Presbytery in that sense I take it I am so well assured that it is Gods Ordinance as I am of any point of Religion But as I said before if men may argue afthis way The Presbyters in the Apostles times did miracles and spake with strange tongues and their Scholers and Disciples did the same do you likewise and then we will acknowledge you to be true Presbytters otherwise we will not Thus the Jewes might have argued against all their Prophets as against Isaiah Ieremy Ezekiel c. Moses and Elias fasted forty dayes and forty nights and did many miracles do you so and then we will believe you are true Prophets and sent to us of God otherwise we will not believe you to be true Prophets Yea all the wicked and ungodly men of these times may argue thus also God gave unto his Church Apostles Evangelists Prophets c. and they spake all strange tongues and divers languages and did many miracles but you and your Congregations have neither Apostles Prophets nor Evangelists nor ye have not the gifts of Tongues nor ye can do no Miracle Ergò you are not the true Church The Primitive Christians and the servants of God in those times had the gifts of Tongues and Prophesie and the Holy Ghost came down upon them and they spake by direction from God his infallible truth and Gospell whose speeches were not tied to time and to one speaker but many spake one after another by interpreters as it is at large set down in the 1. of the Corinthians chap. 14. vers 27 28 29 30. c. So that they spake infallible truth by direction from God but you have none in your congregations so miraculously inspired with sundry languages and divers tongues nor ye do not speak infallible truths by direction from God nor you cannot cure diseases nor do miracles Ergò your religion is not the same Religion nor your congregations the true Church shew us these miracles and then we will beleeve you to be the true Church otherwise we may not we dare not acknowledge you to be the true Church Again they may argue thus The Apostles and Primitive Pastors and Teachers preached freely and laboured with their own hands and were helpfull to the necessities of others and were not burthensome and exacting from others and spake ex tempore by direction from God but your Ministers in your Congregations do not preach freely nor labour not with their own hands nor are not helpfull to others necessities but are rather burdensome and exacting from others nor they do no miracles nor speak not immediately by inspiration and ex tempore but by Study and out of their Books and are confined to time and speak not in strange tongues and languages one after another by Interpreters Ergò your ministers are not Gods Ministers nor your Congregations the true Church nor your people true Christians for you want all those things that the Primitive Christians and the Primitive Churches had There is a Pamphlet lately come out and highly esteemed and prised amongst many full of such consequences as these which if they hold good against the Presbyters they may also for ought I know be of equall validity to overthrow not onely all Christian Congregations but indeed all Christian Religion But briefly to answer We look upon the Apostles and Primitive Presbyters as men miraculously and extraordinarily gifted and as wonder-working men for the confirmation of the truth of the Gospell to all succeeding ages and we consider in them and in the Christians of those times something extraordinary and temporary as their working of miracles and speaking of strange tongues and gifts of healing c. And those we conceive were to continue no longer in the Church then for the confirmation of the truth of the Gospel Christ himself proclaiming those blessed that believe without seeing of miracles speaking unto Thomas Iohn 20.29 Because thou hast seen me saith he thou believest blessed are they that have not seen and have believed So that miracles now are not ordinary and we are tied to the written Word But we consider likewise in the Apostles and Primitive Presbyters that that was permanent and to continue in all Ministers and Presbyters in all succeeding ages to the end of the world and that was the power of order and preaching and the power of jurisdiction that is of ruling which is not denied by the most learned of the Independents themselves and this I have proved by the Word of God to be transacted over to all Christian Churches whose Presbyters have that power given unto them neither will the Learned Brethren deny it what so ever the ignorant may do Yea the very name of a Presbytery as I said before if we look through the whole Scripture signifieth a Magistracy or Signiory or Corporation invested with authority of governing and ruling and such a counsell and company of men as upon whom the government under Christ is laid and to be extended so far as their jurisdiction extendeth and as far as by common consent it may make for the good and edification of the Church and for the safety of the same And such was the government of all those Churches of the New Testament which were as so many Committees their limits and bounds prefixed them as at this day all Committees through the Kingdome have in their severall Hundreds Wapentakes and Cities to whom the ordering and government of those places that are under them are committed so that all that is done or transacted must be done by the joynt consent and counsell of the whole Committee not any particular man or any two of them severally considered by themselvs can make an order but that order only is binding which is made by the joynt consent and common agreement of them all or the greatest part of them assembled together Even so all those particular Congregations that are within the compasse and jurisdiction of the severall Presbyteries are to be ordered and governed by the common and joynt counsell of the severall Presbyters or the greater part of them For this was the order the Apostles established appointing in every City a Presbyterie and when they had so ordered the Churches they set them all to their severall imployments the Presbyters to command and all the people and particular assemblies and congregations under them to obey neither is it ever found in the holy Scriptures that the people were joyned with the Presbyters in their commission So that they that oppose this government resist Gods Ordinance And if we looke into all the Epistles writ by the Apostles to the severall Churches we shall finde in them that they enjoyne all the severall congregations to yeild obedience to their Pastors and Rulers over them and signifie unto them that they owe unto them double honour especially such as labour in Word and Doctrine that is they must yeild unto them not only due reverence and subjection and obedience to their counsell and just
of God he was both ordained and put in office without the approbation and consent of the people who knew nothing of the businesse but onely stood amazed and said Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem and came hither for that intent that he might bring them bound unto the high Priest The Ministers in those dayes when they were all taught of God they onely admitted members by their owne authority into the Church without the approbation of the people but in these our dayes wherein people have gotten itching eares and teachers after their owne humours such as S. Paul speaks of in his Epistles to Timothy they teach a new doctrine and bring forth new borne lights to the darkning of truth it selfe and to the bringing in of confusion on all things See what Saint James saith in his 5. chapt to all Churches and Christians in the world It any man sick saith he let him send for the Presbiters of the Churches and let them pray over him c. and the prayer of faith shall save the sicke and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shal be forgiven him The Apostle James here sends all Christians to the Presbiters of every Church who had the power of the Keys delegated unto them for spirituall comfort and whose office onely it was to pronounce pardon and remission of sinnes unto the sick upon their true repentance if they had offended and sinned against God in the time of their health and so scandalized the Gospell and the Church and it was the Presbiters place and office to admit them againe into the fellowship and communion of the Saints upon their cordiall and unfained repentance and that without asking the Church any leave for as the Presbiters onely had the power of casting out offenders out of the Church so they onely had the authority of receiving them in againe upon their repentance and not the Church so if we look into all those Epistles that were written unto the seven Churches of Asia in the 2. and 3. of the Revelations we shall find them all directed to the Angels of the seven Churches which is as much as to say to the presidents of every severall Presbitry established and constituted in every one of those Churches which is a sufficient argument to me to prove a Counsell or Colledge of godly Ministers in every one of those Cities according to that of Paul to Titus chap. 1. ver 5. for this cause left I thee in Creet that thou shouldest ordaine Presbiters in every City not one but many And in the 14. of the Acts ver 23. And when they had ordained them presbiters in every Church c. many Presbiters a Colledge of them was appointed to every Church and so in the 20. of the Acts there were many Presbiters who had the charge and government of that Church committed unto them in common ver 28. there was a Colledge of them constituted in that church and therefore for order sake which the light of nature teacheth they must have a President who by the way of excellency and to distinguish him from the other is called an Angel as the inscription of the Epistle Rev. 11.1 declares saying Unto the Angel of the church of Ephesus As in our dialect when we speak of the great counsell of the Kingdome or of the reverend assembly of Divines if there be occasion of distinguishing the Presidents of those councels from the other Judges in those assemblies we say Master Speaker in the House of Lords or Commons or of the President of the Ministers we say Master Prolocutor and if any have occasion to write to either houses or to the Assembly they direct their letters to the Speakers or to the Prolocutor who communicates them to each Assemblies as being the Presidents of each Society and yet none of all these Presidents by that their place of honour and eminency have any more power or authority then the rest but onely in the casting voyce when the parties upon any occasion are for number equall and for appointing of the times and places of meeting and for the methodicall and orderly carriage of the businesses yea it is ever observed wheresoever there is a President there is a colledge or councell or a court nature dictates this and the custome of all nations proves it and withall by the same light of reason that counsell or colledge to whom God himselfe writes and directs his letters for redressing of abuses has the power in their hands for the rectifying of things amisse that it peculiarly belongeth unto them as to the Magistrates invested with authority to order things according to direction and to punish and cast out offenders and that by their owne power without the consent and approbation of the people as it is now in the great Counsell and Parliament of the Kingdome who make not the people acquainted with what they have to doe but so farre as it pleaseth themselves and not out of any duty and so it was in the government of Gods Church by the first constitution every Church consisting of many congregations were governed by a colledge of Presbiters as that of Jerusalem and this of Ephesus and the other six Churches in all the which the Presbiters by their sole authority governed them according to Gods Word without taking the people in to counsell with them who were no where joyned in commission with them and therefore it is most apparent by those examples I have now produced and many more that might be added and from the commission that Christ gave to the Apostles and in them to all Ministers that the people had not their voyces either for the admitting of any to be members in any church or in the easting out of any for their delinquency much lesse have they authority to require a publike confession of their faith to be made unto the congregation or to exact of them to bring in the evidences of their true conversion or to require that they should walk with them some time before admission or to enter into a solemne private covenant before they be admitted as members for we have no president for any of these things in Gods Word much lesse any command only in Acts the sixt there is mention made that the Apostles for the freeing of themselves from all unnecessary incombrances and that they might the better attend upon their ministry and preaching gave the people liberty to make choice of their owne Deacons but still keeping the power of ordaining them in their owne hand which alwayes was arbitrary in them whether they would exercise it or no neither would the Apostles have ordained them unlesse those that were to be ordained had been man so qualified as they had appointed for otherwise it lay in their choyce whether they would ordain them or no. But that ever the congregation or people had the power of admitting of members or
against the expresse command of God who is the God of order and injoynes the contrary yea it is not onely against the law of God but against the very law of nature and the practice of all Nations for never was it yet heard of in any well governed city or common wealth or Kingdome that women that were subjects had their voyces in choosing officers or Burgesses or making of freemen or disfranchising of them or were permitted so much as to sit in counsell with them much lesse to rule and give lawes to others out of their owne houses And therefore as it is a thing odious to God and man and that which is a shame to that sex it ought to be cast out of all wel-governed Churches and States and as the women ought to know their places so ought all men that are under obedience to learne their duty and not to take upon them that which God never gave unto them as to have their voyce either in making of members in Churches or casting of them out or of ordaining of officers or of imposing lawes upon others either of making publike confessions before the Congregations or of producing evidences of their conversion or that they should walk with them some time that they might behold their conversation or of imposing a covenant upon any that shall be admitted for all rule and government in the Church is put into the hands of the Presbiters and does not belong unto the people or multitude neither may the Presbiters usurpe authority but they also must exercise it onely according to the commission given unto them by Christ they may not transgresse it or goe beyond it in the least thing and therefore when many of the brethren call for a publike confession of mens faith to be made in their new Congregation and the evidences of their conversion to be produced and impose a covenant upon them before they admit them to be members of their Church as if they had lived before in infidelity Who notwithstanding were knowne to be holy and godly Christians and as true beleevers as any that now live in the world and think them onely Christians and beleevers that doe as they would have them and count of others that will not conforme themselves to their customes and novelties but as the off-scowring and refuse and no Christians I say it is an intolerable usurpation and a thing that was yet never before practised in the world in any Church either Jewish or Christian till these dayes and therefore they goe beyond their commission in so doing for God in his commssion to his Apostles and all Ministers bids them admit of all that come in and beleeve and are baptized he quencheth not the smoaking flax nor breaketh the bruised reed now then when they know thousands in this Kingdome that doe beleeve and are men of unblamable lives and such as would lay downe their lives for the faith once delivered unto the Saints and are baptized what have they to doe to lord it over them and to hinder them from communicating in the Ordinances and to be admitted into Church-fellowship with them or to debarre them from the communion of the Saints Me thinks the vision to Saint Peter in the tenth of the Acts should teach such men their duty When God said unto Peter rise kill and eat Peter said not so Lord for I have never eaten any thing that is common and uncleane and the voyce said what God hath cleansed call not thou common And this saith the Scripture was done thrice that by the mouth of two or three Witnesses this truth might be confirmed to Peter and all other Ministers not to call those people common prophane and uncleane and to count them but rubbish whom God hath graced with the gifts of his holy Spirit and hath sanctified and such as beleeve in Jesus Christ and are baptized as well as themselves and such as stood to the truth when they durst not shew their faces but ran from the Cause and deserted it or at least temporized and such as if the like occasions were offered would manifest unto the world by Gods assistance that their lives and all they have should not be deere unto them for the testimony of Jesus and yet such as these must be debarred from the communion in their assemblies unlesse they will conforme to their new-borne traditions for these are no traditions of the Elders but of the younger and if Christ in his time sharply reproved those that brake the Commandements of God through the traditions of men and deeply reproved the Ministers in those dayes for teaching the people to preferre the traditions of the Elders before the commandements of God and for teaching them the feare of God after the precepts of men What shall we think those Ministers will have to answer at the dreadfull day of judgement when they set up their traditions in the Church of God and preferre them before the Commandements of God and what can any man think of the condition of that people that account of such novelties as the Oracles of God and violate the law of Love and make rents and scismes in the seamelesse garment of the Church through these traditions Surely whatsoever they may promise to themselves their condition is very dangerous for our Saviour saith Woe be to those by whom offences come Matthew 18. and whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that beleeve in me it were better for him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea And whether this be not to transgresse the Commandements of God through their traditions and to offend those little ones that beleeve in Christ when they will not receive such into the communion and fellowship of the Church as beleeve and are baptized but count them as aliens and strangers yea infidels and rubbish I referre my selfe to any that is but of ordinary understanding For Gods command unto all Ministers was that they should admit all such into the Church as beleeved and were baptized upon their desiring it without any confession either private or publike or entring into any covenant Now this command of God they transgresse by their traditions and keepe out many thousands of beleevers through the Kingdome as unholy and as having no right to the Ordinances because forsooth they will not obey their new-born lawes and traditions for where did ever God command that no beleevers should be admitted into the Church except they made a publike confession of their faith and walked some time in fellowship amongst them and then give in the evidences of their conversion and entred into a private covenant and gave the Church satisfaction Or where was it ever practised by any of the primitive Christians either by those that were converted by Peters Sermon and the other Apostless or by Paul's preaching was Lidia when God opened her heart to beleeve Pauls preaching admitted into the Church upon
