mens mouths doth never make you scruple their Communion I intreat you do but study an answer to one that would separate from you all upon such grounds as these First for the sin consider of these texts Exod. 23. 1 2. Thou shalt not raise a false report put not thy hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest it Psalm 15. 3. He that backhiteth not with his tongue nor doth evil to his neighbour nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour Rom. 1. 30. Backbiters â—aters of God 2 Cor. 12. 20. Lest there be debate strifes backbibitings whisperings c. Prov. 25. 23. An angry counterance driveth away a backbiting tongue Tit. 3. 1 2. Put them in mind to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man 1 Pet. 2. 1. Laying aside evil speakings 1 Tim. 6. 4. Whereof cometh evil surmisings Eph. 4. 31. Let evil speakings be put away from you Jud. 10. These speak evil of those things which they know not Jam. 4. 11. Speak not evil one of another He that speaketh evil of another and judgeth another speakevil of the Law and judgeth the Law Have you more and plainer texts of Scripture agninst the Common Prayer than all these are Now suppose one should say that a people of such sin as this should not be Communicated with especially where there is no discipline exercised that ever so much as calleth one man of them to repentance for it what answer will you give to this which will not confute your own objections against Communion with many Parish Churches in this Land 5. Lastly hence note how still overdoing is undoing By the Principles of Love and Peace conteined in the book which some reproach had they not disowned them they might have had their part in this just Vindication against them that accuse the Non-conformists Principles of Enmity to Love and Peace But they would have no part in it and have cast away their own vindication and so have confirmed their accusers and tempted them to believe that some Non-conformists are indeed such as they described But I must again intreat them to distinguish Many sects go under the name of Nonconformists from whom we differ incomparably more than we do from the Conformists as the Quakers Seekers Bâ—hmenists and some others We are none of those men that because we all suffer together under the Prelacy do therefore more close with these than with the Conformists with whom in doctrine and the substance of worship we agree But because it is their own resolved choice to disown the Principles and Vindication of that book I shall only say I. To our Accusers It is not these Dividers which we Vindicate that will not stand to our Vindication II. To posterity whose historical Information of the truth of matters in this age I much desire If you would know what sort of men they are that these times call sectaries and Dividers or separatists I will give you but their own Character of themselves that you may be sure I wrong them not Peruse the book called The Cure of Church-Divisions for they are persons so contrary to that book as that they take it to be an evil and mischievous thing and greatly to be lamented and detested in so much that some of them say It had been well if the Author had dyed ten years ago and others that this book hath done more harm than ever he did good in all his life So intolerable is it to them to have their Love-killing and dividing principles so much as thus contradicted while they cry out against the Imposing spirit of others The measure of their distaste against these Principles of Love and Unity I leave you to gather out of the exceptions which I am now to answer CAP. 2. The true state as the Controversie between me and those whom I call Church-Dividers BEcause the Excepter carrieth it all along as if he understood not what I say or would not have his Reader understand it I must state the Case as it standeth between us for the sake of them that love not to be deceived nor to be angry at they know not what Know therefore that the design of the Writer of that Book was to restore Love and Unity among Christians which he saw decaying and almost dying through the temptation of our sufferings from some and our differences with others and through the sidings of parties and through the passions which conquer some mens judgements and the hy 〈…〉 e of others who place their Religion in their sidings and in the forms or fashions of the words of their prayers or the circumstances of outward Worship And to acquaint Christians with the wiles of Satan who would kill their Grace by killing their Love whilst they think they do but preserve their Purity And to open to them the secret windings of the Serpent and the workings of Pride and Wrath and Selfishness against the works of Love and Peace And to shew them the great deceitfulness of mans heart which often fighteth against God as for God by fighting against Love and Unity and which oft loseth all by seeming to overcome and forsaketh Religion by seeming valiant for it And I especially intreat the Reader to note that I said much more about Principles than Practices Because I know that as to Communion with this or that Church mâ—ns practices may vary upon accidental and prudential accounts of which I pretend not to be a Judge And therefore I first speak against Love killing Principles and then against such Practices only as either proceed from such Principles or increase them If I see a man stay from Church as I know not his reasons so I judge him not unless as he doth it upon sinful causes and especially if he would propagate those Causes to others and justifie them to be of God when they are against him And whereas Hatred and Enmity worketh by driving men from each others Societies as wicked or intolerable and Love worketh by inclining men to Union and Communion and again mens distance increaseth the Enmity which caused it and their nearness and familiarity increaseth Love and reconcileth them I did therefore think it a matter of great necessity to our welfare to counsel men to all lawful nearness and Communion and to disswade them from all unnecessary alienation and separation from each other Let the Reader also understand that in this my purpose was not to condemn mens separation from the Parish Churches only nor more than any other sinful separation But from any true Church of Christians whatsoever when uncharitable Principles drive them away Whether it be from Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Arminians Lutherans c. Only because that those I deal most with make most exceptions against Communion with the Parish Churches I bestowed most words in answering such exceptions Therefore
Of free-will Exc. 33. 34. Of other mistakes of the Excepter Exc. 35. Whether no persecution may consist with love Exc. 36. 37. Of the fewness of believers c. Exc. 38. More of his mistakes Exc. 39. Whether the same Spirit may not now use the ancient Prayers and Responses which first brought them in or used them Exc. 40. Of my comparing Ol. Cromwell to Maximus and whether I dedicated a flattering Book to his Son Exc. 41. Of his imputation of levity The Conclusion with some advice to the Excepter and a lamentation for the decay of Love A POSTSCRIPT SHewing how far as Mr. Jacob and the old Independents so the New England Pastors and Elders and Magistrates are from approving of the Principles of Separation Reasons why I am against the new terms of Church-membership and the approaches of some Independents toward Separation Reasons why the Independent Churches should as much fear the principles of Separation as any THE PREFACE TO THOSE READERS Who are of the Excepters mind and are offended at my Book called THE CURE OF Church-Divisions BRethren why should I wonder at the fruits of those weaknesses which we are all subject to some more some less in this state of imperfection and which I so lately told you of at large in my Character of and Directions for Weak-Christians If a spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in Paul and other the Apostles of our Lord could not overcome these lamentable failings in their hearers and followers in the Primitive Church why should such as I look for more success If Paul thought his Galatians foolish and bewitched Gal. 3. 1. and his Corinthian Christians to be babes yea Carnal and not Spiritual because there were among them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 envying strife and divisions or as the words signifie zeal or emulation strife and separations or factions or dividing into several parties while one saith I am of Paul and another I am of Apollos what wonder if we are no better now But our sins are not the less because that others had the like but the greater because we take not warning by them when the spirit of God hath so smartly reprehended them I have as little reason as you to be ignorant what provocations the present militating and exasperated parties do give each others and how fair pretenses uncharitableness hath obtained And I know but few of you that have either more openly put themselves into the breach and attempted more to have prevented both severities against you and the present divisions among us than I have done or that have undergone more wrath and calumny to mention no other kind of sufferings for such attempts than I have done you cannot justly think that it is for want of your provocations and temptations to discontent that I am not of your mind I have had as many and great provocations as most of you all And I am not naturally without those passions which would take advantage by such usage A multitude of fierce and reproachful Volumes are written against me many of them abounding with gross untruths in matter of fact to all which I have for peace sake been silent to this day And none that know me do think that it is to escape mens wrath that I have been more for peace and unity than you I will do that right to them that have done me but little as to testifie that I verily believe could my Conscience comply with their Opinions and wills I could as soon have their favour as most among you But God is still the God of Love and Peace and Concord and so must all his servants be He changeth not and we must not change from this which is his Image This is my Religion and if any mens provocations must change me from this they must change my Religion I am not for such fruits of suffering as some late eminent prisoners in London were who turned Quakers in prison and lost their Religion with their liberty nor will I pretend Conscience for the defiling of my Conscience and the forsaking of the sacred life of Love Do you not your selves condemn a Carnal state Remember then that they are Carnal who are contentious dividers in the Churches 1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3. You will I doubt not joyn with me in disallowing of a fleshly mind and life Remember then that the workes of the flesh are these as adulteries fornications c. So also hatred or enmities variance emulations wrath strife seditions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dividings into parties heresies envyings c. I know you will confess that if any man have not the spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8. 9. Remember then that the Spirit of Christ is the spirit of Love Love to God and man is that Divine nature which God indueth all Christs members with The fruit of the spirit is Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Gal. 5. 20 21 22. When we think our selves wiser than those we differ from let us not shew it by masterly censoriousness or contempt but by being as much more Loving and peaceable than they are My brethren be not many Masters knowing that ye shall receive the greater condemnation And when other mens faults rise up before you watch both your passions and your tongues remembring that In many things we all offend And if any man offend not in word the same is a perfect man and able to bridle the whole body Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom But if ye have a bitter envious zeal and strife in your hearts glory not and lie not against the truth This wisdom descendeth not from above but is earthly sensual devillish For where envying zeal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Jam. 3. 1 2 13 14 15 16. Brethren no change of times will allow me to change from this which is my Religion No injuries from men will excuse me if I forsake it I hope I shall not be such a changeling in this which is the Great Command of the Gospel and the fulfilling of the Law and the very Heart of all Religion as to turn from it for a prison or a voluminous calumny and reproach I confess I must change but I hope it will be to turn still to more and more Love and Concord and not to Less It is not thank worthy to Love those that Love us nor to speak well of those that use us well nor to take it patiently when we are bussetted or punished for our faults But if we suffer for well doing and lose none of our Love or patience or integrity by our sufferings happy are we Alas how sadly do many mistake that fear only yielding to those whom they suffer by and do not fear those passions which would quench their Love and turn them unto sects
by such sad divisions whereby their cheerfulness in his Love and service would be abated and forreign Enemies would be encouraged to attempts against our peace and safety and if ever they should invade us it maketh me tremble to think how our divisions would debilitate us and hazard all our common security and hopes Yea how uncomfortable a thing it must needs be to the King to rule such a divided people that live in a heart-war among themselves in comparison of ruling a loving and concordant sort of men In a word I knew that a house or Kingdom divided against it self would not stand And though I could not make the Bishops believe me I knew that divisions lamentable divisions were like to be the consequent of the things which then I so importunately petitioned and intreated them to forbear I knâ—w it for I could not choose but knâ—w it And for these reasons I wrote I pleaded I earnestly contended with them as I did while there appeared any hope as being loth to have seen the things which I have already seen and God knoweth to how much worse we are going if Grace and Wisdom yet prevent it not And though I exasperated the sore which I would have cured and have ever since my self lain under their displeasure yet I have peace in the testimony of my Conscience that I did my best to have prevented our miseries while I had time 2. And I would give notice to the other party that whilst I pleaded for their liberty and against the Imposing of unnecessary things I took not all the things in question for unlawful to be done which I thought unlawful to be made necessary to our Communion or Ministration All knew that my judgement ever was for the lawfulness of kneeling at the Sacrament especially since the Rubrick is inserted which disclaimeth both all Bread Worship and the Bodily real presence And we all as is said thought a Liturgie lawful and when we wrote our Reply to the Answer of our Exceptions we said these words which may tell you whether I change my mind and what was then our common sense pag. 3. While we took it to be a defective disorderly and inconvenient Mode of Worship it would be our sin to use it of choice while we may prefer a more convenient way whatever we ought to do in case of necessity when we must worship God inconveniently or not at all And pag. 12 13. What if it be only proved unlawful for you to impose it though not for others to joyn with you when you do impose it Is this no reason 〈◊〉 alter it Should you not have some care to avoid sin your selves as well as to preserve others from it An inconvenient Mode of Worship is a sin in the Impâ—ser and in the Chooser and Voluntary user that may offer God better and will not And yet it may not be only lawful but a duty to him that by violence is necessitated to offer up that or none By this you may see what we all thought then of not only hearing but reading a defective Liturgie in such a case If you say that this was but my own Opinion I answer Though as they wrote the particular Exceptions without me so I wrote this Defence of them by their appointment yet it was examined and consented to by the rest who were not men apt to take things on trust nor to be impâ—sed on by such a one as me When this Treaty was frustrate and the torrent of displeasure came upon us which reached me with the first I saw also that the storm of mens passions and discontents would quickly follow And therefore according to my own judgement and advice to others I endeavoured to practise my self that is neither to forsake my Calling or omit any service I could do for the Church nor yet to do it in a turbulent and unpeaceable or dividing way For the first I thought writing was my greatest work which made me not travail abroad to Preach which also weakness disabled me from doing But yet I never to my remembrance either forbad any from coming to my house nor ever invited any to hear me I had no Pastoral Charge in London nor could I live there with my health My judgement was that though so many hundred Ministers were silenced and too many Congregations had such as were to us matter of grief yet the Interest of the Christian Protestant Religion in England must be much kept up by keeping up as much of Truth Piety and Reputation as was possible in the Parish Churches Therefore I never laboured or disputed to make any Minister a Non-conformist unless he came to me and by desiring my judgement made it my duty Though I oft openly professed that if I conformed my self to what is required of a Minister I should take it to be no little or single sin I remembred the saying of Mr. Dod who thanked God for the Churches sake that some conformed and for the Truths sake that some conformed not I resolved that if I lived where was an intolerable Minister I would not hear him nor come near him so as to encourage him in his sinful undertaking of that Sacred Office But if I lived under an able worthy or tolerable man I would joyn with him in publick constantly if I had not caeteris paribus the liberty of better and sometimes if I had And I would help him by my private labours as well as I could and live with him in Unity and Peace Accordingly I constantly joyned in the publick Prayers and hearing at the Parish Church where I lived having no better that I could go to and never Preached to my family but between the times of publick Worship and the people that came in to me wenâ— with me to the publick Worship In all this time many persons importuned me to indeavour that all Non-conformists might agree in one by what measures to walk as to their Communion with the Parish Churches and such other things for many reasons And I ever shanned all such attempts 1. Because it is the way that we have blamed so much in others to make narrow measures for other mens practices and unnecessary terms of Brotherly Concord We must unite as Christians in necessary things and if one man can e. g. kneel at the Sacrament and another cannot if one can joyn in Common-prayer and another cannot yea if one can Conform to the Liturgie and Ceremonies and another cannot it must not break our unity or peace 2. Because that Non-conformists are not all of the same judgement in every particular among themselves And how can they then agree upon the same practice in every point If they should either the most scrupulous must come up to them that think that lawful which they scruple or else the later must come to the former If they yield that think the things unlawful and do as the others do they shall sin And then they might as well Conform And
