Mr. RICHARD BAXTER's LAST LEGACY IN SELECT ADMONITIONS AND DIRECTIONS TO ALL Sober Dissenters To whom Being dead he yet speaketh LONDON Printed and are to be Sold by E. Whitlock near Stationer's Hall 1697. THE PREFACE TO DISSENTERS THE Instructions here recommended as Mr. Baxter's Legacy were collected out of his own genuine Writings and perused by him in his Life-time and being much for his Reputation with all sober Persons he seemed well pleased with them notwithstanding much obloquy and reproach from divers Dissenters for in the Preface to his Christian Directory he says It was objected that his Writings differing from the common Judgment had already caused offence to the Godly to which he answers If God bless me with opportunity and help I will offend such Men much more by endeavouring farther than ever I have done the quenching of that Fire which they are still blowing up and detecting the Folly and Mischief of those Logomachies by which they militate against Love and Concord and inflame and tear the Church of God And in his Second Admonition to Bagshaw he stiles himself a Long-maligned and resisted endeavourer of the Churches Vnity and Peace and in p. 11. of that Book he thus declares his Christian temper and resolution If Injuries or Interest would excuse any Sin I think their are few Ministers in England who have more inducement to the angry separating way than I have But shall I therefore wrong the Truth God forbid and p. 52. He further tells Bagshaw I repent that I no more discouraged the Spirit of peevish quarrelling with Superiours and Church Orders and though I ever disliked it and opposed it yet that I sometimes did too much encourage such as were of their temper by speaking too sharply against those things which I thought to be Church Corruptions and was too loth to displease the Contentious for fear of being uncapable to do them good meeting with too few Religious Persons that were not too much pleased with such invectives and when Mr. Bagshaw objected that he chose to communicate on Easter-day in a very populous Church purposely that it might be known he answered p. 76. If a Man by many years forbearing all publick Prayers and Sacraments should tempt others to think that he is against them or counts them needless How should he cure that Scandal but by doing that openly and pleading for it which he is supposed to be against Ministers being bound to teach the People by Example as well as Doctrine The Question which he maintained against Mr. Bagshaw was Is it lawful to hold communion with such Christian Churches as have worthy or tollerable Pastors notwithstanding the Parochial order of the Ministers Conformity and use of the Common Prayer-Book And concludes p. 89. That we ought to do so when some special Reasons as from Authority Scandal c. do require it He saith I wrote a Book at the end of my Cain and Abel on purpose to shew the lawfulness of communicating with the Church of England but before it was printed Dr. Owen having heard of it sent me 12 Arguments against joyning with the Church of England which I answered whereupon a swarm of Revilers poured out their keenest Censures upon me one said I was an Apostate another said that my Treatise of Episcopacy fully proved the duty of Separation and I were reported to be a pleader for Baal and Anti-christ in Answer to all which I published a Treatise in defence of Catholick Communion to which I refer you I will tell the World a certain Truth I Preach I Write I frequently and openly talk against Separation and for the lawfulness of joyning with the Church in the use of the Liturgy and to rebuke Mens extreams and censures of the Episcopal Clergy and for an impartial Love of all true Christians I sharply reprove the weak Reasonings of those that are otherwise minded and by this I occasion the true Sectarians every where to speak against me Apol. p. 62. I take it for a duty to Preach against Schism Sedition and Rebellion and all Principles that tend to breed or feed them and to use all Opportunities and Interest in the People to promote their Loyalty and Publick Peace p. 18 19. I did not vary from my most early Opinion concerning these things for in my Epistle to the Saints Rest I gave the same Admonition to my Flock at Kidderminister in these words I charge you in Christ's name as you will answer it when we shall meet at Judgment that you faithfully and constantly practise these Directions Above all see that ye be followers of Peace and Vnity in the Church and among your selves I differ from many in several things of considerable moment yet if I should zealously press my judgment on others so as to disturb the Peace of the Church and separate from my Brethren I should fear least I should prove a Firebrand in Hell for being a Firebrand in the Church And for all the interest I have in your Judgments and Affections I charge you that if God should give me up to any Factious Church-rendring course that you forsake me and follow me not a step believe not those to be Friends of the Church who would cure her by cutting her Throat Vpon writing my Cure of Church Divisions Mr. Bagshaw p. 152. Published other Invectives against me as that one worthy of credit told him that the Learned and Judicious Mr. Herle having read that Book said That it had been better for the Church of God if Mr. Baxter's Friends had never sent him to School and that Mr. Cawdry had a like opinion of that Book and that another Person as knowing in the Mystery of Godliness as either of them told a Friend of his that notwithstanding the noise about Mr. Baxter he would end in Flesh and Blood But Mr. Baxter was well fortified against these obloquies having been surfeited as he says with humane Applause But notwithstanding all these Clamours and vexatious Troubles Mr. Baxter kept a constant course pleading for Concord and Vnity almost