service of God and have taken up the Cross and follow Christ in self-denyal And for others they are so far from being good Ministers that they are not his Disciples or true Christians Christ would not forbear to tell the world of the absolute necessity of self-deniall and resigning up all and bearing the Cross and mortifying the flesh for fear of discouraging men from his service but contrarily telleth them that he will have no other servants but such and those that will not come on these terms may go their waies and take their course and see who will lose by it and whether he do more want their service or they want his protction and favour Obj. But I am not bound to go to a charge which I cannot perform and to take a greater place when I am fit but for a less Answ 1. If you would undertake it but for want of maintenance then it is not unfitness but poverty that is your discouragement and that is no sufficient discouragement 2. We are all bound to dispose of our selves to the greatest advantage of the Church and to take that course in which we may do God the greatest service and we know that he hath more work for us in greater Congregations then in lesser and that the neglect of them would be the greatest injury and danger to his Church and interest and therefore we must not refuse but chuse the greatest work though it be accompanied with the greatest difficulties and suffering It must be done and why not by you as well as others Obj. But no man must undertake more then he can do Answ I will add the rest of my enquiries which will answer this objection 3. Would the maintenance of the place serve two others that have less necessity or smaller families then you If it will try to get two such as may accept it in your stead 4. If this cannot be done nor addition be procured and there be really so little that you cannot have assistance then these two things must be done 1. You must take the charge with limitation with a profession of your insufficiency for the whole work and your undertaking only so much as you can do and this you do for the necessity of the place that cannot otherwise be better supplyed 2. You must not leave off the work of personal Over-sight nor refuse to deal particularly with any because you cannot do it with all But take this course with as many as you are able and withall put on godly neighbours and specially parents and masters of families to do the more And thus doing what we can will be accepted And in the mean time let us importune the Rulers of the Common-wealth for such a proportion of maintenance to great Congregations that they may have so many Ministers to watch over them as may personally as well as publiklely instruct and exhort them It may please God at last to put this into the hearts of Governors and to give them a love to the prosperity of his Church and a conscience of their duty for the promoting of mens salvation Some more of these Objections we shall answer anon under the Uses So much for the distribution of the work of the Ministery drawn from the Object materially Considered We are next to consider of it in reference to the several qualities of the object And because we shall here speak somewhat of the Acts with the Object there will be the less afterward to be said of them by themselves 1. The first part of our Ministerial work lyeth in bringing unsound Professors of the faith to sincerity that they who before were Christians in name and shew may be so indeed Though it belong not to us as their Pastors to coâ—â—â—rt professed Infidels to the faith because they cannot be members of the Church while they are professed Infidels yet doth it belong to us as their Pastors to convert these seeming Christians to sincerity because such seeming Christians may be visible members of our Churches And though we be not absolutely certain that this or that man in particular is unsound and unsanctified yet as long as we have a certainty that many such are usually in the Church and have too great probability that it is so with several individuals whom we can name we have therefore ground enough to deal with them for their conversion And if we be certain by their notorious Impiety that they are no Christians and so to be ejected from the Communion of Christians yea if they were professed Infidels yet may we deal with them for their conversion though not as Their Pastors yet as Ministers of the Gospel So that upon these terms we may well conclude that The work of conversion is the great thing that we must first drive at and labour with all our might to effect Alas the misery of the unconverted is so great that it calleth lowdest to us for our compassion If truly converted sinner do fall it will be but into sin which will sure be pardoned and he is not in that hazard of damnation by it as others be Not as some unjustly accuse us to say That God hateth not their sins as well as others or that he will bring them to heaven let them live never so wickedly but the spirit that is within them will not let them live wickedly nor to sin as the ungodly do but they hate sin habitually when through temptation they commit it actually and as they have a General Repentance for all so have they a particular Repentance for all that is known and they usually know all that 's gross and much more and they have no iniquity that hath dominion over them But with the unconverted it is far otherwise They are in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity and have yet no part nor fellowship in the pardon of their sins or the hopes of glory We have therefore a work of greater necessity to do for them even to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among the sanctified by faith in Christ Acts 26. 18. To soften and open their hearts to the entertainment of the truth if God peradventure will give them Repentance to the acknowledging of it that they may escape out of the snare of the Devil who are taken Captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2. 25 That so they may be converted and their sins may be forgiven them Mark 4. â—â— He that seeth one man sick of a mortal disease another only pained with the tooth-ach will be moved more to compassionate the former then the latter and will sure make more haste to help him though he were a stranger and the other were a Son It is so sad a case to see men in a state of damnation wherein if they should dye they are remedilesly lost that me thinks we should not be able
tamen nata sunt quae omnia si non concupiscimus possidemus inquit Minutins Felix p. mihi 397. You lose no great advantage for heaven by becoming poor Qui viam terit eo faelicior quo levior incedit Id. I know where the heart is carnal and covetous words will not wring their money out of their hands They can say all this and more to others but saying is one thing and believing is another But with those that are true believers me thinks such considerations should prevail O what abundance of good might Ministers do if they would but live in a contempt of the world and the riches and glory of it and expend all they have for the best of their Masters use and pinch their flesh that they might have wherewith to do good This would unlock more hearts to the reception of their Doctrine then all their oratory will do and without this singularity in religiousness will seem but hypocrisie and its likely that it is so Qui innocentiam colit Domino supplicat qui hominem periculo surripit opimam victimam caedit Haec nostra sacrificia haec Dei sacra sunt sic apud nos Religiosior est ille qui justior inquit idem Minutius Felix ib. Though we need not do as the Papists that will betake them to Monasteries and cast away Propriety yet we must have nothing but what we have for God SECT X. 6. THE next branch of my Exhortation is that you would maintain your Christian and brotherly Unity and Communion and do as much of Gods work as you can in unanimity and holy concord Blessed be the Lord that it is so well with us in this County in this regard as it is We lose our Authority with our people when we divide They will yield to us when we go together who would resist and contemn the best of us alone Two things in order to this I beseech you to observe The first is that you still maintain your meetings for communion Incorporate and hold all Christian correspondency Grow not strange to one another Do not say that you have business of your own to do when you should be at any such meeting or other work for God It is not only the mutual edification that we may receive by Lectures disputations or conferences though that 's not nothing but it is specially for consultations for the common good and the maintaining of our Communion that we must thus assemble Though your own person might be without the benefit of such meetings yet the Church and our common work requireth them Do not then shew your selves contemners or neglecters of such a necessary work Distance breedeth strangeness and somenteth dividing flames and jealousies which Communion wil prevent or cure It wil be our enemies chiefest plot to divide us that they may weaken us conspire not with the enemies and take not their course And indeed Ministers have need of one another and must improve the gifts of God in one another and the self-sufficient are the most deficient and commonly proud and empty men Some there be that come not among their brethren to do or receive good nor afford them any of their assistance in consultations for the common good and their excuse is only we love to live privately To whom I say why do you not on the same grounds forbear going to Christ and say You love to live privately Is not Ministerial Commnnion a duty as well as common-Christian Communion and hath not the Church always thought so and practised accordingly If you mean that you love your own ease or commodity better then Gods service say so and speak your minds But I suppose there are few of them so silly as to think that is any just excuse though they will give us no better Somewhat else sure lieth at the bottom Indeed some of them are empty men and afraid their weakness should be known when as they cannot conceal it by their folitariness and might do much to heal it by Communion some of them are careless or scandalous men for them we have no desire of their Communion not shall admit it but upon publike Repentance and Reformation Some of them are so in love with their parties and opinions that they will not hold communion with us because we are not of their parties and opinions whereas by Communication they might give or receive better information or at least carry on so much of Gods work in unity as we are agreed in But the mischief of schism is to make men censorious and proud and take others to be unmeet for their communion and themselves to be the only Church or pure Church of Christ The Papists will have no Catholick Church but the Romans and unchurch all beside themselves The Separatists and many Anabaptists say the like of their parties The new prelatical party will have no Catholick Church but Prelatical and unchurch all except their party and so avoid Communion with others and thus turning Separatists and Schismaticks they imitate the Papists and make an opposition to schism their pretence First All must be accounted schismaticks that he not of their opinion and party when yet we find not that opinion in the Creed and they must be avoided because they are Schismaticks But were solve by the grace of God to adhere to more Catholick principles and practices and to have Communion with all Godly Christians that will have Communion with us so far as they force us not to actual sin And for the separating Brethren as by distance they are like to therish misinformations of us so if by their wilful estrangedness and distance any among us do entertain injurious reports of them and think worse of them and deal worse by some of them then there is cause they may partly thank themselves Sure I am by such means as these we are many of us grown so hardened in sin that men make no great matter what they say one against another but stand out of hearing and sight and vent their spleen against each other behind their backs How many jeers and scorns have they among their Companions for those that are against their party and they easily venture be'the matter never so false A bad report of such is easily taken to be true and that which is true is easily made worse when as Seneca saith Multos absolvemus si coeperimus ante judicare quam irasci nunc autem primum impetum sequimur It is passion that tels the tale and that receiveth it The second thing therefore that I intreat of you is that you would be very tender of the Unity and Peace of the Catholick Church not only of your own parties but of the whole And to this end these things will prove necessary 1. Do not too easily introduce any Novelties into the Church either in faith or practice I mean not that which seems a novelty to men that look no further then yesterday for so the restoring