the truth which I assert which is as plain for it as can well be spoken The whole Chapter shewing that the weake brother that Paul speaketh of was one that with Conscience of the Idol did eate it as a thing offered to an Idol and their Conscience being weak was defiled ver 7. 9 And it is one whose Conscience is emboldened or confirmed to eate those things which are offered to idols and thereby he may perish ver 10 11. And it is he that is not displeased but made to offend And the scandalizing which Paul would avoid is called becoming a stumbling to them that are weak ver 9. Emboldening to that heinous sin ver 10. Making a brother to offend v. 13. twice over Is this think you displeasing the innocent or rather tempting those that are apt to sin and confirming the faulty Read what Dr. Hammond saith of their weakness and what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth there and then further tell me 1. Whether you mean such weak ones that you would not have me offend 2. Whether those that are most displeased with us for Communion in the Liturgie be such as you will say are most in danger of yielding to sin 3. Whether you would do as Paul doth Call those weak brethren who to that day did eate in Idols temples and that as a thing offered to idols 4. Whether Paul commanded the Corinthians to separate from the Church because such men were in their Communion 5. Whether Paul himself in communicating with that Church did not that which you write against 6. Whether by this rule we should not take heed most of scandalizing those Christians that are aptest to sin 7. Whether this text which you so abuse well considered is not sufficient against all your Cause and for that which I maintain EXCEPT XIII p. 6. Answered Here is nothing but 1. His saying that He may well doubt of the truth of what I report viz. whether any or many faithful Ministers would so reproach their people and their honourable name which is upon them as to call them pievish and self conceited Christians Answ. 1. Are there any such Christians or not 2. If they are should their fault be healed or cherished 3. If healed should it be reproved or concealed But I will answer this further anon when it comes in again 2. He doubts not but those that thus complained to me expected so much prudence and faithfulness in me as to conceal their Complaints and not vent them now when the state of affairs is so much altered Answ. Here are two untruths implied 1. That these complaints were only made in secret with an expectation that not only the persons but the case it self should be concealed But how did he know this Might not many of them be men that since conform and make the same complaint now openly Yes I could name you more than one such Might not some be such as have done the same in print themselves Yes Old Mr. Rob. Abbot was one who after removed to Austins London and died there before Mr. Ash. If you will but read his book against separation you will see thathe silenced not such matters but hath said more than ever you are able well to answer 2. It is not true that these Complaints were only made before the state of affairs was altered for I have oft heard it since with greater sense of it than ever before Nor is it any dishonour to a Minister not to be ignorant of Satans wiles The more they know them the liker they are to overcome them 3. In his conclusion are two more mistakes but because they are prophetical I will not count them with the grossest The first is that he hopes that hereafter all that fear God will be very careful how they make any complaint unto a Person The Second who will take the next worst occasion to revile a whole innocent and Godly Party by a malicious publishing of it Whereas 1. Since the writing of his book I have had complaints against such as he by many that fear God 2. And he cannot prove what he prophesieth I will do But yet two more untruths are implied in the prophesie 1. That I will revile a whole Innocent Godly suffering Party when I protested I meant no particular party but those of every party Episcopal Presbyterian Independent Anabaptist c. who through want of Love are aptest causelesly to condemn their brethren and avoid them unless he will call all the Ignorant Proud and Uncharitable of all parties by the name of a whole Godly suffering party 2. That I will revile them maliciously unless he mean that writing for Love and Unity is a malicious act against Satan and his Kingdom EXCEPT XIV Hereafter I must number them for he is weary of it Answered This hath little worthy observation but his 12th Untruth viz. that by mentioning the separatist as a distinct body of men from the Antinomian Quaker and Anabaptist it is evident I can mean no other but my Presbyterian and Congregational brethren which he follows with An Appeal to God against this Slanderer and earnestly prayeth that he would please to rebuke him Whether this earnest prayer be a Curse and whether it be like to that rule to pray for them that curse us and whether this brother himself doth not in these very words put his error into his earnest prayer even in print and so verifie what he would so vehemently gainsay to say nothing of the Common fame in London that he that is famed to be the Author of these Exceptions kept a day of Humiliation about me and my book I leave to the Readers observation And also whether this earnest prayer or Curse and this bold Appeal to God be not prophane and rather a fruit of passion than charitable zeal And whether he here knew what spirit he was of But to his Untruth I answer 1. I protested openly that my meaning was not what he affirmeth it to be And could he know it better than I 2. An Antinomian and Anabaptist as such are distinct from Separatists as such But doth it follow that therefore they may not be Separatists also that are Antinomians and Anabaptists Though the Errors whence the Sects are denominated be various 3. I have long ago in many books told the Papists that I mean them as the Chief Schismaticks and Sect and Dr. Hide for the first page of his book what I thought of him And the Lutherans that so resist all the endeavours of Dury Calixtus Bergius Lud. Crocius and many more in refusing Communion with the Calvinists that I mean them And here I profess that I mean no other party of men at all but the Dividers of all parties whatsoever even in the beginning of my Preface And yet alas brother did you not tremble first to publish so gross an Untruth and when you had done to ground your Appeal to God and earnest prayer against me upon it
and Universities and humane Learning And Mr. Norton of New England told me that with them A Church separated from a Church or was gathered out of it rejecting their Pastors and choosing unlearned men and would receive and endure none that had humane Learning and that Moses and Aaron as his words were Magistrates and Ministers went down on their knees to them with tears and could not move them to relent unto unity or to receive a learned Minister nor get any answer from them but that is your judgement and this is ours I speak his very words as neer as I can possibly spoken to old Mr. Ash and me before his yet living companion Mr. Broadstreet a Magistrate of New England Now all this the common people are against Must we therefore be against Magistrates Ministers Ordinances and all because the common people are for them How commonly are they against the Quakers and the Familists and the Infidels and Heathens and with us the Papists Are all these therefore in the right Let any Familist deny the Scripture or the immortality of the soul and the common people will be against them Must we deny God and Christ because we live in a land where they are owned Brother consider 1. That some truths the light of nature teacheth all 2. And some common illumination teacheth multitudes of bad men 3. And some good education and the tradition of their fathers and the Laws of the Countrey teacheth 4. And some are better persons among those that you separate from than many are that separate from them Let not us then be bad and more erroneous than those whom you account the worse and all because they are no worse The Text which you wish me to read on my knees I have done so and I thank you for that advice but I answer not your hope of retracting what I have written in that but contrarily 1. On my knees I pray God to forgive you such abuse of Scripture 2. And to give you a sounder mind For the Text speaketh of Infidels or denyers of Christs incarnation and maketh this the differencing Character Every spirit that confesseth that Iesus is come in the flesh is of God and so on the contrary But are all these Christians that you plead for separation from and charge with Idolatry Infidels and denyers of Christ And all the Churches on earth that use a Liturgie O brother you use not Scripture oâ— the Church aright We grant that in professed Christians also the carnal mind is enmity to God and they that are most carnal are likest to reject the truth But yeâ— we would not wish you to measure Truth by the quality of the Receiver For Christ is truly Christ though many workers of iniquity shall say we have prophesied in thy name Many hereticks have been strict and temperate when the greater part of the Orthodox have been too loose Yet that did not prove the Christian doctrine to be false EXCEPT XXXI Answered I have little here to do but number your visible Untruths in matter of fact One is 21th Untruth He flyes upon all sides that are for order in any kind When I speak not a word against Order nor against any side but the instances of some mens extreams which all that are for Order hold not Your 22d Untruth is Without expressing himself whether he is for Papal Presbyterian or Independent Government in the Church And if this were not crime enough to seem unsetled in so necessary a point What signification have I given of unsetledness When I have long ago publickly told the World my judgement about all this to the full in my five Disputations of Church Government and in a Book called Christian Concord and another called Universal Concord another of Confirmation besides many more But might not a man be setled that were as I am in the main of the same judgement as is expressed in the Waldenses or Bohemian Government described by Laseitius and Commenius which taketh in the best of Episcopacy Presbytery and Independency and leaveth out the worst and the unnecessary parts Are all the Hungarian and Transilvanian and old Polonian Protestants that come neer this order withour Order or unsetled 3. It is your 23d Untruth that I write very dubiously about Iustification whether we are to take it to be by Faith or by works When as all that I was here to say of it is spoken very plainly I have written many books to make my mind as plain as it is possible for me to speak As in my Confession my Disputations of Iustification my Apologies my Answer to Dr. Barlow and in my Life of Faith which was printed before this where I have detected a multitude of errors about Justification and many more And if you expect every time I name Justification I should write the summ of all those books over again I shall fail your expectation though I incur your censure who no doubt ' had I done it would justly have censured such repetition for tedious vanity You adde We fear he is not sound in that point Answ. Your fear is your best confutation and the best assistance that you afford to make me as wise and judicious as your self The Lord say you We hope in mercy to his Church and particularly to those who have been deceived into a good opinion of him will bring this man upon his knees that he may make a publick acknowledgement of his folly Answ. If that be your work it is the same with his that it is said you sometime wrote against so many Volumes have been written already by Papists Prelatists Anabaptists Quakers Seekers and many other Sects for this very end to cure mens good opinion of me as if a man that could but think ill of me were in a fairer hope of his Salvation that if all these have not yet accomplish'd it nor all the famous Sermons that have been preach'd against me I doubt brother that your endeavours come too late You may perswade some few factioâ—s credulous souls into hatred but still those that love God will love one another And I confess of all that ever I saw I least sear your book as to the bringing men out of a good opinion of me unless your name and back-bitings can do it When you say that I say that The presumptuous do boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness in conscience and honesty you should not have left out without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their part Is this just dealing Are there no such presumptuous boasters Or will you justifie them all that you may but vent your wrath on me My judgement in the foresaid point of Imputation of Christs Righteousness I have opened at large in the foresaid writings The Life of Faith Confession Disp. of Iustif c. EXCEPT XXXII p. 18. Answered I said The good of nature is lovely in all men as men even in
Christians and in particular between the Non-conformists and Conformists 1. The General Part or Introduction Chap. 1. A Narrative of those late Actions which have occasioned mens displeasure of both sides against me The Reasons of my omitting the Narration of those former Actions which Mr. Durel and many others have reported falsly because they wrote of that which they knew not The Reasons of my earnest displeasing endeavours with the Bishops for Reconciling and Uniting terms in 1660. Our Common Profession about a Liturgie at that time and about this Liturgie and my practiee ever since How the Non-conformists must be united among themselves Of our judgement about Communion in the Liturgie and Sacrament with the Parish Churches in aâ— 1663. My ends in opening this 27. Reasons for the writing and publishing my Book called The Cure of Church-Divisions A word of the Debatemaker Of the filse reports that have been vented of my Book aâ—d me and of some Inferences to be noted by the Reporters Chap. 2. The state of the Controversie which I specialy managed in that Book with thâ—se that I called Diâ—iders Chap. 3. Objections and Questions about this subject Quest. 1. Doth not the second Commandment and Gods oft expressed jealousie in the matters of his Worship make it a sin to communicate in the Liturgie Quest. 2. Doth not the Covenant make it now unlawfull Quest. 3. Whether the case be not much altered since the Old Non-câ—nformists wrote against separation then called Brownisme And whether we have not greater Light into these Controversies than they had Quest. 4 Is it not a shameful receding from our Reformation now to use an unreformed Liturgie and a pulling down what we have been building Quest. 5. Will it not strengthen and encourage the adversaries of Reformation Quest. 6. Will it not divide us among our selves while one goeth to the Parish Churches and another doth not Quest. 7. Shall we not countenance Church Tyranny and harden Prelates in their usurpations and invite them to go further and make more burdens of Ceremonies or Forms to lay upon the Churches The manifold danger of feigning the Scripture to be a particular Rule where it is none The Contents of the Answer to the Exceptions Except 1. False Worship distinguished and opened Whether I speak very little against persecution Exc. 2. Whether I was as guilty as any one whatsoever in stirring up and fomenting the War Whether it be unbecoming a Minister to blame the sin which he hath been guilty of or to blame the Effects if he encouraged the Cause Whether nothing of the late Military Actions be to be openly repented of Whether I never mention the prophane but with honour Exc. 3. Of partial tenderness as to Reproof Whether my prayer was jesting c. Exc. 4. Of the supposed Expressions of my Pride Exc. 5. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 6. What separation Scripture calleth us to and what not Exc. 7. Of the Corruptions in the primitive Churches and of Imposing Exc. 8. Whether I be a Revealer of mens secrets Exc. 9. Whether the Universality of Christians ever took the Pope for their Head Of my Dispute with Mr. Johnson alias Terret on that point Whether all History be uncertain Whether it be intolerable to say that the Papists understand not that answer which is Christian sense and reason Exc. 10. Of Local Communion of separating from the particular Churches which we were never members of Exc. 11. Of Censurers requitals Whether a Papist can go beyond a Reprobate Exc. 12. Of Scandal and of Pauls case 1 Cor. 8. explained Exc. 13. More of my revealing secrets and other of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 14. Whether by Separatists I meant the Independents as such Exc. 15. Whether I speak slightly of Prayer in comparison of Study Whether it be a slighting of Christ to say that he increased in wisdom which is opened Whether Christ needed not prayer but as a pattern to us c. Exc. 16. Of expounding Scripture by the Impressions set upon our minds in Melancholy How the Spirit cureth our fears and giveth us comfort by twelve acts Exc. 17. Whether my saying that God hateth neither extemporate prayers nor forms be as if I could never speak meanly enough of prayer Whether I be a Trifler that neither believe the Scripture or my self for saying that in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and prayers by habit were used and that Christ yet made no question about them Seldens words upon the Iews Liturgies Exc. 18. Whether I did ill in disswading men from jeering and jesting at other true Christians manner of Worship And whether I purposely justifie persecution Exc. 19. Whether all be Idolatry which is used in the Worship of God without a Command of God to make it lawful The unhappy consequents of making so many Christians and Churches Idolatrous Exc. 20. More of the Excepters mistakes Exc. 21. Whether our presence at the prayers of every Church be a professing of consent to all that is faulty in those prayers Exc. 22. Of not silencing any truth for peace Exc. 23. Of imprudent speeches to superiours Exc. 24. Whether there â—e any weak ignorant and injudicious Christians and whether they hereby have been any cause of our divisions And whether these be vile Epithets not to be given to Christians but instead of them all Christians are to be told that they have the anointing and know all things Twenty proofs of such ignorance And the greatness of their sin especially Ministers that would hide it or deny it at this time manifested in forty aggravations Exc. 25. Whether any hearers use to be more moved with the affectionate delivery of meaner than with a colder delivery of more excellent things Of my forsaking the Lords work Exc. 26. Whether there be any Article necessary to salvation unknown to the universal Church Whether in points of difficult speculation one clear judicious well studied Divine be not to be more hearkened to than the Major Vote Whether the perfection and plainness of the Scriptures prove all Christians to be of equal understanding or to need no others help Exc. 27. Whether honest people be not in danger of following others into error and sin And whether to say so be enough to make people afraid of being honest Exc. 28. Whether it be new or intolerable to advise men not to imitate Religious people in the sins which they are most prone to What it is to flatter Professors of Religion and what it is in them to expect it Exc. 29. Of the name of a Sect. Exc. 30. Whether we must avoid that good which is owned by bad men Exc. 31. Of his accusations of my unsetledness in the point of Church Government and suspectedness in the point of Iustification Exc. 32. Whether we can speak bad enough of corrupted Nature Twenty instances of speaking too bad of it Whether I understand by the flesh only the sensitive Appetive Whether I be strongly inclined to deny Original sin
never tell any of their sins nor preach repentance to them whilst I lived and that I must not deny my duty and Charity to one sort because another sort will not receive it and seeing also necessity increase and having already writen and said so much to the other party I resolved to imitate those two excellent faithful Tractates viz. 1. Mr. M. Pool's Vox clamantis in deserto in Latine calling the Non-conformable Ministers to Repentance and Mr. Lewis Stukeley's a worthy Congregational Minister in Exeter and a kinsman of the late General Monkes enumerating copiously most of the Common sins of Religious Professors and calling them earnestly and faithfully to repentance which since the writing of this I find excellently done in a book called Englands danger and only Remedy And therefore I first published some old notes written eleven or twelve years ago called Directions for weak Christians and annexed to it The Character of a sound Christian In both which I wrote that which was as like to have exasperated the impatient as this book is And yet I heard of no complaints And afterward I wrote this which I now defend and sent it to the Licenser who upon perusal refused to License it And so it lay by and I purposed to meddle with it no more But leaving it in the Booksellers hands that had offered it to be Licensed after a long time he got it done and so unexpectedly it revived The Reasons of my writing it were no fewer than all these following which I now submit to the judgement of all men truly peaceable and impartial who value the interest of Christianity and of the universal Church above their own 1. To make up my foregoing Directions to weak Christians more compleat Having directed them about the private matters of their souls I intended this as another Part to Direct them in order to the Churches Peace 2. Many good people of tender Consciences and weak judgements desiring my advice about Communion in the publick Assemblies I found it meetest to publish this general Advice for all to save me the labour of speaking to particular persons and to serve those that lived further off 3. I saw those Principles growing up apace in this time of prevocation which will certainly increase or continue our divisions if they continue and increase I am sure that our wounds are made by wounding principles of doctrine And it must be healing doctrines that must heal us And I know that we cannot be healed till doctrinal principles be healed To give way to the prevalency of dividing Opinions is to give up our hopes of future unity and peace And to give up our hopes of Unity and Peace is to despair of all true Reformation and happiness of the Church on earth If ever the Church be reduced to that Concord Strength and Beauty which all true Christians do desire I am past doubt that it must be by such principles as I have here laid down 4. But my grand reason was that I might serve the Church of Christ in the reviving and preservation of Christian Love As it was an extraordinary measure of the Spirit which Christ made his Witness in the Gospel Church so is it as extraordinary a measure of Love which he maketh the New Commandment and the mark of all his true Disciples And whether afflicting on one side and unmerciful and unjust censures on the other side one driving away and the other flying away be either a sign or means of Love And whether taking others to be intolerable in the Church and unworthy of our Communion and separating from or avoiding the Worship where they are present be likely to kindle Love or to kill it let any man judge that hath himself the exercise of Reason and unfeigned Love I know that this is the hour of Temptation to the sufferers to stir up passion and distaste and that men have need of more than ordinary grace and watchfulness and therefore of more than ordinary helps warning to preserve due Love and keep out an undue hatred of those by whom they suffer And how great a temptation also their censures and discontents will prove to their Superiours and others by whom they suffer and what unspeakable hurt it may do their sâ—uls may easily be conjectured This sin will prove our greatest loss 5. Hereupon men will be engaged in sinful Actions of injustice and uncharitableness against each other They will be glad to hear and forward to believe hard and false reports of one another And too forward to vent such behind one anothers backs And there is no doubt but many of each party already think worse of the other commonly than they are Though alas we are all too bad and some egregiously wicked And those Persons and Churches that would censure a man for Curses or Oaths should also censure men for slanders and backbitings And should I not do my best to prevent such a course of daily sin 6. Both violence and separation tend to divide the builders themselves and keep the Ministers in contending with and Preaching and Writing against each other which should be employed in an unanimous opposition to the Kingdom of Satan in the world And when all their united wisdom and strength is too little against the common Ignorance and Prophaneness of the world their division will disable them and give sin and Satan opportunity to prevail 7. It may engage them on both sides in the dreadful fin of persecuting each other one party by the Hand and the other by the Tongue even while they cry out of persecution And on both sides to hinder the Gospel and mens salvation on one side by hindering the Preachers from their work and on the other side yea on both by hindring the success For what can be more done to make men despise the word than to teach them to despise or abhor the Preacher And what more can be done to destroy mens souls than to harden them against the Word Is there any sâ—bâ—r man on either extream that dare say I would have none of the people saved that are not or will not be the hearers of our party If you dare not say that you would have all the rest to be damâ—ed dare you say you would not have them be taught by others Or that you would not have them profit by the Word they hear If not how dare you tempt them to vilifie and despise their Teachers If they will not learn of you be glad if they will learn of any other and do not hinder them 8. By these means they will cherish an hypocritical sort of Religiousness in the people which is more employed in Sidings Opinions and Censurings of others than in humble self-judging and in a holy heavenly mind and life A man need not the Spirit of God and supernatural Grace nor much Self-denyal nor Mortification of the flesh to make him choose a certain fashion of external Worship and think that now he
observe 1. That it is none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with the Parish Churches alone and no other 2. Nor Whether you should Communicate with every Parish Church or any one whose Pastors are through insufficiency heresie or impiety intolerable which I have written against Dir. 36. p. 202 c. 3. Nor Whether we may hold local Communion in Worship with a Church which denyeth us such Communion unless we will sin This I have oft enough denyed p. 203 c. 4. Nor Whether caeteris paribus local Communion with a purer and better Church be not ordinarily to be preferred before local Communion with a worse which I assert p. 203 c. 5. Nor Whether a man be a Separatist from another Church meerly because he is not locally present with it For then when I am in one Church I separate from all other in the world 6. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove ones dwelling for Communion with a better Minister and Church supposing that we are free p. 204. 7. Nor Whether it be lawful to remove to a better Church without removing ones dwelling in a place where another Church is near to which we may go without any publick injury or hurt to our selves or others which is greater than the benefit pag. 204. 8. Nor Whether we may remove both from Church and Countrey by the occasions of our Callings or Trades or other outward weighty reasons pag. 298. 9. Nor Whether we may keep in Communion privately with our lawful Pastors if they be turned out of the publick Temples Which I have asserted pag. 299. and have said that where the Pastor is there the Church is in whatever place they do assemble p. 250. which Dr. Hide also thought when he began his Book with an assertion of the necessity of separating then from the publick places And so did other Prelatists then and so think the Papists now and most other parties 10. Nor is it any of our Question Whether you should have Communion with a Diocesan Church as such It is a Parochial Church with such others that I spake of and never a word of a Diocesan Church 11. Therefore it is none of the Question Whether you must own our Diocesan Bishops 12. Nor yet Whether you must have Communion with any thing called A National Church as a Political Society constituted of an Ecclesiastical Head and Body and denominated from that form â—r Constitutive Head Though we must own a National Church as it is improperly so denominated from the King that is the Civil Head accidental and not Constitutive to the Spiritual Church And as it is a Community of Christians and a part of the Universal Church united by the Concord of her Pastors who in Synods may represent the whole Ministry and be the means of their agreement 13. Nor is it the Question Whether you must needs hold Communion with those individual Bishops whom you account the Persecutors and Causes of our silence and confusions I have told you in the Story of Martin how he separated from the Synods of thâ—se individual Bishops and from their local Communion without separating from the Office the Churches or from any other Bishops This is a matter that I did not meddle with because it is not their Communion that you are called to but the Parish Churches Indeed to save mâ—ns lives he did yield to the Emperour once to communicate with them But saith Sulp. Severus â—iâ—l 3. p. Bib. Paâ— 254. Summa vi Episcopis nitentibus ut communionem illâ—m subscriptione firmaret extorqueri non potuit And the Angel that appeared to him said Merito Martine compungeris sed aliter exiâ—e nequiâ—ti repara virtutem resume Constantiam nâ— jam non periculum gloriae sed salutis incuâ—reris Ita ab illo tempore satis cavit cum illa Iâ—haâ—ianae partis Communione misâ—â—ri And after finding his power of Miracles abated with tears he conâ—essed to Sulpit. That propter Communionis illius malum cui se vel puncto temporis necessitate non Spiritu misâ—â—isset dâ—trimentum sâ—etire virtutis Sâ—dâ—â—im pâ—sâ—ea vixit annos nullam Synodum adiit ab omnibus Episcâ—porum Conveâ—â—ibus se remâ—vit But this was only from those Bishops who by provoking Magistrates against the Priscillian Gnosticks had brought all strict Religious people under scorn But he separated not from any others 14. Nay I made it none of our Question Whether you should Communicate with any Parish Minister who concurreth with theâ— in the said matters whiâ—h yâ—u â—â—cuse the Bishops of aâ—y farther than by Câ—â—â—orming to the Laâ— For it is but few o◠〈◊〉 Parish Ministers that were Convâ—cation Men or that you can prove did ever consent to our silencing 15. Nor is it any of the Question Whether those also be guilty of separation and divisions whâ— shall make unnecessary Engines of division and â—â—y upon the neâ—ks of any Churches such unnecessary things as have a tendency to divide Who hath said more against this than I have done 16. Nor is it any of our Question Which of the two is the greater cause of divisâ—â—â—s or which of the foresaid persons is mâ—â—t 〈◊〉 Who hath spoken plainlier in this than I Iâ— the Brother that excepteth would maâ—â— you believe that any one of these is the 〈◊〉 iâ— you believe him he doth but deceiive you But whom I mean by Sâ—paratiâ—â— I havâ— plaâ—ly told you pag. 249. 2â—0 c. ☞ And that which I perswade men to is this 1. To love all Christians as themselves 2. To hold nothing and do nothing which is contrary to this Love and would destroy it 3. Therefore to deny no Christians to be Christians nor no Churches to be Churches nor no lawful Worship of any Mâ—de or Party to be lawfull 4. Not to sepâ—â—ate from any others upon any of these three false suppositions or accusations viz. 1. As no true Christians 2. As no true Churches 3. As having no true Worship or as worshipping so as it is not lawful to joyn with them 5. To choose the most edifying Ministry and the soundest Church and purest manner of worshipping God that possibly you can have on lawful terms as to your ordinary use and Communion so far as you are free to choose 6. To joyn with a defective faulty true Church ordinarily and in a manner of Worship which is defective when you can have no better on lawful terms as without the publick injury or your own greater hinderance than help And I prove that this is the worst that you can charge as to this matter of Communion on those Parish Churches in England that have honest compâ—tent Pastors and the same others charge on the Churches of Independents and Anabaptists And that it is a duty to hold communion with any one of thâ—se constantly when you can have no better 7. That if you can statedly have better yet sometimes to Communicate with a defective Church as a stranger may do that is
