he will next destroy their persons And yet all this is done in zeal of God and as an acceptable service to him And they think all are Neâ—ters and Lukewarm who prosecute not the Schism as fervently as they and fight not against Love with as much vehemency Yea and in all this they are still conâ—ident that they Lâ—ve the Brethren with a special Love and make it the mark that they are Christs disciples and that they are passed from deâ—th to life because they love the party and persons who are of their own opinion and way And thus PRIDE insensibly while they perceive it not at all doth choke their Opinions their Religions their Parties and make their Duties and their sins and rule their judgments affections and their actions which is all but the same thing which the Scripture in one word calleth HERESY And all that I have said you may find said in other words in the third Chapter of Iames. And there are two things which greatly promote this sin The one is a conceit that all their apprehensions are the Spirits dictatâ—s or the effect of its illumination And the works and teachings of the spirit are not to be contradicted or suspected but to be honoured Therefore they think that it is a resisting of the spirit to resist their judgment And they are perswaded that their apprehensions are caused by the spirit partly because they had no such thing whilest they lived in wickedness but it came in either with their change or shortly after And therefore they think that the same light which shewed them their sinful state doth shew them also all these principles And partly because they find themselves as deeply â—ffected with these misapprehensions as with other which are sound and right therefore they are confident that they come from the same spirit And specially when these thoughts come in upon the reading of the Scripture or in meditation or after earnest prayer to God to teach them by his spirit and lead them into the truth and not to suffer them to err and when they find that they have good ends and meanings and a desire to know the truth all thâ—s perswadeth them that it is the spirit from whom their thoughts proceed when yet it may be no such thing And another much greater and commoner cause of this self-conceitedness is this All mens understandings are naturally imperfect Our knowledge about Natural things is small and dark much more about things supernatural The wisest must say We know but in part And the variety of mens degrees of knowledge joyned with the difference of their educations and advantages and fore-going thoughts doth make as great a diversity of understandings as of complexions And yet it is very hard to any man to have a sufficient diffidence and suspicion of his mistaking mind For what a man knoweth he knoweth that he knoweth But no man that erreth doth know that he erreth For that is a contradiction If I knew that I erred in judgment I must know that the thing is otherwise than I judged it to be which is impossible to the same understanding at the same time For then judging were no judging as being contrary to knowledge When I see such a difficulty about a point as to pass no judgment at all but remain in meer suspence then I can easily perceive that I am ignorant of it But
your foul back-biting reviling censorious contentious tongues do not prove the contrary 13. who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisedome that is Let him that would be thought more knowing and religious than his neighbours be so much more blameless and meek to all men and excel them in good works v. 14. But if ye have a bitter zeal for so is the Greek word and strife in your hearts glory not in such a zeal or in your greater knowledge and lie not against the truth 15. This wisdome descendeth not from above as you imagine who father it on Gods word and spirit but is earthly sensual or natural and devillish O doleful mistake that the world the flesh and the Devil should prove the cause of that conceited spiritual knowledge and excellency which they thought had been the inspiration of the spirit v. 16. For where zeal and strife 〈◊〉 that is a striving contentious zeal against brethren there is confusion or tumult and unquietness and every evil work O lamentable reformers that set up every evil work while they seemed zealous against evil v. 17. But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality or wrangling and without Hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace when peace-breakers that sow in divisions and contention shall reap the fruit of unrighteousness though they call their way by the most religious names Thus I have briefly shewed you what Vâ—nity and Division are that wrong apprehensions draw you not to sin DIRECT VIII When any thing needeth amendment in the Church remember that the best Christian must be the forwardest to reformation and â—he backwardest to Division and must search and try all means of Reforming which make not against the concord of the Church I Do not here determine in what cases you may or may not separate from any company of faulty Christians I only say that you must never separate what God hath conjoyned the Holiness and the Vnity of believers If corruptions blemish and dishonour the Congregation Do not say Let sin alone I must not oppose it for fear of division But be the forwardest to reduce all to the will of God And yet if you cannot prevail as you desire be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extream necessity Resolve with Austin I will not be the chaff and yet I will not go out of the floor though the chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour of Reformation And yet as long as possibly you can avoid it forsake not the Church which you desire to reform As Paul said to them that were ready to forsake a sea-wrackt vessel If these abide not in the ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others DIRECT IX Forget not the great difference between casting out the wicked and impenitent from the Church by discipline and the godlies separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty The second is ordinarily a great sin THe question is not Whether the impenitent should be put away from Church-Communion That 's not denied But whether you should separate from the Church because they are permitted This is it which we call you to beware Not but that in some cases a Christian may lawfully remove from one Church to another that hath more light and purity for the edification of his soul. But before you separate from a faulty Church as such as may not lawfully be communicated with you must look well about you and be able to prove that thing which you affirm Many weak Christians marking those Texts which bid us avoid a man that is an Heretick and to have no company with disorderly walkers and not to eat with flagitious persons do not sufficiently mark their sense but take them as if they call'd us to separate from the Church with which these persons do communicate Whereas if you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels or Idolatrous world or Antichristian and Heretical confederacies and no-Churches is but one of these two sorts First either that the Church cast out the impenitent sinner by the power of the Keyes Secondly or that private men avoid all private familiarity with them And both these we would promote and no way hinder Thirdly but that the private members should separate from the Church because such persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can Let us here peruse the Texts that speak of our withdrawing from the wicked 1 Cor. 5. Is expresly written to the whole Church as obliged to put away the incestuous person from among them and so not to eat with such offenders So is that in 2 Thes. 3. and that in Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Unless it be a Heretick that hath already separated himself from our communion And then it can be put private familiarity which we are further to avoid In brief there is no other place of Scripture that I know of which commandeth any more I have before shewed that abundance of Church corruptions or of scandalous members were then among them and yet the Apostle never spake a syllable to any one Christian to separate from any one of all those Churches Which we cannot imagine that the Holy Ghost would have wholly omitted if indeed it had been the will of God Obj. But then why did Luther and the first Pretestants separate from the Church of Rome and how will you justifie them from Schisme Ans. Its pity that sloth and sortishness should keep any Protestant or Papist either in such ignorance as to need any help to answer so easie a question at this day Let not equivocal names deceive us and the case is easie By the word Church the Scripture still meaneth first either the Universal Church which is the body or Kingdome of Christ alone Secondly or particular Congregations associated for personal communion in Gods worship But the Pope hath feigned another kind of thing and called it The Church That is The Vniversality of Christians as headed by himself as the constitutive and governing head Whereas first God never instituted or allowed such a Church Secondly nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping Head Shew me in Scripture or in Church-History that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the world as they call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn
Church and therefore need no casting out Ans. Were they never baptized or is not baptisme Christâ— appointed means of admission into his Church Obj. They were baptized in their Infancy and afterward bred up in ignorance and profaneness know not what their baptisme is nor ever soberlyâ—wned it Answ. Either they still profess themselves Christians and attend Gods ordinances with the Church or not If not then they are Apostates If they do then they do own their Baptismal Covenant by a continued profession If you accuse them of not understanding this profession or of living contrary to it you must proceed against them one by one as Christ appointeth and first admonish them and then tell the Church and not say they are ignorant and profane and expect upon your saying so they should all be unchurched Yeâ— if you prove them ignorant if they be willing to learn it is fitter presently to instruct them than to excommunicate them nor do you reade of any excommunicated for meer ignorance But we confess that in gross ignorance they may shew themselves uncapable of sacramental Communion and may be denied it while they are learning to know what they do But the mercy of God hath made points absolutely necessary so few that this may be done in a short time if the Persons be willing and the Teachers diligent and sufficiently numerous for that work And though it is to be lamented that in many great City-Parishes the Ministers are not enough to catechize the twentieth part of the people yet for the generality of Parishes through the Land if Catechizing were used as it might be there would not any great numbers be long kept away for meer ignorance And he that is the cause of his Parishes ignorance by neglecting Catechizing and personal conference then unchurcheth them for the ignorance which he is guilty of doth take but a preposterous course for his own account and comfort or for the peopleâ— good Obj But they refuse to learn or be instructed Ans. If that and their gross ignorance be proved together as you may delay them for the later so you may reject them for the former because it sheweth their impenitence But this must be proved of them and not affirmed without proof Obj. But their Baptisme made them members only of the Universal Church and not of any particular Church And therefore will not prove them such Answ. True But he that is a member of the Universal Church is fit to be received into a particular Church And there wanteth no more but mutual consent And if he have statedly joyned with a particular Church in ordinary communion Consent hath bin manifested and he is a member of that particular Church and must not be rejected by it but in Christs way And this is the common case in England The persons who were baptized in Infancy were at once received into the Universal Church and into some particular Church have held communion at age with both and have right to that communion till they are publikely proved to have lost their right And if we had no Churches but particular Churches were to be gathered anew yet he that is a baptized member of the Universal Church and consenteth to communion with that particular Church in all the ordinances of Christs appointment doth lay a sufficient claim to his admission and cannot lawfully be refused unless he stand justly censured by a Church which formerly he was in Yet this we confess that he can be no member of that particular Church who subjecteth not himself to the particular Pastors of it and to the necessary acts or parts of their Office and Ministration Because he denieth his own consent 11. The sinfulness of unchurching Persons or Parishes without Christs way of regular process consisteth in all these following parts 1. It is a casting off the Laws of the great Law-giver of the Church and so a contempt of his authority wisdome and goodness and a making of our selves greater or wiser or holâ—er than he 2. It is gross injustice to deprive men of so great Priviledges without any sufficient proof of their forfeiture It is worse than to turn whole Parishes out of their Houses and Possessions without any lawful process or proof upon rumours or private affirmations that they are Delinquents It is not doing as we would be done by what if any should say of you that you are Heretical and deny Fundamental Truths Or what if they should say of a separated Church that they are generally Hereticks or of wicked lives as the Heathens did of the ancient Christians and therefore that they are no Church nor to be communicated with would you not think that they should every one personally be accused and proof brought against them and that they should speak for themselves before they were thus condemned 3. And it is an aggravated Crime in them that so much cry down Church-tyranny in others to be thus notoriously guilty of it themselves what greater injustice and tyranny can there be than that all mens Christiâ—nity and Church-rights shall be judged Nâ—ll upon the censures and rumours of suspitious men without any just proof or lawful tryal That it shall be in the power of every one who hath but uncharitableness enough to think evil of his neighbours or to believe reports against their innocency to cast them out of the Family of God and to unchristen and unchurch men arbitrarily at their pleasure That any man that is but unconscionable enough to say They are all ignorant and prophane shall expect to have his neighbours excommunicated 4. It maketh all Churches to be lubricous and uncertain shadows when a censorious person may unchurch them at his pleasure What you say of others another may say of you and as justly expect to be believed 5. It unavoidably bringeth in uncurable divisions For there is no certain rule of justice with such persons and therefore they know not who are to be received to their Communion and who not And the same man that one thinketh is to be rejected and kept out another will think is to be received And who knoweth which of them is to be obeyed If one say that a Parish is a Church and another say that they are to be unchurched who knoweth which of them to believe 6. It is a reproach to the Church and Christian religion when we tell the world that that we have not so much justice and equity among us as Heathens have in their worldly societies 7. It depriveth the Church of the solace of her Communion when the best man is not sure but a censorious person may at his pleasure turn him out as unworthy 8. It greatly wrongeth Jesus Christ who so dearly loveth the weakest of his flock and hath purchased their priviledges at so dear a rate and whose body is maymed when any of his members are cut off and who taketh the wrong that is done them as done unto himself These are the great virtues
aggravate the faults of all that are against their way As if every infirmity were a crime and had no excuse yea they are oft glad to hear of some miscarriage in them for which they may speak against them And very readily take up such reports and are the willing-tongues of slanderous fame And in all this their faction maketh them impenitent For they think it tendeth to the disgrace of the other Party and so of their Cause which they account an errour and consequently that God hath use for their malicious Calumnies to his glory What company can you come into of forward Christians but they are talking against those of other parties except a few true entire Christians who are throughly possessed with the loving compassionate spirit of their Lord and have received the true impression of the Gospel And if you mark the cause you will find it as a sectarian spirit that prevaileth against the Catholick spirit of Christianity And in no sect more than in those that pretend to be the only Catholicks and to do all this against the Sectaries as such What bitter lies do the Popish sects under the name of Catholicks daily vent not only against Luther Calvin and other Reformers but any that stand against the peculiar interest of their party And they that can get the upper hand-and by worldly advantages become the domineering sect do think that thereby they are exempted from the name and number of sectaries and that all are sectaries that question their authority and do not absolutely obey them In all their discourse the stigmatizing of dissenters is an ordinary part One side reproacheth the other as Hereticks and Schismaticks And the other reproacheth them as hypocrites formalists and pharisaical persecutors And every party think that all this is a part of Christian zeal and if they did it not they should be guilty of lukewarmness and neutrality and consenting to the sins of others And thus the Church of Christ is engaged in a war against it self And when all men should know them to be Christs disciples by loving one another most men may perceive that they have too much contrariety to the Christian nature by their endeavouring to make each other odious And all because instead of distinguishing the members of the same Body by their several offices and degrees we are grown to make several Bodies of them and to set one part against another How many a Kingdomes conversion from Infidelity hath been hindered and how many a faithful Minister silenced or reproached and how many excellent Christians slandered and vilified and how many blamless customs forms and practises accused and how many infirmities aggravated as mortal crimes by a siding factious disposition and to