Pre-determination 3. Lay not too great a stress on those controversies that are meerly verbal and if they were anatomized would appear to be no more Of which sort are far more I speak it confidently upon certain knowledge that now make a great noise in the world and tear the Church then almost any of the eager contenders that ever I spoke with do seem to discern or are like to believe 4. Lay not too much on any point of faith which was disowned of or unknown to the whole Church of Christ in any age since the Scriptures were delivered us 5. Much less should you lay too much on those which any of the more pure or judicious ages were wholly ignorant of 6. And least of all should you lay too much on any point which no one age since the Apostles did ever receive but all commonly hold the contrary For to make such an error which all the Church held to be such as is damning were to unchurch all the Church of Christ and to make it such as must exclude them from our Communion 1. Doth make the whole Church excommunicable which is absurd 2. And doth shew that iâ— we had lived in that age you would it seems have separated from the whole Church To give an instance of the difference among errors That any elect person shall fall away totally and finally is a palpable condemned error of dangerous consequence But that there are some justified ones not elect that shall fall away and perish is an errour of a lower nature which may not break the Communion of Christians For otherwise we must renounce Communion with the Catholike Church in Augustines daies and much more before as is said before What then Shall I take this therefore for a truth which the Church then held some will think me immodest to say No as if I were wiser then all the Church and that in so learned an age if not for so many But yet I must be so immodest as long as Scripture seemeth to me to warrant it Why might not Augustine Prosper and all the rest mistake in such a thing as that But then I am not so immodest nor unchristian as to unchurch all the Church on that account Nor would I have separated from Austin and all the Church if I had then lived Nor will do now from any man on that account Both sides will be displeased with this resolution one that I suppose all the Church to err and our selves to be in the right and the other that I take it for no greater an error but what remedy it will it must be so Read Prospers Respad Capit. Gall. and you may quickly know both Austins mind and his He that shall live to that happy time when God will heal his broken Churches shall see all this that I am now pleading for reduced to practice and this moderation take place of the new dividing zeal and Scripture-sufficiency take place and all mens Confessions and Comments to be valued only as subservient helps and not to be the test of Church-Communion any further then they are exactly the same with Scripture And till the healing Age come we cannot expect that healing truths be entertained because there are not healing spirits in the Leaders of the Church But when the work is to be done the workmen will be fitted for it and blessed will be the agents of so glorious a work But because the Love of Unity and Verity Peace and Purity must be conjunctly manifested we must avoid the extreams both in Doctrine and Communion The extreams in Doctrine are on one side by Innovating Additions on the other side by envying or hindring the progress of the light The former is the most dangerous of which men are guilty these waies 1. By making new points of faith or duty 2. By making those points to be fundamental or necessary to salvation that are not so 3. By pretending of Prophetical and other obscurer passages of the Scriptures that they have a greater objective Evidence and we a greater certainty of their meaning then indeed is so As I have met with some so confident of their right understanding of the Revelation which Calvin durst not expound and profest he understood it not that they have framed part of their Confessions or Articles of faith out of it and grounded the weightyest actions of their lives upon their exposition and could confidently tell in our late changes and differences which side was in the right and which in the wrong and all from the Revelation and thence would fetch such arguments as would carry all if you would but grant the soundness of their expositions but if you put them to prove that you marr'd all And these corruptions of sacred Doctrine by their Additions are of two sorts some that are the first Inventers and others that are the propagators and maintainers and these when Additions grow old do commonly maintain them under the notion of antient verities and oppose the antient verities under the notion of Novelty as is before said The other extream about Doctrine is by hindring the progress of knowledge and this is commonly on pretence of avoiding the Innovating extream It must be considered therefore how far we may grow and not be culpable Innovaters And 1. Our Knowledge must increase extensively ad plura we must know more verities then we knew before though we may not feign more There is much of Scripture that will remain unknown to us when we have done our best Though we shall find out no more Articles of faith which must be explicitly believed by all that will be saved yet we may find out the sense of more particular Texts and several Doctrinal Truths not contrary to the former but such as befriend them and are connexed with them And we may find out more the Order of Truths and how they are placed in respect to one another and so see more of the true method of Theologie then we did which will give us a very great light into the matter it self and its consectaries 2. Our knowledge also must grow subâ—ectively intensively and in the manner as well as in the matter of it And this is our principal growth to be sought after To know the same great and necessary truths with a sounder and clearer knâ—wledge then we did which is done 1. By getting strong Evidence and Reasons in stead of the weak ones which we trusted to before for many young ones receive Truths on some unsound grounds 2. By multiplying our Evidence and Reasons for the same truth 3. By a clearer and deeper apprehension of the same Evidence and Reasons which before we had but superficially received For one that is strong in knowledge seeth the same truth as in the clear light which the weak do see but as in the twi light To all this must be added also the fuller Improvement of the Truth received to its ends I shall give you the summe of my meaning in
me thinks a little humility should make men ashamed of that common conceit of unquiet spirits viz. That the welfare of the Church doth so lye upon their opinions that they must needs vent and propagate them whatever come of it If they are indeed a living part of the body the hurt of the whole will be so much their own that they cannot desire it for the sake of any party or opinion Were men but impartial to consider in every such case of difference how far their promoting their own judgement may help or hurt the whole they might escape many dangerous waies that are now trod If you can see no where else look in the face of the Churches enemies how they rejoyce and deride us And as Seneca saith to demulce the angry Vide ne inimiciâ— iracundia tua voluptati sit When we have all done I know not what party of us will prove a gayner so true are the old proverbs Dissensio ducum hostium succum And Gaudent praedones dum discordant regiones And is it not a wonder that godly Ministers that know all this how the common adversary derideth us all and what a scandal our divisions are through the world and how much the Church doth lose by it should yet go on and after all the loudest calls and invitations to peace go on still and few if any sound a retreat and seriously call to their Brethren for a retreat Can an honest heart be insensisile of the sad distractions and sadder Apostacies that our divisions have occasioned Saepâ—rixam conclamatum in vicino incendium solvit saith Seneca What scolds so furious that will not give over when the house is on fire over their heads Well if the Lord hath given that evil spirit whose name is Legion such power over the hearts of any that yet they will sit still yea and quarrel at the pacificatory endeavours of others who hunger after the healing of the Church and rather carp and reproach and hinder such works then to help them on I shall say but this to them How diligently soever such men may preach and how pious soever they may seem to be if this way tend to their everlasting peace and if they be not preparing sorrow for themselves then I am a stranger to the way of peace SECT XI 7. THE next branch of my Exhortation is that You would no longer neglect the execution of so much Discipline in your Congregations as it of confessed necessity and right I desire not to sour on any one to an unseasonable performance of the greatest duty But will it never be a fit season Would you forbear Sermons and Sacraments so many years on pretence of unseasonableness Will you have better season for it when you are dead How many are dead already before they ever did any thing in this work that were long preparing for it It is now near three years since many of us here did engage our selves to this duty And have we been faithful in performance of that engagement I know some have more discouragements and hinderances then others But what discouragements can excuse us from such a duty Besides the Reasons that we then considered of let these few be further laid to heart 1. How sad a sign do we make it to be in our preaching to our people to live in the willful continued omission of any known duty And shall we do so even year after year and all our daies If excuses will take off the danger of this sign what man will not find them as well as you Read Amesius medul cap. 37. de Disciplin Eccles Gelespi's Aarons rod with Rutherford and many more that are written to prove the Need and Dueness of Discipline saith Ames ib. sect 5. Immo peccat in Christum authorem ac institutorem quisquis non facit quod in se est ad hanc Disciplinam in Ecclesiis Dei constituendam promovendam And do you think it safe to live and dye in such a known sin 2. You gratifie the present designs of dividers whose business is to unchurch us and unchristen us to prove our Parishes no true Churches and our selves no baptized Christians For if you take them for people uncapable of Discipline they must be uncapable of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and other church-Church-Communion and then they are no Church And so you will plainly seem to preach meerly as they do to gather Churches where there were none before And indeed if that be your case that your people are not Christians and you have no particular Churches and so are no Pastors tell us so and manifest it and we shall not blame you 3. We do manifest plain laziness and sloath if not unfaithfulness in the work of Christ I speak from experience It was laziness that kept me off so long and pleaded hard against this duty It is indeed a troublesom and painful work and such as calls for some self-denyal because it will cast us upon the displeasure of the wicked But dare we preferr our carnal ease and quietness and the love or peace of wicked men before our service to Christ our Master Can sloathful servants look for a good reward Remember Brethren that we of this County have thus Promised before God in the second Article of our Agreement We agree and resolve by Gods help that so far as God doth make known our duty to us we will faithfully endeavour to discharge it and will not desist through any fears or losses in our estates or the frowns and displeasure of men or any the like carnal inducements whatsoever I pray you study this promise and compare your performance with it And do not think that you were ensnared by thus engaging for Gods Law hath laid an obligation on you to all the same duty before your engagement did it Here is nothing but what others are bound to as well as you 4. The Ministery that are for the Presbyterian Government have already by their common neglect of the execution made those of the separating way believe that they do it in a meer carnal compliance with the unruly part of the people that while we exasperate them not with our Discipline we might have them on our side And we should do nothing needless that hath so great an appearance of evil and is so scandalous to others It was the sin and ruine of many of the Clergy of the last times to please and comply with them that they should have reproved and corrected by unfaithfulness in preaching and neglect of Discipline 5. The neglect of Discipline hath a strong tendency to the deluding of souls by making them think they are Christians that are not while they are permitted to live in the reputation of such and be not separated from the rest by Gods Ordinance and it may make the scandalous to think their sin a tolerable thing which is so tolerated by the Pastors of the Church 6. We do corrupt Christianity if self in
