end But I hope their Behaviour for the future will sufficiently clear them from such an imputation I shall therefore apply my self only to those that do still forbear our Communion and offer something very briefly which I conceive may be useful for the satisfying their most known and ordinary Doubts that as we do all profess the same Faith we may all agree in the same way of Discipline and Worship and all become peaceable and orderly Members of the same Church And for the obtaining this most Excellent end First I shall desire them impartially to consider of some things that may incline them to be Peaceably minded and tend to the removing of the general Prejudices they have unhappily conceived against the Church of England Then I shall endeavour to give what satisfaction I can to the chief Objections against us which they are wont to urge in Defence of the present Separation And lastly I shall exhort them to a brotherly Vnion upon such Motives and Arguments as the Gospel suggests and make for the Credit and Safety of the Pretestant Religion The things that I would commend to their serious Consideration which may serve to dispose them to Peace and to remove the Prejudices they have taken up are such as these In the first place they should be very careful that it be not any sinister end or corrupt Passion that did either engage them in the Separation at the beginning or provokes them now to continue in it I do not mention this because I know any one of our Dissenting Brethren to be guilty of it but because it must be confessed that mens minds are too often influenced by their carnal Interests and Affections These will be always mixing themselves in all their Consultations these do commonly blind and pervert their Judgments and lead them into ten thousand Errours These are the occasion that Fancy sometimes passes for Conscience that Melancholy Fumes are admired for Divine Inspirations and that the overflowing of our Gall is looked upon as pure Zeal These and the like are very dangerous and usual Mistakes that do frequently proceed from the prevalency of our Passions If therefore we do divide from a Church it will most highly concern us to be very Cautious that we be not acted by any such Principle For if we hope to Gain and grow Rich by our Departure if we are Ashamed or Scorn to retract the Opinions we have once Professed if we imagine we have more Light than the first Reformers when indeed we are very Ignorant if we cannot endure to be Opposed in any thing if we Murmur and Repine at our Governours when they require our Obedience where we are unwilling to pay it these are signs that our Affections are turbulent and unruly and while we are thus disposed we can never be assured but that Covetousness Pride and Impatience might be the greatest Motives that induced us to make a Separation and the strongest Arguments that we have to maintain it But I cannot charge our Dissenting Brethren with these things I believe that many of them may be Upright and Sincere in their Intentions But because they are all in the same estate of Degeneracy and Corruption which others are I would intreat them to be very careful that they be never led away by these or the like temptations but that they would always labour to preserve those holy Dispositions of Integrity Meekness Humility and Condescension which are the best Preparatives to the receiving of the Truth in the Love of it After they have thus freed their minds from all irregular Passions and Designs it would conduce exceedingly to the PEACE of the Church if they would be sure to express their greatest Care and Concern in the more Weighty and Substantial things of Religion This would prevent many of the Quarrels that do often arise in matters but of small Importance If real Holiness and Piety be the thing that we aim at then when we may be secured of this we should not be so very forward to enter upon fierce and endless Disputes about the external Modes and Circumstances of Worship If I may serve God there in Spirit and in Truth why should a Gown or a Cloak or a Surplice fright me from the Church when either of these is injoined by my Superiours If I may be instructed in the way of Salvation and eternal Happiness why should I forsake the Publick Assemblies because I am not allowed to join my self to what Congregation I please and had not an immediate hand in the choice of my Pastor When our hearts are bent upon the great things of Religion we shall see but little Reason to be Contentious about matters of lesser Consequence a few indifferent Rites will scarce be able to tempt us to break off Communion with that Church with which we are at perfect Agreement in all Fundamental and Necessary points The next thing that may tend to the promoting our Vnion is the Consideration of the heinous Nature and Guilt of Schism which is nothing else but the Separating our selves from a True Church without any just Occasion given The want of due apprehensions of the Sinfulness of this seems to be the main Cause of our present Divisions Men are not generally sufficiently sensible how much they do Oppose that Spirit of Peace and brotherly Love which should diffuse it self through the whole Body of Christian People when they suppose every slender Pretence enough to justifie their departing from us and setting up a Church against a Church They think it a matter almost Indifferent and that they are left to their own Choice to join with what Society of Christians they please themselves Which giddy Principle if it should prevail would certainly throw us into an absolute Confusion and introduce all the Errours and Mischiefs that can be imagined But our blessed Lord founded but One Universal Church and when he was ready to be Crucified for us and Prayed not for the Apostles alone but for them also that should believe in him through their word one of the last Petitions which he then put up amongst divers others to the same purpose was That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us that the World may believe that thou hast sent me This it is plain was to be a visible Vnity that might be taken notice of in the World and so become an inducement to move men to the embracing of the Christian Faith Therefore as we would avoid the hardening of men in Atheism and Infidelity and making the Prayer of our dying Saviour as much as in us lies wholly ineffectual we should be exceeding Cautious that we do not wilfully Divide his holy Catholick Church We are often warned of this and how many Arguments does St. Paul heap together to perswade us to keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace One Body and one Spirit even