any such termes was the Goaler and his converted family forced to make a publike confession to the Church of their faith to give in the evidences of their conversion and to enter into a private covenant before they could be made members of the Church or was the Churches assent required before they could be admitted and made members of it or were ever any of these things they impose upon Christians now required at beleevers hands before these our times and therefore they are to be abominated as vaine traditions and such as by which they break the lawes of God making devisions in the Church and Kingdome and through all the families and houses of the same so that neither masters of families nor parents have any rule over their wives children or servants their husbands goe out one way the wife another their children to this assembly their servants to that congregation and as it was among the Corinthians which Paul blames in them one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollo the third I am of Coephas and so they flutter about like a company of chickings without either heads or wit and none will be under obedience to either parents or masters notwithstanding God hath commanded children to obey their parents and servants their masters no farther than pleaseth their owne humours and all this they have learned by the traditions of the younger and whether I have wronged the brethren in any thing I have now said I report my selfe to all the distracted families in the Kingdome where they have been preaching and the daily experience of any moderate minded Christian and if ever there was a pantheon of all Religions in the world it is now in England by reason of these new teachers to the great dishonour of God the hinderance of Reformation and the allienating of the affections one from another of those that are joyned together in nighest relations And by all that I have now spoke I hope it doth sufficiently appeare that there is neither precept nor example through all the holy Scripture to warrant the practice of these men in the gathering of their new Churches and if a man will but looke a little more upon the practice of Christs seventy Disciples of all the Apostles in the gathering of Churches they shall not find one footstep through the whole booke of God of the gathering Churches after the manner of their congregating of their assemblies as for Christs Disciples they were all sent to gather in the lost sheep of the house of Israel they went not to gather in converted men from amongst converted men for they were to bring the lost sheep into Christs fold and we are taught there is but one Shepheard and one sheepfold we never read that after they were once folded and brought into the Church that any true Pastors came into the fold and flocks of their fellow-shepheards and picked out all the best and the fattest sheep and the most wholsome and molded them into an independent fould by themselves as seperate and distinct from the others and with the which they would have no fellowship and communion in the Ordinances this was never heard of before these dayes Paul was so farre from getting away of others sheep that he took it for a dishonour to him to build upon anothers foundation Rom. 15. and preached Christ in those places where they had never heard of him before and planted the Church of Corinth himselfe and left Apollo to water it and committed all the flocks that he had gathered as that of Ephesus to the charge and care of faithful Pastors and commands both the flocks and the Pastors and in them all shepheards and folds to keep unity and love one with another Ephes 4. ver 1 2 3 4 c. and forbids them to make seperations and devisions and scismes between flock and flock and this method he used wheresoever he came yea as soon as he was converted and entred upon his ministry as we may see in the first of the Galatians he went into Arrabia and preached there among the poore Infidels he got not other mens sheep from them neither did he ever make any seperation of sheep from sheep yea even in those flocks and Churches as that of Corinth Galatia and Colosse where there were many that walked disorderly and against the rules prescribed and taught false doctrine and heresies and made scismes in the Church and were very scandalous so that if ever there were in any Churches a just cause of making a seperation it was then and yet the Apostles bid not the Christians seperate themselves from the communion and assemblies of the Saints and from the Ordinances for these mens causes but onely that they should look unto themselves and examine their owne consciences that they may not offend and so make themselves unworthy of the holy things and gives them power to cast out the prophane but no way tolerates them to seperate onely he bids them not be familiar with such as walk disorderly that by this meanes they might learne to amend their lives and tels them of what judgements have alwayes happened to such as were wicked and bids them by their example to take heed how they provoke God by the like as it is at large set downe in the tenth chapter and commands them to make no separation but from Idolaters and Infidels and so likewise in his Epistle to the Galatians he sayes for his owne particular he could wish that they that troubled them were cut off yet he biddeth not the Galatians to separate themselves into independent congregations Nothing of all such things were taught before these dayes that true beleevers and the faithfull servants of God should separate from the assemblies of their brethren every way as deerly beloved of God as themselves and such as with the twelve Tribes of Israel serve their God night and day and would suffer any thing for the Gospell and that any Christians I say should make separation from the fellowship of such or that such should be accounted as enemies of Christ it was never heard of before our times by which their so dealing they have made the greatest scisme in the Church that was ever yet made to the scandall of of our holy profession I have been ever taught in Gods holy Word that those faithfull Ministers that preached Jesus Christ and him crucified and opened the eyes of the blind and turned them from darknesse to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they might receive forgivenesse of sinnes and inheritance amongst them that are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ and taught the people that they should repent and turne to God and doe works meet for repentance and that instructed all men that they being delivered out of the hands of their enemies they should serve God without feare in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of their life and teaching them that the grace of
ceremoniall law with the Gospell cals it a perverting of the Gospell of Christ wishes that such teachers were cut off Gal. 5. v. 12. and blames likewise those Galatians that received their doctrine saying Oh foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth and yet they onely urged the ceremoniall law which God by Moses had appointed to remaine till the fulnesse of time but was now abrogated they were not their owne traditions they were no new borne lights no new wayes no new truths Now if Paul was so displeased or God rather with the Galatians both teachers and hearers the one for bringing in or joyning the ceremoniall law to the Gospell and the other for admitting of them how highly would God have been displeased with them if they had set up their owne inventions for the lawes of God and had brought in new borne truths and intruded them upon the people as necessary to salvation and for the setting up of Christ upon his Throne Without doubt the Apostle would most sharply have reproved them and have given speciall caveats against them as he did in his Epistle to the Colossians the second chapter of the which being chiefly spent in condemning all humane traditions yea in his first chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians ver 8 9. He chargeth them that though the Apostles themselves or an Angel from Heaven should preach unto them otherwise than that they had received they should count him accursed and as I said before saith the Apostle so say I now againe if any man preach unto you otherwise than that you have received let him be accursed But none of the Apostles ever taught the Church that christians and beleevers though baptized should not be admitted as members into the church unlesse they had walked some time in church-fellowship with them and had first made a publike confession of their faith and had brought in the evidences of the truth of their conversion and entred into a solemne private covenant and were admitted by the consent of the church none of all this did ever the Apostles teach or the christians of those times embrace or beleeve and therefore such doctrines as these ought not to be received In the first of the Corinthians in many places he reproves those that made scismes and brought in heresies and sects into the church and in the fourth chapter and sixt verse under his owne and Apollo's name he sets an example before them that they should containe themselves with in the limits and bounds of that doctrine and manner of preaching prescribed and set downe in the Word of God and used by the Spirit of God and commands them that they should learne in the Apostles not to presume or to be wise above that which is written and enjoynes all christians to reject all wayes of teaching that have not Gods Word for their warrant Now in all Gods Word there is nothing of all this written that after men beleeve and are baptized they should not yet be admitted into the church without they had walked sometime with them for their approbation and without they had made a publike confession of their faith before the congregation and brought in the evidences of their true conversion and had entred into a private covenant and were admitted by the consent of the church none of all this is written in Gods Word and therefore we ought not to embrace it And in the second of the Corinths chap. 11. ver 4. the Apostle signifieth unto the Corinthians that no man can teach the Gospel more exactly tahn he and the other Apostles have taught them nor set before them a more perfect doctrine of Jesus Christ than that that they have taught them for the converting of any unto Christ and for the setting up of Christ as King upon his Throne and for the making of them members of the church and for the building of them up in their most holy faith and commands the Corinthians to take heed of all false teachers whatsoever piety and godlinesse they make shew of calling them deceitfull workers such as transforme themselves into the Apostles of Christ And no mervaile saith he for Satan himselfe can transforme himselfe into an Angel of light and therefore it is no wonder his ministers transforme themselves as though they were the ministers of righteousnesse Now if men will consider what those false teachers were we shall find them to be no other but such as under shew of holinesse and piety taught their owne inventions and grolleryes and abused the simplicity of the people for their owne advantage and brought them into bondage and devoured them verse 20. as the Pharises did the Widowes houses under pretence of their long prayers which our Saviour Christ sharply reproves them for and denounces a woe against them for their so doing after the same manner did these fals teachers amongst the Corinthians who made their owne traditions joyned members with the Gospel as if they had had a more fine neat and eliganter way of gathering of Churches and admitting of members than Paul and the other Apostles But the Apostle bids the Corinthians take heed of all such how glorious soever they seem to appeare and tels them they cannot teach the way to Heaven and happinesse better than he and the other Apostles have done and yet neither Saint Paul or any of the Apostles in preaching of the Gospel taught them that they should admit of none to be joyned members of the Church although they beleeved and were baptized except they walked some time in fellowship amongst them that they might have approbation and tryall of their conversation first and after make a publike confession of their faith before the church and did give in evidences of the truth of their conversion to the congregation and entred into a solemne private covenant and were admitted members by consent of the church Not a word of all this in the Gospel that Saint Paul and the other Apostles taught and therefore all that teach their new wayes their new-borne truths and set up their new lights are wise above that which is written and teach otherwise than Christ and his Apostles have taught or the christians of the primitive times had received and therefore ought by the Apostles command Gal. 1. ver 8 9. to be accursed Saint John also in his second Epistle to the Elect Lady ver 9 10. saith Who soever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God he that continueth in the doctrine of Christ he hath both the Father and the Son If there come any unto you that bringeth not the doctrine of Christ receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is a partaker of his evill deeds Now the doctrine that the Independent Ministers teach for the gathering of Churches and admitting of members and joyning and jumbling of them together was never taught
