Rules of Worship and Discipline are an interest too considerable to be neglected for any bodies sake All is not Gold that glisters and yet we may buy Gold too dear 'T is possible the Separatists may not be such a good company of Christians as they themselves report but suppose them to be much better than indeed they are they which shall sell the established Government of the Church and its fixed modes of Worship to regain them to it shall pay much too dear for it have a very bad bargain of it and shall be sure to put all the gain in their eyes For they are a People for the most part of such volatile spirits that if you have no binding Impositions to fix them you shall not be able to keep their company when you have it and so in the issue the means used to make their company most sure will bring it to the greatest uncertainty that can be Take away all Order and I am sure there can be nothing but Confusion Or if it be in every mans power to be the Master of Order 't is great odds but the most will be the Masters of Misrule Sect. 33. 'T is therefore certainly better to keep the Church-doors close shut than to set them wide open to those Separatists who would turn the doors out at windows I mean invert the whole order of things and render Religion in its Ministrations like some late itinerant Preachers of it an ambulatory thing as various as the complexions of the Celebrators and as changeable as the Moon which will infallibly harden its Enemies against it and expose it to their contempt and scorn Hath any Nation changed their Gods Jer. 2.11 i. e. all Nations account Innovations in matters of Religion a Reproach to them because mens lightness and inconstancy is an Argument that they have very weak heads or very bad hearts either that they are greatly uncertain or exceedingly careless whether they please God or not by what they do And truly I take it to be as contrary to the revealed Will of God to abolish a good custome 1 Cor. 11.16 as to introduce a bad one And 't is very seldom that the benefit of an alteration doth compensate the trouble of it And we cannot but observe that men given to change are seldom or never satisfied but the gratifying of them in one thing encourageth them to challenge it as their due in others Change is so sweet to them that like the Horsleaches daughters they are still crying Give give And I am sure we may be better employed than to be meddling with those men who are given to change In a word when men who have withdrawn and separated themselves from us into distinct Societies are obstinate and refuse to be reformed we must be so far from studying a compliance with them that we must not give place to them by subjection no not for an hour Gal. 2.5 but must mark and avoid them as the enemies of Christ Rom. 15.16 and the words of Limitation in my Text are the reason of it for they that build an Altar beside the Altar of the Lord rebel against God and against us Sect. 34. The Altar is called in the Hebrew Misbeach a Sacrificatory or a place for the Sacrifices Gen. 22.19 Lev. 1.11 And such a most holy place was it both in the Tabernacle and the Temple that it sanctified what they offered on it Exod. 29.37 Mat. 23.19 Now Sacrifices were Rites of address to God and used as Mediums of Praise and Prayer 1 Sam. 13.12 Ezra 6.10 Psal 116.13 And accordingly you shall finde that where Abraham Isaac and Jacob built Altars they called on the Name of the Lord Gen. 12.7 comp with 13.4 Gen. 26.25 33.20 35.1 i. e. they praised God and prayed to him So that an Altar was a place for solemn religious Worship And then by building an Altar beside the Altar of the Lord must needs be designed as the Children of Israel thought the erecting an holy place for solemn religious Worship contradistinct to that of the Lords own appointment where the Reubenites Gadites and half Tribe of Manasseh had conspired to meet in religious Assemblies to worship God in a peculiar separate way under distinct Officers and Orders from themselves who were to inhabit the Land of Canaan And 't is very plain they uncharitably suspected an intent of some kind of Idolatry and so took it for a designe of an aggravated Separation 'T is true they had no such bad designe as was supposed yet lot the fact be such as it was supposed to be and then 't is granted on all hands that by so doing they rebelled against God and his Church Sect. 35. This building of an Altar beside the Altar of the Lord hath been applied by all sorts of men to Schismatical Separations from the Christian Church that is when any sort of Christians do voluntarily and causelesly or rashly forsake those Christian Societies with which they once had or ought to have Communion and gather themselves into separate religious Societies live combined in a submission to distinct Laws of Government and Rules of Worship from those formerly observed or were obliged unto renouncing refusing or not owning publick religious Communion with those from whom they separate they are said to erect Altar against Altar to gather Churches out of Churches and to set up Churches against Churches Sect. 36. Now although this be but too ordinarily practised among us here in England yet 't is such a very bad thing that many of those among us who are most notoriously guilty of it vehemently disclaim and disown it That there are divers Societies of Christians