not therefore neglect our constant observance ordinarily of that day And so it is here If you have so much greater business that you cannot ordinarily have time to do the Ministerial work you should not undertake the office For Ministers are men separated to the Gospel of Christ and must give themselves wholly to these things Obj. All the Parish are not the Church nor do I take the Pastoral charge of them and therefore I am not satisfied that I am bound to take this pains with them Answ I will pass by the question Whether all the Parish be to be taken for your Church because in some places it is so and in others not But let the negative be supposed Yet 1. The common maintenance which most receive is for Teaching the whole Parish though you be not obliged to take them all for a Church 2. What need we look for a stronger obligation then the common bond that lyeth on all Christians to further the work of mens salvation and the good of the Church and the honour of God to the utmost of their power together with the common bond that is on all Ministers to further these ends by Ministerial teaching to the utmost of their power Is it a work so good and apparently conducing to so great benefits to the souls of men and yet can you perceive no obligation to the doing of it Obj. But why may not occasional Conference and Instructions serve the turn Answ I partly know what occasional conferences are compared to this duty having tryed both Will it satisfie you to deal with one person of 20. or 40. or an hundred and to pass by all the rest Occasional conferences fall out seldom and but with few and which is worst of all are seldom managed so throughly as these must be When I speak to a man that cometh to me purposely on that business he will better give me leave to examine him and deal closely with him then when it falls in on the by And most occasional conferences fall out before others where plain dealing will not be taken so well But so much is said afterward to these and several other Objections that I shall add no more I do now in the behalf of Christ and for the sake of his Church and the immortal souls of men beseech all the faithful Ministers of Christ that they will presently and effectually fall upon this work Combine for an unanimous performance of it that it may more easily procure the submission of your people But if there should be found any so blind or vile as to oppose it or dissent God forbid that other Ministers should because of that forbear their duties I am far from presuming to prescribe you Rules or Forms or so much as to motion to you to tread in our steps in any circumstances where a difference is tolerable or to use the same Catechism or Exhortation as we do Only fall presently and closely to the work If there should be any of so proud or malicious a mind as to withdraw from so great a duty because they would not seem to be our followers or drawn to it by us when as they would have approved it if it had risen from themselves I advise such as they love their everlasting peace to make out to Christ for a cure of such cankered minds and let them know that this duty hath its rise neither from them nor us but from the Lord and is generally approved by his Church And for my part let them and spare not tread me in the dirt and let me be as vile in their eyes as they please so they will but harken to God and reason and fall upon the work that our hopes of a more common salvation of men and of a true Reformation of the Church may be revived I must confess I find by some experience that this is the work that must Reform indeed that must expell our common prevailing ignorance that must bow the stubborn hearts of men that must answer their vain objections and take off their prejudice that must reconcile their hearts to faithful Ministers and help on the success of our publike preaching and must make true godliness a commoner thing through the Grace of God which worketh by means I find that we never took the rightest course to demolish the Kingdom of Darkness till now I do admire at my self how I was kept off from so clear and excellent a duty so long But I doubt not but other mens case is as mine was I was long convinced of it but my apprehensions of the difficulties were too great and my apprehensions of the duty too small and so I was hindred long from the performance I thought that the people would but have scorned it and none but a few that had least need would have submitted to it and the thing seemed strange and I stayed till the people were better prepared and I thought my strength would never go through with it having so great burdens on me before and thus I was long detained in delayes which I beseech the Lord of mercy to forgive Whereas upon tryal I find the difficulties almost nothing save only through my extraordinary bodily weakness to that which I imagined and I find the benefits and comforts of the work to be such as that I profess I would not wish that I had forborn it for all the Riches in the world as for my self We spend Munday and Tuesday from morning to almost night in the work besides a Chappelrie catechized by another assistant taking about 15. or 16. families in a week that we may go through the Parish which hath above 800. families in a year and I cannot say yet that one family hath refused to come to me nor but few persons excused and shifted it off And I find more outward signs of success with most that come then of all my publike preaching to them If you say It is not so in most places I answer 1. I wish that be not much long of our selves 2. If some refuse your help that will not excuse you for not affording it to them that would accept it If you ask me what course I take for order and expedition I have after told you In a word at the delivery of the Catechisms I take a Catalogue of all the persons of understanding in the Parish and the Clark goeth a week before to every family to tell them when to come and at what hour one family at 8. a Clock the next at 9. and the next at ten c. And I am forced by the number to deal with a whole family at once but admit not any of another to be present ordinarily Brethren do I now invite you to this work without God without the consent of all antiquity without the consent of the Reformed Divines or without the conviction of your own consciences See what our late Assembly speak occasionally in the Directory about the visitation of the
the name of the Lord e. g. to avoid a notorious obstinate offender and so to obey the command of God that is though we may charge them in the name of the Lord to consent and obey and do their duty yet if their Iudgements remain unconvinced in a case which is to them obscure we have no more to do but satisfie our selves that we have done our duty So that when we have quarrelled never so long what is it but the Peoples consent that the moderate men on one side do require and consent the other side requireth also Call it what else you will whether a Government or an Authority or a Liberty Consent is the thing which both require And are we not then in the matter agreed Peruse for this Mr. Lyfords words before cited See also what the leading men for Presbyterian Government do not only acknowledge but maintain as effectually as others as Dav. Blondellus de Jure plebis in Regim Eccles Calvin Institut l. 4. c. 12. sect 4. Ne quis tale judicium spernat aut parvi aestimet se Fidelium suffragiis damnatum testatus est Dominus c. Ita Zanchius ubi sup and many more Indeed this Consent of the people is not sine qua non to the Pastors performance of his own part viz. Charging the Church in Christs name to avoid the Communion of such a notorious obstinate offender and suspending his own acts towards him and so charging them to receive the innocent or penitent For if the people consent not to avoid such and so would exclude all Discipline yet the Pastor must charge it on them and do his part But it is sine qua non to their actual rejecting and avoiding that offender In a word we must Teach them their duty and require it and they and we must obey and do it and neither they nor we may oblige any to sin Obj. But we are not agreed about the matter of the Church that must be Governed Answ Peruse the qualifications required in Church-members in the writings of the moderate on both sides and see what difference you can find Are not both agreed that Professors of true faith and holiness cohabiting and consenting are a true Church and when they contradict that Profession by wicked actions Doctrine or life they are to be dealt with by Discipline Though I confess in our practise we very much differ most that I know running into one of the extreams of loosness or rigor 3. MY third and last Request is that all the faithful Ministers of Christ would without any more delay Unite and Associate for the furtherance of each other in the work of the Lord and the maintaining of Unity and Concord in his Churches And that they would not neglect their Brotherly meetings to those ends nor yet spend them unprofitably but improve them to their edification and the effectual carrying on the work Read that excellent Letter of Edmond Grindal Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to Q. Elizabeth for Ministerial meetings and exercises such Bishops would have prevented our contentions and wars You may see it in Fullers new History of the Church of England And let none draw back that accord in the substantials of faith and godliness Yea if some should think themselves necessitated I will not say to Schism least I offend them but to separate in publike worship from the rest me thinks if they be indeed Christians they should be willing to hold so much Communion with them as they can and to consult how to manage their differences to the least disadvantage to the common truths and Christian cause which they all profess to own and prefer And here I may not silently pass by an uncharitable slander which some Brethren of the Prelatical Iudgement have divulged of me far and near viz. That while I perswade men to Accommodation it was long of me that the late Proclamation or Ordinance was procured for silencing all Sequestred Ministers viz. by the late Worcestershire Petition which they say was the occasion of it and they falsly report that I altered it after the subscription To which I say 1. It was the Petition of many Iustices and the grand Iury and thousands of the County as well as me 2. There is not a word in it nor ever was against any godly man but only that the notoriously insufficient and scandalous should not be permitted to meddle with the mysteries of Christ specially the Sacraments which we desired should have impartially extended to all parties alike And so much of this as was granted we cannot but be thankful for whoever grudge at it and wish it had been fully granted 3. I desire nothing more then that all able godly faithful Ministers of what side soever in our late State differences may not only have liberty but encouragement For the Church hath not any such to spare were they ten times more In a word I would have those of what party soever to have Liberty to preach the Gospel whose errours or miscarriages are not so great as that probably they will do as much hurt as good Brethren I crave your pardon for the infirmities of this address and earnestly longing for the success of your Labours I shall daily beg of God that he would perswade you to those duties which I have here requested you to perform and would preserve and prosper you therein against all the Serpentine subtilty and rage that is now engaged to oppose and hinder you April 15. 