Gods Clergies I know not what it is to admit of none though beleevers and already baptized but such as will come in upon their owne tearmes and keep out the poore either altogether or as long as pleaseth them without any other reason but because they are poore and cast them out againe upon every slender occasion I say if all this be not a most diabolicall tyranny lording it over Gods Clergies I referre it to any moderate man to judge of and if to unchurch all churches but their owne and at one blast to proclaime them all enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and to deny all church-fellowship with them be not more than a Diotrephian prelaticall and papall authority there was never any in the world and if this be not to lord it over Gods Clergies there was never any knowne Now I say if the Independent Presbiters doe so timely begin their absolute lording of it what would they doe if their government were established by authority Their ministry and government is farre different from that of Christ and his holy Prophets and Apostles for they invited all the poore to come in and to buy milk yea to come in and buy milk without mony Isa 55.1 and Saint Paul for the encouraging the poore to come in saith not many mighty not many noble but the meane and contemptible things hath the Lord made choyce of intimating unto the poore that they have as good right to Heaven as the greatest and chiefest and our Saviour Christ saith come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and ye shall find rest unto your soules Our Saviour has no respect of persons but the poore are with him as acceptable as the rich if they be weary and heavy laden with their sinnes for that is all the condition that Christ requires in all that desire to be admitted members of his Church Now when these Presbiters already make so great difference between the poore and the rich and between beleevers and beleevers as they will admit none but at their owne times and upon their own conditions I do conceive that this is a most tyrannically lording it over Gods Clergies and inheritance which when they daily doe it and the Presbiters of the Church of England doe it not it is most apparent that their rule and domination is more prelaticall and more to be feared than that of the Presbiters of the Church of England for from the independent Presbiters they can never expect any appeale for reliefe and redresse whatsoever wrong or injury they have sustained by them and therefore there is no just cause why any should so traduce the Presbitry of the Church of England as to think they will lord it over the people from whom they may ever expect farre better measure than ever they can from the independent Presbitry which if it should once be established would tend to nothing else but to enslave the whole Kingdome and to bring in a confusion upon both Church and State But now it will not be amisse before the conclusion as we have compared the Presbiters of the Church of England with the Presbiters independent both in regard of their doctrine and discipline so now likewise here to paragonate them together in their proceedings for the advancement of Christs Kingdome that all men may see in that regard also which of their endeavours tend most to the advancement of the Kingdome of Jesus Christ and which of them ought to be preferred before other and which of them doth more really and truly tend not onely to Gods glory but to the peace also of the Church and State For the Presbiters of the Church of England they labour and endeavour as there is but one body one spirit one hope one Lord one faith one baptisme one God and Father over all who is above all and through all and one true christian Religion Eph. 4. so that this only may be established through the three Kingdomes and that all erronious wayes of worshipping and serving God and that tends to lead men to perdition and make disturbance in Church and State may not publikely be tolerated The Independents on the contary both publikely and privately and in all their bitter railing and intolerable pamphlets as that of the compassionate Samaritan the storming of Antichrist and that of the arraignment of persecution and in many more of their scurrilous writings plead for a toleration of all Religions under pretence of liberty of conscience whatsoever they be as Judiansme Turcisme Popery Paganisme and all manner of sects and for the confirming of this their diabolicall tenent they bring in the example of the heathen Nations who suffered all Religions amongst them and the example of Poland Transsilvania and Holland those pantheons of all Religions and tell us of the Parable where Christ commanded that the Tares and the Wheat should be suffered to grow together till the harvest the day of judgement And use or abuse rather some other places of Scripture which as they conceive make all for a toleration of all Religions To all which their pretences I shall at this time briefly answer after I have set downe some grounds out of holy Scripture and produced some examples of Gods deare children friends and servants out of the same which must be the warrant of all christians to follow to the end of the world for whatsoever was written before was written for our learning 1 Cor. 10. Rom. 15. and by the Word of God and from the example of Gods serants we are ever taught that diversity of Religions amongst Christians ought not to be tolerated And first to begin with Abraham the Father of the faithfull and his seed whose examples all that are his and their children oughtto set before their eyes for imitation The Lord called Abraham as it is in Joshua 24. out of his Father Terah's house and from his kindred when they served other Gods made a covenant with him as it is at large set downe in the 12. of Genesis and in divers other places of the same book and in speciall in the 17. of Genesis verse 1 2 3 c. where the Lord reneweth his covenant with him and his seed and sets downe the conditions of his covenant with Abraham which was that Abraham should walk before him and be perfect and that then he would be his God al sufficient to provide for him and protect him wheresoever he came which covenant the Lord ever kept with Abraham and his seed delivering them out of the hands of all their enemies when they served him according to the conditions of the covenant walking uprightly before him as he will doe to all his children to the end of the world walking in father Abraham's steps and of Abraham the Lord sayes this in the 18. of Genesis ver 17 18 19. Shall I hide from Abraham that which I doe seeing that Abraham shall become a great and a mighty Nation and all the Nations of
wife and many small children came upon me by it through the power and exorbitant authority of the Prelates so that for my duty and Loyalty to the King I had a prison for my reward and the scornes and contumelies of the world to comfort me in it And when I most humbly petitioned his highnesse complaining against the injustice done me and most submissively supplicated his Majesty who was the Caesar to whom onely I could then appeal that he would be pleased to grant me one of these humble requests either That his Majesty would be pleased but for one houre to give me a hearing of my just defence or if that could not be granted That at lest he would then grant me that liberty in his Kingdome that he denied not to Crows and Kites and other Vermine that I might provide for my young ones and if his highnesse would not be pleased to condescend unto either of the former just demands That then he would give me leave to depart the Kingdome and to go into any other Country where I might enjoy my Liberty and provide for my poore distressed family I am most assured there was never a more equall Petition put up to any Prince in the world yet his Majesty vouchsafed not to yeeld unto any of these my requests nor to any other Petition put up either by my poor distressed wife or calamitous children so that without any wrong unto his Majesty I may truely say That Paul found more favour from a Heathen Roman Caesar then I had from a Christian King the defender of the faith After I saw all possibility of releefe was now taken from me I writ my Apologie to the Bishops themselves discovering unto them their unjust proceedings in their Courts and their unrighteous dealings towards my selfe and gave them my reasons of all I spake without any offensive language and without any purturbation of Spirit and Dedicated this my Book to the Lords of his Majesties Privie Councell expecting aide and reliefe from them and indeed I had no hope of succour from any other nor knew none to whom I could better apply my self earnestly imploring their patronage but they as it is well knowne of Patrons became my unjust Judges and after they had made me a spectacle to Men and Angels and exposed me to the scorne and ludibry of the world sent me into banishment where I lived a living death and a dying life and suffered such intolerable misery of all sorts as would exceed belief to relate and I am most consident if all the particulars were truly known the world never heard the like and there I had ended my dolefull life had not God of his infinite mercy called this Parliament and put into their hearts to redeem me from my capacity for the which incomparable favour I do as of duty I am ever bound professe my selfe to the last drop of my blood to be their servant in the Lord and in all their most just and honourable imployments I hope with all fidelity to answer to the expectation of the world and shall in life and death shew my self to be one that without all by-respects shall ever aime at the glory of God the honour of them and my Country and the common good of all and shall never by Gods assistance do any thing in their concernments that shall be unbeseeming a Man and a Christian Now because by my sad experience I found that I could neither from King nor Nobles have protection I resolved never any more in Gods matters to shroud my self under any covert but Divine Providence and that I with an assured confidence promise my self especially when I now maintain the prerogative royall of the King of Saints King of Kings the Lord Jesus Christ Who is our Lawgiver upon whose shoulders the government of his Church is laid who is the wonderfull Counseller the Prince of peace whose dignity and roialty in all this dispute between me and Mr. Walter Montague I have to the uttermost of my power maintained under the shadow of whose wings I have ever found there is only safety whose blessed assistance in all calamities they that trust in him may be most assured of His patronage now and his defence is my shield whose cause and the honour of whose kingdome at this time I contend for And howsoever in all my life in all humane learning I was never so wedded to my own resolves but upon better reason I could easily be divorced from them yet in Gods matters if an Angell should come from Heaven and teach me that that there were another way to happinesse then by that new and living way the blood of Jesus Christ who was the Lambe slaine from the beginning of the world I would count him Anathema Or if an Angel should tell me there were a new way of worshipping God and serving him then that which God himself hath set down in his holy Word I would account him accursed for I have learned to believe God and Faith upon their word and bond without any either Angelicall or Humane reason or the authority of Councels and Fathers and whatsoever I finde a warrant in Gods Word for I have learned to cleave close to it against all humane reason supposing such men none of Gods nor Faiths truest friends that will not believe them upon their own word and bond except they have reason humane authority Councels and Fathers and vaine traditions joyned with them for sureties Again if any man should go about to perswade me that there were any other government established in the Church of God then an Aristocraticall and a Presbyterian one I should notwithstanding all humane reason to the contrary submit my self to that kind of government as being most confidently assured that it is warranted in Gods Word which all Christians are bound for ever to make the Rule and Square both of our faith manners and government And here I must minde all those that shall read this Book that this is no new opinion of mine but that which I have once and again suffered for and if ever they have read my Elenchus religionis papisticis or my Flagellum pontificis or my Apologie or any of my Latine Books in all those they will finde that the cause of all my sufferings was this and this only That I maintained that all Churches were to be governed by an Aristocraticall and Presbyterian government which in those Books I have clearly and fully through Gods assistance made good Yea in my answer to the Bill of Information put up against me in the Star-chamber they shall have some reasons I gave there of this my tenent to the Lords of his Majesties Privie Councell and Judges in the Star-chamber so that I stand to my principles and am no starter And if then amongst Gods people it was thought an opinion worthy the suffering for and my Christian brethren deemed me worthy of honour for it and afforded me their prayers and shewed me
Jairus here was a speciall Ecce added to take notice that a great man and one in authority came unto Christ and that in a publick way and one of the Rulers of the Syn gogue So that we may observe the people in every Synagogue were governed and commanded by their Rulers and they were to yeeld obedience unto them and were not joyned with them in Commission but stood to their determination as all men use to do in Courts of Judicature that appeal unto them for justice And this custome and manner of government was transacted over to the Christian Churches and those that were called Rulers among them are among Christians sometimes called Presbyters sometimes Guides sometimes Rulers and by Christ himself and by his Apostles are appointed over all Christian Churches as so many corporations to which all the Assemblies and Congregations under them and committed to their charge are to yeeld obedience and submission in whatsoever they command in the Lord and according to his blessed Word for that must be the rule both of their commanding and of the peoples obeying And this Presbyterian government is that manner and way of ruling all Assemblies and particular Congregations under it that God hath appointed in his Church to be continued to the end of the world the which whosoever resisteth resisteth the Ordinance of God And this shall suffice to have spoken in generall in way of proof That all Churches we have mention of under the New Testament were Aristocratically and Presbyterially governed that is were under the Government of a colledge or Assembly of Presbyters And now I come to prove in order the four Propositions or conclusions I undertook to make good The first was That there were many Congregations and severall Assemblies in the Church of Jerusalem in the which they had all acts of worship and did partake of all Ordinances and of Church-fellowship and that before the persecution we read of Acts 8. and under the persecution and after the persecution And for the proof of this Proposition and every branch of it I will first produce such places of Scripture as make for the manifestation of the truth and from thence frame and form my Arguments Mat. 3. ver 1 2 5 6. In those dayes came John the Baptist preaching in the wildernesse of Judaea and saying Repent ye for the Kingdome of heaven is at hand Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judaea and all the Region round about Jordan and were baptized of him in Jordan confessing their sins The Baptisme of Iohn as all the learned know was the same with that of the Apostles for he preached the Baptisme of Repentance for the Remission of sins and Baptized all that came to him into Iesus Christ saying unto the People That they should beleeve on him which should come after him that is on Christ Iesus Act. 19. ver 4. He had his Commission also from God as well as the Apostles and Baptized Christ himself he preached also the Gospell and the Kingdome of the Messiah as well as the Apostles and had many honourable Testimonies from Christ himself as That he was the greatest Prophet that ever was born of woman and That he was a bright shining light and That he was his witnesse and many other Encomiums and praises did Christ give of him to ratifie his Authority and to shew that he was sent of God and that he was that Elias that was to come before the Messiah And all the people owned and took him for a man sent of God and Ierusalem went out to him and all the Region round about and were Baptized of him In these words we finde that the people of Ierusalem were all turned Christians and made members of the Christian Church and were beleevers For which way soever the word Ierusalem be taken it signifieth a numberlesse multitude of men or an innumerable company For if we consider Ierusalem at this time she was a most populous City the Historians that write of that age relate that she had sometimes in her no lesse then eleven or twelve hundred thousand but let it be taken that there were but six hundred thousand inhabitants it is a vast multitude and yet seldome was there lesse inhabitants in Jerusalem if any beliefe may be had to Historians for at that time it was one of the Metropolis Cities of the world and the glory of Nations and the joy of the whole Earth and besides there was then great expectation as we may reade Luke 19.11 That the Kingdome of God should immediately appear and all the Jewes out of all Nations where they were scattered now repaired to Jerusalem and returned into their own countrey expecting the Messiah So that at this time we cannot conceive but that there were infinites of people in Jerusalem and it is said That Jerusalem went out and was baptised by Iohn By Jerusalem here metonimycally the place is taken for the people Now when it is said that a City goeth out it is to be understood either of the whole people Man Woman and Childe old and young with all the inhabitants as many times it happens in great Earth quakes or some Pestilence or Inundation that all the Inhabitants are forced to leave a City and to seek some other habitation but we cannot conceive the going out of Jerusalem to Iohn Baptist in this large sense and expression so that in this place it must be taken Synecdochically and we are to understand a great part or a chief part for the whole as when a City is said to entertaine a King or to go out to meet a King here it is to be understood principally of the chief Officers as the Lord Mayor Aldermen and the Common-counsell and all their severall Companies and chiefe Captaines and Commanders with all their magnificence so that in this notion the common people and the ordinary Citizens are not thought on or at least are not numbred As when JESUS was born in Bethlehem and the Wise Men came to Jerusalem to enquire where they should finde him that was born King of the Jewes that they might worship him for they had seen his Star it is said That when Herod heard these things He and all Ierusalem was troubled with him Here by all Jerusalem is to be understood all the chief Officers and Courtiers for the common people were glad of it for that was the day they had long looked for and rejoyced at but Herod being an Usurper and a Tyrant and all his Nobles Peers and Great men being confederate with him and adjutors in his usurpation and tyranny and conceiving that Christ was an earthly Monarch and that after the manner of the Kings of the Earth he would not only pull down the Usurper but likewise call all them in question as guilty of High Treason and cut them off as complicers and abettors this made them tremble and fear and because it was the generall fear of all the great men in Ierusalem and