then our Ceremonies though they should be never so significant cannot be Sacraments because they want so many Necessary and Essential conditions that are required to make a Sacrament They are not of Divine Ordination and Appointment they are of no efficacy to confer any Grace neither are they any Pledges and Assurances of it But suppose we should grant every significant Ceremony to be a Sacrament for it is neither pleasant nor profitable to quarrel about Words There is but one of the Three Ceremonies and that is the Cross at Baptism that can be pretended to be significant and that indeed is made In token that the party newly baptized shall not hereafter be ashamed to confess the faith of Christ crucified c. But this sign of the Cross was very anciently if not always used at Baptism and upon several other occasions by the Primitive Christians in desiance of all sorts of Infidels and as we do it in Token that they were not ashamed of a crucified Saviour Our Church in this does but follow the example of the purest and holiest Professors of the Gospel that ever were and that but at a distance too in doing that but once which they repeated often And this can scarce be called a Significant Ceremony It is not appointed to Represent any thing unto us but only to remind us of a Duty we are bound to do Like the Altar that was built by the Children of Reuben and Gad and the half Tribe of Manasseh Not for burnt-offering nor for sacrifice but that it might be a Witness And if any one should think the Surplice were ordered to be worn to denote the innocency of Life that does more especially become those that are particularly devoted to the Service of God it is more than our Church has declared but yet no man were to be blamed that should take occasion from hence to let his thoughts expatiate into a pious and seasonable Meditation and consider how incongruous it would be to have his inward parts full of filtheness and corruption when his outside was covered with a clean white Linnen Garment The Sum is every significant Ceremony is not a Sacrament and none of ours can be properly said to be significant representing symbolical but only Commemorating or if any man please to call them so Professing signs But though they cannot be proved to be Sacraments yet they may be Superstitious and that is Objection enough against them And I confess that they may be Superstitious but not in themselves for so they are perfectly Indifferent but according to the Opinion or Conceit of those that use them or use them not There may be Superstition in the Observing of these and there may be as much in the forbearing Superstition is nothing but a groundless Fancy attended sometimes with an anxious Fear and sometimes with a fond Hope that God is pleased or displeased with the bare performance or forbearance of what he hath neither Commanded nor Forbidden He therefore that thinks he offends God in doing of that he has not Forbidden and he that imagines he shall please him by the observing of what he has not Commanded are both in some degree and it may be equally Superstitious And then the Superstition that is exercised about the Observation of these Ceremonies must lie on the part of our Dissenting Brethren who think they should Sin in keeping them though they generally confess they are not Forbidden and not on ours who declare them to be Indifferent and no otherwise acceptable unto God but as they are the effects of Obedience to our Superiours and necessary to the preservation of Discipline and Order in the Church But it is farther urged by some that these Ceremonies are a Breach of our Christian Liberty I need not enter upon a Discourse of this but as far as it concerns the matter in hand I say That the being freed from the Ceremonial Law is a part though not the greatest part of Christian Liberty but then it is not so much our being freed from observing it as from the Necessity of observing it The Apostles and first Christians did voluntarily observe it for some time upon Prudential Considerations and imposed some things as the abstaining from bloud and from things strangled and yet they were Free because whatever they did of this Nature they did it not with an Opinion of any Necessary obligation that lay upon them to do it but upon other Motives most commonly out of condescension to the weakness of the Jewish Converts And if some Judaical Rites might not only be observed but imposed then there can be no reason why a few Indifferent Ceremonies may not be appointed now without any intrenchment upon the Liberty which Christ has purchased for us Such things cannot be an infringment of that but only when they are supposed to be either Unlawful or Necessary by Divine Command Kneeling at the Sacrament which is the Ceremony that is wont to be the most scrupled is as little liable to the Objections that I have now answered as either of the other It would be very uncharitable and unjust to say as some have done that it is an Act of Worship to the outward Elements when the Church has declared this to be Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians If it should be said that we ought to receive in the same posture that they received at the first Institution We cannot certainly tell what that was If