promote the cause and interest of a Sect. Therefore as you love your integrity and peace keep up an impartial universal love and honour to all Christians as such and take heed of a dividing spirit DIRECT XX. Be very suspicious of your Religious passions and carefully distinguish between a sound and a sinful zeal lest you should father your sin on the spirit of holiness and think that you are most pleasing God when you offend him WE are seldome more mistaken in justifying our selves than in our Passions And when our Passions are Religious the mistake is both most easie and most perillous Easie because we are apt to be most confident and not suspect them the matter seeming so great and good about which they are exercised And Perilous because the greatness and goodness of the matter doth make the errour the greater and the worse I have shewed before how easie it is to think that our Religious passions are all the works of the spirit of God For we are apt to estimate them by the depth and earnestness which we feel But excellent persons have been here mistaken as Iames and Iohn were And not only so but when the passion is up the judgement it self is seldome to be far trusted For it inclineth us to err in all things that concern the present business Therefore still remember the difference between true zeal and false And know that he that is upright in the main and whose zeal for Christianity is sound may yet have much zeal that is unsound with it First It is an ill sign when your zeal is raised about some singular opinion which you have owned and not for the common salvation and substance of the Christian faith or practise Or at least when your odd opinion hath a greater proportion of your zeal than many more plain and necessary truths Secondly when your zeal is moved by any personal interest of your own By honour or dishonour By any wrong that is done you or any reputation of wisdome or goodness which lieth on the cause Or at least when your own interest hath too large a proportion in your zeal Thirdly when your zeal is more for the interest of your party than for the Universal Church and the common cause of Godliness and Christianity and can be content that some detriment to the whole may further the interest of the party Fourthly when your zeal tendeth to hurt and crueley and would have God rather to glorifie his Iustice by some present notable judgement than his Mercy by patience and forgiving And when your secret desire of fire from heaven or some destruction of the adversaries is greater than your desire and prayer for their conversion The sure mark of true zeal is that it is zealous Love It maketh you love your neighbours and enemies more fervently than others do But false zeal maketh you more inclined to their suffering and to reproach and hurt them Fifthly It is an ill signe when your zeal is beyond the proportion of your understanding And your prudence and experience is as much less than other mens as your zeal is greater True zeal hath some equality of Light and Heat Sixthly It is an ill sign when it is a zeal which is easily kept alive and hardly restrained For that sheweth the slesh and the Devil are too much its friends The true zeal of the spirit doth need the fuel of all holy means and the bellows of meditation and prayer to kindle it and all is too little to keep it up in the constancy that we desire But carnal zeal will burn of it self without such endeavours Seventhly It is an ill signe when some sect or false-teacher was the kindler of it and not the sober preaching of the truth Eighthly And it is an ill sign when it burneth in the same soul where lust and wrath and pride and malice burn And when it prospereth at the same time when the love of God and a heavenly mind and life decay The zeal of a sensualist of a proud man of a covetous man of a self-conceited empty person can hardly be thought a spiritual zeal 9. And it is an ill sign wâ—en it carrieth you from the holy rule and pretendeth to come from a spirit which will
will joyn with such a one no more And it is the Confession which must be the sin But if once we have to do against the sin of any that are Great or Godly that power or piety is made a patron of the errour then it may be a smarting censure indeed which we may expect One crieth out He is a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition as they did of Paul though I hate and preach-against sedition Another saith he is bitter and speaketh against the Godly when I spend my self to preach up Godliness But if it be a party that is engaged in the errour you must expect the censure of all the party And what errour is it that hath not a party or that hath neither Greatness nor Godliness for a refuge If in doctrinal or practical consultations of great moment you have to do with injudicious unskilful men if you contradict their way be it never so modestly you are proud and self-opiâ—ionated and must have your own way If you follow their mistakes and contradict them not you may wound the Church and Cause of Christ and be more generally censured at the last In a word when such a multitude of things are matters of Controversie as many may be the matters of Censure One will censure me for praying with a form or book and another for praying without it One for being too long and another for being too short one for this gesture and another for that One for preaching when I am silenced another for not preaching more One for being too gentle to dissenters and another for being too severe One for being too narrow in my principles and communion and another for being too large and universal And if in the sense of the sin and misery of some Christians Love-killing principles and practises I have spent the best of twenty years in writing preaching while I had leave conferring and praying for the Union of Christians and the Churches peace I have but made a wedge of my bare hand by putting it into the clift and both sides have closed upon me to my pain But I have turned both parties in the fray which I endeavoured to part against my self when each side had one adversary I had two Nay this is not the worst to be expected But moreover I must add that I was never more accused of any thing as a crime than of that which I did most against And even for doing so Never more suspected of Carnal compliance than when I exercised the greatest self-denial Never more accused of unpeaceableness than for labouring for the Churches peace Never was I more accused of Schism than for striving with all my power to have united the Ministers and healed the Church or at least prevented further divisions Never more accused of enmity against the true Discipline of the Church than when I have done most and at the dearest rates to stablish it and to prevent its fall In all this I meddle not with my Civil Superiours as thinking it meeter patiently to bear than to aggravate their censures though not all so tolerable as private mens I might give you as many instances of the matters of common Converse He that hath much to do in the world shall hardly escape the censure of many The buyer will say he sells too dear The seller will say he would buy too cheap Every one that expecteth a commodity will censure him that hindereth it and steps in before him If I have a friend or kinsman unworthy of any office or preferment he is nevertheless peremptory in his desires and expectations for being unworthy If I will not speak for him and further his suit I am censured as unnatural and unkind and turn a friend into an enemy If I do speak for him I am false to my conscience and the common good and I must look to be censured accordingly by many But I will add no more instances lest what I intend for instruction seem to be but a complaint But to what purpose is all this It is to let the Reader know that man is not God nor his judgement to be rested in nor his favour to be over-valued To call to you O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils whose heart is deceitful and desperately wicked For wherein is he to be accounted of Look up to God and take him for your God indeed Rest in his Love and be satisfied in his approbation Despise not man nor lay any stumbling blocks before them but as to your own interest in their esteems farther than Gods service and their benefit requireth it account it but a shadow and a thing of nought And say of it as Paul With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of mans day or judgement For I have one that judgeth me even the Lord. 1 Cor. 4. 3. It is GOD Christians it is GOD it is only GOD whose infallibility justification and unspotted truth and goodness you must make your rest It is Heaven it is Heaven it is only Heaven where perfect truth and impartial righteousness and the full vindication of all the just and the fruition of perfect Love and Concord is to be expected and where malice and lies and discord and the father of them are totally and finally shut out As you would not be used as Hypocrites by God and deprived of the true Reward of faith O seek not after the hepocrites reward What is the applause of mortal man Can you not bear the censure of such a shadow How then would you suffer martyrdome for Christ Over-value not the esteem of High or Low of the Great or of the Godly of the many or of the few Gods approbation is sufficient to be your reward See that you be Godly and then be more indifferent though you are thought ungodly See that you be loyal and peaceable and then you may bear it if you be called the contrary Abhor all unwarrantable divisions and then you may bear to be reputed schismaticks Study you to be good and not to be accounted good And what if I should look further to historical fame when I am dead Away with the over-valuing of that too as part of the hypocrites reward I confess God usually blesseth the memory of the just and sets their names above the power of the greatest tyrants and causeth the names of the wicked to rot But this is but a temporal and uncertain thing If one write in my praise to the highest and another write a Volume of false reproaches how shall posterity know which is true who knew neither party nor the cause But yet the nearer reason of all this admonition is to let you know that as contention comes by pride so over-valuing the esteem and censures of men though Good or Great is a dreadful snare and cause of schismes For then you will be stretching your consciences and using your wits to please the party whose censures you must escape And