the Baptist and by Christ and all his Disciples before the Passion and Sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ and the three thousand converted by the first Miracle and Sermon of Peter after they had received the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the five thousand after by the second Miracle and Sermon and after the new additions of so many multitudes of Believers both of men and women by reason of the miracle wrought upon Ananias and Saphira his Wife and the other miracles that the fifth Chapter speaketh of should I say grant that all these might yet have met in one place and in any one congregation to communicate in all the Ordinances which all reason forbids me to yeild to will it follow that when there were additions upon additions and that of multitudes of Believers that they might still meet in any one congregation to edification and have communicated in all acts of worship For in all reason we may conceive had we no testimony out of the holy Scripture to back it that if eight thousand were converted besides multitudes both of Men and Women with a few Miracles and Sermons and if at the first preaching of the Gospell after the Resurrection there was such a great encrease and such a multiplication of Christians all understanding I say perswades that in the space of twenty years there will be innumerable multitudes added daily to the Church when the miraculous working of wonders with the same doctrine still continued and with all the same reason will dictate to any man that then the whole multitude of all those Believers could not all meet together in one place and in one congregation for edification to communicate in all Ordinances So that any judicious man without the help of any great Schoole-learning may perceive the invalidity and vanity of such argumentation And truly were it not that they are Brethren and that I desire in the spirit of meeknesse to deale with them I would have made it appear that it is so poor a way of disputing that it did not bessem men of gravity much lesse of learning and that there were many wayes to evade the dint of such reasoning and to prove the nothingnesse of the Argument and that by the words of the Text the people there spake of to be in Solomons Porch are to be limited and confined within the number of those that were converted by the last miracle and some other new miracles of the Apostles which they were then working in Solomons Porch for there is the place where the Apostles and they were together and I doe acknowledge that as many as were then and at that time in Solomons Porch with the Apostles were of one accord But doth this with any rationall man conclude that every Believer in Jerusalem both Men and Women and all the Christians and Disciples in Jerusalem were then together in Solomons Porch and in one Congregation I am confident that no wise man will think so for without all controversie there were then such multitudes of Believers in the Church of Jerusalem as neither many Porches nor many Temples could have contained their very bodies much lesse could they have all met in any one congregation to edifie But I say I will not deale with Brethren so rigidly as I might and therefore wave many things that I might justly here utter But grant it were so that now in the beginning of the Christian Church and if I may so speak in the infancy of it that all the Believers then in Jerusalem night all meet together in one place doth it follow that they mightever so do in succeeding times when there was such infinite increase of Christians daily added to the Church all reason will contradict that assertion Within this seven yeares as all men know one place and congregation would have contained all the Independents but will one place now or ten containe them And there is no man as I conceive will deny but that the Apostles and those Primitive Ministers had mother manner of converting faculty then our Brethen for the Apostles as it is well known did not build upon others foundations yea they took it as a disparagement unto them for so Saint Paul in the 15 of the Romans v. 20. affirmeth Now our Brethen they build upon others foundations and gather the sheep and them the good and the fat sheep with good fleeces on their backs yea the Velvit-sheep and the Plush-sheep and the Sattin and Taffity-sheep out of other Sheepheards foulds and while they seem to gather Churches they scatter them and the poor sheep But I will proceed to the other Argument out of the sixth of the Acts where it is related that when the number of Disciples was multiplyed here we may take notice of multiplication There arose a murmuring of the Greeks against the Hebrews because the widdows were neglected in the dayly ministration And the Apostles called the multitude of the Disciples unto them and gave them liberty to choose their Deacons and it pleased the whole multitude saith the Scripture From thence our brethren conclude that all the beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem came here together to the Apostles and were then no more then could all meet in one congregation as if our brethren should thus argue As the wheel-barrow goes rumble rumble even so is Prelaticall Episcopacy better then the Presbyterian Government But to be serious should I grant unto the Brethren that at this time all the beleevers that were in the Church of Ierusalem did then come together and were all in one place and might meet in one congregation doth it follow when there was a dayly increase of more beleevers and that of multitudes of them as this very chapter signifies that then also they might all meet together in one place or in one Congregation I suppose no man will think or beleeve so But I must confesse that I cannot grant unto them that by the multitude of beleevers here spake of is to be understood every individuall Christian or the greatest part of them much lesse that all the whole body of them came together and that for warrantable reason to the contrary For the controversie and murmuring here spoken of was not among all the Disciples and beleevers in Ierusalem but onely between two Nations of them viz. between the Greeks and the Hebrews Now we are informed out of the second of the Acts vers 5. That there were dwelling in Ierusalem Iews devout men out of every Nation under heaven for so in expresse words it is said of the which the Greeks were but one Nation and the Hebrews another So that all the Christians and beleevers of all the other Nations were of one minde and in good accord among themselves as the foregoing Chapters tell and were at peace one wish another so that there was no murmuring amongst them nor no controversie contention or varience and they all continued quiet in their severall houses and lived in love
place or congregation to partake in all acts of Worship but of necessity must be distributed into divers Assemblies and Congregations But in the Church of Ierusalem there were eight thousand new converts besides women and children by virtue of some few miracles and Sermons after Christs Resurrection added to the Church and society of Beleevers besides those that were converted by Iohn the Baptist and Christ and his Apostles Ministry before his sufferings and to which also there were afterwards great multitudes of Beleevers both of men and women and a great company of Priests also joyned insomuch as they kept the very Officers and Souldiers in awe and struck a fear and terrour into them Ergò They could not all meet together in any one place or Congregation to partake in all acts of worship but of necessity must be distributed into divers Assemblies and Congregations if they would all be edified For the major it is so evident that I cannot beleeve that any rationall man will deny it for who yet did ever see an Assembly of above ten thousand people in any one place or Congregation that could partake in all the Ordinances to edification Yea to affirme this is to fight against common reason and dayly experience For the minor it is proved by the severall places above quoted and therefore the conclusion doth also of necessity follow Again I thus further argue Where there was almost an hundred Preachers and Ministers besides the twelve Apostles and all these continually taken up in prayer and preaching and could not leave their ministery to serve Tables and where there was such a company of Believers and people as did imploy them all there of necessity they must be distributed into divers congregations and assemblies if they would all be edified and avoide confusion and partake in all Ordinances But in the Church of Jerusalem there was almost an hundred Preachers and Ministers besides the twelve Apostles and all these were continually taken up in prayer and preaching and could not leave the Ministery to serve Tables and where there was such a company of Believers and people as did imploy them all therefore of necessity they must be distributed into divers congregations assemblies if they would all be edified and avoide confusion and partake in all Ordinances For the Major very reason and the common light of understanding without any reluctation will assent unto it And for the Minor it is manifest from Chap. 1. Vers 21 22. and from Chap. 6. Vers 2. 4. Chap. 8. Vers 1. so that the conclusion is undeniable Again I thus further argue Where there were people of all Nations under the Heavens and the in some multitudes and most of them Believers and devout Men and Women which waited upon the Ordinances and had a desire daily to heare the Word there of necessity they must be distributed into diverse and sundry congregations and assemblies and have such to preach unto them severally in their own language or else they could not partake in all acts of worship to edification But in the Church of Jerusalem there were people of all Nations under the Heavens and them in some multitudes and most of them Believers and devout Men and Women that waited upon the Ordinances and had a desire daily to heare the Word Ergo of necessity they must be distributed into divers congregations and assemblies and have such to preach unto them severally in their owne language or else they could not partake in all acts of worship to edification For the Major no reason can gainsay it for the Apostles and the other Ministers imployed all those gifts of the Holy Ghost and those divers languages which they had received for the edification of the Church to the utmost did improve all opportunities for the converting of the people committed unto their charge and for the further building of them up in their holy faith which was their calling and imployment and this they could not have done unlesse they taught those Nations in their severall Languages and that they could not do without confusion unlesse they were distributed in severall assemblies where they might distinctly heare their own Languages For otherwise as Saint Paul saith in the 1 Cor. 14.23 if men should speak to the people with unknown tongues if the unlearned saith he come in and unbelievers will they not say that they are all mad And therefore Tongues are given for a signe not to them that believe but to them that believe not Now they were devout Men in Jerusalem and Believers and therefore the Apostles and Ministers were to speak to them severally in their own languages and for that purpose God gave them those Tongues that diversity of Languages that those that were Believers might be more edified and that the unbelievers and unlearned and such as belonged unto Gods election might be convinced and judged of all and that the secrets of their hearts might be manifested that so falling downe upon their face they might worship God and report that God was in them of a truth as the Apostle there saith So that I say for the Major no reasonable creature will call it in question And for the Minor it is manifest out of the Chap. 2. Vers 5. c. and in Chap. 6. Vers 1. and Vers 2 4. And for the conclusion that from the Premises doth also ensue Againe I thus further argue out of the former Chapters That which the holy Scripture in expresse words and in diverse places hath declared unto us that every Christian is bound to believe but the Scripture in expresse words and in diverse places hath declared unto us that there were diverse assemblies and congregations of Believers in the Church of Ierusalem and that the Apostles and all the Believers in Ierusalem did continue daily with one accord in the Temple and that they brake bread from house to house and that daily in the Temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Iesus Christ Ergo there was diverse congregations and severall assemblies of Believers in the Church of Ierusalem where they did daily partake in all the Ordinances and enjoyed all acts of worship For the Major no Christian can deny it For the Minor it is manifest from 46 Verse of the 2 Chapter and Chap. 5. v. 12. v. 42. Chap. 3. v. 12 13. and many more places that might be produced And in those places it is not only said they preached in every house but that they brake bread from from house to house by which expression all Writers interpret the holy Communion and partaking of the Lords Supper and if it should not so be understood we never can reade that any Christians in Ierusalem besides the Apostles ever enjoyed all acts of worship especially those that are peculiar to Church Communion It is related often that they preached the Word dayly in the Temple which was common to Iews and Christians though no Jewish
worship as all men acknowledge And by evident Arguments it may be proved that they never administred the Sacraments in the Temple those discriminating and distinguishing Ordinances of the Christian Church as all the most Orthodox Interpreters gather from the ensuing words where it is said They continued dayly with one accord in the Temple but when they speake of the Administration of the Lords Supper it is expressed in these words and breaking of bread from house to house which is interpreted by all Divines of Sacramentall bread which phrase and manner of speaking is usually so expounded by all the Learned upon Acts the 20. vers the 7. And our Brethren do not deny this And it is well known that the Primitive Christians had their meetings and assemblies in private houses as by the many places is manifest which I cited but a little before Besides the Sacrament of breaking bread is no Temple-ordinance and therefore could not be administred in the Temple with the safety of the Christians and Believers for if they were so highly displeased with the Apostles for preaching Jesus and the Resurrection in the Temple as it appeareth Act. 4.2 They would not have suffered them to have administred the Sacraments there And if Paul was so assaulted Acts 21.28 for being but supposed to have brought Greeks into the Temple what would these men have done if one should have brought in a new Ordinance and a new worship and service and that so contrary to their legall rights Surely the Jewes would never have suffered it neither do the Brethren contend for this Now it is well known that in the Primitive Church if not every day yet every first day of the Week at least they met together to break bread that is to receive the holy Sacrament which never was without preaching as we see in Act. 20.7 and in the places above quoted in which it is said they daily brake bread together and that in severall and particular houses and that of necessity must be for a few houses could not have held so many thousands as all reason will dictate and if they were or could be contained under one roof yet they must be forced to be in diverse and severall chambers or roomes So that what is done and spoke in the one the other knowes nothing of it so that they are still severall congregations as under the roof of Pauls there are diverse meeting-places where Men may partake in all Ordinances and they are called severall Churches and they that meet there severall congregations though under one roof for the distinction of the places under one covert makes alwayes a distinct assembly as it is daily seen in the severall Committes at Westminster where every Committee of both Houses have their severall rooms and equall authority and are yet all but one Parliament though distributed into so many severall assemblies So here they had severall assemblies and that in severall houses as is declared and reason it self without any testimony of holy Scripture will perswade this for the Apostles they all preached and that daily and they must have severall rooms to preach in to avoide confusion for all things in the Church must be done in order and they must have severall auditories or assemblies or else they should preach to the wals so that if the Apostles would all preach and the people all heare of necessity they must be distributed into severall congregations assemblies to avoid disorder and that there were severall congregations and severall assemblies the places above specified do declare and tell us So that there is no man that resolves not to oppose all truth that is contrary to his received opinion but may evidently perceive that there were many congregations and assemblies in the Church of Jerusalem and yet they all made but one Church and were govern'd by one Presbytery as the many Committees in both Houses are in divers rooms and make divers assemblies and have equall power and authority among themselves and yet they all make but one Parliament and all those severall Committes are govern'd by the joynt consent of the Great Civill Presbytery of the Kingdome which is all the Parliament and all this without confusion yea with most excellent order and decency Having thus evidently proved that there were many congregations in the Church of Jerusalem before the Persecution I will now by Gods assistance make good that there were also many assemblies under the Persecution and after the Persecution and this I do the rather undertake because some of the Brethren have said That howsoever it could be proved that before the Persecution there were many severall assemblies yet by reason of the dispersion of the Believers the Church of Jerusalem was so wasted and scattered that there were no more left then could all meet in one congregation And were it so that after the scattering of the Believers and Christians in Jerusalem it could never be evinced and made good that there were more then could meet altogether in one place yet all this were nothing for the enervating of the Argument for we must ever look upon the first constitution and Government of the Church and what it was Originally and by Divine constitution and not what it was accidentally and through persecution and oppression and by the violence of men for Governments of Churches are often changed from their primordiall State through many casualties as it happened often in the Church of the Jews and therefore in all Reformations things are to be reduced to the first rule and originall pattern and we are not to look upon them as by occasion they vary or change through the injury of the times And therefore if we look into the Church of Jerusalem as she was in her youth and in her most flourishing age we shall finde her consisting of divers Congregations and many assemblies and all them governed by a Common Councell and joynt consent of a Presbytery which must be the pattern of all Church Government to the end of the world if we will in our Reformation conform our selves to Gods Ordinance and to the first constitution But because I say they think it so difficult a thing to prove many Congregations in Jerusalem after the persecution I will now God-willing make it evident and not onely after the persecution but even in and under the persecution and I will do it first out of that very place our brethren bring against us and by which they labour to evince the contrary the place is in the 8. of the Acts verse 1 2 4. In these words And at that time there was a great persecution against the Church which was at Ierusalem and they were all scattered abroad through the Regions of Iudea and Samaria except the Apostles verse 3. As for Saul he made havock of the Church entring into every house and haling men and women committed them to prison Therefore they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word From