it were that which is most probably Conjectured it is never used it is wholly laid aside by those that argue the most Zealously for it But sure if the particular Gesture had been so absolutely necessary as some do imagine there would have been some plain and express mention of it somewhere in the Scripture which there is not as I have noted before And then it must be very unwarrantable in those that Separate from our Church because they will not receive in that reverent manner which She has prescribed If there had been nothing injoyned in this matter a Man upon a serious apprehension of the infinite mercies of God through the merits and mediation of his blessed Saviour could scarce have forborn falling upon his Knees when he came to partake of the Sacrament of his most precious Body and Blood The commemoration of the Death and Passion of the Son of God by which he was Redeemed would strike him almost naturally into the humblest posture of Adoration But if any reverence be granted to be due at such a time I am sure sitting at the Table is a very unfit posture to express it Or if any Man should like it better than that which is required with us yet to make this an occasion of departing from our Communion would argue but too little value for the peace of the Church But some there are who though they be convinced of the Lawfulness of all these Rites and Usages and for their own particular could
all of them together are of force enough to move an unprejudiced Person to forsake her Communion It may not be done upon the account of Liturgy Ceremonies Scandal mixt Communion or out of hopes of greater Edification I might have easily inlarged upon all these particulars but the compass of my present Design would not allow it And I have some hopes that these and other points in difference may be handled by others to better advantage and to the satisfaction of those that are not yet convinced and to the happy settlement of a lasting Peace and Vnion among all the Members of this divided Church God grant that all our indeavours may tend this way and that the Divine Goodness may make them Successful If these Papers should chance to fall into the hands of any one of those that have Separated from us I would intreat him not to be Offended at them but to look upon the Author as a well-meaning Man that was willing to throw a little Water upon the common flame that is like to consume us They were not written I am sure with any bitterness of Mind or Expression but out of meer pitty to see a poor lamentable distressed Church languishing away and ready to perish by desperate Wounds and Convulsions within her own Bowells Such sad and Melancholy thoughts as these apprehensions must needs occasion could scarce be vented in angry and provoking Language But some are so tender of the Opinions they have taken up that whether true or false they cannot indure to have them touched They are impatient of the calmest Opposition and when you offer any thing to perswade them though it should be to brotherly Love and Peace among Christians they suspect you for an Enemy and think that you come to set traps in their way to insnare their Consciences But I hope this short Discourse will not be incountered by any such Prejudice but that it may be perused with the same Impartiality that it was written On this presumption I shall be bold to exhort all those that now Dissent to a Brotherly Vnion upon such motives and arguments as the Gospel suggests and make for the Credit and Safety of the Protestant Religion It will be readily acknowledged by every so ber and intelligent men that Peace and Amity and a good Correspondence betwixt the several Members of which they consist is the only Beauty Strength and Security of all Societies and on the contrary that the nourishing of Animosities and running into opposite Parties and Factions does mightily weaken and by degrees almost unavoidably draw on the Ruin and Dissolution of any Community whether Civil or Sacred Concord and Union therefore will be as necessary for the Preservation of the Church as of the State It has been known by too sad an Experience as well in ours as other Ages what a pernicious Influence the intestine Broils and Quarrels among Christians have had They have been the great stumbing Block to Jews Turks and Heathens and the main hinderance of their Conversion they have made some among our selves to become Doubtful and Sceptical in their Religion they have led others into many dangerous Errours that shake the very Foundations of our Faith and some they have tempted to cast off the Natural sense they had of the Deity and imboldened to an open and professed Atheism These are some of the most usual Fruits which the unhappy Differences in the Church are wont to produce over and above the particular Unkindnesses and uncharitable Feuds which they commonly beget among Christians of the same Perswasion as to all substantial and weighty matters of Belief And it were a thing very desirable in all respects that these at least should be all firmly United in the same holy Communion They that have the same Articles of Faith and hope to meet in the same Heaven through the Merits of the same Lord should not be afraid to come into the same Assemblies and join seriously in sending up the same Prayers and participating of the same Sacraments Besides the many strict Precepts and other strong Obligations which we have unto this our Saviour Died that he might gather together in One the Children of God that were scattered abroad And should we not then contradict this end of his Death if we should set those at Strife and Variance which he intended to Vnite Nay might we not be said in some sort to Crucifie the Son of God afresh if we should Mangle and Divide any sound and healthful part of that Body of which he owns himself to be the Head If indeed our Church did require us to make profession of any false and erroneous Opinions if in the external Order and