1656. Your unworthy fellow-servant Rich. Baxter TO The Lay-Reader THE reason why I have called this volumn the first Part of the book is because I intend if God enable me and give me time a Second Part containing the duty of the people in relation to their Pastors and therein to shew 1. The Right and Necessity of a Ministry 2. The way to know which is the true Church and Ministry and how we justifie our own calling to this office and how false Prophets and Teachers must be discerned 3. How far the people must assist the Pastors in the work of the Cospel and the Pastors put them on and make use of them to that end And 4. How far the people must submit to their Pastors and what other Duty they must perform in that Relation But because my time and strength is so uncertain that I know not whether I may live to publish my yet-imperfect preparations on this subject I dare not let this first Part come into your hands without a word of caution and advice lest you should misunderstand or misapply it 1. The caution that I must give you is in two parts 1. Entertain not any unworthy thoughts of your Pastors because we here confess our own sins and aggravate them in order to our humiliation and reformation You know it is men and not Angels that are put by God in the office of Church-guides And you know that we are imperfect men Let Papists and Quakers pretend to a sinless perfection we
put now in the end of the world to find out a new foundation for Prelacy supposing that it hath been amiss defended till now and all these Texts except by one or two amiss expounded it will occasion the shaking of the frame it self 3. But the best is we begin to be pretty well agreed at least about the whole Government that de facto was in being in Scripture-times For 1. It is now at last confessed that the word Presbyter is not certainly taken any where in the New Testament for one that is subject to a Bishop having not power of Ordination or Jurisdiction and that no such Presbyters were in being in Scripture-times And by what authority they are since erected let them prove that are concerned in it 2. We are agreed now that they were the same persons who in Scripture are called Bishops Presbyters 3. And that these persons had the power of Ordination Jurisdiction 4. And that these persons were not the Bishops of many particular Churches but one only They ruled not many Assemblies Ordinarily meeting for Church Communion for there could no such meetings be kept up without a Bishop or Presbyter to administer the Ordinances of Christ in each And if there were in a Diocess but one Bishop and no other Presbyters in Scripture times then it must needs be that a Diocess contained but one ordinary Church Assembly and that de facto no Biship in Scripture-times had under him any Presbyters nor more such Assemblies then one That is they Ruled the particular Churches just as our Parish Pastors do So that we are satisfied that we go that way that the Apostles established and was used de facto in Scripture-times And if any will prove the lawfulness of latter mutations or will prove that the Apostles gave power to these particular Pastors to degenerate into another sort of officers hereafter according to the Cogency of their Evidence we shall believe it In the mean time desiring to be guided by the word of God and to go upon sure ground and take only so much as is certain we hold where we are and are glad that we are so far agreed Yet not presuming to censure all superiour Episcopacy nor refusing to obey any man that commandeth us to do our duty but resolving to do our own work in faithfulness and peace For my own part I have ever thought it easier to be Governed then to Govern and I am ready as the Brittish told Austin to be obedient to any man in and for the Lord Nor can I think that any Government can be burdensom which Christ appointeth but all beneficial to us as making our burden lighter and not heavyer and helping and not hindering us in the way to heaven Were Christs work but throughly done I should be the backwardest in contending who should have the doing of it Let us agree but on this one thing which is plain here in my Text That the Churches or Flocks should be no greater then the Pastors can personally over-see so that they may Take heed to all the Flock and then let but able faithful men be the Over-seers that will make the word of God the Rule and lay out themselves for the saving of mens souls and I am resolved never to contend with such about the business of superiority but cheerfully to obey them in all things lawful if they require my obedience If the difference were not more about the matters commanded and the work it self to be done then Who should command it me thinks humble men should be easily agreed Would they but lay by all needless humane impositions and obtrusions and be contented with the sufficient word of God and not make new work to necessitate new Canons and Authorities to impose it but be content with the Gospel simplicity and let us take that for a sufficient way to heaven that Peter and Paul went thither in I think I should not disobey such a Bishop though I were not satisfied of his differing Order or Degree Yea if he were addicted to some encroaching usurpation of more power then is meet would he but forbear the Ecce duo gladii and come to us only with the sword of the spirit which will admit of fair debates and works only upon the conscience I know no reason much to fear such power though it were undue But enough of this SECT III. THE Observations which the Text affordeth us are so many that I may not now stay so much as to name them but shall only lay down that one which containeth the main scope of the Text and take in the rest as subordinate motives in the handling of that in the method which the Apostle doth here deliver them to us Doct. THE Pastors or Over-seers of the Churches of Christ must take great heed both to themselves and to all their Flocks in all the parts of their Pastoral work The method which we shall follow in handling this point shall be this 1. I shall briefly open to you the terms of the subject What is meant by Pastors and Churches 2. I shall shew you what it is to Take heed to our selves and wherein it must be done 3. I shall give some brief Reasons of that part of the point 4. I shall shew you What it is to Take heed to all the Flock in our Pastoral work and wherein it must be done 5. I shall make some Application of all SECT IV. 1. VVHat the words Pastor Bishop and Church do signifie I will not wast time to tell you they being so well known As for the things signified 1. By a Pastor or Bishop here is meant An Officer appointed by Christ for the ordinary Teaching and Guiding a particular Church and all its members in order to their salvation and the pleasing of God Christ appointeth the Office it self by his Laws The person he calleth to it by his qualifying Gifts Providential disposals secret impulses and ordinarily by the Ordination of his present Officers and the Acceptance of the Church Teaching and Guidance contain the main parts at least of the work to which they are designed The particulars we shall further stand upon anon A particular Church is the object of their work by which they are distinguished from Apostolical unfixed itinerant Ministers They are the stated Ordinary Teachers of such a Church by which they are differenced both from private men who do occasionally teach and from the foresaid Itinerant Ministers that do but in transitu or seldom teach a particular Church The subject is the matters of Salvation and Obedience to God and the end is salvation it self and the pleasing of God therein by which work and ends the office is distinguished from all other offices as Magistrates School-masters c. though they also have the same remote or ultimate ends By the Flock and Church is meant that particular society of Christians of which these Bishops or Elders have the charge associated for personal Communion in
a thing as satisfactory when true Repentance is absent hath discovered more of the accusers error then of theirs For no doubt it is true Repentance that they exhort men to and it is true Repentance which offendors do profess and whether they truly profess it who can tell but God It is not nothing that sin is brought to so much disgrace and the Church doth so far acquit themselves of it But of this next 2. Next To the duty of Publike Reproof must be joyned an exhortation of the person to Repentance and to the Publike Profession of it for the satisfaction of the Church For as the Church is bound to avoid Communion with impenitent scandalous sinners so when they have had the Evidence of their sin they must see some Evidence of their Repentance for we cannot know them to be penitent without Evidence And what Evidence is the Church capable of but their Profession of Repentance first and their actual reformation afterwards both which must be expected 3. To these may most fitly be adjoyned the publike prayers of the Church and that both for the Reproved before they are Rejected and for the Rejected some of them at least that they may repent and be restored but we are now upon the former Though this is not expresly affixed to Discipline yet we have sufficient discovery of Gods will concerning it in the general precepts We are commanded to pray alway and in all things and for all men and in all places and all things are said to be sanctified by it It is plain therefore that so great a business as this should not be done without it And who can have any just reason to be offended with us if we pray to God for the changing of their hearts and the pardon of their sins It is therefore in my Judgement a very laudable course of those Churches that use for the three next daies together to desire the Congregation to joyn in earnest prayer to God for the opening of the sinners eyes and softning of his heart and saving him from impenitency and eternal death And though we have no express direction in Scripture just how long we shall stay to try whether the sinner be so impenitent as to be necessarily excluded yet we must follow the general directions with such diversity as the case and quality of the person and former proceeding shall require it being left to the discretion of the Church who are in general to stay so long till the person manifest himself obstinate in his sin not but that a temporal exclusion called suspension may oft be inflicted in the mean time but before we proceeded to an exclusion à statu it is very meet ordinarily that three daies prayer for him and patience towards him should antecede And indeed I see no reason but this course should be much more frequent then it is and that not only upon those that are members of our special charge and do consent to Discipline but even to those that deny our Pastoral oversight and Discipline and yet are our ordinary hearers For so far as men have Christian Communion or familiarity with us so far are they capable of being excluded from Communion Though