common understanding and ordinary reason which confirm it it is manfest from the 2.3 and 5. Chapters of the Acts which in expresse words signifieth That they met dayly in the Temple and from house to house yea in every house and therefore that is true and out of all doubt and for the Minor it is evident from the place above cited where it is said The Churches that is to say all the Churches in Judea of which Ierusalem was the mother Church were multiplyed the word in the Originall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth properly an increase in number and multitude and not in measure and is so to be understood in this place and cannot being applyed unto persons be otherwise taken whatsoever it may of sinnes and graces and then also the word is capable of this construction as may be proved if need required So that the conclusion doth follow And truely that of Saint Paul in the 1. of the Galatians is an excellent Argument to evince there were more Congregations in Ierusalem then one where proving that he had not received the Gospell which he preached from men but from God he useth this reason That if he had received it from men it must be from the Iews and from the Apostles for the Gentiles were ignorant of it and he was to carry the Gospell unto them and therefore they could not teach it him and to prove that he received it not from the Apostles he thus speaketh of himself When it pleased God to reveal his son unto me that I might preach him amongst the Heathen Immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood neither went I up to Ierusalem to them that were Apostles before me but I went into Arabia Then after three yeares I went up to Ierusalem to see Peter and aboade with him fifteen dayes but other of the Apostles saw I none save Iames the Lords brother Out of the which words besides the singular testimony we have that the preaching and writings of S. Paul are the Gospell of Iesus Christ and the Word of the living God against the Papists we may evidently gather against the Independents that after the persecution there were more believers in Jerusalem then either did or could all meet in one place for in saying that he was with Peter fifteen dayes but in all that time saw none of the Apostles save Iames this I say is a sufficient Argument to prove more Congregations and assemblies of beleevers in the Church of Jerusalem which so imployed the Apostles in their severall ministeries as they had not so much spare time to visit Paul and that Paul also was so taken up in preaching there that he had no leisure to visit them And for the diligence of the Apostles in their Ministry it is said in the sixth of the Acts That they gave themselves continually to prayer and to the Ministery of the Word and therefore they were never idle and that the Apostles either all or the most of them continued resident for many years in Jerusalem before they distributed themselves into severall Nations and Countries and that very few of them were sent abroad there are frequent testimonies in Acts of the Apostles neither as yet did I ever hear it scrupled or call'd in question whether the Apostles were then there or no when Paul was at Jerusalem for it is taken pro confesso that either all or the most of them were at that time in Ierusalem neither doth Saint Paul say I saw none of the other Apostles because they were absent or were gone to Preach the Gospell in other places And for Saint Paul we read that wheresoever he came he went into their Synagogues and into their Assemblies to Preach and that he preacht from house to house and he that gave so strict a charge to Timothy and in him to all Ministers that he should Preach in season and out of season he himself without all doubt would not neglect his duty who in the 20. of the Acts sets his own example before all the Presbyters for their imitation in their diligent preaching and he ordinarily preached by the day and by the night as is manifest out of the same Chapter and many other places and surely the time he remained with Peter in Ierusalem he was as diligent in Preaching as he was in any of the other Churches and he professeth of himself that the care of all the Churches lay upon him and that he laboured more then all the other Apostles in their particulars so that it standeth with all reason that while he was in Ierusalem he was very sedulous in Preaching as who had both strength of body and Gods speciall assistance and his immediate inspiration alwayes to help him in his Ministery so that I conceive as of charity I am bound that Paul was dayly in one assembly or other now if there had been at that time no more beleevers in Ierusalem then could have met in one place congregation and Assembly then of necessity Paul must have seen the other Apostles there as well as Peter and Iames for they also were good Church-men to speak a little in the Prelates dialect and they never left the Word but were alwayes taken up either in praying or preaching amongst them in the Temple and from house to house yea in every house and if there had been but one Congregation or Assembly of beleevers in Ierusalem the Apostles would dayly upon all occasions have been with their flock Now in that Paul saw them not in all that time he was in Ierusalem it is evidently apparent there were more Congregations of beleevers in the Church of Ierusalem then one and more Christians then could all meet in any one or a few places But to proceed to a place or two more for the further confirmation of this truth Acts 12. verse 24. It is said there that the word of God grew and multiplyed Here also we have another good effect of a new fierce persecution in Jerusalem it increased the number and multitude of Believers there after the Persecutor was taken away For the Word of God grew and multiplyed saith the Holy Ghost Out of which words I thus argue Where the Word of God daily more and more grew and multiplyed after the persecution that is to say where there were more multitudes and greater numbers of Believers added unto the Church through the Ministery and preaching of the Gospell then was before which notwithstanding was then so numerous as they could not all meet in any one place or roome to enjoy all the Ordinances to edification there of necessity they must be distributed into diverse assemblies and congregations to enjoy all the Ordinances to edification But in the Church of Jerusalem after a double persecution the Word of God daily more and more grew and multiplyed that is to say there were more multitudes and greater numbers of Believers added unto the Church through the ministery and preaching of the Gospell by the
God bringing salvation hath appeared to all men for this very end that they should deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himselfe for us that he might redeeme us from all iniquitie and purifie unto himselfe a peculiar people zealous of good works I say I have been ever taught by Gods holy Word to beleeve that those Ministers that instruct the people to do al these things and where the people by faith imbrace and receive this doctrine are the true Ministers of Jesus Christ those congregations under them the church of Jesus Christ and of his sheepfold and that Christ in all such congregations is set up as King in his Throne as who rules in the hearts of his people and the which are swayed and guided by the Scepter of his Word and Spirit and deserve none of those contumelious languages the brethren asperse both Ministers and people with Of the ministers they thus speak and print That they deny disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government over mens consciences and Churches so that such a conversion as is wrought by them comes not home to whole Christ and such with their converters doe deny Christs kingly government or at least and best they are converted but in part and that maine thing is wanting to wit Christs Kingly office and of all the people and Christian beleevers through the Kingdome that are not in their Congregations and new-gathered Assemblies they speak and print thus We say the brethren the independent ministers exhort them to set up Christ King in their hearts We exhort them to become and professe to be those Saints of whom Christ is King for he is King of Saints Rev. 15.3 but they will not beleeve us say they they will not depend upon Christ as the onely law-giver and King over their consciences Now what would you have us to doe in this case say they baptize the infants of such parents as will not in this respect professe nor confesse Christ to be their King Why doe you not know say they that no Infants have any title to baptisme that are not within the covenant visibly and how are they within the covenant visibly but by vertue of their parents faith outwardly professed and what outward profession of faith is there in the parents that refuse Christ for their onely King that are ashamed or afraid to professe to be in covenant with Christ as their King if therefore the parents professe not yea refuse thus to be in visible covenant can the children be said to be in visible covenant so to have a right in baptisme the externall seal of the covenant here is an obex a barre put These are their owne words which I have set downe at large the summe of them briefly is this that all the Ministers of the Church of England that are not of their fraternity doe deny disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government over mens consciences and churches and that all the people under their Ministery are men unconverted or at least converted but in part wanting the main thing to wit Christs Kingly office men visibly out of the covenant of grace who have not so much as an outward profession of faith who deny Christ to be their King to whose persons and infants the very sacraments and seals of grace with all church communion may and ought to be denied Another of the Independents amongst many of the contumelious and disgracefull speeches he uttereth out aganst the Ministers of the church of England calling them the blackcoats in the Synod who he is afraid will prove more cruell Taskmasters than their Fathers the Bishops who cowardly sit at home and in his apprehension for no other end but to breed faction and devision amongst the wel affected to the Parliament promoting their own interest which saith he is lazinesse pride covetousnesse and domination and amongst many such expressions as these he proclaimes them the sworne enemies of Jesus Christ and desiring that the Parliament may be put in mind of their covenant for he thinks they have sworn to root out popery he tels them they have established Tythes the very root and support of popery which he doth humbly conceive is a contradiction to their covenant and which will be a greater snare than the Common-Prayer to many of the precious consciences of Gods people whose duty it is in his judgement to dye in a prison before they act or stoop unto so dishonourable a thing as this is to their Lord and Master as to maintaine the black-coats with tythes whom they look upon as the professed enemies of their anointed Christ c. These are some of his formall expressions I leave the comment of these severall passages to others neither doe I rehearse innumerable such like sentences as are daily vented to the intolerable disgrace both of all the Ministers of the Church of England of all those beleeving christians that are under their several charges that in every pamphlet in the which they proclaim all the Ministers to be the sworne and professed enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ and such as deny disclaime and preach against Christs kingly government over mens consciences and Churches and for the people and beleevers in England they proclaime them to be men unconverted or at least converted but in part wanting the maine thing Christs Kingly office men visibly out of the covenant of grace who have not so much as an outward profession of the faith who deny Christ to be their King to whose persons and Infants the very Sacraments and seales of grace with all church-communion may and ought to be denied c. By the which words they not onely unchurch all the congregations of England Scotland Ireland but indeed all the reformed churches and unchristian all christians but those that are in their owne independent assemblies and account them as aliens and strangers from the common-wealth of the Saints and make Christ to be no King over them or to have any Kingdome in or amongst them but onely amongst themselves in their new congregations wheras Christ ever had a church or Kingdome upon earth in all ages before they were and hath without all controversie a true Kingdome in many churches in these our dayes where they are not Had I not seen their expressions in print and the book in which they are uttered set forth by authority with approbation I should not have beleeved that they had all of them bin so uncharitable but finding that book not only printed by license but generally applauded by them all and much magnified as the frequent edititions of it doe manifest I gather it is the universall opinion of them all Than the which what could be more uncharitably and unchristianly spoken what comfort can any of the Ministers of the church