distinguished from one another by the observation of separate ways of Church-government and Orders of Worship is too evident to be denied but who are the faulty Separatists is made by some matter of Question and Doubt 'T is but to put Cases and the Question will be answered and the Doubt if there be any resolved When the Reubenites c. built an Altar if they had withal actually forsaken the religious Communion of the Children of Israel in the Tabernacle and held separate religious Meetings at their New-erected Altar and resolved not to be united by the same common tyes of Government and Orders of Worship with them who had been the Separatists questionless the Reubenites Gadites and half Tribe of Manasseh because they onely would have departed from the Unity of the National Church to which they did belong as Members and to whose Laws of Government and Orders of Worship they owed subjection and obedience So here they who have departed from the Unity of the National Church of England are the Separatists The National Church that is a Scare crow yea less a Chimaera dancing in a vacuum and so some men endeavour to bring the old Church of England to a new nothing They could swear at least the chiefest of them what the Church of Scotland was and
special manner present in those places which are set apart for his service and are appropriately his Those places which by a publick designation are set apart onely for the Offices of Religion and the use of holy things have God's Name set upon them and God hath such a peculiar propriety in them that he makes them the places of the special determination of his gracious presence I have sanctified the House which thou hast built 1 King 9.3 that is I have accepted what thou hast dedicated what thou hast designed for my Worship I have designed for thy Blessing Sect. 12. We have the Memorials of God's Name Symbols and Tokens to testifie God's Covenant with us now under the Gospel as they had under the Law and why should not those places which are selected and employed to partake of them be graced with Gods special presence now as well as then Place is as necessary for the solemn and publick Worship of God as Time and if some select portion of Time be to be appropriated unto God and more acceptable to him than other why should not select places be so too 'T is true the Tabernacle and Temple were places of Gods own immediate appointment and had extraordinary Priviledges and peculiar Rites but 't is as true that from the instinct of Nature and common Reason there were publick places set apart and erected for Gods publick Worship with Gods approbation long before these places and had Gods special presence determined to them too Gen. 28.16 17 18. Exod. 33.7 and 't is as true that for the same reason the Jewish Synagogues which were of humane and prudential institution and appointment were called by the Holy Ghost The Houses of God Psal 74.8 83.10 Our Christian Temples and Oratories are by him also called The Churches of God 1 Cor. 11.22 even because dedicated and appropriated to his service And 't is plain from the Apostles Argument drawn from the presence of Angels with Christians assembled in them v. 10. that God is specially present in them the specialty of Gods presence being generally specified by the presence of Angels which are Gods Houshold-Train and Retinue Acts 7.5 comp with Exod. 19.16 18. Dan. 7.10 Isai 61.1 Sect. 13. Hath God said That where two or three are gathered together in his Name there am I in the midst of them Mat. 18.20 He hath said too That he loveth the gates of Sion more than all the dwellings of Jacob Psal 87.2 for there he commandeth his blessing and life for evermore Psal 133.3 and therefore the Psalmist asserteth That a day in Gods Courts i. e. spent in partaking of Gods publick Ordinances with the solemn Assemblies of his people in his House is better than a thousand Psal 84.10 And elsewhere professeth that this one thing he had desired of the Lord as a most desirable favour and that would he seek after that he might dwell in the house of the Lord for ever Psal 27.4 and when he was debar'd from access to it he was as a dry and thirsty land where no water is and therefore longed to see Gods power and glory so as he had seen it in the sanctuary Psal 63.1 2. which implieth that he had observed that God did there manifest greater impressions and expressions of his power and goodness than in any other place in the world And I know no reason any body hath to believe that God is less propitious to publick religious Assemblies in his holy places now than he was formerly I am sure his Ordinances are not less essicacious nor he himself less gracious nor are holy places less capacious of Gods presence and blessing So that if we come hither and depart without special advantages to our Souls 't is because we are wanting to our selves we do not use holy Places holy Ordinances and holy Assemblies in that manner and to those ends and purposes we should And 't is to be scared that meeting in secret Chambers yea Barns and Stables and such-like places for ordinary and prophane Employments have been and are preferr'd before our Church-Assemblies because very few have senses exercised to discern betwixt things that differ and know what it is to meet with God in his ways of acceptance and benediction Sect. 14. The next thing here