you will wound the truth and be warping to their errours and extreams And though by this you may think that some present necessity may be satisfied and some inconveniencies avoided yet at the long running the wound will be found to be increased and the cure the harder because of the delay Converse with all men as those that must be finally judged by God and remember that the Judg is at the door DIRECT XXVI Use not your selves needlesly to the familiar company of that sort of Christians who use to reproach and censure them that are more sober Catholick and charitable than themselves Unless you also be as much or more with the soberer sort who will shew you the sin and mischiefs of uncharitableness censoriousness and divisions NOthing is more experienced than the power which the converse of chosen familiars hath upon the minds of the injudicious and unsetled Which maketh education and the converse of our youth to have so great a hand in choosing mens opinions and Religion And is the cause that Religion is as Languages are diversified by the territories or bounds of Countries They that are bred among such as use to speak of dissenters as odious as hypocrites as hereticks as schismaticks as ungodly as proud fanaticks are very like to be possessed themselves with the same spirit of malice and detraction The words of those whom you respect especially when you hear them not confuted will make you believe that it is so indeed and that the persons are as mad or as odious as they make them And thus the Papists think odiously of the Protestants and the Lutherans of the Calvinists and the Arminians and Anti-Arminians the Diocesans and the Presbyterians the Paedobaptists and Anabaptists of one another because they converse only with such as paint them in an odious shape And thus if you use only or chiefly to converse with the censorious Separatists you shall hear so many invectives against them that are truly Catholick and sober as will make you think that Love and Peace and Catholick Communion are some sinful and mischievous things Sometimes they will deride them as ridiculous and sometimes they will call them temporizers formalists or luke-warm hypocrites who will do any thing in compliance with their own commodities and for the saving of their flesh And sometimes they will thunder out some terrible threatnings against them and their way as heinously sinful And this language will form the belief and affections of ignorant Christians into its own uncharitable mold as a necessary part of Christian zeal As it was the common way of the success of the Quakers to come into Christian assemblies and in a prophetical strain like men commissioned from heaven in the name of the most high God to denounce his judgements against the faithfullest Pastors and their flocks and pronounce them condemned enemies of the light and so by the very terrour of their words they frightened many women and boys into their sect before they understood at all what it was that they were against or for so do the Separatists declaim against the sinfulness of Parish assemblies and communion and of forms of prayer and such like till they have frightened the ignorant into their mistaken zeaâ—â— Therefore though I am not perswading you to separate from these feaverish persons as they do from others yet I would advise all the younger and unsetled sort that love themselves not needlesly to choose the familiar frequent company of such Our private company is at our own choice And as the company of fierce self-conceited dividers is so very dangerous so on the contrary the company of grave experienced sober charitable and judicious Divines and other Christians is exceeding helpful to settle the minds of the younger and weaker sort with them they shall hear the unity of the Church and the doctrine of Christian Love and Concord humility meekness and moderation opened and the sinfulness and lamentable consequents of schism self-conceitedness censoriousness and discord which among others they should never hear And let me leave this warning to the Church of God that if ever it may be hoped that Unity Love and peace shall be recovered it must be by the training up of the younger Christians under the precepts and examples of such grave judicious experienced and peaceable guides instead of educating them in the smoaky schorching chimney of young unexperienced self-conceited teachers who burn with the ambition of applause And let the sober be-think them whether our times and teachers are better and purer than theirs to whom Paul said Act. 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them And Eph. 4. 14. He gave the Church Pastors and Teachers for its Unity and perâ—ection That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and â—unning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive DIRECT XXVII Take heed of mis-judging of the Answers of your prayers and of taking those things to be from God which are but the effects of your prejudice passion or weakness of understanding THis is a sin which I know not whether I may say is more common with many godly persons or more injurious to God or more pittiful as to themselves It is so common that it is hard to meet with many women and passionate Christians who are earnest in prayer but sometimes they run into this mistake and judge ungroundedly of the answer of their prayers by such feelings and strong apprehensions of their own as never came from the spirit of God at all And it is a great wrong to God to be made the author of mans infirmities and errours and of that which is contrary to his word And yet it is a very pitiful case as to the offenders because it is usually the sin of persons that are very upright and honest in the main and that are very serious in their prayers to God and of such as have naturally such weakness of reason and strength of affection as that they are less blemeable though less curable than others are To understand this matter the better I pray you consider that Prayer is not to change Gods mind but to make us the meet receivers of his mercies And this it doth by exciting and exercising those apprehensions and desires which make us fit by valuing them to improve them Therefore such principles dispositions and desiers as are in us Prayer doth excite and exercise And every man prayeth according to his own judgement disposition and affection And that apprehension and affection which is most stirred up and exercised is most felt And that which is most felt doth most take us up and is most observed And so we think that it is the impulse of Gods spirit and the answer of our prayers when it is but the operation of our own spirits and the sensible activity of our former principles There
is ready to over-run his consideration and abuse his conscience in the extent of his compliance with all impositions through the indignation or contempt against the unreasonable humours of the Sectaries And thus mens own judgement and practise is depraved while they think more from whence to go than whither Secondly you lose your advantage of doing good to those you flye from And therein disobey the will of God and have a hand in the loss of the souls of men Paul became a Jew to the Jews and all things to all men to save some 1 Cor. 9. 