Church and the Saviour of all those that truly beleeve in him and this is to set up Christ upon his Throne and the brethren themselves accord unto this Now when the Ministers of England teach this doctrine in their preachings and writings how can they be truly said to deny disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government over mens consciences and Churches and how can that people be said truly to deny Christs Kingly government who doe both beleeve and to the uttermost of their power practice this doctrine and follow onely the guidance of his holy Spirit and Word both for doctrine and government who is King of the Church whether therefore this be not an unjust and unchristian calumny laid both upon the Ministers and people of the church of England I leave it to the consideration of any moderate minded christian doubtles all charitable minded christians if they consider althings aright will not think so dishonourably neither of the Ministers of England nor of the people under their ministry for they deserve not to be accounted the profest enemies of Christ who are freed from that heavy accusation by Christs owne testimony who when it was related unto him by Saint John Mark 9. ver 38. That they had seen one casting out devils in his name which followed them not and that the Disciples had forbad him because hee did not follow them Our Saviour Christ replying forbid him not saith he for whosoever is not against us is on our part Now these Ministers that open the eyes of the blind and turne them from darknesse to light and from the power of Satan to God they cannot be eâ—â—â—emed enemies of Christ and to be against Christ but for him and ought highly to be honoured for their works sake 1 Thes chap. 5. ver 13. and singularly to be beloved and deserve not to be maligned and reproached especially by brethren who owe all their conversions next unto God to their ministry yea both the Pastors and people of all the new congregated Churches are beholding unto them for their conversion for they admit none into their Assemblies but beleevers and they were made beleevers and converted by their ministry and therefore they are friends of Christ and not his enemies and they ought all of them to look upon them as their Fathers and on the Church of England as their Mother and on the beleevers of England as their brethren and ought not thus unchristianly and ungratefully to cast durt in all their faces Saint Paul in his Epistle to the Phillippians chap. 1. has these words Some saith he preach Christ even of envy and strife and some also of good will the one preach Christ of contention and not sincerely thinking to adde affliction to my bonds but the other of love What then notwithstanding every way whether in pretence or in truth Christ be preached I therein doe rejoyce yea and I will rejoyce S. Paul speakes here of such as preach pure doctrine though not with a pure mind and was glad that Christ was preached and counts them not the enemies of Christ as he did the false teachers among the Galatians who joyned the ceremoniall law and their owne inventions with the Gospell and therefore he wisht that they were cut off but in this place he rejoyces that Christ and the Gospell were purely preached though it were of envy Now when the Ministers of the Church of England doe not onely preach the Gospell purely but of sincerity and of love and mingle not their owne traditions and inventions with the Gospell but follow their commission how can any men without intolerable injustice proclaime them the enemies of Jesus Christ and make them odious to the people under the name of Presbiterians whom they perswade all men that they will prove more cruell Taskmasters than the Prelates yea and they have generally possest the people with so prejudicate an opinion of them all as if they would more lord it over them than ever the Bishops did and causelesly have moved the people to hate the name of presbitry And notwithstanding they themselves pretend they contend for the ancient presbitry and by this make themselves Presbiterians as well as the other What justice or equity then is there in their dealing to make their brethren odious to the world for endeavouring to set up a Presbitry after Gods Word when they themselves are Presbiterians and labour to set up a Presbitry of their owne and therefore if the name of Presbiters be odious in the Ministers of the Church of England no reason can gainsay it but that they also should be as odious to the people as their brethren for they also are Presbiterians But that the truth may the better appear whether the Ministers of the Church of England or the Independent Ministers be most guilty of all the accusations laid to their charge it will not be amisse to compare the practice of the Ministers of the Church of England and the proceedings of the Independent Ministers together and that both for their doctrine and discipline and in their severall studies and eudeavours for the advancing of Christs Kingdome and by so doing it will be easie for any to judge which of their governments and which of the Ministers are more intolerable and which of them are most guilty of those foule reproaches the Ministers of the Church of England are aspersed with by their Brethren for he hath a shallow understanding and a very dim sight that cannot discerne whether those that advance Christs their Kings Word and lawes onely and follow his commission and the example of the holy Apostles in their ministries and that of John Baptist and the primitive Preachers or those that set up their owne inventions and preferre them before the lawes of Christ and have neither precept nor president for their doings in all the holy Word of God He I say that cannot judge which of these most advance Christ for their King either those that obey Christs lawes or those that observe their owne neglecting Christs is of a very shallow capacity But now let us compare them together the Ministers of the Church of England preach faith and repentance the Law and the Gospell according to Christs commission given to his Apostles and they receive all into the Church that beleeve and are baptized and such as but desire to be admitted they demanding of them what they should doe to be saved and in their so doing they have both precept and presidents For Christ in his commission unto them has given them auhority so to doe Neither did he ever say unto his Apostles and Ministers admit none into the church although they beleeve and are baptized without they walk with you some dayes weeks moneths or yeeres that you may behold their conversation and manner of life and after you have had some tryall and experience of them see then that they make a publike confession of their faith before the Church and give in the
evidences of the truth of their conversion before the congregation and enter into a private and solemne covenant and be admitted by the consent and approbation of the Church or otherwise if they will not submit themselves to this law and come into the Church upon these conditions receive them not into your assemblies nor admit of them for members Here is nothing of all this in Christs commission nor in his holy Word nor any president of the same in all sacred Authority and therefore John the Baptist and the holy Apostles and primitive Ministers admitted all that came unto them and such as but demanded of them what they should doe to be saved and baptized them and received them into the Church-without any gainsaying or question as we may see in the third of Lake and in the seventh chapter of the same book and in the second of the Acts and no sooner did the Eunuch desire baptisme but Philip granted it the Goaler did but ask Paul and Silas What they should doe to be saved and they said Beleeve on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and thy house and it is related that the Goaler and all his were streightway baptized Acts 16. ver 31 32 33. that is they were forthwith admitted into the Church without either walking any time with the Church for their approbation or without either making a publike confession of their faith before the Church or giving in evidences of the truth of their conversion to the congregation or entring into a private covenant and without the consent and allowance of the Church And Christ notwithstanding was imbraced by them as their Lord and King and was preached by Paul and Silas as the Lord and King of his Church and was set up upon his Throne as King by them as well as he is in any independent Churches and yet they had none of all their new borne truths and they could then see how to set up Christ upon his Throne without their new lights and as Christ was then by Paul and Silas and the other Apostles set upon his Throne as King in all those primitive Churches so he is at this day in all the true Protestant Churches through the world as well as in any of the Independent Assemblies and yet they were and are all ignorant of their new way so that any understanding christian may gather that all their new borne truths are no way requisite for the setting up of Christ as King in his Church nor for the advancement of Christs Kingly government for if they had Christ would have put them into the Apostles commission and the Apostles who were led into all truth by the holy Thost who brought whatsoever Christ had taught them concerning the Kingdome of God Acts 1. into their memories would have suggested all these things The new way the new borne truth the new lights to them that they might have been recorded if they had been necessary for the setting up of Christ upon his Throne but when neither Christ nor the holy Ghost nor the blessed Apostles have prescribed any of all these to the church nor called for them nor required them of any that desire to be saved or made members of the church whether this be not a great temerity in any men to preach all these things as the lawes of Christ I leave it to the judgement of any ingenuous minded christian and whether this be not to preferre their owne inventions and traditions before the commandements of God and the lawes of Christ the King of his church and whether this be not rather to set up themselves than Christ I referre it also to any judicious and impartiall christian to weigh and consider I shall now demand of any moderate christian therefore and let him answer me candidly whether of those Ministers and people most advance the Kingdome of Christ and acknowledge him to be their onely Lord and Law-giver that both in their teaching and beleeving follow his commission and Word and teach nothing nor beleeve nothing as they are injoyned but what Christ their King commands them or those that to the commission and commands of Christ adde their owne inventions and traditions and preferre them before the lawes of Christ the King and Law-giver of his church I am confident if he will deale impartially he will answer me that those Ministers and that people most advance Christ for their King and most set him upon his Throne that owne his law and that onely for the rule of their faith and obedience for Christ himselfe hath said it John 10. My Sheep heare my voyce they will not listen unto the voyce of a stranger Christs voyce onely the King of his church is to be heard and they onely that obey it advance him for their King and set him up on his Throne which when the Ministers and beleevers in the church of England doe and the Independents doe not they more advance Christ for their King than they for the Independents to Christs law and commission adde their owne traditions and inventions and enjoyne all that will be admitted as members into their congregations besides their beleeving being baptized to walk with them some time for approbation and to make a publike confession of their faith before the church and to bring in the evidences of the truth of their conversion and enter into a private and solemne covenant and not to be admitted as members without the consent of the Church all which Christ the King of his church never commanded and those that will not submit themselves to these their traditions they will not permit or suffer to enter into their church as joyned members which they call the onely true churches of Christ and count of all others that differ from them as enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and as men without the covenant and if this be to set up Christ upon his Throne then the Pharisees set up Christ upon his Throne who preferred their own traditions before the commandments of God yea the pope himself the Prelats set up Christ upon his Throne who preferred their own traditions and idolatries before the lawes of Christ Now if all the traditions of the Papists were justly abhorred and cast out of the church as things derogatory to the Kingly and Propheticall dignity of Jesus Christ and as things repugnant to his royalty I see no reason but all other popery under whatsoever name or title it be intruded upon the people should be eliminated and cast out of the church and whether this be not a new kind of popery to bring in new wayes and new borne truths and new lights and impose them upon the people as the commands of God and to excommunicate and unchurch all churches in the world but their owne assemblies I referre my selfe to the judgement of any intelligible christian Saint Paul writing to the Galatians blames those false teachers amongst them that would have joyned but the
When therefore the Ministers of the church of England follow Christs and his Apostles way and method in their teaching and for the converting of men and heare onely the voyce of Christ their King and the christian beleevers through the Kngdome under their ministries doe all faithfully cleave unto the written Word and square both their faith and obedience according to that rule there is no just cause why the Independents should proclaime them all enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and such as oppose his royalty and preach up themselves and their congregations as the onely people of God and his Saints and account all those that dissent from them as opposers of Christs government telling the people in their Sermons that they come over from beyond the seas thinking that they would have set up Christ upon his Throne and that they would have embraced him for their King and would have established his government and have gone on in a church-way and have set up the wayes of God but they find it otherwise that they deny and disclaime and preach against Christs Kingly government and persecute the wayes of the Lord Christ so that they can find more favour from moderate Papists and common Protestants than from them by which their dealing say the brethren they have so taken off the edge of Gods peoples affection from them that the Saints and servants of God cannot pray for them proclaiming themselves the Saints and people of God as if all the other beleevers through the Kingdome dissenting from them in their opinions were no Saints nor people of God Nay they affirme it in their Pulpits and in every Pamphlet that both Ministers and people are enemies of Jesus Christ and his Kingdome and all such as will not joyne with them in their new wayes And one of them not long since affirmed unto me that the church of England was a Strumpet an arrant Whore and that shee being once a Whore could never be presented unto Christ as a chaste Spouse which was an expression not onely uncivill and unbeseeming a christian but untrue also for grant shee had been so shee is now come out of Babylon and has entred into a publike covenant against her and we read of Juda and Samaria howsoever they had defiled themselves and played the Harlots yet upon their unfained repentance and true faith in Jesus Christ and renewing their covenant publikely of new obedience were presented unto Christ as a chaste Spouse so that what is impossible with man is possible with God But this is the generall opinion of the brethren and howsoever they will not all of them speak it out in plaine words as some of them doe yet they preach and practice a separation from all our assemblies and congregations as from a people not to be communicated with and declare that by their deedes which they will not as yet publish in their writings nor expresse words as he did And one of the Independent Ministers not long since denouncing Gods judgements against all those that would not assent unto their new wayes nor light their candles at their new lights nor embrace their new-borne truths told them that by their standing out against the wayes of God for so they suppose these are and by their unkind usage of the Saints and persecuting of them they would at last drive from amongst them the praying people meaning themselves as if no other prayed but they onely and then they might look that the judgements of God would speedily come downe upon them as it happened to the Lutherans in Maydenburge in Germany who thrust out all the Calvanists out of their Towne a praying people and immediatly after the enemy came upon them with fire and sword and destroyed them all With these and such like expressions are their preachments stuffed and to say the truth of many of their Sermons they are like Taylors cushions consisting of a hundred severall shreds of various colours all independent making a fine shew but comely no where but in a Taylors shop and surely such kind of expressions as these are may beseem their Pulpits but no grave and learned honest mens for they have no just cause to complaine of persecution amongst us it is a calumny neither deale they christianly with us to accuse us that we oppose the wayes of God for we doe not so we onely contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints and against the wayes of men and such as were brought into the Church by the cunning craftinesse of some and thrust upon the people as the Lawes and Ordinances and wayes of God when they are but their owne inventions and tend to no edification but to the trouble and disturbance of Church and State and such as already have brought a confusion upon us all and if the Lord doth not speedily from Heaven send his helping hand we can expect nothing but desolation and all from these devisions that their new wayes have brought in and therefore it is high time for all good christians and such as love the peace of Sion more exactly to examine all these new wayes and to put them upon the proofe of them But that the brethren should complain of persecution amongst us and of evill usage it is against all reason and humanity and sheweth little gratitude in them to all the christians both thorow city and country for if they remember when they came over though they had deserted the cause when they had most need of them they were more honoured then any of those famous and learned Ministers that had undergone the labour and heat of the day and they were preferred before them all and setled in the prime Lectures of the Kingdome and had more honourable maintainance than was usually given to any Lectures before them and therefore they deale not brotherly in none of all their proceedings nor humanely so to asperse them as they ordinarily doe both publikely and privately I am confident there is not such a president in the world of humanity as that shewed here to them it is well known and their books and practices declare it that they preach new wayes new-borne truthes and set up new lights Now where was it ever heard of either in the Christian or Pagan world that it was ever permitted unto any Ministers or Preachers to have all the Pulpits in any nation to preach a divers doctrine to that which is set up by authority and such as tends to make a faction and devision amongst the people I doe most assuredly beleeve that there cannot the like president be produced Amongst the Heathen the Jewish Religion in many countries was tolerated but they were confined to their owne Sinagogues they might not come in the Heathens Pulpits to preach up the Jewish worship amongst them or to set up another service contrary to the custome of the Nation It was an abomination to the Egyptians that the Jewes should sacrifice in their land they would not have