the members of our special charge have fuller and more special Communion and so are more capable of a fuller and more special exclusion yet all those that dwell among us and are our ordinary hearers have some Communion For as they converse with us so they hear the word not as heathens but as Christians and members of the universal Church into which they are baptized And they joyn with us in publike prayers and praises in the celebration of the Lords day From this therefore they are capable of being excluded or from part of this at least Morally if not Locally For the precept of avoiding and withdrawing from and not eating with such is not restrained to the members of a Governed Church but extended to all Christians that are capable of Communion When these ungodly persons are sick we have daily bills from them to request the prayers of the Congregation And if we must pray for them against sickness and temporal death I know no reason but we should much more earnestly pray for them against sin and eternal death That we have not their consent is no disswasive For that is their disease and the very venom and malignity of it and we do not take it to be sober arguing to say I may not pray for such a man against his sickness because he is sick Or if he were not sick I would pray against his sickness No more is it to say If he were not impenitent so as to refuse our prayers I would pray that he might be saved from his impenitency I confess I do not take my self to have so strict a charge over this sort of men that renounce my oversight as I do over the rest that own it and that 's the reason why I have called no more of them to publike Repentance because it requireth most commonly more time to examine the matter of fact or to deal with the person first more privately that his impenitenc may be discerned then I can possibly spare from the duties which I owe to my special charge to whom I am more indebted and therefore may ordinarily expend no more on the rest who are to me but as strangers or men of another Parish and of no governed particular Church then I can spare when I have done my main duty to my own Flock But yet though I cannot use any such discipline on all that sort nor am so much obliged to do it yet some of them that are most notoriously and openly wicked where less proof and shorter debates are requisite I intend to deal thus with hereafter having found some success in that kind already But specially to all those whom we take for Members of that particular Church which we are Pastors of there is no question but this is our duty And therefore where the whole Parish are members Discipline must be exercised on the whole I confess much prudence is to be exercised in such proceedings least we do more hurt then good but it must be such Christian prudence as ordereth duties and suteth them to their ends and not such carnal prudence as shall enervate or exclude them It may be fit therefore for younger Ministers to consult with others for the more cautelous proceeding in such works And in the performance of it we should deal humbly even when we deal most sharply and make it appear that it is not from any contending or Lordly disposition nor an act of revenge for any injury but a necessary duty which we cannot conscionably avoid And therefore it will be meet that we disclaim all such animosities and shew the people the commands of God obliging us to what we do E. G. Neighbours and Brethren sin is so hateful an evil in the eyes of the most holy God how light
the day But yet this is not all nor the worst if worse may be O that ever it should be spoken of godly Ministers that they are so set upon popular air and of sitting highest in mens estimation that they envy the parts and names of their Brethren that are preferred before them as if all were taken from their praises that is given to anothers and as if God had given them his gifts to be the meer ornaments and trappings of their persons that they may walk as men of reputation in the world and all his gifts in others were to be trodden down and vilified if they seem to stand in the way of their honour What a Saint a Preacher for Christ and yet envy that which hath the Image of Christ and malign his gifts for which he should have the glory and all because they seem to hinder our glory Is not every true Christian a member of the body and therefore partaketh of the blessings of the whole and of each particular member thereof and doth not every man owe thanks to God for his Brethrens gifts not only as having himself a part in them as the foot hath the benefit of the Guidance of the eye but also because his own ends may be attained by his brethrens gifts as well as by his own For if the glory of God and the Churches felicity be not his end he is not a Christian Will any work-man malign another because he helpeth him to do his masters work yet alas how common is this hainous crime among men of parts and eminency in the Church They can secretly blot the Reputation of those that stand cross to their own and what they cannot for shame do in plain and open terms lest they be proved palpable lyers and slanderers they will do it in generals and malicious intimations raising suspicions where they cannot fasten accusations And so far are some gone in this Satanical vice that it is their ordinary practice and a considerable part of their business to keep down the estimation of any that they dislike and to defame others in the slyest and most plausible way And some goe so far that they are unwilling that any one that is abler then themselves should come into their Pulpits least they should be applauded above themselves A fearful thing That any man that hath the least of the fear of God should so envy at Gods gifts and had rather that his carnal hearers were unconverted and the drowsie not awakened then that it should be done by another who may be preferred before them Yea so far doth this cursed vice prevail that in great Congregations that have need of the help of many Teachers we can scarce in many places get two in equality to live together in love and quietness and unanimously to carry on the work of God! But unless one of them be quite below the other in parts and content to be so esteemed or unless one be a Curate to the other or ruled by him they are contending for precedency and envying each others interest and walking with strangness and jealousie towards one another to the shame of their profession and the great wrong of the Congregation I am ashamed to think of it that when I have been endeavouring with persons of publike interest and capacity to further a good work to convince them of the great necessity of more Ministers then one in great Congregations they tell me they will never agree together I hope the objection is ungrounded as to the most but it is a sad case that it should be so with any Nay some men are so far gone in Pride that when they might have an equal assistant to further the work of God they had rather take all the burden upon themselves though more then they can bear then that any should share with them in the honour and for fear least they should diminish their interest in the people Hence also it comes to pass that men do so magnifie their own opinions and are as censorious of any that differ from them in lesser things as if it were all one to differ from them and from God and do expect that all should be conformed to their judgements as if they were the rule of the Churches faith and while we cry down Papal Infallibility and determination of Controversies we would too many of us be Popes our selves and have all stand to our determination as if we were infallible It s true we have more modesty then expresly to say so we pretend that it is only the evidence of truth that appeareth in our Reasons that we expect men should yield to and our zeal is for the truth and not for our selves But as that must needs be taken for Truth which is ours so our Reasons must needs be taken for valid and if they be but freely examined and found to be infirm and fallacious and so discovered as we are exceeding backward to see it our selves because they are ours so how angry are we that it should be disclosed to others and we so espouse the cause of our errors as if all that were spoken against them were spoken against our persons and we were hainously injured to have our arguments throughly confuted by which we injured the truth and the minds of men so that the matter is come to that pass through our Pride that if an errour or fallacious argument do fall under the Patronage of a Reverend Name which is no whit rare we must either give it the victory and give away the truth or else become injurious to that name that doth patronize it For though you meddle not with their persons yet do they put themselves under all the strokes which you give their arguments and feel it as sensibly as if you had spoken it of themselves because they think it will follow in the eyes of man that weak arguing is a sign of a weak man If therefore you take it for your duty to shame their errors and false reasonings by discovering their nakedness they take it as if you shamed their persons and so their names must be a Garrison or fortress to their mistakes and their Reverence must defend all their sayings from the light And so high are our spirits that when it becomes a duty to any man to reprove or contradict us we are commonly impatient both of the matter and of the manner We love the man that will say as we say and be of our opinion and promote our reputation though he be less worthy of our love in other respects But he is ungrateful to us that contradicteth us and differeth from us and that dealeth plainly with us in our miscarriages telleth us of our faults Especially in the management of our publike arguings where the eye of the world is upon us we can scarce endure any contradiction or plain dealing I know that Railing language is to be abhorred and that we should be as tender of each others
were not still the same thing And they look not only after new discoveries in lesser things but they are making us new Articles of faith framing out new waies to heaven The body of Popery came in at this door Their new fundamentals were received on these terms Their new Catholike Church which their fore-fathers knew not was thus set up Before it consisted of all Christians through the world and now it must consist of none but the Popes subjects So is it with the Anabaptists They must now in the end of the world have a new Church for Christ even in the natural capacity of the matter I Never since the creation can it be proved that God had any where a Church on earth where Infants were excluded from being members if there were any among them They were members before the Law under the Promise under the Law and under the Gospel through the Christian world to this day ◠and yet they would needs make Christ a Church now without them As if Christ had mist it in the forming of his Church till now Or as if he begun to be aweary of infants in his Church now at last Or as if the Providence of God did now begin to be awakened to have a right formed Church in the conclusion of the world and to eject those infants as incapable who till now have been in the bosom of his family Yea this disturbing vice doth also work by setting a higher rate of necessity upon some truths then the Church of Christ had ever done When we will needs make that to be of absolute Certainly which hath been either not before received or but as a dark doubtful thing and we will make that to be of necessity to salvation which the former ages did hold but as a point of a far lower nature which some were for and some against without any great disagreement or mutual censure I confess I do hold some points of Doctrine my self to be true which I cannot find that the Church or any in it did hold of many ages after the Apostles but then I cannot lay such a stress on them as to think them of flat necessity to the welfare of the Church and the saving of souls As the Doctrine of the certain perseverance of all the Justified and some few more If I may think that Austin Prosper and all the Church in those Ages did err therein as I think they did Yet to think that they erred fundamentally were to think that Christ had no Church I will not take the Judgement or Practice of the Church in any age since the Apostles as my Rule of faith and life but I will suppose that they had all things in the most defiled age that were of absolute necessity to salvation I know that we must be Justified in the same way as they were and upon the same terms Faith is the same thing now as it was then and hath the same object to apprehend for our Justification and the same office in order to our Justification Many new notions are brought in by Disputers which must not be made matters of necessity to the soundness or integrity of the Churches faith We may talk of Peace as long as we live but we shall never obtain it but by returning to the Apostolical simplicity The Papists faith is too big for all men to agree upon or all their own if they enforced it not with arguments drawn from the fire the halter and the strappado And many Anti-Papists do too much imitate them in the tedious length of their subscribed Confessions and novelty of impositions when they go furthest from them in the quality of the things imposed I shall speak my mind to these in the words of Vincentim Lirinensis cap. 26. 