Worship we were injoined to do any thing contrary to any Divine Command we were bound in such Instances to withdraw from her But if her Doctrine be highly approved by most of our Dissenting Brethren and her Discipline and Service such as is not any way inconsistent with any Law of God then we are indispensably ingaged to join in Communion with her For as has been intimated several times and it cannot be inculcated too often Nothing but the Unlawfulness of Communicating can make a Separation Lawful But if it be resolved that the Church of England must be forsaken notwithstanding that neither her Doctrine nor Discipline can be justly condemned it would yet be convenient to bethink our selves what might be the most advisable to be done after we had left it Whether we should set up another way of Administration in the room of it Or whether every one should have the Liberty of following that which he fancied the best If we are for the setting up another way it must be either Presbytery or Independency For if there should be any other new Forms of Government they are not yet of Reputation enough to be put in Competition with these two great Pretenders to Divine Right And Presbytery which had once the fairest hopes of establishing it self is now grown weak and inconsiderable in comparison of what it was and those few which would still be thought of that Perswasion are manifestly departed from their own Principles and are fain to support themselves by Gathered Assemblies which they were not wont to allow Independency therefore seems at this time to be the prevailing way but their manner of Gathering Members and Associating themselves into particular Congregations their holy Band special Agreement or Covenant which they make essential to the Constituting of a Church are things which have not the least foundation in the holy Scriptures neither were they ever Countenanced by the practice of any Orthodox Christians in former Ages But put the case we should admit of either of these Forms of Discipline and Government we should be as far if not farther from being Vnited than we are now For they have both been known to have been very rigorous Imposers wherever they have had the Power of Commanding and as they have sometimes been
so they would soon again become more odious to the several Subdivisions of Dissenters than Episcopacy it self And this being a thing so easily foreseen we are not now urged with the necessity of setting up either of these The great expedient that has been proposed of late is to indulge a Liberty of choosing what Church and what way of Worship any man pleases that is to grant a publick Toleration of divers Religions But this though it might gratifie the present humor of some part of the Nation and serve some mens Occasions better than any Establishment would be quickly disliked by most of those that now contend so Zealously for it For there must needs be a constant Emulation and Strugling betwixt the several Tolerated Parties which would give a continual Disturbance and as soon as any of them began to grow Numerous and Powerful and had any Hopes of succeeding they would presently imagine it very necessary to impose their own Discipline upon all the rest and this probably might soon put an end to the so much desired and magnified way of Toleration Or if we could suppose them contented to allow the same Freedom to others which they injoyed themselves yet it could not possibly be avoided but that this Indulgence must strangely multiply our Divisions while some Members of their Separate Churches would take Offence and withdraw and make choice of a new Pastor and incorporate themselves into another new Church and that after a while upon the like Pretences might be split into another and another and so on without any stop And then this would certainly set open the Gate to a Flood of Heresies and such monstrous and extravagant Opinions as must be confessed by the most prejudiced Dissenter to be of far more dangerous consequence to the cause of Religion than that sober and pious Liturgy and those few indifferent Rites which are now injoined This the experience of the Late Times found to be true The Church of England was no sooner overthrown but some of those that had been the most forward and busie to pull her down when they saw how suddenly the swarms of other Sectaries increased upon them were forced to acknowledge that the Constitution which they had destroyed was a great check and restraint to those Errors which grew Bold and Licencious under the Liberty they had procured The Bishops then who just before had been the common Theme of Popular Obloquy had some good Words unwillingly dropt upon them and their Diligence and Success in suppressing Absurd Heretical and many times Blasphemous Doctrines was allowed some just Commendation That Government which they had traduced and rendered as odious as was possible by all the arts of Defamation that could be used was found upon Trial to be far more desirable by some of its greatest Enemies than that Anarchy and Confusion they had contended for with so much Violence But if we cannot be made sufficiently Apprehensive of the dismal Effects that will almost Naturally follow upon a Publick Toleration yet methinks we should now be a little Suspitious of it since we know it is the main Engine the Papists have been working with these many years If there be no Remedy but that our Church must fall let us not throw it down our selves by methods of their Prescribing let us not act as if we were prosecuting the Designs of the Conclave and proceed just as if we were governed by the Decrees of the pretended Infallible Chair We may be ashamed to look so like Tools in the hands of the Jesuits when we suffer our selves to be guided by those measures which they had taken and talk and do as they would have us as if we were immediately inspired from Rome For we cannot be ignorant that Toleration has been a Device of theirs