suffered them then to have preached up their Religion in all their Pulpits In Turkey at this day Christians in many places have the liberty of their consciences amongst themselves and have their places for worship to assemble in but they are not so much as permitted to come into their Temples much lesse to preach up their Religion in their Pulpits In France the Protestants are permitted to preach but it is onely in such places as are appointed for them they may not preach in popish Pulpits that is not permitted unto them In the Low countries there is liberty of conscience which they so much plead for of which afterwards and yet the divers sects that are there are not suffered to preach out of those places assigned unto them or to preach publikely in any of their Pulpits against the Religion established by authority neither are they permitted to unchristian them or unchurch them and publikely and in print to proclaime them enemies of Christs government and if any should dare attempt such a thing or goe about to disgrace their Ministers and church-government or in the least intrench upon the Mrgistrates authority they would be made fly like lightning before thunder And yet the brethren among us have the liberty of all the Pulpits through the Kingdome without controle and vent all their new wayes and their new-borne truths and set up their new lights without any molestation and have all respectfull usage and the onely esteem of the people and are more followed than all our learned godly and painfull orthodox Ministers and yet they cry out of persecution and unchurch and unchristian us all and proclaime both Ministers and people all enemies of Christ and his Kingdome and count of us little better than of Infidels and keep our children from baptisme and debarre us from communion with them and exercise a kind of absolute lordship over all their brethren so as Deotraphes never did the like nor the Pope more and yet they cry out of persecution against the Saints and lay odious aspersions upon their brethren and fellow-Presbiters perswading the people that the presbiterian way will be as bad or worse than that of the Prelats But if we as duly examine the manner of the Independent government and compare it with the Presbiterian as we have done the manner of their preaching with theirs we shall find there is little reason why they should so villipend the Presbiterian and magnifie their owne and why they should make it so hatefull and odious to the people laying aside therefore all prejudice let us examine things with deliberation and then it will be soon evident that the Presbiterian government is not as bad or worse than that of the Prelats nor so lordly as that of the Independent government which is also Presbyterian and they as well Presbyters as their brethren It is well knowne that the Prelats assumed and arrogated unto themselves to be the onely Pastors of their Diocesses and ruled all the Ministers and people under them by their owne authority and spoyled all both Minsters and people and the severall congregations under them of their liberty and made them all both Ministers and people their vassals and slaves and from whose Courts there was no appeale Whereas the Presbiterian manner of government is not as that of Lords and Masters over Subjects and Servants but sociall as between equals between brethren friends and colledges who all judge and are all judged according to the Word of God where no congregation is above another congregation no Minister is above another Minister but onely for order-sake where every Presbiter is left to enjoy the whole office of a Presbiter and each congregation to the freedome of a congregation what belongs unto them and they able to performe it and the classes to corroborate and strengthen them And if any man be wronged by the Presbitry he may have the benefit of his appeale and be cleered by more righteous Judges a course ever followed by the Churches and agreeable to the light of nature so that I say if men would without a prejudicate opinion weigh and consider all things and compare the government of the Prelats with that of the Presbiterian they would speedily be undeceived And againe if they would compare the Presbiterian government dependent with the Presbiterian government independent they would have more honourable thoughts of the one and a lesse esteem of the other for in the Presbiterian government independent they exercise a kind of absolute power and soveraignty amongst themselves in every of their severall Churches or congregations so that if two or three of the Presbiters be malicious or self-will'd or corrupt or hereticall as it happens many times and by their learning or eloquence or great abilities of wit and schollership or by their wealth or power the congregation perhaps consisting of many poore people and it may be ignorant who are relieved by them and whose favour they dare not forfeit if they prevailing with the major part of the congregation as commonly the poore people are like a company of wild Gees who which way soever their leader flyes they all follow I say if they do once deliver a man to satan and will not by any art of perswasion be induced to reverse their unrighteous sentence the innocent and wronged man must live under this doome all the dayes of his life without any remedy and must be held by all the Churches of Christ that are after that new modell to whom their sentence is given notice of as an excommunicated person and shun'd accordingly they have no power to absolve or help him and from which he hath no benefit of appeale And this that I now speake there is not any of the brethren that is well verst in the grounds of that kind of government that either will or can deny it And this rigor to my knowledge both in the low Countries in the severall congregations of the English there and in some here in England among us was the cause of making so many severall sects for when they were cast out of one congregation for some particular opinion in the which they differed from them the other churches and congregations of the same mould and profession could not absolve them nor durst not receive them into church fellowship with them without an attestation from the church out of which they were excommunicated of their christian walking amongst them or had given satisfaction to that church of which they had been members and that they would never be brought unto conceiving that the wrong was theirs who complained as unjustly excommunicated neither would they relinquish their opinion as being perswaded it was grounded upon the Word of God whereupon they finding others of their owne opinion joyned themselves into a new society and congregation and had a peculiar church by themselves and this has been one of the chiefest causes of all these rents and devisions we now see every where for
of Israel is left to all the people of God to all ages for imitation whose duty it is to set up the true worship of God onely amongst them and none but that which Christ their Redeemer King and Law-giver hath injoyned them and therfore all such as would have all Religions tolerared do exceedingly forget themselves and are highly unthankfull to Christ their King and Redeemer And if we look into the story of the Judges the book following that of Joshua when this generation was dead and that they had forgot their covenant and began to tolerate all religions amongst them they brought downe all those plagues upon themselves by it that were writen in the law of Moses and for no other cause saith the holy Scripture but for that they set up those Religions the heathens had served their gods by as is manifest from the sixth chapter for when the people cryed unto the Lord because of the Midianites the Lord sent a Prophet unto them first who told them that the cause of all the judgements was because they had not obeyed the voyce of the Lord but had served the gods of the nations which he had forbidden them and afterwards he sent an Angel unto Gideon and commanded him to break downe the Altar af Baal which his father had and to cut downe the Grove that was by it and to set up an Altar to the Lord In the first place Gideon was enjoyned to root out idolatry and then to set up Gods true worship onely here we find no toleration of any Religion but the true Religion when they set upon the work of reformation and when the men of the City made inquiry after him that had broken down the Altar and cut downe the Grove and would have put him to death it is related that Ioash the Father of Gideon said to all that stood against him Will ye plead for Baal will ye save him he that will plead for him let him be put to death whiles it is yet morning if he be a god let him plead for himselfe because one hath cast downe his Altar Here we find no toleration of Baal's Religion but that they that would plead for him should be put to death and surely those that will plead for a toleration of all Religions doe no lesse than fight against God But now let us see what Elias did 1 King 18. ver 21. who was counted as the Chariot and Horse-men of Israel with Baals Priests and what he said to all those of his times How long saith he to the people will ye halt between two Religions if the Lord be God follow him but if Baal be God then follow him The holy Prophet would not admit of a toleration of all Religions but when God had miraculonsly manifested from Heaven that Elias his Religion was the true Religion and which God in his holy Word had established all Baals Priests were put to death and that by Elias his command who said Take the Prophets of Baal let none of them escape and they took them and Elias took them and brought them downe to the Brook Kishon and slew them there And so upon all reformations all other Religions were cast out but the true Religion as we may see through the whole Scripture as in the stories of the Kings and Chronicles and those of Nehemiah and Ezra and through all the Prophets and the Lord in the second of Ieremiah complaineth against his people that they had forsaken the fountaines of living water that is they had forsaken the true God and served other gods and forsaken their maker and had been more unconstant than the very Heathen who had not forsaken their idoll gods and therefore for this their rebellion and ingratitude the Prophet denounces all those plagues that were written in the law against them as all the other Prophets did for there is not any sinne in all the old Testament that the Lord more complaines of than that of idolatry and the toleration of many Religions amongst them as is most abundantly set downe both in Isaiah Ieremiah and Ezekiel Daniel and in all the other Prophets all which were written for our learning so that if the people of God shall imitate them in their sinnes they must look to partake with them in their plagues for the tolerating of all Religions would be a just provoking of the Lord our God to anger now as it was then And we have sad experience already what the tolerating of the idolatry of the Masse that Dagon of Ginger-bread hath brought upon us for God will not be mocked if God be God and the christian Religion of the reformed Churches and which we find in the holy Scriptures and which was confirmed by so many signes and wonders and miracles be the true religion than let that and that onely be set up amongst Christians and no other tolerated for if they be they will speedily bring the plagues of God upon the Kingdome and confusion upon us all as we may well perceive by the suffering of them but a few yeers what good effects they will produce for toleration of all Religions cannot be pleasing unto God no more in our times than it was amongst his ancient people the Jewes and in the primitive Churches and therefore all those that plead for a toleration of all Religions are no friends of Christ nor lovers of Religion pretend what they will for neither Abraham Isaac nor Iacob nor any of the Prophets nor holy men of God would suffer it neither would the Apostles ever endure it but in all their writings give especiall charge to all the people to take heed of all the false teachers of their time and forewarnes them to take heed of them in all succeeding ages ever describing them by their crafty dealings that they should come in sheeps cloathing and in all-seeming holinesse and fained simplicity and therefore that they are the more to be avoyded And Paul writing to the Galatians in the fifth chapter wisht and desired that the false Teachers were cut off so far were the holy Apostles from tolerating all Religions as in all their Epistles they invay against them and that continually as false Apostles and deceivers and command all christians to receive no other Religion but that which they had taught them Gal. 1. and bids the people come out of Babylon and tels them there is no fellowship with light and darknesse and surely if al the Prophets Apostles did command al the people of God to come out of Babylon they never gave leave to any Christians to set up Babylon amongst them and to tolerate the confusion and mingling together of all Religions for this would be a thing not onely against the Scripture and revealed will of God but against all solid reason and sound judgement Nay we see that Christ himselfe in writing to the seven Churches in Asia and in them to all Christians in the world he blames the Angel of the Church
them and suffered them to enjoy the liberty of their conscience I have heard many magnifie our Independent brethren for their great learning some affirming that they were schollers from their mothers womb and I for my part beleeve it for ignorance of God and of his holy Word came with all men from their mothers wombe and if such interpretations of Scripture and such illations from them as these be proceed not from the ignorance of God and of the Scripture never any did for what learned man that knowes what Christs office was in taking humane nature upon him when he became a Mediator and the high Priest of our redemption would argue as these men doe especially when Christ hath so often in holy Scripture professed of himself that he came then to save those that were lost and not to judge the world for he hath left that imployment till his next comming when I am most assured these men will have a great deale to answer for for so abusing the holy Scriptures to maintaine their owne baggatellies Besides Christ came to keep the law for us which he himselfe had given unto his people and took no way the office of a judge upon him but in scourging out the buyers sellers out of the Temple that I remember and saith that he came not to break the bruised reed or quench the smoking flax onely he had declared his lawes unto his people Malachy the 4. by his servant Moses and the execution of these lawes was put into the hands of the Elders of Israel whose place it was to punish all seducers and who should have performed that work of justice which our Saviour declaring doth not give liberty for the tolerating of all Religions which was against the revealed will of God and therefore they that will out of this place argue a toleration of all Religions may as vvell conclude that Christ tolerated adultery and injustice and all manner of vvickednesse because our Saviour Christ said unto those that brought the Woman to him that vvas found in the act of uncleannesse he that is without sinne amongst you let him cast the first stone and vvhen her accusers vvere gone said unto the woman Woman where are thy accusers goe thy way and sinne no more Ergo Christ gave a toleration for all Adulterers and when the young man in the 16. of Luke came to our Saviour and complaining of unjustice done unto him by his brother and desiring him to speak unto his brother that he would divide the inheritance with him to whom our Saviour answered man who made me a judge or a divider among you ergo Christ gave toleration of all injustice And because our Saviour Christ said in that Parable of the good seed that was sown and of the tares that sprung up that they should let them alone till the harvest an argument which they much depend on Ergo all wicked men are to be tolerated and no justice to be done upon them till Dooms-day they are to live without molestation and the Magistrate ought not to meddle with them because Christ said let the good corne and the tares grow together till the harvest who would not admire to heare any man thus to argue that there should be such either folly or wickednesse in the heart of man to abuse the holy Scriptures for their owne ends And who knowes not that it is concluded amongst all learned men that Simbolica Theologianon est argumentativa and that the Parable inferres no more but that it is not for any private man to take upon him the Magistrates office or rashly to intrude himselfe into the place of Rulers and Governours But truly all such consequences may as well be gathered from every one of the above specified Scriptures as they gather from our Saviours words to the Sadduces and from the Parable of Christ for the tolerating of all Religions and therefore all such argumentations as these are but poore props to uphold their Tenent For God-hath given us that are christians both the Law and the Gospell by which we ought to be guided in the serving of him and by the which all Christians are directed what course to take in the punishing of vice and for the suppressing of errors and offenders whether they be delinquents in doctrine or manners And although christians by the Gospell are freed from the ceremoniall law yet we are not freed from the substance of it for he that said to the Israelites be ye holy as I am holy saith also to all christians be ye holy as I am holy 1 Pet. 1 so that although the ceremony be abolished yet the substance remaineth stil in force and although the rigor of the judiciall law be taken away and christians are not tied to that manner of administration of justice yet the equity of that law doth still continue and righteous judgement is every where amongst all christians to be executed and satisfaction to be made to all such as have been unjustly damnified and although we are freed from the curse malediction and coaction of the morall law yet we are not freed from the obedience of it so that whatsoever was commanded in it to the Israelites or forbidden them the same is both commanded and forbidden to all christians to the ends of the world and whatsoever was death by the law of God and nature then for ought I know ought to be punished with death now amongst Christians as blasphemours wizards witches idolaters and all such as despise Moses law under the month of two or three witnesses if they be people within the pale of the Church and make profession of the Christian Religion for Christians have nothing to do with those that are without to judg them except they offend against the civill and municipal laws of the country and against the laws of nations nature when they live amongst them for Christ came not to change the morall law but to ratifie it in all things And although the Sabbath be changed in respect of the day yet for the holinesse of the first day of the week which is the Christians Sabbath and which is in place of it I am confident it ought most carefully to be observed and that the whole day ought in all sanctity and holinesse to be kept and besides the fourth Commandement for the sanctification of a seventh day we have the example of the primitive Christians and blessed Apostles who alwayes had their meetings on the first day of the week and spent the whole day in the duties of piety and charity for in the 20. of the Acts we read that on the first day of the week the Disciples came together to break bread that was for the hearing of the Word and for the administration of the Sacraments and for the exercising of all holy duties and that Paul preached there untill midnight and that when Euticus was fallen downe with sleep Paul restored him to life againe to all their comforts