〈◊〉 satis nequeo tantam quorundam hominum vaesaniam tantam excoecatae mentis impietatem tantam postremo errandi libidinem ut contenti non sint traditâ semel acceptâ antiquitus credendi reguld sed nova ac nova in diem quaerant semperque aliquid gestiant religioni addere mutare detrabere Quasi non coeleste dogma sit quod semel revelatum esse sufficiat sed terrena institutio quae aliter perfici nisi assidua emendations immo potius reprehensione non possit When we once return to the antient simplicity of faith then and not till then we shall return to the antient love and peace But the Pride of mens hearts doth make them so overvalve their own conceptions that they expect all men else should be of their mind and bow down to those reasons which others can see through while they are as confident as if there were no room for doubting Every Sect is usually confident in their own way and as they value themselves so they do their reasons And hereupon arise such breaches in affections and communion as there are while most men cry down the divisions of others but maintain the like Some will have no Communion with our Churches because we have some Members that they take to be ungodly and do not pull up the Tares in doubtful unproved cases where we cannot do it without pulling up the Wheat Others are so confident that Infants should be unbaptized and out of the Church that they will be of no Church that hath infant members till these scandalous infants be I say not excommunicated for that supposeth a former right but taken as such that have no part or fellowship in the business they will not joyn with such a society Christ telleth us that except we become as little children we shall not enter into his Kingdom and they say except little children be kept out of the Church they will not enter or abide in it Is not this extream height of spirit to be so confident as to avoid Communion upon it in a case where the Church hath been in all ages or almost all by their own confession so much against them Would they not have separated from the whole Church on the same ground if they had lived in these times Others as is before said are so confident that we are no Ministers or Churches for want of Prelatical Ordination and Government that they separate also or deny Communion with us And thus every party in the height of their self-conceitedness is ready to divide condemn all others that be not of their mind And it usually falls out that this confidence doth but bewray mens ignorance and that too many make up that in passion and wilfulness which they want in reason How many have I heard zealously condemning what they little understand It s a far easier matter to say that another man is erroneous or heretical or rail at him as a deceiver or blasphemer then to give a sound account of our belief And as I remember twenty years ago I have observed it the common trick of a company of ignorant formal Preachers to get the repute of that learning which they wanted by
Ordinances of God and the Communion of the Church for so many years together as they do Yea and many a one of them avoideth also the very hearing of the word The antient Discipline was stricter when the sixth general Council at Trull in Constantinop ordained Can. 80. that whosoever was three daies together from Church without urgent necessity was to be excommunicated Brethren for my part I desire not to offend any party nor to bring the least dishonour to them but I must needs say that these sins are not to be cloaked over with excuses extenuations or denyals We have long cryed up Discipline and every party their several waies Would you have people value your way of Government or not No doubt but you would Why if you would have them value it it must be for som excellency shew them then that excellency What is it and wherein doth it consist And if you would have them believe you shew it them not only in paper but in practice not only in words but in deeds How can the people know the worth of bare notions and names of Discipline without the thing Is it a name and a shadow that you have made all this noise about How can they think that that is good which doth no good Truly I fear we take not the right way to maintain our cause but even betray it while we are hot disputers for it Speak truly is it not these two things that keep up the Reputation of the long-contended for Discipline among men viz. with the godly the meer reputation of their Ministers that stand for it and with many of the ungodly the non-execution of it because they find it to be tooth-less and not much troublesom to them Verily Brethren if we get the late Prelates carnal wisdom and go their way to work by ingratiating our way of Government with the ungodly multitude by the meer neglect of practice and the befriending of their sins we may well look for the same blessing and issue as the Prelates had If once our Government come to be upholden by the votes of those who should be corrected or ejected by it and the worst men be friends to it because it is a friend to them in their ungodliness we then engage it against the Lord and he will appear as engaged against us Set all the execution of Discipline together that hath been practised in a whole County ever since it was so contended for and I doubt it will not appear so observable as to draw godly people into a liking of it for the effects How can you wonder if many that desire deeds and not words Reformation and not the meer name of Reformation do turn over to the separated Congregations when you shew them nothing but the bare name of Discipline in yours All Christians value Gods Ordinances and think them not vain things and therefore are unwilling to live without them Discipline is not a needless thing to the Church If you will not difference between the precious and the vile by Discipline people will do it by separation If you will keep many score or hundreds in your Churches that are notoriously scandalous and contemners of Church-Communion and never openly nor perhaps privately reprove them nor call to Repentance nor cast them out you cannot marvel if some timorous souls do run out of your Churches as from a ruinous aedifice that they fear is ready to fall upon their heads I pray you consider if you should do in the same manner with them in the Sacrament as you do in Discipline and should only shew the bread and wine and never let them taste of it could you expect that the name of a Sacrament should satisfie them or that they should like your Communion Why should you think then that they will be satisfied with the empty sound of the word Church-Government And consider but what a disadvantage you cast your cause upon in all your disputations with men of another way If your principles be righter then theirs and their practice be righter then yours the people will suppose that the Question is Whether the name or the thing the shaddow or the substance be more desirable and they will take your way to be a meer delusory formality because they see you but formal in the use of it yea that you use it not at all I speak not against your Government but for it all this while and tell you that its you that are against it that seem so earnest for it while you more disgrace it for want of exercise then you credit it by your bare arguments And you will find before you have done that faithful execution will be your strongest argument Till then the people will understand you as if you openly proclaimed We would have no Publike Admonitions Confessions or Excommunications our way is to do no good but to set up the naked name of a Government Doubtless it was a sault more past all disputation for the Prelates to destroy Discipline and do little or nothing in it then for them to be Prelates and if they had but done the good that Discipline is ordained for Prelacy might have stood to this day for ought I know I am sure it would have had no opposition from many a hundred godly people that have opposed it And again I say if you will run into their error you may expect their fate And what are the hindrances now that keep the Ministers of England from the Execution of that Discipline which they have so much contended for I hear not all speak but I hear some and see more The great Reason as far as I can learn is The difficulty of the Work and the trouble or suffering that we are like to incurr by it We cannot publikely reprehend one sinner but he will storm at it and bear us a deadly malice We can prevail with very few to make a publike profession of true Repentance If we proceed to excommunicate them they will be raging mad against us They will be ready to vow revenge against us and to do us a mischief If we should deal as God requireth with all the obstinate sinners in the Parish there were no living among them they would conspire in hatred against us to the hazard of our lives We should be so hated of all that as our lives would be uncomfortable so our labours would become unprofitable for men would not hear us when they are possessed with a hatred of us therefore duty ceaseth to be duty to us because the hurt that would follow would be greater then the good and affirmatives bind not ad semper These are the great Reasons for the non execution of Discipline together with the great labour that private admonition of each offender would cost us And to these I answer 1. Are not these reasons as valid against Christianity it self in some times and places as now against Discipline Christ came not to send us peace we shall