considerable in my Text is That they offer them liberty to take a possession among themselves that is to share with them in that Inheritance which fell to them by Lot when the Land was divided 'T is very likely that a considerable part of the Land being yet in the possession of the Canaanites that part of it which they at present enjoyed was little enough for themselves to be sure they had no great supersluities and yet so far do they prefer Religion before Interest an inconvenient Maintenance before a mischievous Separation that they freely offer to dispossess themselves and to disinherit their Posterities rather than their Brethren shall separate from the Worship of God in Communion with them From whence this Observation naturally offers it self to us That the Church and People of God had rather depart from their Estates than their Brethren should wilfully and causelesly depart from a publick Fellowship with them in the Worship and Service of Gods House They will rather communicate their worldly Goods to them than be deprived of Communion with them They are the men of this world who have their portion in this life who are more for Dives his good things than for the good Fellowship of Gods Church The men of God who are expectants of an Heavenly Kingdom value that most which hath most of God in it and therefore account the Communion of Saints a more eligible enjoyment than large possessions The Evangelical Church having higher Obligations and stronger Motives to Love Unity and Peace than the Jewish had ought to be proportionably the more careful and zealous to preserve her Communion entire and inviolate and consequently wilful and causeless Separation from her is in a due estimate a far greater Calamity to her than any worldly adversity or distress whatsoever and she cannot be duly affected with the evil of it unless she have greater thoughts of heart for it than for any worldly loss whatsoever The Reasons of it are these Sect. 15. First Because they are more for God than for themselves would rather Gods Name should be hallowed than their own turns served If the Church of God be despised as most certainly it is when her Members divide and separate themselves from her the Name of God is prophaned for the Church is called by Gods Name and marked for his and therefore the one cannot be despised but the other must be prophaned too and is it not better that our Estates should be lessen'd than the celebrated Honour of God abated The one is a penal evil an evil onely contrary to their present well-being as men and in some cases eligible but the other is a sinful evil an evil contrary
endeavour that the Kingdom of God may come Mat. 6.10 that is that the government of God administred by Jesus Christ may more and more prevail and be every where erected or in the Apostles words that the Word of God which is the Scepter of his Kingdom may have free passage and be glorified 2 Thess 3.1 by opening mens eyes and turning them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God Acts 26.18 and adding them to the Church Acts 2.47 This is one of the great Interests of the Church and whosoever sets himself to oppose it is an Oppressor of it You account that he which unlawfully obstructs anothers Trade and Commerce and hinders him from improving and increasing his stock doth as really oppress him as he that violently detains or takes his goods from him And this is the case of all Separatists as they do unjustly with-hokl from the Church what of right belongs to it so they hinder it from enlarging it self by begetting Scandals and laying Stumbling-blocks against its Communion and Fellowship 'T is a thing both good and pleasant for Brethren to dwell together in Vnity Psal 133.1 2 3. excites Admiration in the Beholders invites their Affections and encourageth them to a Commerce and Communion But can we reasonably expect to gain the hearts of Jews Pagans Mahometans Papists and Atheists to us perswade them to embrace our Religion and to joyn themselves to our Communion so long as we have such Variances are at such Distances from one another and cannot agree upon terms of religious Communion among our selves Do not our Divisions and Separations seem to proclaim to all the world that we understand not the intent and meaning of those Institutions Laws which Jesus Christ hath imposed upon us and are uncertain what that Religion is which we our selves profess and commend to others as the best in the world One Sect preacheth up that which another crieth down and the religious Communion of one sort is an abomination to another and what one justifieth another condemneth And did you ever know disagreeing Witnesses an effectual Proof Sect. 25. Besides will a considering man unite himself to that City which is divided against it self or chuse that house for his place of habitation whose materials are falling asunder and will not the Enemies of Christ think him an unmeet person to gather under his dominion and rule all the Nations in the world who seems not able to govern those in Unity and Peace which are already subject to him 'T is reported of Julian that he thought the fomenting of Divisions in the Church the most effectual way to suppress Christianity and to advance Paganism and he had reason to think so for the world will never believe that they are taught of God who divide from one