so that here we have one president that the whole Lords day was spent by all those Christians in the works of piety and charity Againe in the first of the Revelations Saint John saith that he was in the Spirit on the Lord's day that is the first day of the week called by Saint John the Lord's day and there the Angel preached unto him that day and commanded Saint John to take so much of his Sermon by writing as God in his wisdome thought fit to reveale unto his Church and he that shall diligently read what is there written will gather that the whole day was taken up by Saint John and spent in hearing and writing and meditating of what he had heard for without doubt Saint John made it his whole dayes work to be spiritually imployed and as the holy Communion is called the Lord's Supper and all the time of that action is holily to be imployed as being ordained by Christ himselfe to that end even so the Lords day being a day dedicated unto Christ and ordained by him for holy duties and for the hearing of the Word and for the administration of the Sacraments and prayer the whole day ought both privately and publikely to be taken up in the imployments and works of piety and charity as hearing reading meditating prayer repetition of Sermons in their Families catechizing and instructing their children and servants singing of Psalmes in visiting the sick and them that are in prison relieving the poore and necessitated c. These examples of the primitive Christians are for our imitation for so Saint Paul in the third of the Phillippians in the 17. verse saith Brethren be followers together of me and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an example for our conversation is in Heaven And in the 4. chap. ver 8. he saith Finally brethren whatsoever things are true what soever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report if there be any vertue if there be any praise think on these things Those things which ye have both learned and received and heard and seen in me doe and the God of peace shall be with you By the which testimonies to omit many more we are tyed to follow the examples of the Apostles and to imitate them in all that is holy and good and of good report now it is praise worthy and of good report to spend the whole Lords day in holy imployments and we have the Apostles examples and the primitive Christians for so doing and therefore we ought to spend the whole Lords day in the works of piety and charity and by this the sanctifying of the Christian Sabbath which is every seventh day is ratified the prophanation of the which in the reformed Churches and in many places through these three Kingdomes has been one of the causes of all those heavy judgements the whole christian world now groanes under and so much more would the Lord be provoked by the toleration of all Religions amongst us which would give just occasion of violating of all the Commandements of God and of disobedience both to God and man for it is most sure that the morall law is not altered in any thing for substance and that God that by it injoyned but one Religion to the Israelites and commanded them to keep that pure and undefiled and to punish all idolaters blasphemers and seducers hath injoyned the same to all Christians and hath not suffered or permitted them to tolerate all Religions or any sects or heresies which by the Apostle in the fifth of the Galatians are called the works of the devill and that they that doe them shall not enter into the Kingdome of God So that those that would bring in a toleration of all Religions have a desire to send men to the devill For the examples of Poland Transsilvania and Holland they are no presidents to other Nations their politick proceedings are no examples for other christian Countries and Nations to follow for christians are to live by the rule of God's Word and Christ's their Kings lawes and to follow the examples of his own people only in their wel-doing and not in their failings and therfore we are to follow the example of Abraham Joshua Elias the other Patriarchs Prophets and holy Apostles who never tolerated all Religions Yea we are commanded in Romans the 12. not to conforme our selves to this world but that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may prove what is the good and the acceptable and perfect will of God Now when by the Word of God that acceptable and perfect will of his we are taught that he was displeased with his people the Jewes for tolerating of all Religions amongst them and that he was highly offended with those christian Churches in Asia for tolerating the doctrines of Balaan and Jezabel we are sufficiently taught and instructed that Christians ought not to tolerate any other Religion but that which Christ the onely King and Law-giver of his Church hath taught us and that whosoever should take that authority upon them to tolerate all Religions would be found fighters against God and such as deservedly would bring downe his judgements upon the Land by it for if but conniving at evill and consenting to it be a thing displeasing unto God how would the tolerating of it by a law be abominable unto his sacred and divine Majesty for this were to establish iniquity by a law We are taught in the holy Scriptures that the consenting with a theefe makes a man as guilty before God as the acting of theevery and that they that assented unto Jezabel in killing the Prophets made themselves all as guilty as Jezabel her selfe and that the Heathen Romans Rom. 1. ver 32. who knowing the judgement of God that they which commit such things are worthy of death not onely doe the same but consent with them that doe them made themselves as equally guilty as the actors of them as Paul in his bill and information put up in the Court of Heaven against them sufficiently declareth the same did Elias in his bill of information against the people in his time accusing them all as equally guilty of the blood of the Prophets and destroying Religion as Jezabel and onely because they consented unto it They saith Elias have killed thy Prophets and have broken down thy Altars Which they all the people that assented unto her as well as the Officers and Executioners And so our Saviour in his time accuseth the people as well as Herod for slaying of Iohn the Baptist saying They have done to him what soever they pleased They which they all the Nobles that sate at table with Herod that did not disswade Herod from that bloody and tyrannicall act and all the people that liked well of it the sinne of this Nation who assented unto the bloody decrees and censures
given in the High-commission-Courts and in the Star-Chamber and in all other unjust Courts the people that assented unto all their cruell censures against Gods people and liked well of it are as equally guilty who would ordinarily say that had they been Judges they would have done the like and that they were men worthy of death which made them I say as equally guilty as their wicked Judges and Executioners as we may see also in those that assented unto the High-Priests and to the Scribes and Pharisees in putting to death the Lord of life they made themselves all guilty of his blood and by that meanes brought the curse of God upon them and their children by it to this day as well as the High-Priests themselves a fearfull sinne though the world take no notice of it and which all these Kingdomes have yet to repent of Saint Paul also makes himselfe as guilty of Stephen's blood as they that stoned him saying When the holy Martyr Stephen was stoned I stood by and assented unto it and held the garments of those that stoned him By which he acknowledgeth himselfe equally guilty and so all those that assented to all the cruelty done to the people of God in these Kingdomes and were approvers of their tyranny are as guilty as the actors of it for consenting unto any treason or conspiracy or with any malefactors and all their complices both by the law of God nature and nations makes them all guilty before God and men and as liable to justice and punishment as those that acted in those malefices and therefore those that but assent unto a toleration of all Religions a sinne so highly displeasing unto God are as guilty as the actors of it and if but consenting make them guilty how guilty are they then that use arguments to bring in a toleration of all Religions and abuse the Scriptures to this end and plead for it and would have it established by a law surely they are offenders against divine Majesty in an elevated nature and have a great deal to answer for it before God especially when they doe it in a most scurrilous and railing manner by which they manifest to all the world that they are more verst and better acquainted with the doctrine of Billingsgate than with the language of Canaan But this may seeme a wonderfull thing to all judicious men that that people which within these six yeers were afraid of a Surplice of the crosse in Baptisme and of any popish ceremony or of any of their vain traditions and wil-worship which was their honour then should now plead for the toleration of the body and soule of popery and for all other both jewish and heathenish Religions and all manner of sects so destructive to that Religion which the King of Saints and King of Kings and the onely King of his Church the Lord Jesus Christ himselfe hath taught us and to the peace and quietnesse of the Land this I say must needs seem a monstrous thing to any moderate minded Christian Nay how unreasonably doe these men deale with their brethren they plead for a toleration of all Religions here in England and yet in New England banish men into Islands from amongst them for dissenting from them in their new modell of Church government and for but dissenting from them in their opinions about Religion and here amongst us what impious and railing books doe they make against the Ministers for endeavouring to establish that Religion and that church-government that God himselfe in his holy Word hath set down and what opprobrious names doe they give the faithful and painfull Preachers and Pastors of the Church of England calling them Baals Priests the profest enemies of Jesus Christ his Kingdome the limms of Antichrist false Prophets the brood of Babylon terming some particular men of them Rabshekes others Bands others Black mouthes legall preachers and stiling all of them the cursed enemies of Jesus Christ and think of them as men not worthy to live and in expresse words professe it and yet these men plead for a toleration of all Religions when both by their words and deeds they manifest if it were in their power the first work they would do should be to root us all out of the Kingdome so that all men may see they say one thing and meane another that they would tolerate all Religions but onely that which is the true Religion so by that meanes have no Religion at all but one of their own making which by their new lights they have of late found out which they call the straight way to Heaven and the onely way of setting up Christ upon his Throne which is nothing else to say the truth but to disthrone him and set up themselves and their new modell for who doth not see how already they lord it over all good christians not admitting them to the Sacraments but upon their owne termes nor suffering their children to be baptized amongst them nor so much as suffering any they call Presbiterians to preach in their new congregated Assemblies if this be to give a toleration of any Religion but their owne let all the world judge but I say and will ever by Gods assistance be able to make it good in that they plead for a toleration of all Religions they are as guilty of hainous and soule sinnes being complices as well as they that are actors Now then when the Presbiters of the Church of England seek and endeavour in all their proceedings to establish that Religion which Christ the King of his Church hath taught them and his blessed Apostles and labour to set up that government that was ordained in all Churches to be perpetuated to the end of the world in their so doing they imitate all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles and in that they doe more advance Christ's Kingdome than the Independents who under pretence of liberty of conscience would bring in a toleration of all Religions and confusion upon us all Surely if ever any Ministers deserved well from the people the Ministers of England now doe who by all their endeavours shew that they seek to bring them to the knowledge of God and of his Sonne Jesus Christ and to the knowledge of themselves which is life eternall For what could men doe more than that which they have done who have petitioned the house of Lords and Commons now sitting in the great Counsell of the Kingdome that they might be armed with authority from them in their severall charges to have the examination of such as shall be admitted to the Sacraments that they may be rightly informed in the knowledge of those holy Mysteries and that none that are either ignorant or scandalous in their lives may be suffered to communicate at the Lord's Table by which their endeavour they shew the christian care they have of their eternall welfare for which the people are ever bound unto them and by the which also they take away all scandall occasion of offence to others which formerly pretended that the cause of their separating from our Congregations and Assemblies was in regard they could not communicate with dogs and swine and with the tagragge and bobtaile of all the Malignants for in such termes they usually expresse themselves Now when the occasion of this scandall and offence is taken away by the care of the Ministers and all superstition and popish ceremonies and all will-worship is also rooted out and when the Gospell is truly and faithfully by them preached both in season and out of season and the Name of God truly invocated and the Sacraments duly and rightly administred what just cause have the Independents now either of separation or of traducing either Ministers or people of being enemies of Christ and his Kingdome when by all their endeavours they onely seek the advancement of him and his Kingdome amongst them I have so good an opinion of all moderate minded christians that when they shall seriously weigh and consider what I have here writ and truly and faithfully set downe that those of them that have formerly been alienated from them will again being now undeceived returne every one of them to their owne Pastors by whose ministries they have been converted and that all other understanding men will not onely have more charitable thoughts both of the Ministers and beleevers of the Church of England but wil likewise look more narrowly into and examine more diligently all those new wayes and by finding them out to be indeed but new will seek for the old way and walk in it which shall ever be his prayer that wisheth that all men may be saved and come to the knowledge of the Truth The POSTSCRIPL Discovering the uncharitable dealing of the Independents towards their christian brethren with the juglings of many of their Pastors and Ministers to the misleading of the poore people to the detriment of their owne soules and the hurt both of Church and Sate with the danger of all novelties in Religion is to come forth a fortnight hence in the which it will be proved that it is the duty of all christian Magistrates Parents Masters of Families and all such as truly feare God to yeeld their helping hand for the suppressing of heresies and all novelties in Religion if they really desire the glory of God the salvation of their brethren and the peace of Church and Kingdom in the which also there is satisfactory answer given to the principall cavils of him that writ that railing Pamphlet stiled The falshood of Master William Prynne's triumphing in the Antiquity of Popish Princes and Parliaments FINIS