with scorn Are not we Commanded not to reveal the secret of another which pious and prudent Mr. Baxter hath not scrupled to sin against c. Prov. 25. 9. As you abuse the text which speaketh of an individual person who is supposed to be hereby injured because known so you speak untruly in saying I revealed anothers secrets For to pass by that I reveal not the persons who are still unknown it is not true that they were secrets When I disputed almost all day with such both Souldiers and others in the publick Church at Amersham above 20 years ago was that a secret which they so fiercely proclaimed When I disputed daily almost with such in Cromwell's Army was that a secret When I disputed with Mr. Brown an Army Chaplain and his adherents for the Godhead of Christ in a publick Church at Worcester was that a secret When I disputed in the publick Church at Kiderminster with the Quakers was that a secret When the said Quakers and many other Sects have come to my house and have oft assaulted me in many other places openly and vented their ignorance with fierce revilings and raging confidence was that a secret When I have openly Catechized men was that a secret Do not all sound Protestants believe that they are fundamentals which our Quakers commonly contradict and are ignorant of especially Foxes party whom Smith and Major Cobbet accuse to deny Christ and the Resurrection c. And are there not Assemblies of such in London And do not many turn to them of late And is that a secret which their books and their assemblies tell the World Who is it now that is put to shame EXCEPT IX Answered I must now answer for what I say against the Papists too I Confess they are separatists or recusants too But le ts hear the Charge You say They are very unweighed and rash words when he saies 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 the Papists call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn Papist We think none can write thus but declares a great unsteadiness in his Religion for none that knoweth Church history but can prove that such a Church as the Romane hath been neer 1300 years actually in being Answ. 1. My foregoing words are these The Pope hath feigned another thing and called it the Church that is The Universality of Christians headed by himself Whereas 1. God never instituted or allowed such a Church 2. Nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping head Now when you say there hath been such a Church as the Romane either you mean what I denied such a Church as they claim and feign and I described Or only such a Church as they are which is another thing If the later why will you grosly abuse your Reader by such a deceit which tendeth to tempt him unto Poperie What 's that to my words which you seem to contradict But if you mean the former and indeed contradict me then 1. You prevaricate in befriending Popery 2. You here set down three more Untruths in matter of fact 1 That there hath been neer 1300 years or ever was such a Church that is that the Universality of Christians did acknowledge the Pope for the Universal Constitutive and Governing Head 2. That there is none that knoweth Church history but can prove this 3. That they are very unweighed words in which I assert what I did And all this I have given the World full proof of in my Dispute against Mr. Iohnson the Papist of the Visibility of the Church Had I not weighed the words I had not so many years ago so largely proved and maintained them And I have there fully proved that the Romane Church was only Imperial or of the Empire and the Countreys that after fell from the Empire such as we call national because under one Prince That de facto the Persians the Abassines Indians part of Armenia and many other Churches or Christians never acknowledged him their Constitutive or Governing Head that the Emperors who called the General Councils had nothing to do with the subjects of other Princes nor used to call them That the General Councils consisted only of the subjects of the Empire and those that had been of the Empire except one Iohannes Persidis and one or two more inconsiderable persons that no account can be given of who they were or how they came thither Godignus himself will tell you enough of the Abissines All the Papists in the World are never able to answer this publick Evidence of fact with any sense Mr. Iohnson's Reply I take not to be worthy of an Answer with any man that can make use of an answer when his shift is so gross as to instance in the Bishops of Thracia as out of the Empire and such as they which every novice in history and Geographie can Confute Unless I was Confuted in London at a publick Play where that you may see who influenceth them a Tutor in Geographie was as I am credibly informed brought in telling his Pupill that Prester Iohn's Countrey of Abassia was of the same Latitude with a place in Worcester-shire called Kederminster Now seeing reason forbiddeth me to interpret you as speaking of the Church of Rome as a Sect or Party when I spake of it as the Universality of Christians headed by the Pope your Context shewing that it is my words that you gainsay therefore I must number these three also with the rest of your untruths You adde We wonder that any Protestant should be found though but by the equalling of Church history to Scripture as if the uncertain tradition of the one were to be as much accounted of and followed as the Divine and infallible Revelation of the other Answ. 1. Because this wonder plainly containeth an affirmation that I do so I must say that it is your tenth untruth Prove such a word if you are able 2. It is not true that this Historie is uncertain though not to be equalled with Scripture Is the Case of a vast Empire of Aethiopia as big yet after the decay saith Brierwood as Germany Italy France and Spain uncertain when the World knoweth that they have not had so much as Converse with the Pope and at Oviedos attempt did not know who he was And so of Persia India c. If you will needs be so much wiser than your neighbours as to prove all historie uncertain even that there was a Caesar or a William the Conqueror 1. While you befriend the Papists in this one point you will incommodate them in others 2. And you will promote Infidelitie by making that historie uncertain by which we know the Canonical books of Scripture and that they are delivered down to us the same and uncorrupt When I had given in few words a full
praying by habit Marvel not if it burn you within and without and when your own passions have scorched you other mens hatred of your prayers as you hate theirs do trouble you also And if you hate the quenching of these fires even when the Churches by them are all on a flame as sober men as you will be of another mind I tell you again brother you greatly wrong and dishonour God if you think that he layeth so much upon that which he never gave any law about or spake one word for or against as to tell the World that he hateth all prayer that is put up by a form or book And that he that denyeth this speaketh meanly of prayer The Lord teach you to know what manner of spirit you are of which request I shall reitâ—rate for you instead of praying with your earnestness The Lord rebuke him Have you the bowels of a Christian and the spirit of Christian Love and Unity and can you think that God hateth for that was my word all the prayers of all the Churches and Christians in the World that use a form Even of all the Greek Churches the Armenians Abassines Jacobites Syrians Copâ—ies Lutherans and Calvinists of all the English publick Churches and the prayers of such holy men as Dr. Preston Dr. Sibbes Mr. Perkins Mr. Hildersham Mr. Cartwright Dr. Stoughton Mr. Whateley Mr. Bolton and all such as they that used some the Liâ—urgie and some other forms And that God hateth the prayers of all Christian Families and Christians that use a form Do you dislike adding to God's word and will you adde to it so boldly as to say he hateth that which he never once forbad If you would make your reader think that I make God indifferent to all modes and words in prayer you would abuse him For though I never heard a man swear in prayer I think you curse in prayer a little before and I have heard many rail in prayer and traduce men for truth and duty and vent their own errors But I beseech you promote superstition no more and feign no Divine Laws which you cannot shew us And teach not this unhappy age to feign things necessary that are not and paint out the most holy gracious God as the patron of every one of their fancies Your words Doth not God regard the manner of our addressing our selves to him Must we not pray in the spirit Do still make me pray that you may know your spirit Do you well to intimate that I say the contrary When I maintain that God so far accepteth them that worship him in spirit and truth that he will accept their prayers with a form or without and hateth neither yea hath left both indifferent to be varied as mens occasions and use for either vary as he hath done a form or notes in preaching It is an easie thing to turn formalist either way by thinking God loveth our prayers either because they are in the same words or in various words The second part of this Exception calleth me a trifler that doth neither believe the Scripture nor himself but tries to abuse c. Because I say about a Liturgie 1. Certainly in Christs time both Liturgies by forms and prayers by habit were used 2. That it is like that the Pharisees long Liturgie was in many things worse than ours And yet Christ and his Apostles oft joyned with them and never condemned them Answ. 1. Let the Reader observe whether ever Christ his Apostles or the Pharisees medled with the Controversie about the lawfulness of forms Whether ever Christ condemned them 2. Let the Reader note that when I say that Certainly forms were used I say not whether in the Synagogue or Temple or House nor do I say that they were other forms than Divine But when I say that it is like in many things the Pharisees Liturgie was worse than ours I mean that it is like though not certain that part of it was of humane invention and used publickly And 1. The word Liturgie as Martinius and other Etymologists agree hath three significations 1. The largest is for any publick office of ministry and specially of distribution 2. For the publick service of God in reading teaching praying c. 3. For stated orders and forms of that publick service To which Bellarmine addeth a 4th as the narrowest sense of all viz For the sacrificing offices only which is no usual sense Now the second and third being the now-Common sense I thought there had been no question about them That the Jews had a Divine Liturgie in both senses as a service and as a prescript form I proved in my 5th Disput. of Liturgies many years ago 1. In the Temple they had most punctual prescripts for their sacrifices of all sorts and their offerings and the manner of performance and the actions of Priests and people about them In the Synagogues Moses and the Prophets were read every Sabbath day And the Psalms were purposely penned many of them and recorded to be Prayers and Praises for the publick and private worship and were committed to several Church-officers to be publickly used And David and Solomon appointed the Instruments Singers and order manner in which they should be used A form of prayer for the Priests is prescribed in three benedictions Numb 6. 23. Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing Praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the Sâ—â—r 2 Chron. 29. 30. 1 Chron. 16. 7. On that day David delivered first this Psalm to thank the Lord into the hands of Asaph and his brethren Exod. 15. The song of Moses is a form And Rev. 15. 3. the Saints are said to sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. Most Expositers think that the Hymne that Christ sung at his last supper was the usual form If not it was a new form Moses form at the moving and resting of the Ark is set down Numb 10. 35 36. Deut. 21. 7 8. There is a form for the people to use Iudg. 5. Deborahs song is recorded so is Hannahs praise 1 Sam. And Ioel 2. 17. there is a form for the Priests in their Humiliation And Iohn taught his Disciples to pray And when Christ was desired to teach his Disciples as Iohn had done his he gave them a form Now let the sober Reader judge whether the Jews had no form or Liturgie of God's appointment If he say I thought you had meant a humane form I answer If you will think that which I say not and choose rather to revile than observe what you â—ead I cannot help it 2. When I speak of a Probability afterward I do mean of a humane Liturgie of which I will now only say 1. That it seemeth very improbable to me that the Pharisees who so abounded with Traditions should not so much as have any humane forms of prayer or praise 2. When Christ speaketh of their long prayers I desire them on both
confess to you brother that though I once hoped that we should have been great gainers by our sufferings the fruit of them now appeareth to me to be such in many as maketh me more afraid of imprisonment for the sake of my soul than of my body lest it should stir up that passion which should bear down my judgement into some errors and extreams and corrupt and destroy my Love to them by whom I suffer And truly Brother I am fully convinced that many that think their sufferings are their glory and prove them better men than others are lamentably lost and overcome by their sufferings I think your companion and you are no gainers by it who presently by preaching and writing thus bring water to the extinguishing of Christian Love I think those two Gentlemen before mentioned that turned Quakers in prison and left their Religion as many more have done were losers by it And I think many thousands in these times that are driven into various errors and extreams and have lost their charity to adversaries and dissenters have lost a thousand times more than their liberties and money comes to Woe be to the World because of offences And woe be to them by whom offence cometh Experience of too many maketh me less in love with sufferings than I have been And to think that the quiet and peaceable preaching of the Gospel though under many other disadvantages if God would grant it us would be better for our own souls EXCEPT XIX Answered You proceed But Mr. B. being once got into the chair of the scornful will not easily out and therefore goes on It is an odious sound to hear an ignorant rash self-conceited person especially a Preacher to cry out Idolatry Idolatry against his brethrens prayers to God because they have something in them to be amended Whereas we do not therefore think any thing to be guilty of Idolatry because it hath something in it to be amended but because it is used in the worship of God without any command of God to make it lawful And this we must tell our Dictator is a species of Idolatry and forbid in the second Commandement And if he will not receive it so it is to use his own arrogant and imperious words because he understands not Christian sense and reason Answ. 1. The charge of Idolatry against the Liturgie and Conformable Ministers I found in Iohn Goodwins book and Mr. Brownes and others But this Brother carrieth it much further 2. He contradicteth himself in his Negation and Affirmation For whatsoever is to be amended which is used in Gods worship hath no command of God to make it lawful For it is sin But whatsoever is used in Gods worship without any command of God to make it lawful he affirmeth to be Idolatry Ergo whatsoever is used in Gods worship which is to be amended he maketh to be Idolatry 3. Reader if this one Section do not make thy heart grieve for the sake of the Church of Christ that our poor people should be thus taught and our Congregations thus distracted and unholyness that is uncharitableness fathered upon the God of Love and our sufferings and non-conformity thus turned to our reproach and wrath and reviling pretended to be Religion thou hast not a true sense of the concernments of Christianity and the souls of men I shall propose here these few things to thy consideration Quest. 1. Whether an Idolater be not an odious person and unfit for Christian Communion That these men think so their practise sheweth Q. 2. Whether he that writeth and preacheth to prove others Idolaters do not write and preach to make them so far seem odious and to perswade men from loving them and having communion with them as Christians Q. 3. Whether he that preacheth up hatred causelesly and preacheth down Christian love do not preach down the sum of true Religion and preach against God who is Love Q. 4. Whether preaching against God and Religion be not worse than talking against it in an Ale-house or in prophane discourse And fathering all this on God and Religion be not a sad aggravation of it Q. 5. Whether this brother that affirmeth this to be Idolatry that he speaketh against should not have given us some word of proof especially where he calleth me that deny it a Dictator And whether both as Affirmer among Logicians and as Accuser among men of justice the proof be not incumbent on him Q. 6. Whether here be a syllable of proof but his angry affirmation Q. 7. Whether thou canst receive this saying of his if thou have Christian sense and reason so far as to believe that all the Churches of Christ fore-named the Greek the Abissine the Armenian the Coptics the Lutherans and all the Reformed Churches that fall under his Charge are Idolaters And couldst bring thy heart accordingly to condemn them and separate from them And whether thou canst take all the holy Conformists of England such as Bolton Preston Sibbes Stocke Dike Elton Crooke Whateley Fenner c. for Idolaters yea and all the non-Conformists that used and joyned in the Liturgie Q. 8. Whether thou canst believe that this same brother himself that writeth at this rate do use nothing in Gods worship which hath no command of God to make it lawful Is all this reviling all this false doctrine all his untruths commanded of God Or doth he not make himself an Idolater Q. 9. Whether if he teach true doctrine there by any Church or person in the World that worshippeth not God with Idolatry I give my reasons 1. There is no one but sinneth or useth sin in the worship of God But no sin is commanded or lawful Ergo there is no one according to his doctrine but useth Idolatry in the worship of God 2. There is no one that useth not some things not commanded to make them lawful in the worship of God Therefore if he teach true doctrine there is no one but useth Idolatry The antecedent I have oft proved by many instances The method of every Sermon and Prayer the words the time and length the translation of the Scripture whether it shall be this or that the dividing of the Scripture into Chapters and Verses the Meeter of Psalms the Tunes Church utensils Sermon notes which some use Catechisms in forms c. the Printing of the Bible or any other books c. none of these are commanded And all these are used in the worship of God And must all Christians in the World be taught to fly from one another as Idolaters Is this the way of Love and Unity Q. 10. Why should this brother be so extream impatient with me for calling Dividers weak and pievish and censorious Christians If in his own judgement all men be Idolaters that use any thing in Gods worship not commanded Is not this to censure all men as Idolaters And yet is a censure of previshness on these Censurers a justifying of persecution Q.