another because the Spirit of Truth is never contrary to it self and the designe of all true Religion is to draw and binde men unto God and one another And therefore you shall finde that our Saviour prayeth again and again that his Disciples and followers might be one as he and his Father are one and to this very end that the world might believe that God had sent him Joh. 17.21 23. which implieth that their Unity would be of principal influence to perswade the world that he came into the world on Gods errand to destroy the works of the Devil and to restore man to Gods image favour and fellowship Sect. 26. And you shall finde that when three thousand were converted at one Sermon and added to the Church all the Christians were with one accord in one place and continued with one accord in the Temple and were of one heart and one soul Acts 2.1 41 46. 4.32 33. and then by the rule of contraries they which cause divisions cause offences Rom. 16.17 and prejudice the minds of men against the Church of God as if it were a Synagogue of Satan a Society to be shun'd and abhorr'd which obstructs the propagation and enlargement of it and consequently is a mighty Oppression to it Sect. 27. As Separation is an heavy Oppression to so 't is a grievous Persecution of the Church too Persecution in the strictest and severest sence is the prosecution of a person with a peremptory designe to ruine and destroy him And what is Separation less than the execution of a designe to dissolve and destroy that Community of Christians from which the Separation is made Persecutors think the persecuted so bad and hateful that they are not fit for the society of men And Separatists think that Church from which they separate so corrupt and degenerous that 't is not fit for the society of Christians And as Persecutors would not have the persecuted to continue in being and existence among men so the Separatists would not have the Churches they separate from to continue in being and existence among Churches They both act from the same inodiating and envenomed principle and the aim of each horribly mischievous Sect. 28. Yea I take the Separatists to be the worst and most cruel sort of Persecutors for by how much the Rights and Priviledges of Christians as such are better and dearer to them than the Rights and Priviledges of men as such by so much the more of Rigour and Severity is there in the rejection of Christians from their Rights and Priviledges Is it a very bad thing to suffer confiscation of Goods imprisonment banishment and death 't is much worse to be rejected from the love and fellowship of God and his Church the means of Grace and the hope of Glory Whatever some inconsiderate folk may think to be dealt withal as intolerable in the Church is much harder usage than to be dealt withal as intolerable in the Commonwealth for the outward earthly and temporal condition of the Body is onely concern'd in the one but the inward spiritual and eternal condition of the Soul is concern'd in the other When you unchurch a Society of Christians you account them in the expression of the Holy Text as Dogs Rev. 22.15 the basest and uncleanest sort of creatures a company of men so far sunk under the power of the animal life and given over to the power and tyranny of the Devil that they are alienated from the life of God enemies to all goodness to be shunned as the Prophaners of holy things and the Pests of Christian Commerce And if it be great cruelty without cause to be judged worthy of Death I am sure 't is a greater without cause to be judged worthy of Hell and Damnation Sect. 29. And I think 't is very ordinary for the Separatists to carry on their Separation by far worse methods than for the most part other Persecutors do their Persecutions for other Persecutors accuse those they persecute of some hainous and capital Crime implead and try them by the known Laws of that Community to which they do belong produce Evidences of their Allegations against them and
do not judge and execute them before tryal and conviction But the Separatists from our Church at least many of them are so heady and fierce against those Christian Societies from which they separate that they have no regard to such measures of proceedings but assume and exercise a power to reform before they have or indeed ever can prove any thing to be amiss and go about to heal the Churches distempers by cutting her throat and stabbing her to the heart without telling her that she is sick herein doing that to others which they would questionless in no case have done to themselves nor perhaps to no particular person else in the world as if Justice Charity and common Honesty were not concern'd mens behaviours towards whole Churches or Congregations of Christians as well as towards particular persons and that were justifiable towards a National Provincial or Parochial Community of men which by the common sence of mankind hath been condemned for cruelty towards a single man Certainly to condemn and reject a Society of Christians for the greatest Guilts without tryal and conviction is one of the greatest Outrages that humane Nature is capable of and a thing I am confident the most barbarous Nations abhor And yet is not this the common practice of Separatists yea when did they otherwise What Congregation in England did they ever endeavour to convict and reform