them That those Ordinances of God should be the Occasions of our delusion which are instituted to be the means of our conviction and salvation and that while we hold the Looking glass of the Gospel to others to shew them the true face of the state of their souls we should either look on the back side of it our selves where we can see nothing or turn it aside that it may mis-represent us to our selves If such a wretched man would take my counsel he should make a stand and call his heart and life to an account and fall a preaching a while to himself before he preach any more to others He should consider whether food in the mouth will nourish that goeth not into the stomack whether it be a Christ in the mouth or in the heart that will save men Whether he that nameth him should not depart from iniquity and whether God will hear their prayers if they regard iniquity in their hearts and whether it will serve the turn at the day of reckoning to say Lord we have prophesied in thy name when they shall hear Depart from me I know you not and what comfort it will be to Iudas when he is gone to his own place to remember that he preached with the rest of the Apostles or that he sate with Christ and was called by him Friend and whether a wicked Preacher shall stand in the Iudgement or sinners in the Assembly of the just When such thoughts as these have entred into their souls and kindly workt a while upon their consciences I would advise them next to go to the Congregation and there preach over Origens Sermon on Psal 50. 16 17. But to the wicked saith God What hast thou to do to declare my statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant into thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and hast cast my words behind thee And when they have read this text to sit down and expound and apply it by their tears And then to make a free Confession of their sin and lament their case before the assembly and desire their earnest prayers to God for pardoning and renewing grace and so to close with Christ in heart who before admitted him no further then into the brain that hereafter they may preach a Christ whom they know and may feel what they speak and may commend the riches of the Gospel by experience Verily it is the common danger and calamity of the Church to have unregenerate and unexperienced Pastors and to have so many men become Preachers before they are Christians to be sanctified by dedication to the Altar as Gods Priests before they are sanctified by hearty dedication to Christ as his Disciples so to worship an unknown God and to preach an unknown Christ an unknown spirit an unknown state of holiness and Communion with God and a glory that is unknown and like to be unknown to them for ever He is like to be but a heartless Preacher that hath not the Christ and grace that he preacheth in his heart O that all our Students in the University would well consider this What a poor business is it to themselves to spend their time in knowing some little of the works of God and some of those names that the divided tongues of the Nations have imposed on them and not to know the Lord himself nor exalt him in their hearts nor to be acquainted with that one renewing work that should make them happy They do but walk in a vain shew and spend their lives like dreaming men while they busie their wits and tongues about abundance of names and notions and are strangers to God and the life of Saints If ever God waken them by saving grace they will have cogitations and imployments so much more serious then their unsanctified studies and disputations were that they will confess they did but dream before A world of business they make themselves about Nothing while they are wilful strangers to the Primitive independent necessary Being who is all in all Nothing can be rightly known if God be not known nor is any study well managed nor to any great purpose where God is not studyed We know little of the creature till we know it as it standeth in its Order and respects to God single letters and syllables uncomposed are non sence He that over-looketh the Alpha and Omega and seeth not the beginning and end and him in all who is the all of all doth see nothing at all All creatures are as such broken syllables they signifie nothing as separated from God Were they separated actually they would cease to be and the separation would be an annihilation And when we separate them in our fancies we make Nothing of them to our selves It s one thing to know the creatures as Aristotle and another thing to know them as a Christian None but a Christian can read one line of his Physicks so as to understand it rightly It is a high and excellent study and of greater use then many do well understand but it s the smallest part of it that Aristotle can teach us When man was made perfect and placed in a perfect world where all things were in perfect order and very good the whole Creation was then mans book in which he was to read the nature and will of his great Creator Every creature had the Name of God so legibly engraven on it that man might run and read it He could not open his eyes but he might see some image of God but no where so fully and lively as in himself And therefore it was his work to study the whole volume of Nature but first and most to study himself And if man had held on in this prescribed work he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself but when he would needs know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God he lost the knowledge of all both of the creature himself and God so far as it could beatifie and was worth the name of knowledge and instead of it he hath got the unhappy knowledge which he affected even the empty notions and phantastick knowledge of the creature and himself as thus separated And thus he that lived to the Creator and upon him doth now live to and as upon the other creatures and himself and thus Every man at his best estate the Learned as well as the illiterate is altogether vanity Surely every man walketh in a Vain Shew surely they are disquieted in vain Psal 39. 5 6. And it must be well observed that as God laid not by the Relation of a Creator by becoming our Redeemer nor the Right of his Propriety and Government of us in that Relation but the work of Redemption standeth in some subordination to that of Creation and the Law of the Redeemer to the Law of the Creator so also the duties that we owed God as Creator are not ceased but the duties
the eyes of the world and do our part to make them believe that to be a Christian is but to be of such an Opinion and to have that faith which James saith the Devils had and to be solifidians and that Christ is no more for Holiness then Satan or that the Christian Religion exacteth Holiness no more then the false Religions of the world For if the Holy and unholy are all permitted to be sherp of the same fold without the use of Christs means to difference them we do our part to defame Christ by it as if he were guilty of it and as if this were the strain of his prescripts 7. We do keep up separation by permitting the worst to be uncensured in our Churches so that many honest Christians think they are necessitated to withdraw I must profess that I have spoke with some members of the separated or gathered Churches that were moderate men and have argued with them against their way and they have assured me That they were of the Presbyterian judgement or bad nothing to say against it but they joyned themselves with other Churches upon meer necessity thinking that Discipline being an Ordinance of Christ must be used by all that can and therefore they durst no longer live without it when they may have it and they could find no Presbyterian Churches that executed Discipline as they wrote for it and they told me that they did thus separate only protempore till the Presbyterians will use Discipline and then they would willingly return to them again I confess I was sorry that such persons had any such occasion to withdraw and the least ground for such a reason of their doings It is not keeping them from the Sacrament that will excuse us from the further exercise of Discipline while they are Members of our Churches 8. We do too much to bring the wrath of God upon our selves and our Congregations and so to blast the fruit of our labours If the Angel of the Church of Thyatira was reproved for suffering Seducers in the Church we may be reproved on the same ground for suffering open scandalous impenitent ones Rev. 2 20. 9. We seem to justifie the Prelates who took the same course in neglecting Discipline though in other things we differ 10. We have abundance of aggravations and witnesses to rise up against us which though I will purposely now over-pass lest I seem to press too hard in this point I shall desire you to apply them hither when you meet with them anon under the next branch of the Exhortation I know that Discipline is not essential to a Church but what of that Is it not therefore a duty and necessary to its well-being Yea more The power of Discipline is essential to a particular Political Church And what is the Power for but for the work and use As there is no Common-wealth that hath not partem imperantem as well as partem subditam so no such Church that hath not partem regentem in one Pastor or more SECT XII 8. THE last particular branch of my Exhortation is that You will now faithfully discharge the great duty which you have undertaken and which is the occasion of our meeting here to day in personal Catechizing and Instructing every one in your Parishes that will submit thereto What our undertaking is you know you have considered it and it is now published to the world But what the performance will be I know not but I have many reasons to hope well of the most though some will alwaies be readyer to say then to do And because this is the chief business of the day I must take leave to insist somewhat the longer on it And 1. I shall give you some further Motives to perswade you to faithfulness in the undertaken work Presupposing the former general Motives which should move us to this as well as to any other part of our duty 2. I shall give to the younger of my Brethren a few words of Advice for the manner of the performance CHAP. VI. SECT I. 1. THE first reasons by which I shall perswade you to this duty are taken from the benefits of it The second sort are taken from the difficulty And the third from the Necessity and the many obligations that are upon us for the performance of it And to these three heads I shall reduce them all 1. And for the first of these when I look before me and consider what through the blessing of God this work well managed is like to produce it makes my heart to leap for joy Truly Brethren you have begun a most blessed work and such as your own consciences may rejoyce in and your Parishes rejoyce in and the Nation rejoyce in and the childe that is yet unborn yea thousands and millions for ought we know may have cause to bless God for when we have finished our course And though it be our business here to humble our selves for the neglect of it so long as we have very great cause to do yet the hopes of a blessed success are so great in me that they are ready to turn it into a day of Rejoycing I bless the Lord that I have lived to see such a day as this and to be present at so solemn an engagement of so many servants of Christ to such a work I bless the Lord that hath honoured you of this County to be the beginners and awakeners of the Nation hereunto Is it not a controverted business where the exasperated minds of divided men might pick quarrels with us or malice it self be able to invent a rational reproach Nor is it a new invention where envy might charge you as innovators or proud boasters of any new discoveries of your own or scorn to follow in it because you have led the way No it is a well known duty It is but the more diligent and effectuall management of the Ministerial work and the teaching of our Principles and the feeding of babes with milk You lead indeed but not in invention of novelty but the restauration of the antient Ministerial work and the self-denying attempt of a duty that few or none can contradict Unless men do envy you your labours and sufferings or unless they envy the saving of mens souls I know not what they can envy you for in this The age is so quarrelâ—om that where there is any matter to fasten on we can scarce explain a truth or perform a duty but one or other if not many will have a stone to cast at us and will speak evil of the things which they do not understand or which their hearts and interests are against But here I think we have silenced malice it self and I hope we may do this part of Gods work quietly as to them If they cannot endure to be told what they know not or contradicted in what they think or disgraced by discoveries of what they have said amiss I hope they will give us leave