11. Whether this kind of talk be not sport to the Papists to hear us call one another Idolaters as well as them and do not make them deride us and harden them in their bread-worship and image-worship as being called Idolatry on no better grounds than we so call one another Q. 12. Whether it be not a great dishonour to any man to suffer silencing because he cannot add to Gods worship the Ceremonies and Liturgie and at the same time to add to Gods word new and false doctrines of our own by saying that It is a species of Idolatry forbidden in the second Command because it is used in the worship of God without any command to make it lawful And if we should suffer such false doctrine and additions and Love-killing dividing principlesas this to go uncontradicted whether we do not betray the truth and our flocks and shew that we were too worthy of our sufferings But that this assertion or definition of Idolatry is false I need to prove no otherwise than 1. That it is unproved by him that is to prove it and 2. That it denieth Christ to have a Church on earth or to have any but Churches of Idolaters 3. That it turneth all sin in Gods worship into one species even Idolatry And so every false doctrine used in Gods worship is Idolatry Every Antimonian Anabaptist Separatist or of any other error be it never so small must be presently an Idolater if in prayer or preaching he speak his error And what man is infallible When your Companion promised in the Pulpit that there should be no more Tythes no more Taxes nor no more King in Worcestershire after Worcester-Fight this must be Idolatry For certainly no error is commanded of God 4. That it maketh the description of a thing indifferent to be the description of Idolatry For as a thing forbidden is the description of sin so to be not commanded speaketh no more but Indifferency Though the prohibition to do any thing not commanded speaketh more if it could be proved 5. It is contrary to the Scripture which never useth the word IDOLATRY in that sense Peruse the several texts and try 6. It equalleth almost all Churches with the Infidel and Pagan World 7. It heinously injureth God who is a hater of Idolaters and will visit their sins as God-haters on the third and fourth Generations to feign him to be thus a hater of his Churches and of them that use any thing in his worship not commanded 8. It tendeth to drive all Christians to despair as being Idolaters and so abhorred of God because they have all some uncommanded yea forbidden thing in worship For by this mans doctrine a sinful wandring thought a sinful disorder or tautologie or bad expression is Idolatry as being not commanded 9. It tendeth to drive men to give ever worshipping God because while they are certain to sin they are certain to be Idolaters when they have done their best 10. It hardeneth the Mahometans in their enmity to Christianity who being the great exclaimers against Idolatry do already falsely brand us with that crime But what ever else it do I am sure it is so pernicious an engine of Satan to kill Love and divide the Church to feign every Conformist how holy soever and every one that useth in worship any thing not commanded to be an Idolater that I may well advise all Christians as they love Christ and his Church and their own souls to keep themselves from such mistakes Were it not that it is unmeet to do great works â—â—rily on such slight occasions in such a discourse as this is I would here stay to open the meaning of the second Commandement and shew 1. That there are abundance of lawful things in Gods worship as circumstances and outward modes that are not commanded in specie or individuo 2. That somethings forbidden in that Commandement indirectly are not Idolatry 3. Much less are they a sufficient cause of separation But this is fitter for another place And I again refer you to Mr. Lawson in his Theopolitica EXCEPT XX. Answered This Exception is but a bundle of mistakes and the fruit of your false interpretation of my design 1. That I prove not what I say is not true when the many instances fully prove it and you your self deny them not 2. When I explain my self frequently and fully who I do not mean by Dividers and what separation I allow you feign me to open my mind very unwillingly and to defend those whom I traduce that you may make men believe that I mean those whom I still profess that I mean not and that you know my mind better than I my self This is not true and righteous dealing EXCEPT XXI p. 12. Answered When I say Our presence at the prayers of the Church is no profession of Consent to all that is faulty in those prayers he saith The Apostle thought otherwise in a like â—ase of sitting at meat in an Idols Temple Answ. Brother of all the men that ever I had to do with scarce any hath dealt so superficially without saying any thing against the proofs which I lay down noâ— seeming to take any notice of them How can you choose but see your self that by denying my proposition 1. You make it unlawful to joyne with any Church or person in the World and so would dissolve all Church-Communion and Family-worship For do not all men sin in prayer And must any man consent to sin 2. How do you reflect on God that forbiddeth us to forsake the assembling of our selves together If consenting to sin be unavoidable 3. I told you we Consent not to the faults of our own prayers much less to anothers that are less in our power What work would this one opinion of yours make in the World If we are guilty of all that is faulty in all the prayers of the Church or Family we joyn with yea more do by our presence profess Consent to them and withal if all not commanded in worship be Idolatry what a World are we then in It 's time then to turn seekers and say that Church and Ministry are lost It is these principles brother that I purposely wrote my book against But you speak much besides the truth when you say The Apostle thought otherwise in a like Case For you never prove that he thought otherwise Dare you say I beseech you think on it that Paul and all the Apostles and all the Churches professed consent to all the faults in worship which they were present at How know you that they were never present at any such as Paul reproveth in the Corinthians Yea was Christ a professed Consenter to all that he was present at Or all that he commanded men to be present at when he went to the Synagogues and bade the cleansed go shew themselves to the Priests and offer c. And bade his Disciples hear the Scribes and Pharisees c. I do not charge the
Consequences on your person but it 's easie to see that it will follow from this opinion that Christ was a sinner and consequently no Saviour and so no Christ. Alas whither would you carry the people of the Lord Nor do you prove Paul's Case to be like this Eating at the sacrifiâ—â—s in the Idols Temples was visible Corporal Idolatry forbidden indeed in the second Commandement as Idolatry interpretative visible external corporeal It was that very Act by which an Idol was outwardly worshipped Therefore it was a Professing-act interpretatively Symbolizing with Idolaters I have told you is Professing for a Symbole is a Professing sign But he that is present with a Church professing to worship not an Idol but the true God and that according to the Scripture and is united to the Church only in this profession doth not by so doing Profess Consent to a Ministers ill wording or methodizing of his Prayers or his Sermons which is the work of his own office 2. As for your charge of Blasphemy c. on me for intreating you to take heed lest you blaspheme by making Gods foreknowing of faults to signifie an approbation I pass it by and will not by so frivolous a return be drawn to enter further on that point EXCEPT XXII p. 13. Answered Whether it be bitterness fierceness fury or proud impatience to reprove these sins in an instance which your self presume not to contradict And whether the opinion that no truth is to be silenced for peace be fit for judicious peaceable men to own or be not fit to be gain-said I have long ago debated in my book of Infant-Baptisme pag. 218. EXCEPT XXIII p. 13. Answered If you dissent why did you answer none of the six Reasons I gave for what I said nor seem to take notice of them But only when I say It were easie to instance in unseasonable and imprudent words of truth spoken to Princes which have raised persecutions of long continuance ruined Churches caused the death of multitudes c. Upon which you put four questions To which I answer 1. The flattery of some will not justifie the sinful imprudence of others 2. If you should be guilty of the blood of thousands by one sin will it excuse you that another was more guilty 3. Elijah Micaiah and Iohn Baptist spake not unseasonably or imprudently Nor is all imprudent that bringeth suffering or death 4. Gospel Ministers may follow them that spake prudently but unseasonable and imprudent speaking is not following them I have recited elsewhere a saying even of Dr. Th. Iackson that It is not because great men have not sins and wrath enough that there are no more Martyrs under Christian Rulers but because there be not John Baptists enough to tell them of them to that sense But either by all this you mean to defend unseasonable and imprudent speaking or else you mean that there is no such sin or else you must needs contend where you consent If it be the first or third I will not be so imprudent as to sence with you If the second it is gross contradiction of reason and morality and of Christ himself Matth. 7. 6. 1 Tim. 2. 11 12. 1 Cor. 14. 28. 34. Amos 5. 13. Eccl. 3. 7. EXCEPT XXIV p. 14. He hath found out a new Cause of Separation and such as we doubt not the Pope will thank him for when he saies Almost all our contentions and divisions are caused by the ignorance and injudiciousness of Christians For it is evident that our contentions at this day are principally if not wholly caused by the pride impertinencie and tyranny of imposers which guilt Mr. Baxter would ease them of by charging it on the ignorance and injudiciousness of Christians Answ. These last words are your 17th Untruth 1. Where have I said a word to ease them of it May not two persons or parties be both guilty of Division Yea if one were guilty wholly that is of the whole yet he may not be guilty solely and no one with him 2. Have you or any of your party done so much to have stopt that cause of divisions which you accuse as I have done And did I ever change my mind 3. O that God would make you know what spirit you are of and what you are doing Alas brother will you leave England no hope of a Cure What hope while we are impenitent What Repentance while we justifie our sins Yea while the Preachers teach the people to justifie them and become the defenders of the sins which they should preach against and fight against their brethren that do but call mâ—n to â—â—pâ—nt What! is Godliness up and in honour among us while Repentance is down as an intolerable abhorred thing What a Godliness is that which abhorreth Repentance I am offended greatly with my own heart that melteth not into tears over such lines as thâ—se for England's sake and for Religions sake For the honour of God and for the souls of men Is that a new Cause of separation which hath been the Cause since the daies of the Apostles to this day Did ever man read the histories of the Schismes and Heresies of the Churches and not find out this Cause this old this ordinary Cause If you had remembred but what Socrates and Sozomene say of the Church of Alexandria alone what contentions what tumults what blood-shed these weaknesses and faults of Christians caused it might have told you it is no new thing O lamentable case of miserable England that even among the zealouser sort of Ministers any should be found that either vindicateth all Christians from the charge of Ignorance and Injudiciousness Or that thinketh these are no Causes or no culpabie Causes of divisions That have no more acquaintance with the people of this land And know no better them that they plead for That such should seek to flatter poor souls in despite of that open light and undeniable 〈◊〉 of all the Christian World That in an age when the weaknesses and faults of Christians have wrought such heinous effects among us they should be denied And when God by judgements hath so terribly summoned us to repent by silencing dissipations imprisonments reproaches and most dreadful plagues and flames alas shall we call to professors that have ruined us by Ignorance and Injudiciousness the gentlest names that their sin will bear and say Repent not Christians you are not ignorant or injudicious It is not you that are the causes of our divisions and calamities Our Contentions at this day are principally if not wholly caused by the pride impertinency and tyranny of the Imposers Believe not Christians that you are innocent Believe not that you are not ignorant and injudicious as you love your souls and as you love the land If once God deliver us up to Antichristian darkness and cruelties it will be cold comfort to you to think that you once were flattered into impenitency and made believe that you were not
slowly they come on in knowledge 3. If God have made it one half the work of the Pastors of the Churches to labour all their daies to heal the Ignorance of good people then such Ignorant ones there are But the antecedent is plain in Scripture and believed by most Ministers as their daily Sermons tell you 4. Do not the multitudes of Sects and Errors and Contentions that have torn the Church from the Apostles daies till now prove it Were all those in the Catalogues of Epiphanius Augustine Philastrius c. Certainly graceless Or were none of them Ignorant and Injudicious And though Church-tyranny be a grand Divider that this was not the only Cause two instances prove to the great disgrace of this assertion of his First the instance of the said sects of Christians for the first 300 or 400 years when there were no such Impositions Secondly our late twenty years or neer contentions and divisions and numerous parties when there were little or no impositions Was it impositions or tyranny that bred sects in the Armies and in England and Ireland in the daies of liberty 5. And is it not sufficient proof to England that there are weak ignorant injudicious Christians when the ruines of twenty years experience overwhelmeth us and when so many years unreconcilable differences prove i And when we have so many sects and differences to this day What all these differences these wars these disputings these censurings divisions and confusions and yet no Ignorant Injudioious Christians O what will pass for proof with them that will not take such experience for proof 6. And what say you by all the Greek the Abassine Armenian Nestorian Iacobite c. Christians that are alas in National general Ignorance Which will you affirm Brother That all these Nations are damnable Infidels or no Christians Or that there are no Ignorant Christians among them 7. And what say you by all the Contentions of Lutherans and Calvinists Arminians and Antiarminians the troubles of Germany by Muntzer and his Anabaptists and those at Munster and those in Holland and many other Countreys 8. And what say you by all the books now extant Dr. Crispes Mr. Saltmarshes Cop's Mr. Cradocks Mr. Dels Mr. Dens Mr. Randalls Iacob Behmens and all the Germane Prophets Andr. Osiander Swenkfieldius c. Is there no Christianity or no ignorance and injudiciousness apparent in them Besides all the writings of Episenpal Presbyterian Independents Separatists Anabaptists c. against one another 9. Do you not think your self that multitudes of Conformists yea Ministers are Ignorant and Injudicious Sure you do And can you judge them all to be no Christians 10. Do you not think that I am Ignorant and Injudicious If not you must not only think that I am no Christian but also extreamly maliciously wicked But if you do so think of me can you think so of all the non-Conformable Ministers of my judgement I am sure if you believe your self and as you write Ignorance is the easiest charge we can expect from you 11. And will you put sorth such a book as your own to the World and when you have done deny the Ignorance and Injudiciousness of all Christians This is all one as to swear that there is never a swearer among Christians 12. I appeal to the common Charges of Ministers in their Sermons and books who charge weak Christians with dulness ignorance and injudiciousness 13. I appeal to the experience of all Masters of Families whether they meet with no such Christians there Yea how hard it is to meet with better 14. I appeal to the experience of every self-knowing Christian whether he find not abundance of dulness ignorance and injudiciousness in himself 15. I appeal to the prayers of almost all Christians whether they charge not themselves with this to God 16. I appeal to almost all the disagreeing disputers of this and every age whether they charge not one another with it 17. I appeal to most Parishes in England whether many of the people charge not their Ministers themselves with it 18 I appeal to Universities Tutors and Schools whether they know none such 19. I appeal to any judicious man whether he find not the judicious even among good Christians yea and Ministers to be alas too rare 20. And I appeal to all men that are awake whether there be no Christian children in the World And whether all such children are cured of Ignorance and Injudiciousness and know all things by the anointing of the Spirit And if all this be no proof it is time to give over teaching and disputing And now that if perhaps you may repent and others be preserved I shall tell you what nature this sinful doctrine and practice is of 1. It is a cherishing of Pride which is the first-born of the Devil Yea of spiritual Pride even a Pride of mens Knowledge and Iudiciousness which is worse than Pride of wealth or ornaments 2. Hereby it resisteth a great work of the Gospel and Spirit of Christ which consisteth in the humbling of souls and making them become as little children conscious of Ignorance and teachable 3. It defendeth that sin which all experienced judicious men complain of as that common calamity of mankind which is the grand cause of contentions and errors in the World Which is mens thinking that they know what they do not and over-valuing their own understandings thinking that they are wise when it is otherwise 4. It contradicteth the Holy Ghost and reproveth his language and reproofs as I have before shewed To which I adde 2 Tim. 3. 