19 20 21 22. I pray you mark his words It had been no strange thing if he had become wise to gain the foolish and shewed himself strong to win the weak c. But to become a Iew as when he circumcised Timothy and shaved his head because he had a vow c. and to be as under the Law to them that are under Law and as without Law to them that are without Law and to become as weak to them that are weak to gain the weak and to be made all things to all men to save some this is far from the religion of the Separatists What abundance of things do many now blame and censure others for as temporizers which they have nothing against that may be called Reason but only that their neighbours use them If a man stand up at the profession of the Belief or if he stand up when the Psalms and Hymns of Praise to God are uttered they say he conâ—ormeth to the gestures of the Congregation and make that his dispraise which is his praise And what Is not standing a fit gesture to profess our Faith in and a fit gesture to praise God in Or is it praise-worthy to be odd and singular in the Church and not to do as the rest of the Church doth Austin professed his resolution in all such gestures and lawful orders to do as the Church doth where he is And Paul would have us with one mouth as well as with one mind to glorifie God I entreat these men to mark whether it was Christ or the Pharisees that came nearest to their way and whom they now imitate Was it for going too far from sinners that the Pharisees did censure Christ Or was it not for eating and drinking with Publicans and sinners though he did it not to harden them in their sin but as a Physician conversing with the sick to heal them was it not for Sabbath-breaking and not being strict enough in such matâ—ers that they were offended with Christ and his disciples The case is plain But corrupted nature more favoureth the separating zeal of the Pharisees than the Loving winning zeal of Christ And will easilier suffer us to be imitators of the Pharisees than of Christ. Thirdly This going too far from those whom we should win doth not only lose our advantage to do them good but greatly tendeth to harden them in all their prejudices against a religious life and to hinder their conversion and to undo their souls When they hear and see us place any of our Religion in avoiding a lawful recreation or a lawful use of words or a lawful fashion of apparel or a lawful gesture or circumstance in Gods worship they will judge of the rest of our Religion by that part And this is one thing that hath hardened thousands especially of the rich who are enclined to excesses in a scornful contempt of strictness in Religion under the name of Puritans and Bigots and Precisians and such like They think they are but an ignorant humorous sort of people who are almost mad with a pride of their singularity in Religion And think that when you tell them of a Conversion you would have them become such whimsical fanaticks And that the difference between their Religion and yours is but whether such a form of prayer or such a gesture or such a fashion of apparel or such musick or other recreation be lawful or unlawful In which they are confident that they are in the right And what greater cruelty can you shew to souls than thus to harden them in their sin and misery Little do such persons think how many be in Hell through these scandals and snares which they have set before them And yet they take on them that is because they would not encourage men in sin that they thus flye from them When they do their worst to make all the world believe that strict religiousness is but the whimsie of a giddy sort of people who are almost out of their wits with pride And what greater injury can men do to Christ and to Religion than this To make it the scorn and contempt of the world I know they will say that Religion was ever scorned by the wicked and ever will be But if it be scorned for its genuine nature its heavenly wisdome purity and goodness this is the disgrace only of them that scorn it Or if they maliciously and causelesly call wisedome folly or call good evil this will redound to the speakers shame where true Reason hath but leave to work But if you will therefore do as the Jews did and cloath Christ in a fools Coat and put a Reed in his hand for a Scepter to expose him to the laughter and scorn of the beholders it is you that will be found his deriders and crucifiers If you blind-fold him and others smite him and say Read who smote thee his buffetting will prove to be caused by you If you will paint a saint in the garb of a mad man the countries hatred and abuse of saints will be imputed unto you Fourthly yea I may add that you are the great cause of the persecutions of the godly and of the damnation of the persecutors While godly people appear in their own likeness in wisdome and love and humility and meekness and sobriety the world doth usually bear some reverence to them though it hate them But when you have made men believe that those that call themselves Godly people are but a company of superstitious Pharisees that cry Touch not tast not handle not or a sort of melancholly humorists who must sit because their neighbours stand or must go out of the way because their neighbours go in it This maketh them justifie all their cruelties to you and others and think persecution to be their duty and to say that the whip is for the fools back and wanton children must be made wise by the rod and that it is no wrong to a mad man to lie in Bedlam If you say that Godliness hath been alwayes perseâ—uted I answer But if you are the causers of it though it must needs be that scandal or offence come yet wo to him by whom it cometh Math. 18. 7. Luk. 17. 1 2. The way of heavenly wisdome is pure but peaceable and gentle and easie to be entreated The way that Christ and his Apostles have led us is to draw as
day above another Another esteemeth every day alike Let every man be fully perswaded in his own mind Rom. 15. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our selves Let every one of us â— ease his neighbour for his good to edification For even Christ pleased not himself Now the God of Patience and Consolation grant you to be like minded one towards another according to Christ Iesus That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorifie God Wherefore RECEIVE ye one another as Christ also received us to the Glory of God Rom. 14. 17 18 19 20. For the Kingdome of God is not meat and drink but Righteoâ—sness and PEACE and Ioy in the Holy Ghost For he that in THESE THINGS serveth Christ is Acceptable to God and APPROVED of MEN. Let us therefore follow after the things which make for PEACE and things wherewith one may Edifie another For meat destroy not the work of God Happy is he that condemneth not himself in the thing which he alloweth that is acknowledgeth to be indifferent or lawful And he that doubteth is damned if he eat The rest and some of the same again you shall have in the Conclusion and I shall not accuse my self of vain repetition but account my self and England happy if twice or ten times warnâ—ng you of your undoubted duty in the plain words of God which you cannot without professed Infidelity deny will but perswade you to heal our grievous wounds at so cheap a rate as the doing of that good and blessed work which NONE may so EASILY do as YOU and none are more OBLIGED to do nor shall suffer more everlastingly for not doing it if no Scripture no reasons no experience no petitions no groans and tears of the distressed Church of Christ can intreat you to it But alas Rom. 3. 16 17 18. Destruction and misery are in their wayes The way of PEACE they have not known There is no fear of God before their eyes Eccles. 7. 7. SURELY OPPRESSION MAKETH A WISE MAN MAD. Rev. 6. 10. QUAMDIU DOMINE SANCIE VERAX Psal. 120. 6. DIU HABITAVIT ANIMA MEA INTER OSORES PACIS The Preface THE Reason why I think it needful to adjoyn these few Directions to the Pastors are First Because I think that the rest will do but little good without them Though the people are more inclined to separations than the Pastors yet are the Pastors the greater causes of most of the Divisions in the Church And therefore must be the chiefest in the Cure Because the advantage of their parts and place doth make them most significant in both And their office obligeth them to be the most skilful and forward in the Cure Secondly Because I should be chargeable with such partiality as beseemeth not a Minister of Christ if I should fall upon the miscrariages of the people only and say nothing to my self and brethren who are as deeply concerned in the matter in hand Yet I must here premise that as I have done this part with greater brevity so also with submissive tenderness and respect And that I do not at all intend any of the Directions following as a Magisterial Dictator to those in authority nor any of the admonitions as factious reflections upon superiors or inferiors or as pleading for or against any party now among us To the reasons after given for tenderness to Religious dissenters though too much inclined to separations I shall here only add First That the general weakness even of the Pastors through most of the Churches upon earth should make us rather pity the weakness of the people than angrily revile them And to think of Christs words Let him that is without sin cast the first stone Alas our preaching our praying our conference our living tell all the world too lowdly that we are weak How few are there that be not either ignorant or injudicious or imprudent or dull and liveless or dry and barren or of a stâ—mmering tongue in our Ministerial work And in so high a business any one of these is a lothsome blemish If we are put to defend our Religion or any necessary part thereof how weakly and injudiciously is it usually done In a word Our great divisions among our selves with our censures and usage of one another do tellâ—all the world not only that we are weak but that too many of us account one another to be worse than weak even intollerable and unworthy of our sacred office And shall we by our weakness and faultiness become the peoples scandal and tempt them to undue separations and when we have done be impatient with their weakness while we overlook our own Secondly Let us be so impartial as to remember how far some have spoken to their sense who have been of most veneration in the Church I instance but in two First The wise and ancient Britain Gildas who saith no less than Apparet