guilty of this gross mistake as to think when he hath preached he hath done all his work let us shew him to his face by our practice of the rest that there is much more to be done and that taking heed to all the Flock is another business then careless lazy Ministers do consider of If a man have the least apprehension that duty and the chiefest duty is no duty he is like to neglect it and be impenitent in the neglect 9. ANother singular Benefit which we may hope for from the faithful performance of this work is that It will help our people better to understand the nature of their duty towards their Overseers and consequently to discharge it better Which were no matter if it were only for our sakes but their own salvation is very much concerned in it I am confident by sad experience that it is none of the least impediments to their happiness and to a true Reformation of the Church that the people understand not what the work and power of a Minister is and what their own duty towards them is They commonly think that a Minister hath no more to do with them but to preach to them and visit them in sickness and administer Sacraments and that if they hear him and receive the Sacrament from him they owe no further obedience nor can he require any more at their hands Little do they know that the Minister is in the Church as the Schoolmaster in his School to teach and take an account of every one in particular and that all Christians ordinarily must be Disciples or Scholars in some such School They think not that a Minister is in the Church as a Physician in a Town for all people to resort to for personal advice for the curing of all those diseases that are fit to be brought to a Physician and that the Priests lips must preserve knowledge and the people must ask the Law at their mouths because he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts And that every soul in the Congregation is bound for their own safety to have personal recourse to him for the resolving of their doubts and for help against their sins and for direction in duty and for increase of knowledge and all saving grace and that Ministers are purposely settled in Congregations to this end to be still ready to advise and help the Flock If our people did but know their duty they would readily come to us when they are desired to be instructed and to give an account of their knowledge faith and lives and they would come themselves without sending for and knock oftner at our doors and call for advice and help for their souls and ask What shall we do to be saved Whereas now the matter is come to that sad pass that they think a Minister hath nothing to do with them and if he admonish them they will bid him look to himself he shall not answer for them and if he call them to be Catechized or instructed or to be prepared for the Lords Supper or other holy Ordinance or would take an account of their faith and profiting they will ask him By what authority he doth these things and think that he is a busie pragmatical fellow that loves to be medling where he hath nothing to do or a proud fellow that would bear rule over their consciences When they may as well ask him By what authority he preacheth or prayeth for them or giveth them the Sacrament or they may as well ask a School-master By what authority he cals his Scholars to learn or say their lesson Or a Physitian By what authority he enjoyment them to take his Medicine people consider not that all our authority is but for our work even a Power to do our duty and our work is for them so that it is but an authority to do them good And the silly wretches do talk no wiselyer then if they should thus quarrel with a man that would held to quench the fire in their thatch and ask him By what authority he doth it Or that would give his money to relieve the poor and they should ask him By what authority do you require us to take this money Or as if I offered my hand to one that is fallen to help him up or to one that is in the water to save him from drowning and he should ask me By what authority I do it Truly we have no wiser nor thankfuller dealing from these men Nay it is worse in that we are doubly obliged both by Christian Charity and the Ministerial office to do them good I know not of any Simile that doth more aptly express the Ministerial power and duty and the peoples duty then these two conjunct viz. even such as a Physician is in an Hospital that hath taken the charge of it and such as a School-master is in his School especially such as the Philosophers or teachers of any science or art whose Schools have the aged and voluntary members as well as children Christs hath all ages even such is a Minister in the Church and such is their work and their authority to do it and the duty of the people to submit thereto allowing such differences as the subject requireth And what is it that hath brought people to this ignorance of their duty but custom It s long of us Brethren to speak truly and plainly its long of us that have not used them nor our selves to any more then the common publike work We see how much custom doth with the people Where it is the custom they stick not among the Papists at the confessing of all their sins to the Priest And because it is not the custom among us they disdain to be questioned catechized or instructed They wonder at it as a strange thing and say such things were never done before And if we can but prevail to make this duty become as usual as other duties they will much more easily submit to it then now What a happy thing would it be if you might live to see the day that it should be as ordinary for people of all ages to come in course to their Teachers for personal advice and help for their salvation as it is now usual for them to come to Church or as it is for them to send their children thither to be Catechized Our diligence in this work is the way to do this 10. MOreover our practice will give the Governors of the Nation some better information about the nature and burden of the Ministery and so may procure their further assistance It is a lamentable impediment to the Reformation of the Church and the saving of souls that in most populous Congregations there is but one or two men to over-see many thousand souls and so there are not labourers in any measure answerable to the work but it becomes an impossible thing to them to do any considerable measure of that personal duty which should be done
could but improve my time according to my convictions of the necessity of improving it He that hath lookt death in the face as oft as I have done I will not thank him to value his time I profess I admire at those Ministers that have time to spare that that can hunt or shoot or bowl or use the like recreations two or three hours yea whole daies almost together That can sit an hour together in vain discourses and spend whole daies in complemental visitations and journeys to such ends Good Lord what do these men think on when so many souls about them cry for their help and death gives no respite and they know not how short a time their people and they may be together When the smallest Parish hath so much work that may imploy all their diligence night and day Brethren I hope you are content to be plainly dealt with If you have no sense of the worth of souls and of the preciousness of that blood that was shed for them and of the glory that they are going to and of the misery that they are in danger of then are you no Christians and therefore very unfit to be Ministers And if you have how can you find time for needless recreations visitations or discourses Dare you like idle Gossips chat and trifle away your time when you have such works as these to do and so many of them O precious time How swiftly doth it pass away How soon will it be gone What are the 40 years of my life that are past Were every day as long as a moneth me thinks it were too short for the work of a day Have we not lost enough already in the daies of our vanity Never do I come to a dying man that is not utterly stupid but he better sees the worth of time O then if they could call time back again how loud would they call If they could but buy it what would they give for it And yet can we afford to trifle it away Yea and to allow our selves in this and willfully cast off the greatest works of God! O what a befooling thing is sin that can thus distract men that seem so wise Is it possible that a man of any true compassion and honesty or any care of his Ministerial duty or any sense of the strictness of his account should have time to spare for idleness and vanity And I must tell you further Brethren that if another might take some time for meer delight which were not necessary yet so cannot you for your undertaking binds you to stricter attendance then other men are bound to May a Physitian in the plague-time take any more relaxation or reereation then is necessary for his life when so many are expecting his help in a case of life and death As his pleasure is not worth mens lives so neither is yours worth mens souls Suppose your Cities were besieged and the enemy on one side watching all advantages to surprize it and on the other seeking to fire it with granadoes which are cast in continually I pray you tell me now if certain men undertake it as their office to watch the ports and others to quench the fire that shall be kindled in the houses what time will you allow these men for their recreation or relaxation When the City is in danger or the fire will burn on and prevail if they intermit their diligence Or would you excuse one of these men if he come off his work and say I am but flesh and blood I must have some pleasure or relaxation At the utmost sure you would allow him none but of necessity Do not grudge at this now and say This is a hard saying who can bear it For it is your mercy and you are well if you know when you are well as I shall shew you in answering this next Objection Object 3. I do not think that it is required of Ministers that they make drudges of themselves If they preach diligently and visit the sick and do other Ministerial duties and occasionally do good to those they converse with I do not think that God doth moreover require that we should thus tie our selves to Instruct every person distinctly and to make our lives a burden and a slavery Answ 1. Of what use and weight the duty is I have shewed before land how plainly it is commanded And do you think God doth not require you to do all the good you can Will you stand by and see sinners gasping under the pangs of death and say God doth not require me to make my self a drudge to save them Is this the voice of Ministerial or Christian Compassion or rather of sensual Lazarus and diabolical cruelty I Doth God set you work to do and will you not believe that he would have you do it Is that the voice of obedience or of rebellion It is all one whether your flesh do prevail with you to deny obedience to acknowledge duty and say plainly I wil obey no further then it pleaseth me Or whether it may make you wilfully reject the evidence that should convince you that it is a duty and say I will not believe it to be my duty unless it please me It s the true Character of an hypocrite to make a Religion to himself of the cheapest part of Gods service which will stand with his fleshly ends and felicity and to reject the rest which is inconsistent therewith And to the words of Hypocrisie this objection superaddeth the words of gross impiety For what a wretched Calumny is this against the most high God to call his service a slavery and drudgery what thoughts have these men of their Master their work and their wages the thoughts of a believer or of an Infidel Are these men like to honour God and promote his service that have such base thoughts of it themseves Do these men delight in Holiness that account it a slavish work Do the believe indeed the Misery of sinners that account it such a slavery to be diligent for to save them Christ saith that he that denieth not himself and forsaketh not all and taketh not up his cross and followeth him cannot be his Disciple And these men count it a slavery to labour hard in his vineyard and deny their ease in a time when they have all accomodations and Encouragements How far is this from forsaking all and how can these men be fit for the Ministry that are such enemies to self-denyal and so to true Christianity Still therefore I am forced to say that all these Objections are so prevalent and all these carnal reasonings hinder the Reformation and in a word hence is the chief misery of the Church that so many are made Ministers before they are Christians If these men had seen the diligence of Christ in doing good when he neglected his meat to talk with one woman Joh. 4. and when they had no time to eat bread Mark 3. 22. would not