6 7. They lead captive silly women laden with sins led away with divers lusts ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 Cor. 15. Where Paul is put to prove the Resurrection ver 34. Some have not the knowledge of God I speak this to your shame ver 36. Thou fool that which thou sâ—west c. Hos. 9. 7. The Prophet is a fool the spiritual man is mad c. 1 Cor. 3. 18. Let him become a fool that he may be wise If you say that some of these were not true Saints I answer 1. Paul calleth the Church of Corinth in general Saints 2. Our question is of more than true Saints even such as may by others who are no heart-searchers be called Christians whether we may call any dull ignorant or injudicious Christians 5. You teach Parents and Masters to neglect and betray the souls of their children and servants that are Christians And children and servants to reject the teaching of Parents and Masters For if they are not dull nor ignorant what need they to be taught or to learn And at what age do they come to know all things and to be past the title of Ignorant Is it at 4 or 5 or 7 years old Doubtless they may have the spirit then If not where is it that you will set the bounds At what age were you past
your ignorance and injudiciousness and knew all things 6. You thus make the work of Schoolmasters needless and also of Tutors and Academies 7. You encourage and countenance idle Ministers as to the labours necessary to Christians If there be no dull nor ignorant Christians they are not so blame-worthy as we have made them 8. You excuse those that unjustly hinder Christs Ministers to preach to Christians in any part of the World If there be no ignorant Christians Preachers are not so necessary nor silencing them so bad a thing as we have made it 9. You encourage the contemners of the Preaching of Gods word who say what need we go to hear we know as much as they can tell us 10. You contradict the Sermons of almost all Ministers as if they abused Christianity and belyed the people when they reprove their ignorance and dulness 11. You encourage the bold invaders of the Ministry who thinking that they know all things and are not ignorant do turn Teachers of others before they have learned themselves 12. You encourage the disputing contentious wrangling and insolent spirit that is abroad which maketh men tear and divide the Church by confidence in their several opinions while all of them may think that they are not ignorant nor injudicious 13. You seek to keep Christs Disciples in continual Ignorance while you would make them believe that they are not Ignorant and so keep them out of a learning way which is a Disciples state 14. You condemn your own practice who preach to those that you judge your self to be Christians For what need they your teaching as to their understandings if they are not Ignorant but know all things 15. You countenance the Qâ—akers and Papists in their doctrine of Perfection Yea you go far beyond them inasmuch as they ascribe perfection but to a few 16. You justifie all the Errors of the times which Christians hold and teach them to say we are Christians therefore we erre not for we are not ignorant 17. You justifie Contradictions For if ten men be of ten several contrary minds e. g. about the exposition of a Text it is but one of them that can be right And yet you teach them all to think that they are right 18. You do this against the full light and experience of an age of Errors yea of almost all ages of the Church 19. You shew your self insensible of the sinful ignorance and divisions and ruines thereby procured these twenty years 20. You teach all those that are or have been guilty to be impenitent 21. You do this in an age when dreadful judgements which have begun at the house of God do call his houshold most loudly to Repent and to be an example of penitence to others 22. Should you prevail thus to keep Christians in impenitence you would keep us in our calamities and turn away the peace and deliverance which we hope and pray for and be the prognostick of our continued woe if not of the undoing of the land and an utter forsaking 23. You teach Christians in prayer not to confess their dulness or ignorance and make them speak falsly that do consess it 24. You vilifie all those means which God hath instituted to cure his peoples ignorance as a needless thing if it be cured in all already As reading hearing meditating conference c. 25. You cross the use of all the World even the works of Creation and Providence so far as they are Gods means to teach Christians knowledge and cure their ignorance 26. You teach men to lose the most of their lives as to growth in knowledge when they must believe that they are cured of their ignorance as soon as they are Christians and know all things perhaps at seven years old 27. You teach almost all Christians to despair of their sincerity and to deny themselves to be Christians For when you have taught them that whoever are Christians indeed have received the anointing by which they know all things and are cured of their ignorance and injudiciousness are not to be called dull or ignorant or injudicious Christians They will quickly assume But it is not thus with me I am dull and ignorant c. therefore I am not a Christian indeed 28. You almost if not wholly deny and un-un-Church Christs Church on earth while you deny all to be Christians indeed that are ignorant injudicious dull and know not all things 29. By cherishing the pride and ignorance of Christians you cherish all their other sins which these two are the common parents of 30. You make us hereby seem a tender and a factious people that see motes in the eyes of others but not beams in our own who can aggravate the sins of others yea the publick worship into Idolatry it self But when we come to our party we take it for a reproach to Christianity to be called dull or ignorant or injudicious 31. You shew by this that your censure of the Conformists is so high as to make them all to be no Christians indeed For you cannot think that an Idolater is not Ignorant and Injudicious and so no Christian with you But he that wrote Mr. Bolton's life thought otherwise 32. You abuse the Scripture 1 Ioh. 2. 20. 27. to countenance all this As the Quakers do He that is born of God sinneth not Calvin truly noteth that by knowing all things he meaneth not universally sed ad praesentis loci circumstantiam restringi debet It is the All things which the apostates there reproved did deny As the Prophet saith They shall not need to teach one another saying Know the Lord for all shall know him And yet they might have need to teach one another an hundred other truths though they all knew the true God from Idols So here to know all things is to be knowing persons in comparison of the infidels and apostates which saith Calvin he speaketh to procure a fair audience with them As if he should say I speak not to you as so rude and ignorant persons that know not these great things which these apostates deny Dr. Hammond thinketh that it meaneth that the Holy Ghost by which you are anointed or preferred before others is a certain proof or evidence to you of the Truth of all the doctrine which Christ taught and therefore you cannot forsake him by the seducement of these apostates Beza â—aith Atqui cognâ—scimus omnes ex parte 1 Cor. 13. 9. Est igitur Hyperbole qua significat Apostolus se nihil afferre quod illi jam antea non intellexerint quos ipse commonefaciat potius quam doceat ut loquitur etiam ipse Dominus Jer. 31. 34. Vel quod etiam simplicius est omnia intelligit necessaria agnoscendis Anti-Christis â—avendis illorum insidiis And to that purpose the English Anotations But further I grant that all Christians have that spirit which teacheth them all things needful to Salvation But how Not in the first moment
you avoid what you injuriously impute to others when you cry out What could Parker c. have spoken more reproachfully c. Sure you thought I had spoken against fervent preaching it self or else you would not have talk'd as you do Here also after some mention of my Pride and Folly you adde two more gross Untruths 1. That what I spake of individual persons without respect to any party Conformists non-Conformists or Separatists and instanced in many of my own acquaintance some of which now Conform yea are zealous Conformists who were the ferventest loudest Preachers that ever I knew in all my life If I will not tell you who they are alas man did you never know such you must think it concerns all that are at this day engaged in a Gospel separation Answ. Had you said We will think so it might have been true But 1. I had made no mention at all of separation in the whole Direction nor intended any more than I expressed But only meant to direct people to avoid that error in the choice of Teachers which prepareth them for any seduction and division 2. I had largely spoken there for affectionate Preaching 3. I am not acquainted with very many such as in England have been known by the name of Separatists that go no further But those few that I do know I take to be colder duller Preachers than those that are called Presbyterians byfar for the most part of them so far was I from meaning them But Quakers and Fifth-Monarchy men and some Anabaptists I know and many revilers of the Ministry I have known in Armies and Countreys that were just such as I describe 2. It is an untruth that you had no pretence of Reason for that I can think of that I have left off the Lords work and instead of helping it forwards with you am weakening your hands and disgracing the builders If you mean that I preach not in the Pulpit no more do you If you mean that I have not a separated Church I never had one on your principles at least If you mean that I preach not in London 1. I cannot if I would 2. I never had any Pastoral Charge nor place in London but preach'd one year up and down for others and another year took but a voluntary Lecture 3. London I was forced eight years ago to forsake for my health and life 4. Gods work is not only in London 5. I have no call thither nor any people related to me as a Pastor there 6. There are very many worthy men there that want both employment and maintenance whom I will not injure Are not all these reasons enough But if you think otherwise 7. Are not all the Preachers in England forsakers of Gods work that preach not in London 8. I think you preached not for many years when you lay so long in prison Did you then forsake Gods work But I must confess Brother I have alwaies been too slothful and unprofitable a servant and still am Yet I can say that I know no other employment that I have and that I spend no more time in other things than necessities of life require I play away none and I idle away but little and preaching were it oftner is a small part of my work and that will be proved to be the Lords work which you think is against him as all have done that ever I wrote against almost And I love you much the better for being zealous for that which you do but think is the Lords work But I am past doubt that it will prove at last that such doctrines passions and practices as yours will be the weakeners and hinderers of the builders EXCEPT XXVI Answered p. 16. I intreat the Reader to peruse my words which you except against so angrily and I am assured he will find them useful to him in the great Question Who shall be Iudge And to help him out of his perplexities 1. It is a notorious untruth that you say It is altogether a new way of deciding Controversies to affirm Dictator like in all points of belief or practice which are of necessity to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church Be it right or wrong who knoweth not that knoweth what was held of old that it is the way that Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Hierome Augustine Optatus and abundance more have largely written for And which Vincentius Lirinensis wrote his book for Quod semper ubique ab omnibus c. 2. Note Reader that he leaveth out that I said here no man must be Iudge no not the universal Church but only that they are our associates and that here every Christian maketh the Articles of his Faith his own and upon no mans authority c. But I maintain that it is no Article of absolute necessity to Salvation that hath been unknown to the Universal Church till now for then it were no Church But saith our brother who shall tell us what is the Universal Church And where shall we find it Answ. Are these Questions now to be answered by me Did you never before hear it done by others The Universal Church is the Universality of Christians It is to be found militant on this habitable earth Did you not know this But you ask How comes the Scripture not to be mentioned Answ. Because it was not seasonable or pertinent I was not defining the Church If I had it was definable without the naming of the Scripture at least before the Scripture was written And whence think you did I mean men should make the doctrine of Faith their own past controversie but by the Scripture Good brother till you have written more books for the authority of Scriptures than I have done or preach'd more for it own not such disingenuous intimations 2. You say that what he addes is much more conceited and singular In matters of high and difficult speculation the judgement of one man of extraordinary understanding and clearness is to be preferred before both the Rulers and the Major Vote Answ. It is another Untruth that this is singular My very words are almost verbatim in Mr. Pemble Vind. Grat. elsewhere cited Why do the Scotists so far follow Scotus and the Nominals Ockbam and the Dominicans Aquinas c. if this were a singular opinion Do not all the Peripateticks say the same of Aristotle in Philosophy And the Atomists of Epicurus Democritus and Lucretius and the Cartesians of their Master Doth not Dr. Twisse say the like of Bradwardine and of Piscator And do not many besides Rutherford think the same of him Do not the Ramists say so of Ramus Do not the Protestants say so of Calvin as to all that went before him Nay is it not almost the common opinion of all Learned men And a thing beyond dispute Did ever any man put such points of high speculation to the Major vote Alas brother that you should