ergo eum qui vos sacerdotes sciens ex corde dicit non esse eximium Christianum Sane quod sentio proferam O inimici Dei non sacerdotes O licitatores malorum non pontifices traditores non sanctorum Apostolorum successores â— impugnatores non Christi ministri Sed quomodo vos aliquid solvetis ut sit solutum in coelis a coelo ob scelera adempti immanium peccatorum sunâ—bus compediti c. If the Author of these words â—e Venerable account not the speakers of such like now to be utterly intollerable The second is St. Martin whose story out of Sulpitius Severus I have afterwards abbreviated If a Sainted Bishop most famous for myracles pretend to Angelical Revelation for so much as is there mentioned let us be charitable and patient to those tender conscionable Christians who mistakingly go in such like wayes I am my self so sensible of the evil and danger of Dividing separating principles and â—ayes that it is much of my labour to cure them with all And therefore I have written what I have here done though I am sure I shall displease the guilty But overdoing and illdoing will prove but undoing The Lord give more Wisdome Holiness and Love to Pastors and people and open our ears to healing counsels before we are incurable Amen Directions to Pastors how to deal with those weak Christians who are inclined to Divisions WHen the young and ungrounded sort of Christians do by their errors pride or passions disturb the Churches peace orde it is the Pastors usually that are first and most assaulted by their abuses and therefore are most impatient and exasperated against them And it were well if we were so innocent our selves as that our consciences need not call us to enquire whether all this be not partly the fruit of our own miscariages However seeing that both the eminency of our grace and the nature of our office should make us more sensible of the Churches
dangers and more solicitous of its safety than the private members are I think that the chief part of the Duty is incumbent upon us which must be done in order to the prevention of these maladies and to the cure And therefore I think that the principal work of a Director or Counsellor in this case must be with the Ministers of Christ themselves The Churches peace lieth most upon our hands And if we miscarry and will not understand instruction nor bear admonition nor do our parts how little hope will be left of our tranquility The body must needs languish when the Physician is as bad as the disease DIRECT I. Let it be our first care to know and do our own duty for the strengthening and uniting of the people And when we see their weakness and divisions let us first examine and judge our selves and lament and reform our own neglects THat the state of the flocks doth usually follow the state of the Pastors is known by the experience of all the Churches in all ages and places of the world Where there is a holy faithful able diligent concordant Ministry there is usually a reformed and agreeing people And where there is an ignorant lazy formal ungodly and contentious Ministery there is either a people divided or else agreeing in ignorance formality and ungodliness At least if such a Ministry have been long among them And we need no other proof of this and of the chief cause of the peoples divisions and mistakes than the accusations and charges of the Ministers against each other On every side it is the Pastors of the flocks that are accused by those of the adverse party as the chief offenders One side saith It is you that teach the people errours and put scruples into their minds and lead them into contempt of order and authority And the other side saith It is you that proudly usurp authority which Christ never gave you and lord it over Gods heritage and by your own inventions lay snares before the people to divide them and will not suffer them to unite in their proper center and agree in the primitive simplicity And that bring the Ministery into hatred and contempt by your cruelty and vicious lives And whilest each side is thus accused by the other they have all the greater cause to suspect themselves Because it seemeth to be agreed on all hands that it is the Pastors who are principally in the fault though it be not agreed what the fault is nor which party of the Pastors must bear the blame And indeed where are there any sects or factions but there are Ministers that head them and that caused them at first and keep them up Is it not the Bishops that have caused the long division between the Greek and Latin Churches Was it not principally a contention for their interests which of them should be the greatest so little doth Câ—rists own decision of that controversie among his Apostles signifie with those men who are contending about a successive infallible Judge Is it not their Councils and their contentious writings and practises which have been the grand causes of this woful schism And are not the dividing snares which cause most of the rest of the schisms of Christendome the meer usurpations and impositions of the Roman Prelates It was the Bishops of each party with their Presbyters who headed the diviâ—iâ—â— in the second Council of Ephesus and in the Council of Ariminum and many others And by them the Heresâ—es of the Arrians the Nestorians the Eutychians c. with the schisms of the Novatians Donatists and most others have been maintained And among our selves most parties have their Leaders who first made the breach and still keep it open It is therefore but reasonable that we all suspect and search our selves And perhaps the lot may find out that Achan who is thought most innocent and Ionah who is not the worst in the ship may be the man and he may be the Iudas who is last in asking Master is it I And it is ten to one but the leaders of every party will be found blame-worthy in part though not in equality Besides all that shall be intimated in the following Directions these causes of the peoples weakness and Divisions are so openly manifest in too many Pastors that they cannot be concealed or excused First There is so much Ignorance in many that they are not able judiciously to edifie the flocks nor to teach sound principles in a suitable manner and method to their hearers Who can teach others that which they never learned themselves Secondly Too many are strangers to the people whom they teach and know not the weaknesses of the vulgar and therefore neither justly resolve their doubts nor answer their objections nor indeed speak that language which the people understand They have been bred from their childhood in the Universities among Schollars and have little conversed with Plow-men and poor people and ignorant persons who have quite other conceptions and expreâ—â—â—ons than schollars have Their accurate stiles and well-couched words and elegant phrases are most of them like an unknown tongue to the greatest number of their auditors And that which they use as congruous to the matter is so incongruous to their hearers that its little to their benefit Thirdly And some in avoiding this exream do fall into the contrary and never go beyond the present understanding of the people and teach them nothing but what they know already And hereby they bring themselves into contempt entising the hearers to think that their Teachers are as ignorant as they and know no more than they teach And they tempt the people to be puffed up and think themselves worthy to be preachers because they can do as much and as well as their teachers use to do Fourthly And how cold and unskilful are many in the application of that doctrine which they have tolerably opened And speak the truths of the living God without any affecting reverence or gravity And talk as drowsily of the evil of sin the need of grace the love of God in Jesus Christ yea of death and judgement Heaven and Hell as if it were their design to rock the auditors asleep or to make them believe that it is but an histrionical fiction which they act and that nothing which they say is to be believed There is no need of any more forcible means to entice men to sin than to hear it preacht against so coldly Nor is there need of any more to teach men to set light by Christ and Grace and Heaven it self than to hear them so hearteslly commended We speak a few good words to the people in a reading tone like a child that is saying his lesson as if we believed not our selves and then we blame the people for their being no more edified by us and we look they should be much affected with that which never much affected the speakers If Christ himself who preached