before they forsook it So that the Separatists have no more reason to glory in their Separation than they have to glory in the vilest Oppression and most cruel Persecution Sect. 30. And here is an Answer ready for them who ask Why we are so angry with them that separate from us Even because they heavily oppress and grievously persecute us without a cause They break the staff of our Beauty and the bands of our Perfectness that is violate our Unity and quench our Charity defame and expose us to Contempt abhor us and passionately pursue our Ruine and yet confidently ask What aileth us and why we complain as if they could not wrong or hurt us unless contrary to the common Laws of the Land they would not suffer us to live quietly in our houses and did beat and slay us where ever they met us And yet some of us can remember when such forbearances were accounted great favours from some very neer akin to them You may as easily conceive that a man may be torn into pieces without pain and smart groans and lamentations as a Church-society of Christians divided and broken asunder without grief and exasperation When any of the Separatists for affronting lawful Authority and trampling on the known Laws of the Land endure a confiscation of goods imprisonment or banishment then your Ears shall be filled with Sighs and Groans with Exclamations and biting Reflections and all the world shall ring of it and yet there is nothing in these Sufferings but what hath relation to a temporal concern But when they censure and reject us from the Kingdom of Christ deal with us as intolerable prophane and ungodly wretches proclaim to all the world that we are Apostates and incorrigible evil doers and as much as in them lieth disfranchise us of all our spiritual Rights and Priviledges which ought to be dearer to us than life it self if we take on as hurt and injured we are peevish and cholerick and have as little Reason to conduct us as they judge we have of Religion But this language of theirs becomes no mans mouth but such an one as he was who said He had rather have a part in Paris than in Paradise They who are Christians indeed prefer their God before their goods and are more for the Communion of Saints than for great Possessions And this brings me to the last branch of my Text. Sect. 31. Thirdly The Limitation of the Concession But rebel not against the Lord nor rebel against us in building you an Altar beside the Altar of the Lord our God The exceptive particle But is very emphatical and seems to suggest That no indulgence is to be shewed to our separating Brethren but upon condition of their penitence and return to our Communion The Children of Israel's condescension here was founded on a presumption of the Reubenites Reformation If the Reubenites c. will yield and submit themselves to God and his Church then they will stoop to them and gratifie them not else So here if the Separatists continue impenitent and obstinate set up Altar against Altar and Church against Church we are under no Obligation to remit any of our Rights or to give away any thing we justly possess to them to live in amity peace with them We need not be at any trouble or cost to purchase patterns of stubbornness and disobedience we shall have more than a good many thrust upon us against our Wills Church-peace is such a valuable Blessing that we should readily purchase it at any rate of disadvantage to our Worldly Interests and we should gratifie them that have separated themselves from us into opposite Parties to us in any thing consistent with Truth Goodness and Charity to our religious Church-communion But if we cannot bring these Offenders into the Church without bringing in their Offences too we had better give away what we have to keep them out than to be at any cost or trouble to make room to receive them in If we cannot have some reasonable security that their joyning with us will do us more good than hurt let them alone Hos 4.17 To stretch our selves by comprehensive acts to take into the bosom of the Church as the Trojans did with the wooden horse a company of men armed with designes to undermine and betray her power and to disgrace and disturb her Order will adde to her calamities as well as to her numbers Though they leave off their Separations yet if they retain their unpeaceable and ungovernable spirits and principles continue more apt to finde faults in others than to amend them in themselves will check at every feather raise quarrels and divisions from their own mistakes and misperswasions will not be made conformable to Laws but will have Laws made conformable to them or will live at large without the precincts of any Government at all but what they themselves call the government of Christ and will have the Wall within which we are inclosed broken and trodden down Cant. 4.2 Isai 5.2 i. e. have it left indifferent how Congregations of Christians and their respective Worships and Disciplines be modelled our Congregations may be much the greater but our Offences and Sorrows will be never the less and I think 't will be more for our comfort and safety too to go to Heaven though without their company in the good old way Sect. 32. A Ceremony or two may not be much stood upon though we are not to make matters of decencie so cheap as to alter them to please every unmannerly Humourist but Faith and Order fixed