you never read 1 Cor. 10. 1. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12. It 's too long to transcribe Did you never read Heb. 3 and 4 Nor read of the sins of the Polygamy the putting away of wives and other faults of the better sort and the generality of the Jews Did you never read how common the high place-worship was even under godly Kings Nor yet how the Law was neglected till the book was almost unknown Did you never read of the sins of Noah Lot and his Family Abraham Isaac Iacob Moses Aaron and his sons the company of Corah David Solomon Peter c Did you never read of Christs rebuke of his Disciples for their hardness of heart their ignorance their striving who should be greatest And how he took that occasion to warn them by the comparison of a child and by his washing and wiping of their feet Nor yet of his rebuking their common expectation of a temporal Kingdom Are not the errors of the several Religious Sects reproved by the Ancient Writers Irenaeus Tertullian Epiphanius Augustine c. Did you never read any writing counselling men to avoid the errors and sins of the Donatists nor the Novatians the Monothelites the Nestorians Eutychians c The errour of the Religious sort among the Lutherans is Consubstantiation Church-Images Ceremonies c. The error of the Religious Calvinists is too much neglect of the Lords day What those of the Arminians and the Anabaptists and many other sorts are I leave to you Did you never read any man that warned others to avoid these sins and errors Did you never find in the Antimonians writings that the stricter sort of good people went too far in pressing humiliation tears and degrees of sorrow so as to be too dark and sparing in pressing the doctrine of Grace and Love And it was partly true Did you never hear or read how superstition â—remetical and monastical lives excessive fastings and austerities were caused by the strictest people Nor yet of touch not taste not handle not Nor of some lawful things feigned to be unlawful Nor yet that ever Paul wrote to the Corinthians Galatians c. And Christ by Iohn to six of the Asian Churches to know and avoid the sins of Christians together with the hereticks among them Nor yet that Paul said Act. 20. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them Nor yet that he said I have no man like minded as Timothy for all seek their own things and not the things that are Iesus Christs Nor that all forsook him at his appearing before Nero Nor that all his Disciples forsook Christ and fled Nor that Paul said that the Ministers of Satan transformed themselves into Ministers of Righteousness In a word that beside all other sins the carnal siding and divisions which Paul reproved the Corinthians for most ages have among the stricter sort been guilty of Would you teach your hearers to put their doctrines or practices to a Major Vote of Professors Do you think we know the sincere from hypocrites Or that either hypocrites or sincere are without sin Or that we must take no warning by good mens falls Must we all do over again all the faults that Religious men have done these 30 years You make my heart grieve Brother to think that there should be a man among us that thinketh the Church must be built up by such doctrines and such means as yours You say We are commanded not to conform our selves to the World Answ. Nor to sinning Christians neither But first say you to suppose that the Religious party have generally some common errors among them and then to advise that we should carefully study to escape them This counsel we think Mr. Baxter may be the father of nor do we envy him the honour of it Answ. 1. Have the Religious sort among the Greeks Abassines Nestorians Iacobites Armenians Lutherans Anabaptists Arminians c. no common error among them 2. Are you for more Infallibility and Perfection than the Papists themselves 3. Will any Christian besides you that is sober deny that we should study to escape them 4. Did you ever read any sober Writer of another mind I beseech you take heed of this pernicious flattery of Professors And I beseech all the Religious that love their souls to take heed of being ensnared by such flattery into a proud impenitent state And in the grief of my heart here I must say to the people that which I expect this brother should impute to enmity to godliness You see by this manner of teaching what you have brought your selves and your Teachers to I have oft grieved to observe that many look that Preachers should make it their business to flatter them and extoll them in the highest praises and to prick others as deep and vilifie them as much as may be and this is the preaching that they are best pleased with I know that the precious and the vile must be widely differenced and he is no Preacher of the Gospel that doth not do it But when the Preacher must notifie our party as precious and cast dung on those as vile whom uncharitable men without proof think vile and must hide all our sins as if to touch them were to reproach Religion it self and must aggravate theirs even the greatest that differ from us or else be a flatterer and temporizer O that such knew but what manner of spirit they are of You adde that I make my advice ridiculous by forgetting that I bid men agree with the Universal Church Answ. I said expresly In the necessary Articles of Faith And must we therefore agree with them in all their sins and errors Or may I not say separate not from most or any Christians as to things true and necessary and yet avoid their sins and he followers of them as they are of Christ. Alas poor Christians that ever you should either be instructed at this rate or yet have need to be instructed against it EXCEPT XXIX Answered Why Brother did you never till now hear either Familists Socinians or the grosser Quakers such as Major Cobbet writes against and Smith called by the name of a Sect Had you no greater thing to quarrel with You shall call them how you will Your anger I pass by EXCEPT XXX Answered Yâ—â— say May we not justly suspect that to be bad in the worship of God which the wicked sort do love Answ. I spake not of what they love but what they are for This change of my words is unrighteous I only advised men not to reject a good cause because it is owned by some or most bad persons And why did you not answer my instance of the Pharisees long prayers We have had many Religious persons or sects that have of late been some against Infant Baptisme some against singing Psalmes some against Ministry and Church-meetings and some against Sacraments and instituted Ordinances and some against Tythes
against mâ—n iâ—â—hey 〈…〉 〈…〉 are men from Loving their enemies 〈◊〉 â—â—â—ssing them that curse them and doing good to them that hate them and praying for them that despightfully use them or falsely accuse them and persecute them that they are hardly kept from hating those that Love them and cursing those that bless them and hurting those that would do them good and falsely accusing and despightfully using and persecuting those that pray for them And yet lest they should not be flattered in their sin and that yet they may judge themselves the children of our heavenly father they will do all this as Acts of Love to the Church and Truth and to the persons souls and will Love them as is said with a hurting a reviling a slandering a cursing and a hating and malicious Love O that the God of Love would pitty and undeceive the selfish and passionate sort of professed Christians and teach them to know what manner of spirit they are of O that he would rebuke the evil spirits that are gone foâ—th The spirit of Coveâ—oâ—sness and Pride 〈◊〉 Hypocrisie and Religious Imagery Oâ— Self-conceitedness Of Malice and Wrath Of Back-biting and False accusing before that both Christianity and Humanity be turned into Devilisme 2. Tim. 3. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and earth be more conformable to Hell O that the spirit of Light would make us of one mind and the spirit of Love would mortifie both mens malignant and religious passions contentiousness and malice and cause us to Love our Neighbours as our selves That as the envious and striving wisdom from beneath hath caused Confusion and every evil work so the wisdom from above which is first pure and then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated might bring forth Mercy and good fruits without partiality and hypocrisie that we might edifie the body of Christ in Love Eph. 4. 16. and frustrate the hopes of the enemies of our peace who wait for our total dissolution and triumph already in our Divisions when it is their own Mill which grindeth us into powder But God can make their Oven to bake us into a more Christian and salubrious Consistency that I may use Ignatius his â—llegory but it must be first by â—ermenting us with unfeigned Love and then we shall be Lovely in his â—ight and the God of Love and Peace will be with us 2 Cor. 13. 11. Amen POSTSCRIPT THat the Excepter may yet further be convinced that it is not any Party of men called Independents or Anabaptists as such that I here speak against As I did in my opposed Book declare that I thought them both and all others that hold the foundation and disclaim it not by Heresie or wicked lives to be such as the Churches should receive into their Communion and that it is their duty to hold Communion in the same Assemblies notwithstanding their difference and that it is not the Opinions which denominate them that I write against but only the Love-killing and Dividing principles which are among them which make them fly with censure and alienation from their brethren that are as meet for Church-Communion as they and oft break them into pieces among themselves so do I yet again here declare the same And not only so but that if it were in my power when their Communion with others cannot be procured they should yet be tolerated in their separation it self and enjoy Communion with themselves alone in their separated Congregations under the Laws of Peace being not tolerated to turn their preaching or worship into a reviling and reproaching of the Orthodox to the destruction of Christian Love And I should not doubt but the Communion of the Orthodox Churches maintained in Constant Synods together with the special Countenance of the Christian Magistrate and the daily experience of Believers which would still make the aged sort forsake them would suffice better than violent severities to repress the evil and to give victorious Truth opportunity to do its proper work And to silence this calumny yet more I do renew the Profession which I have often published that my own opinion is so much for Independency as that I think no Church is made by God to be a Ruler to other Churches under the name of a Mother Church or a Metropolitane or Patriarchal but that all these are humane forms And that Councils are not the proper Governours of the particular Pastors but are for Communion of Pastors and Churches directly by way of Consultation Consent and Agreement As I have heretofore declared that Bishop Usher professed his judgement to me Though I confess that the Pastors in Council are still the Guides of the people as well as singly at home and by their Consent lay a stronger governing obligation on them And that the General Law of Unity and Concord doth consequently bind the several Pastors to concurr in all things Lawful Consideratis considerandis with the Confenting Churches And even Dr. Hammond is for Independency so far as to say that every such regular assembly of Christians under a Bishop such as Timothy was an Oeconomus set over them by Christ was the Church of the Living God Though he adde such again every larger circuit under the Metropolitane c. Yet he confesseth And such all the particular Churches of the whole World considered together under the supream head Christ Iesus dispensing them all by himself and administring them severally not by any one Oeconomus but by the several Bishops as inferiour heads of unity to the several bodies so constituted by the several Apostles in their plantatiâ—â—s each of them having an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a several distinct commission from Christ immediately and subordinate to none but the supream Donor or plenepotentiary So far he on 1 Tim. 3. 1â— e. To this do but adde what Bishop Bilson of subjection largely sheweth and other Bishops as well as he that Metropolitanes and Patriarks are not of Divine but humane institution ad accidental to the Divine constitution of Churches And also what Ignatius saith of the Unity of Churches and description of a Bishop that To every Church there was one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons and so every communicating body or Congregation that had an Altar had a Bishop as Mr. Mâ—de on this of Ignatius sheweth and then you will see how far Independency is owned by others as well as by me And for further silencing the calumny let it be noted that the Churches in New-England are commonly called Independent or Congregational and yet they are against Separation and do find by experience that Separation is as perillous a thing to Independent free Churches as it is to Diocesane Churches and somewhat more Because they use not outward force to preserve their Unity and because one single Congregation is sooner dissolved by division than such a thing as a Diocesane Church is And therefore no men should be more willing to suppress Dividing Principles and
Passions than the Independents both because they are most charged with them and with all our Sects and Confusioâ—â— and because they are not the least in danger of them And that the New England Churches are against the Separation which hath been commonly known by the name of Brownisme I will give you these following evidences 1. Even Mr. Robinson himself a part of whose Church began the Plantation at Plimouth though he was one of those that was called a Semi-separatist yet hath written for the lawfulness of hearing in our English Conformable Parish Churches And in his Letter to his people in New-England in Mortons Memorial he hath these honest observable passages How imperfect and lame is the work of grace in that person who wants Charity to cover a multitude of offences Neither are you to be exhorted to this grace only upon the common grounds of Christianity which are that persons ready to take offence either want Charity to cover offences or wisdom duely to weigh humane frailties or lastly are gross though close hypocrites as Christ our Lord teacheth Mat. 7. 1 2 3. As indeed in my own experience few or none have been found which sooner give offence than such as easily take it neither have they ever proved sound and profitable members in societies who have nourished this touchy humâ—ur To these he addeth special Reasons from themselves Mr. Browne accusing the Ministers as being Separatists and would be Anabapists c. The Ministers answered that They were neither Separatists nor Anabaptists they did not separate from the Church of England nor from the ordinances of God there but only from the corruptions and disorders there c. Old Mr. Wilson Pastor of Boston being desired by all the Elders of the Churches assembled at his house that on his dying bed he would solemnly declare to them what he conceived to be those sins which provoked the displeasure of God against the Countrey told them that he had long feared these sins following as chief among others which God was greatly provoked by 1. Separation 2. Anabaptisme 3. Corahisme when people rise up as Corah against their Ministers and Elders as if they took too much upon them when indeed they do but Rule for Christ and according to Christ yet it is nothing for a brother to stand up and oppose without Scripture or reason the doctrine and word of the Elder saying I am not satisfied c. And hence if he do not like the Administration be it Baptisme or the like he will then turn his back upon God and his Ordinances and go away c. And saith he for our neglect of baptizing the children of the Church those that some call Grand-children I think God is provoked by it 4. Another I take to be the making light of and not subjecting to the Authority of Synods without which the Churches cannot long subsist And so for the Magistrates being Gallio like not caring for these things or else not using their power and authority for the maintenance of the Truth and Gospel and Ordinances c. Morton p. 133. 184. And among the Poems there recorded of him this is part Firm stood he 'gainst the Familist And Antinomian spirit strong He never lov'd the Separatist Nor yet the Anabaptists throng Neither the Tolerators strein Nor Quakers spirit could he brook Nor bow'd to the Morellian train Nor childrens right did over-look p. 186. And Pag. 195. in the Poems on their famous Mitchell it followeth The Quaker trembling at his thunder fled And with Caligula resum'd his bed He by the motions of a nobler spirit Clear'd men and made their Notions swine inherit The Munster Goblin by his holy flood Exorcis'd like a thin Phantasma stood Brown's Babel shatter'd by his lightning fell And with confused horror pack'd to Hell Let not the brazen Schismatick aspire Lot's leaving Sodom left them to the fire But the fullest evidence is the work of the New-England Synod 1662. who determined of two great points of Church-practice so as greatly tendeth to reconcile them to all the moderate Presbyterians and other peaceable Christians The one is 2. That Members of the visible Church according to Scripture are confederate visible believers in particular Churches and their Infant-seed that is Children in minority whose next Parents one or both are in Covenant The Case of Christians that are of no particular Church is not here medled with 3. And that The Infant-seed of such when grown up are personally under the Watch Discipline and Government of the Church 4. That these adult persons are not to be admitted to full Communion meerly because they are and continue members without such further qualifications as the Word of God requireth thereunto 5. That Church-Members who were admitted in minority understanding the doctrine of Faith and publickly professing their Assent thereto not scandalous in life and solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their Children to the Lord and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in his Church their children are to be baptised As to the points themselves having written a Treatise on the subject under the name of Confirmation and therein distinctly shewed my Opinion in reconciling terms though it may seem stricter than these propositions and more inclining to the dissenters in some things I shall say nothing of it here But by this it is visible that the New-England Synod do not only exclude the practice of Gathering Churches out of Churches which was the great contest in England between the Assembly and the Congregational party but they provide that not so much as any particular persons that were Baptized in their Churches in Infancy shall be made Church-members de novo unless by removing from one Church to another but shall be accounted members till they apostatize notoriously or are Excommunicated And so shall their children after them succeed by the way of Baptism into the Church and they will have no other ordinary Church-door but Baptism And so gathering Churches of Baptized persons will cease unless it be in a ravelled state when the old Churches being dissolved believers are to embody themselves anew And Mr. Davenport and a few more seeing that by this way their Churches would fall into the way of England and other Churches by a succession of Members growing up from Infancy and not by making them up of new Adult enterers as the Anabaptists do did oppose himself by writing against the Synod which by some of them is largely Answered Wherein they tell us that there were nâ—t ten in a Synod of above seventy that did in any thing Vote on the Negative and not above three against the third Proposition which carryeth the Cause They frequently disclaim Separation They cite Allen and Shephard p. 33. as advising for the Reformation of such Churches as our Parishes that they be acknowledged true Churches and then called to Repentance and Reformation and a select number of those that agree to it