well enough bear with themselves in such sins as this or in others as great and that they can beat with as great sins in the people with too much patience when their own interest concurreth not to raise their passions in such cases we have reason enough to fear lest pride and selfishness have too great a part in much that is said and done against schism in the world Is it a greater shame for children to cry and wrangle with the Nurse and one another or for the Nurse or Parents to go to law with them for it or to hate them and turn them out of doors Is it a fault for children to be so impatient as to cry and quarrel And is it not a greater fault in Parents that pretend to greater wisdome to be impatient with them for it I know you will say that Parents must not be so patient with sin as to leave their children uncorrected But I answer correction must not be the effect of impatiency but of Love and Wisedome and dislike of sin and must be chosen and measured in order to the cure of it It s one thing to be angry for God against sin and its another thing to be angry for our selves against the crossing of our wils and interests And it s one thing to correct so as tendeth to a cure And another thing to be revenged or do mischief or to cast out of doors Are not you guilty of Ministerial weaknesses in preaching and praying and of many omissions in your private oversight And do you think that it is meet for the people therefore to revile you with odious titles and stir up the Magistrate against you for your infirmities Is it seemly for them who are the fathers of the flock and should excel the people in Love and lowliness in patience and gentleness and meekness to be so proud and passionate as to storm against the most conscientious persons if they do but set light by us and cast off our Ministery though perhaps they hear and submit to others who are as able and as faithful and more profitable to them than we When we can â—asiâ—er bear with a swearer or drunkard or the families that are prayerless and ungodly than with the most religious if they do not choose our Miniâ—â—â—â—y but prâ—â—er some others before us as more edifying When we can bear with them that have no understanding or seriousness in Religion at all but make the world or their lusts their idols but cannot bear with the weak irregularities of the most upright and devout If they were never so irregular in preferring us before others and in leaving others to follow us we can easily bear with them and think their disorders may be well excused And to shew the height of our pride we still are confident whether we are uppermost or undermost whether we have publick liberty or are forbidden to preach that we are the persons only that are in the right and therefore that all are in the right that follow us and all are in the wrong that turn away from us That it is Unity and duty to follow us and adhere to us and all are Schismaticks who forsake us and choose others And thus the selfishness and Pride of the Pastors making an imprudent and impatient stir against all who dislike them and applauding all how bad soever who adhere to them and follow them is as great a cause of the disorders of the Church as the weakness and errours of the people DIRECT V. Distinguish between those who separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox or purest and Reformed parts of it and those who only forsake the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest AS many occasions may warrant a removal from a particular Church but nothing can excuse a separation from the Vniversal Church so he that separateth only from some particular Churches and yet is a member of the Vniversal Church may also be a member of Christ and be saved He may be a Christian who is no member of your flock yea or of any particular Church But he is no Christian who is no member of the Vniversal Church Paul and Barnabas may in the heat of a difference part from one another and yet neither of them part from Christ or the Church-Universal I do not excuse the fault of them who sin against any one Church or Pastor But I would not have the Pastors therefore sin as much by making their fault greater than it is nor to suffer their own interest partially to call men Schismaticks or Separatists in a sense for which they have no ground If they can learn more by another Minister than by me what reason have I to be offended at their edification though perhaps some infirmity of judgement may appear in it A true mother that knoweth her child is like to thrive better by a nurses milk than by her own will be so far from hatred or envy either at the nurse or child that she will consent and be thankful and pay the nurse Solomon made it the sign of the false mother that could bear the dividatur the hurt of the child for her own commodity and of the true mother that she had rather lose her commodity than the child should suffer And Paul giveth God thanks that Christ was preached though it was by them that did it in strife and envy to add affliction to his â—ands Phil. 1. He is not worthy of the name of a Physician who had rather the patients health were deplorate than that he should be healed by another who is preferred before him If I knew that man by whom the salvation of my flock were like to be more happily promoted than by me whatever infirmity of theirs might be the cause I should think my self a servant of Satan the envious enemy of souls if I were against it DIRECT VI. Distinguish between those who deny the Being of the Church or Ministery from which they separate and those who remove only for their own edification as from a weaker or worse Minister and from a Church more culpable and less pure FOr these last are not properly Separatists in a full sense Though they think it unlawful to joyn with you as supposing that you impose some sin upon them or that you deprive them of discipline or some ordinance of God Whether they be in the right or in the wrong yet still they hold inward Communion with you in faith and love and in the same species of worship And this is such a communion as we hold with many forreign Churches with whom we have no local present communion DIRECT VII Distinguish between those who hold it simply unlawful to have communion with you and those who only hold it unlawful to prefer your assemblies before those which they judge more pure but hold it lawful to communicate with you occasionally yea and statedly when they can have
of Israel that when they were rooted out the land should keep her Sabbaths Was that a mercy or a judgement Would you so cure Sabbath-breaking and disorder and take a solitude for Peace Fourthly is not the work to be done the saving of mens souls And shall any be saved against his will And then should not all force be meerly such as is subservient to the ends of Love Fifthly will stripes change the judgement in matters of Religion Sixthly is he any better than a Knave or an hypocrite who will say or swear or do that through fear which he verily thinketh God forbiddeth him and is displeâ—sed for and feareth it may damn his soul Seventhly Is it the honour and felicity of soâ—ls to be such or of Church or Kingdome to be composed of such Eighthly is not a conscientious fear of sinning against God a thing well pleasing to him and necessary to mens salvation and to the Churches welfare and to the safety of the lives of Kings and of the Kingdoms peace And is there not then great cause to cherish it though not the errours that abuse it And should not all care be used to cure the ungodly world of impiety and â—earedness of conscience which makes them make a mock of sin And if conscience were once debauched and mastered by fear and the people be brought to prefer their their fleshly interest before their spiritual and to fear mens punishment more than Gods would not such debauched consciences have a great advantage to make such men the masters of the estates and lives of others And are the lives of Kings and the estates of neighbours and the peacâ— of Kingdomes competently secured where God is not feared more than fines or corporal penalties Ninthly if force be so far followed till it have changed mens judgements or conquered conscience or exterminated and destroyed all that will not be thus changed or conquered who differ from superiors in unnecessary things will it not all things well considered prove a dear price for that which might be had at much cheaper rates Are not the most conscientious necessary helpers of the Ministery by their example to cure the unconscionableness of the rest And therefore should be countenanced encouraged Tenthly would not the cessation of unnecessary impositions cast out the most of the scruples of conscientious people and cease the saddest divisions of the Churches If Rome could have been content with a Religion of no more Articles than the Apostles was and would on those terms have held Communion with other Churches O what rends and ruines had it prevented in the Christian world Are not the old Apostolical rules and terms sufficient to the safety and peace of Christians Were those worthy persons B. Vsher B. Hall B. Davenant B. Morton with the Bergii the Crocii and all the great pacificators deceived who wrote and preached and cried out to the world that so much as all Christians are agreed in is sufficient matter for their concord if they would lay it upon no more vid. Vsh. serm before King Iames at Wansted Or do you think it was their meaning Let all Rulers multiply unnecessary scrupled impositions in their own dominion and for scrupling them let them silence imprison and banish at home And then let them send to their neighbour Churches for Unity Peace and Concord and tell them that the subscribing to the Scriptures generally and to the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and Sacraments particularly are terms sufficient to this end Supposing that good order deconcy and peace be kept up by suitable discipline both Ecclesiastical and Civil And why would not this serve for all the world Or why should more scrupled things be called necessary to order and decency than indeed are so My desire of the Churches peace which caused me to write all the rest provoketh me to touch this subject briefly which will scarce endure