and it would not be any part of our Wisdom to grow unreasonably fond of the Invention of our Enemies and think to strengthen the Protestant Interest by those very means which their Subtilty and Malice had contrived to destroy it But if this Consideration should be laid aside What need can there be otherwise that we should desire to be Indulged in our departure from a Church when we may Communicate with a safe Conscience As we may certainly do in ours whose greatest Adversaries have not been able after the most curious Search they could make to find out one thing in the whole Constitution which they could positively affirm to be Forbidden and till that can be made appear we must still say that it cannot be Unlawful If the Imposition of some Indifferent things be thought a sufficient ground for a Separation as it is now generally urged since the proof of their Unlawfulness is despaired of then we must have Separated from the Apostolical Churches who had some such Usages as the Holy Kiss and others whose Indifferency is acknowledged by their being wholly disused We must have Separated from the first Churches that succeeded them which had all some Indifferent things injoined We must Separate at this time from all the Reformed Churches in the World for there is none of these which does not require the use of such things as we should judge cause enough to depart from them Nay when we have once Separated from the Church of England upon this account we must then Separate from one another and every man must be a Church by himself for it is impossible that any Society whether meerly Humane or Christian should subsist without the orderly determination of some Indifferent things And sure we can never hope to maintain our Separation upon such a Principle as would not only part us from all the Churches that are or ever were and tear Christendom into ten thousand pieces but scarce leaves us so much as the Notion of a Church and makes Christian Communion absolutely impracticable Let us not give those of Rome the pleasure of seeing that Church which has always opposed them with the greatest Vigor and been the constant mark of their Envy quite Ruined or extreamly Weakned by a pernicious Mistake that would Divide and Divide us again and again and never make any end of Dividing Let us shew at least that we are well inclined unto Peace by coming as far as we can and if there should be any thing that we may possibly suspect to be Unlawful let not this hinder us from joining in those other holy Offices in which we have not any pretence of a Doubt Let not our groundless Scrupling at a Ceremony or two fright us from the whole Worship of God against which we have not any Exceptions And for those that esteem our Communion in all particulars utterly Unlawful which I suppose are but very few and I know they have but very slight Arguments for the severe Judgment they pass upon us if they will meet let them do it in the most private manner that they can without any vain Ostentation of their Numbers which cannot be any Satisfaction to their Consciences but may make their Adherents over forward and bold and tend to the creating of Jealousies in the Government And while they are upon these terms they cannot reasonably expect any Connivance They might sooner hope for it from his Majesties wonted and often experienced Clemency when they shall make it appear that their Dissent is modest and humble and such as has no other but a Religious Design in it Than when they assume a high degree of Confidence and think to extort Indulgencies by Clamors and Discontents and resolve to Assemble openly in Opposition to a Royal Command as if it were a piece of Christian Fortitude to outbrave Authority These are but ill Methods of courting the Favour of a Prince But I hope for the future we shall all upon all Occasions behave our selves as becomes good Subjects and sober Christians and make no Disturbances neither on a Civil nor Ecclesiastical account Let it Pity us at last to see the Ghastly Wounds that are still renewed by the continuance of our Divisions Let us have some Compassion on a Bleeding Church that is ready to Faint and in eminent Danger of being made a prey to her Enemies by the unnatural Heats and Animosities of those that should Support and Defend her Why should we leave her thus Desolate and Forlorn when her present Exigencies require our most Cordial Assistance If the condition of her Communion were such as God's Laws did not allow we might forsake her that had forsaken him But since this cannot be Objected against her since she exacts no Forbidden thing of us Let us strengthen her Hands by our unanimous Agreement and since we do not Condemn her Doctrine let us not Despise her Worship since the Substantials of Religion are the same let not the Circumstances of external Order and Discipline be any longer an Occasion of Difference amongst us And so shall we bring Glory to God a happy Peace to a Divided Church a considerable Security to the Protestant Religion and probably Defeat the subtle Practices of Rome which now stands gaping after All and hopes by our Distractions to repair the losses she has suffered by the Reformation May the Wisdom of Heaven make all Wicked Purposes unsuccessful and the blessed Spirit of Love heal all our Breaches and prosper the Charitable Endeavours of those that follow after PEACE Amen FINIS John 17. 20 21. Eph. 4. 3 4 5 6. Phil. 2. 1 2. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Rom. 14. 19. Acts 4. 32. Ch. 2. 42. Exod. 25. 40. Heb. 3. 5 6. Luk. 22. 19. 1 Cor. 11. 23 24 25. Heb. 13. 17. See 2 Sam. 17. 1 Chron. 17. 2 Chron. 6. 8. John 10. 22. 1 Cor. 14. 40. Heb. 13. 17. Rom. 4. 15. 1 Cor. 6. 12. 10. 23. Matth. 6. 9 c. Luke 11. 2. Ezek. 33. 32. Common Prayer in the Catech. Ibid. in Publick Baptism Josh 22. 26. Acts 15. 29. Rubr. after the Communion See Rom. 14. 1 Cor. 8. See Rubr. before the Communion 1 Cor. 11. 21. Ver. 28. 2 Tim. 4 3. Joh. 11. 52.