being fit for the sacrament c. to be admitted and go in the Congregational way pag. 42. they cite Cotton Holin of Chur. Mem. p. 92. saying Neither among us doth irregeneration alone keep any from Church-fellowship with us unless it be accompanied with such fruits as are openly scandalous and de convincingly manifest irregeneration They prudently tell us p. 45. that The Lord hath not set up Churches only that a few old Christians may keep one another warm while they live and then carry away the Church into the cold Grave with them when they die but that they might with all care and advantages nurse up still successively another generation of subjects to Christ c. And that We may be very injurious to Christ as well as to the souls of men by too much straitening and narrowing the bounds of his Kingdom or visible Church on earth Citing Paraeus in Mat. 13. saying In Church-Reformation it is an observable truth that those that are for too much strictness do more hurt than profit the Church Abundance more to the same purpose I might collect And seeing they take children growing up to be members under Church-discipline according to their Capacities Let it be considered soberly whether this doth not intimate to us that Discipline it self must not be exercised with the hurtful rigor that some expect For I would intreat the ridgeder sort if they are Parents but to tell me at what age and for what faults and for want of Grace they would have their own children excommunicated And when they have done whether they will also proceed to a Family Excommunication of them for the same causes They adde a sixth Prop. for the Baptizing of the Children of those that by death or extraordinary providence have been inevitably hindered from publickly acting as aforesaid and yet have given the Church cause in judgement of Charity to look at them as so qualified and such as had they been called thereto would have so acted And they adde a seventh Propos. that The Members of Orthodox Churches being sound in the faith and not scandalous in life and presenting due testimony thereof these occasionally coming from one Church to another may have their children baptized in the Church whither they come by virtue of Communion of Churches But if they remove their habitation they ought orderly to covenant and subject themselves to the Government of Christ in his Church where they settle their abode and so their children to be baptized It being the Churches duty to receive such to Communion so far as they are regularly capable of the same So that they provide for the reception of all meet persons But the chief thing observable is that in Propos. 5. Where the Qualifications or Description of a just entitleing Profession is laid down as consisting in no more than these four things 1. Understanding the doctrine of Faith 2. The publick Profession of Assent thereto 3. Not to be scandalous in life 4. And solemnly owning the Covenant before the Church wherein they give up themselves and their children before the Lord. They require no other proofs of Regeneration noâ— any particular account how they were converted nor what further signs of it they can shew And for my own part I never dissented from those called Congregational in England in the two great points from which their Churches are denominated viz. 1. That regularly they should consist but of so many as are capable of Personal Communion which they call a Congregation 2. And that this Congregation is not jure Divino under the spiritual Government of any superior Church as Metropolitane Patriarchal c. But my chief dissent from them hath been in their going beyond Independency and too many of them coming too neer to Separation 1. By making other tearms of mens title to Church-member-ship than these here recited by the New-England Synod and then the understanding sober profession of Assent and Consent to the Baptismal Covenant is 2. And for their gathering new Churches in the several Parishes as if there had been no Churches there before and the members not gathered by them were not the subjects of any Church-Discipline neither the Children nor Adult And the reasons why I have ever dissented from them in these points have been these 1. Because I find that the contrary was the way of Scripture-times and all antiquity And that the Apostles still received members upon a sudden and bare profession of belief and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with the penitent renunciation of the Flesh the World and the Devil And all Ages since have held this course and made Baptisme the Church-door But I shall heartily joyn with any Brethren that will endeavour herein to save the Church from that state of Imagery and dead Formality which Papists and all Carnal Hypocrites have mortified Gods ordinances and unspeakably injured the Churches by and are still working every ordinance of God that way All good men should labour to recover Religion and Christian profession to an understanding seriousness I will here insert the words of a most Learned and High Prelatist to shew you that whoever is against this Course in Practice no sober men can deny it in principles Eldersfield of Bapt. pag. 48. marg Upon score of like reason whereto and for such after-tryal may have been taken up in the Christian Church that examination which did sift the Constancy or rather Consistency of those that had been taken in young to their presumed grounds that if they wavered they might be known and discharged Or if they remained constant they might by Imposition of hands receive what the common name of that Ceremony did import of their Faith at least a sign of Confirmation Vasques hath from Erasmus in the Preface to his Paraphrase on the Gospels a word of most wholsome grave and prudent advice that those who were baptized young when they begin to write Man should be examined An ratum habeant id quod in Catechismo ipsorum nomine promissum fuit Quod si ratum non habeant ab Ecclesiae jurisdictione liberos manere in 3 part Thom. Disp. 154. To. 2. C. 1. 2. If they did then stand to what their Sureties had presumed for them If not they should be discarded Most necessary and of unimaginable benefit But not if it be turned into cursory Imagery Such a scrutiny would shake off thousands of rotten hypocrites and purge the Church of many such Infidel-believers or professors upon whose dirty faces a little holy water was sprinkled when they knew not what it was but they no more mind the true Sanctification appertaining than Turks or Saracens who shall rise up in judgement against their washed filthyness Or than those of whom St. Peter It is happened unto them according to the true Proverb The dog to his vomit and the washed swine to wallow in the mire Such Discipline of awakened Reason is that which the World groans for And groan it may for any
I say for these reasons I shall give you as my Conclusion the Order of the Governour and Council of the Massachusets in New-England to all the Elders and Ministers in their Jurisdiction for Catechizing and private labours with all the Families under their Charge Dated at Boston Mar. 10. 1668. To the Elders and Ministers of every Town within the Jurisdiction of the Massachusets in New-England The Governour and Council sendeth greeting Reverend and Beloved in the Lord WHereas we find in the Examples of holy Scripture that Magistrates have not only excited and commanded all the people under their Government to seek the Lord God of their Fathers and do the Law and Commandment 2 Cro. 14. 2 3 4. Ezra 7. 25 26 27. but also stirred up and sent forth the Levites accompanied with other principal men to teach the good knowledge of the Lord throughout all the Cities of Iudah 2. Chron. 17. 6 7 8 9. which endeavours have been crowned with Gods blessing Also we find that our Brethren of the Congregational Perswasion in England have made a good Profession in their Book entituled A Declaration of their Faith and Order Pag. 59. Sect. 14. where they say That although Pastors and Teachers stand especially related unto their particular Churches yet they ought not to neglect others living within their Parochial Bounds but besides their constant publick Preaching to them they ought to enquire after their profiting by the word instructing them in and pressing upon them whether young or old the great Doctrines of the Gospel even personally and particularly so far as their strength and time will permit We hope that sundry of you need not a spur in these things but are consciously careful to do your duty yet forasmuch as we have cause to fear that there is too much neglect in many places notwithstanding the Laws long since provided therein We therefore think it our duty to emit this Declaration unto you earnestly desiring and in the bowels of our Lord Jesus requiring you to be very diligent and careful to Catechize and Instruct all the people especially the Youth under your Charge in the Sound and Orthodox Principles of Christian Religion and that not only in publick but privately from house to house as blessed Paul did Acts 20. 20. or at least three four or more Families meeting together as strength and time may permit taking to your assistance such godly and grave persons as to you may seem most expedient And also that you labour to inform your selves as much as may be meet how your Hearers do profit by the Word of God and how their Conversations do agree therewith and whether the Youth are taught to read the English Tongue taking all occasions to apply suitable Exhortations particularly unto them for the rebuke of those that do evil and for the encouragement of them that do well The effectual and constant prosecution hereof we hope will have a tendency to promote the Salvation of Souls To suppress the growth of Sin and Prophaneness To beget more Love and Unity amongst the people and more Reverence and Esteem of the Ministry and will assuredly be to the enlargement of your Crown and Recompence in Eternal Glory Given at Boston the 10th of March 1668. by the Governour and Council and by them Ordered to be Printed and sent accordingly Edward Rawson Secret FINIS I desire the â—â—ader to 〈◊〉 the most judiâ—ious â—oâ—â—rate Expositioâ— oâ— thâ— sâ—cond Commandment a oâ— all the est iâ— Mr. George Lawson's Thâ—opolitica 1 Untruth False Worship what seven senses of that word 2. Untruth 3. Untruth Of my mentioning former things Whether I were as guilty as any in stirring up the War And guilty of all which he calleth the Effects Whether nothing past must be repented oâ— The Reader must note that I wrote the full Narrative of my Actions herein which this presupposeth but after cast it away because neither part of the accusers can bear it 4 Untruth Whether I never mention the prophane but with honour Of partial genderness Of my foolish talking Of my Pride Whether it be easier to pray extempore or by memory of words Who is to be judged Proud More mistakes Whom we must come out from Whom we must disown as no Church The Corruption of the Scripture Churches 5 Untruth Of concealing the faults of Dividers Of concealing the faults of Dividers * Read but Hornius his description of the English Sects Eccles. Hist. and see what strangers think of us Of my revealing Secrets 7 Untruth 8 Untruth 9 Untruth The Cause of Popery tried Of Mr. Iohnson's Reply to my Book 10 Untruth Whether it be intollerable Pride to say that the Papists understand not Christian sense and reason 11 Untruth Of Separation Of Censuring Papists Of Pauls not scandalizing the weak I know that Expositors much differ about the weak brother here described but not in the point that I now urge the â—ext for More of revealing secrets 12 Untruth Whom I mean by Dividing And of his Curse 13 Untruth Whether I slight prayer And whether wisdom is to be got by prayer alone without any other means 14 Untruth 15. Untruth Whether I speak slightly of Christ How Christ increased in wisdom Whether Christ needed Prayer for himself Of melancholy misinterpretations of Scripture 16 Untruth Whether God hates book-prayers or forms Whether the Jews had a Liturgie in Christs time See Psal 92. and 102 c. 1 Chr. 16. 4. and 25. 2 Chron. 8. 14 15. Of jeasting at other mens â—â—ayers The temptations of sufferings Many are overcome by suffering who think they overcome It 's a reproach to our Nation that Hornius Hist. Eccl. saith Ita ut seperatismus sive Brownismus non alios habeat authores quam cum Tyrannide superstitione Episcopos Dominantes pag. 244. So much good suffering doth Whether all that use any thing in Gods worship not commanded and in particular a form of prayer be Idolaters And what this censure of Idolatry signifyeth Whither we are guilty of consenting to all that is faulty in the prayers that we are present at 17 Untruth Of flattering Christians Whether any 〈◊〉 be 〈…〉 ignorant and injudicious See my book of Directions to weak Christians to grow in grace The greatness of the sin of thus flattering Christians How sad is it to read in Hoâ—nius Salmasius and others abroad such horrid descriptions of the English sects and scandals Though the Actors were not so many as some of them thought Of the loud voice of the Preacher and a sound judgement 18 Untruth 19 Untruth Whether I have left off the Lords work Note how ordinarily Christ himself and his Apostles avoided persecution by removing Of the judgement of the Univeâ—sal Church Of the judgement of Learned men in difficult speculations 20 Untruth Whether honest people be not apt to stray after one anothers example Whether we should mark and avoid the sins of Christians in the time and places where we live Whether the Religious sort may not have some common errour to be avoided 21 Untruth 22 Untruth 23 Untruth Of Justification Whether we can speak bad enough of nature See Act. 17. and 14. And Rom. 1 and 2. 24 Untruth 25 Untruth Whether there be any free-will Whether he that counts all natural men as bad as he can name will not hate them and say bad of them without fear of slander 26 Untruth Whether no persecution can consist with Love 27 Untruth 28 Untruth 29 Untruth Of the fewness of Believers 30 Untruth Whether the same spirit may not be restored to the ancient forms 31 Untruth Maximus Imperator Râ—mpub gâ—bernahat Vir omni vitae merito praedicandus si ei vel diadema non lâ—gitâ—mâ—â—umultuaâ—te milite impositum repudiâ—re vel armis civilibus abstinere licuissâ—t sed mâ—gnum Imperium nec sine peâ—iculo renâ— i nec sine armis potuit teneri Sulp. sevâ—rus Dialog 3. cap. 7. Beda etiam â—ist Eccl. l. 1. c. 9. Maximus vir strâ—nâ—us pâ—obus atque Augusto dignus nisi contra Sacramenti fidem per tyrannidem emersisset c. Invitus propemodum ab exercitu câ—eatus Imperator c. Had not this man brought the Catholick-Church into a little room