to be touched DIRECT XIV When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errours disorders or divisions reflect not any disgrace or contempt upon Religion and conscientious strictness but be the more careful to proclaim the innocency and honour of serious Godliness lest the prophane and ungodly take occasion to despise it by your opening the faults of such as are taken for the zealous Professours of it HOnest hearers take most notice what is the main scope which the Preacher aimeth at and the business which he driveth on Some men take occasion by the errours and faults of such as have seemed seriously religious to make all seriousness and diligence for our salvation to seem to the hearers to be meer hypocrisie and not only a needless but a hurtful thing and to perswade the people that an ignorant carelesness of their souls with good neighbour-hood quietness and mirth is better than all this ado Which is no more or less than to preach for Atheism and Ungodliness in practise so it be veiled with the hypocritical profession of the Christian faith And this unhappy sort of Preachers do seldome miss to fall upon the real and supposed miscarriages of men that are or seem religious in some part of their sermons and familiar discourse which being done to so odious an end as to bring seriouâ— Religiousness it self into dislike it maketh the best of the hearers abhor such reflections because they abhor the scope of them Believing that Holiness need not to be preached against in the world till mens hearts are more enclined to it and till all its enemies abate their opposition And if it were to be done yet not by a Minister of Christ He that preacheth against Holiness how covertly soever preacheth against God Whereas if a mans designe be to promote Religion the sober hearers though partly guilty will bear his reproof of the faults of professours with much more patience when they see it is for God and godliness that he doth it I speak by experience and must give them this testimony that I have many and many a time poured out my soul in earnest reprehensions of the errours and disorders of rash dividing zeal and the hearers have taken all with patience when the same persons could not bear the tenth part so much from some preachers whom they imagined to aim in it at the depressing of the honour of true and serious religion Therefore be sure what sort of men soever you are reproving that you say nothing which tendeth to make the ignorant or ungodly sort of your auditors think that it is zeal or strictness or careful diligence about their souls which you condemn But still put in sufficient caution for the necessity of a holy heart and life DIRECT XV. Discourage not the Religious from so much of Religious exercises in their families or with one another as is meet for them in their private stations BY this means many Pastors have been very great causes of schisms and separations Some of them are so carnal and selfish that they make
their controversies when they are weary of contending and will give you the honour of healing the wounds which their rash injudicious zeal hath made DIRECT XXI The Pastors who will preserve the peace of the people must not contend among themselves Especially they must take heed that they engage not in any needless enmity against any of those Divines who for their learning or piety are most highly reverenced in the Church FIrst When Pastors fall into parties they alwayes draw the people with them some will take one part and some another If the Officers divide the souldiers will certainly be divided And though one of the dividing parties may get the advantage of the sword and suppress the other they are nevertheless in the way to increase the schism while the people will think never the worse of the party which is afflicted and trodden down Schismes are most commonly begun or at least formed among the Pastors And among them the cure must be begun and principally performed And when the wound is made it must not be despised but the threatned issues must be foreseen and the necessity of a cure apprehended and scarce any pains or cost must be thought too great to quench the fire The proud and carnal person who thinks all is well if he can but secure his interest and by spurning at dissenters make them seem contemptible doth cast oil upon the flames and may himself feel the greatest heat at last And he that can stand by as unconcerned and deny his service to Love and Peace and to the wounded Church lest it cost him too dear may soon find that he hath lost even that which he hath thought to save O that the Peace-makers would cry aloud and sound the retreat to contending Pastors and O that God would rebuke that pride and carnality self-conceitedness and love of worldly things which will not suffer them yet to hear Secondly And especially when those that are most reverenced and valued by the zealousest Christians are envied or afflicted by the rest it ever tendeth to divisions in the Church For the sufferings of such will never abate their esteem with those who honour them And if fear should stop their mouths for a time the fire will still burn within and be too ready to break out into more open schisms when opportunity serveth them Yea the Churches of old have found great cause to be very tender how they used such reverenced valued Pastors though they should fall into any errour and sometimes to connive or bear with much lest they should occasion a far worse disease by the imprudent curing of a lesser And I dare be bold to proclaim to the contentious Pastors of all the Churches wheresoever that True Piety Love Humility and Prudence can happily heal a great many of dissentions which to the carnal uncharitable proud and imprudent seem uncurable and by their malignant-medicines are still exasperated aâ—d made worse But alas this quarrelsome distemper in Ministers hath had such pernicious effects upon the Church and is still going on to more confusion that it deserveth and calleth for our common lamentation And if we must lament it with despair as an uncurable disease I fear we must with equal despair lament the Churches ruines and the consumption of Religion For how can we expect that the people should hear if the Pastors be obdurate and remediless And who shall cure them if their Physicians themselves be they that do infect them I speak not against the necessary defence of Truth so be it that it be truth indeed which we defend and that the defence be indeed necessary and that the manner be suited to the end and to the nature and rule of Christianity But the itch which caused the Churches scab is of a different description For fiâ—st it proceedeth from a salt acrimoniâ—us humour in the blood Not that there is no blood in our veins which hath better principles and qualities But alas it is tainted with this câ—rroding salt which hath bred our leprosie As if Christ had made us the salt of the earth not to preserve the world from putresaction but to bite and fret all that we have any thing to do with yea and those that we have nothing to do with and by the salt Caâ—aâ—â—hs of our back-bitings and peevish censures and reproaches to bring the Church of Christ into a consumption There is in many of us a love and zeal for Truth in the general and no wonder if we are but men But when we meet it we know it not but â—evile it and scratch it by the face As the Jews did long for the coming of the Messiah but when he came they knew him not but crucified him as a deceiver and blasphemer their prejudice fixing them in the dungeon of unbelief Mal. 3. 1 2 3. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple â—ven the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sope and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi What abundance of the zealous â—â—nourers of Tristh are daily employed in revising and contradicting it As they do by Peace even prosecute it to the death by the most perverse oppositions and unpeaceable principles and practises while they cry up nothing more than Peace And do they deal any better by Holiness it self He that is for a Holiness which consisteth not in Love to God and man to God for himself and to Man for his sake is like the Heathens who are zealous for a God but he must be made of something unlikest to him that is God indeed Or like the Mahometans who are zealous Musselmans or believers but it is in the most gross deceiver And he that will promote Love by snaâ—ling and barking at all that are strangers to him and not of his own house shall at last partake of the fruits of such Love as he promoted And he may as wisely hope at last to bring the Church to Peace also by werrying it by splenetick censures and divisions in despight of the experience of our present age and of all the world What ever is done against LOVE is done against Holiness and against God and against the Life of the Church And therefore if any Love-killer do call himself a servant of Christ and a friend to Holiness or to the Church he must first prove that murdering it is an act of friendship and a service acceptable to Christ One would think by their practise that some men took Abrahams trial for their Law and accounted it the work of justifying faith to kill the Church and offer it up in sacrifice to Christ But before they bring us to believe that such a sacrifice is acceptable to him who offered himself a sacrifice for the Church and who calleth for a