in every Book which he set forth and that with such cogent Arguments as the like are scarce to be found on any other Subject which he hath written upon as from the following Admonitions collected out of a few of his many Treatises will appear to the Judicious Reader and many more may be observed in those that are conversant in his Writings wherein although some things accidentally written may seem to be contradictory yet as he told Mr. L'Estrange he was well able to reconcile them And by his distinctions he hath reconciled many seeming Contradictions by help whereof as Mr. Silvester observed in the Preface to his Life as he could speak what he would so he could prove what he spake I am well perswaded that by the following Collections any impartial Separatist may find sufficient Arguments to resolve all his Scruples and Objections against Conformity to the Established Worship for which end they are
tenderest of their Unity and Peace Own the best as best but none as a divided Sect espouse not their dividing interest confine not your especial love to a Party but extend it to all the Members of Christ Deny not local Communion when there is occasion for it to any Church that hath the Substance of True Worship and forceth you not to sin Love them as true Christians and Churches even when they drive you from their Communion I have found that Reformation is to be accomplished more by restoration of Ordinances and Administrations to their Primitive Nature and Use than by utter abolition Mr. Bagshaw objected to Mr. Baxter that he chose to communicate in a very populous Church upon Easter-day purposely that it might be known To this Mr. Baxter Answers p. 76. If a Man by many Years forbearing all Publick Prayer and Sacraments should tempt others to think that he is against them or thinks them needless How should he cure that Scandal but by doing that openly pleading for it which he is supposed to be against Ministers being bound to teach by Example as well as Doctrine Of the Liturgy § 1. Mr. Baxter in the 2d page of his exceptions against the Liturgy urged an Objection of Mr. Hales in these Words To load our Publick Forms with Private Fancies on which we differ is the most soveraign way to perpetuate Schism See also p. 48. The Bishops gave this Answer to the Objection We heartily desire that according to this Proposal great care may be taken to suppress private Conceptions of Prayer lest private Opinions be made matter of Prayer as it hath and will be if private Persons take liberty to make publick Prayers To this I agreed p. 201. Cure of Divisions in these words Every Separatist Anabaptist Antinomian doth too willingly put his Errors into his Prayers The Sense of which Mr. Bagshaw thus expounds p. 7. Of his Antidote by mentioning of Separatists as a distinct body of Men from the Antinomian Anabaptists c. It is evident he can mean no other but his Presbyterian and Congregational-Brethren § 2. That which God prescribed is lawful but God prescribed Forms of Prayer as the Titles and Matter of many of the Psalms prove which were daily used in the Jews Synagogues Christ Direct 2d Edit p. 139. Q. 74. Is it lawful to impose Forms on the Congregation in publick Worship Answ Yes and more than lawful It is the Pastors duty so to do for whether he forethink what to pray or not his Prayer is to them a Form of Words and they are bound to concur with him in Spirit or Desire and to say Amen So that every Minister by Office is daily to impose a Form of Prayer on all the People only some Men impose the same Form many times over or every day and others impose every day a new one pag. 140. Ibid. Pag. 142 143. Mr. Baxter shews the conveniencies and inconveniencies both of see and prescribed Prayers and adds My own judgment is that somewhat of both ways joyned together will best obviate the inconveniencies of both though by this I cross the conceits of prejudiced Men on both extremes I think I cross not the judgment of the Church of England which alloweth free Prayers in the Pulpit and at the Visitation of the Sick Nor of the Famous Non conformists Cartwright Hildersham Greenham Amisius Perkins Bains c. Mr. Cartwright all the time that he lived abroad used the same Form before Sermon and after and read Prayers in the Church and concluded with the Lords Prayer § 4. Pag. 102. Of Mr. Baxter ' s life Part 1. Under pretence of the purity of their Churches the Separatists set themselves against the same Men that the Drunkards and Swearers set against doing what they could to make them odious and put them down only they did it more profanely than the Profane in saying Let the Lord be glorified let the Gospel be propagated abusing Sacred Scripture to their purpose All this began in unwarrantable Separations and too much aggravating the faults of the Churches and Common People and Common-Prayer-Book and Ministry which because they thought they needed amendments it required their obstinate Separation and allowed them to make odious any thing that was amiss and if any Man had rebuked them for making it more faulty than it was they called him a pleader for Antichrist and Baal and every eror in the mode of Worship was Idolatry Popery Antichristianism Superstition Will-worship c. When many of their own Prayers were full of Carnal Passion Faction Disorder vain Repetitions unsound and loathsome Expressions and their Doctrine full of Errors and Confussion § 5. Pag. 169. Part. 3. Of B' s Life I wrote a Book called Cain and Abel intending a third Part to tell Dissenters why I went to the Parish Church and Communicated and why they should not suffer as Separatists least they suffer as Evil doers which a Bookseller importuned me to let him Print but for Reasons then given I delayed it but at last consented to publish the Reasons of my Communicating in the Parish Churches and against Separations But a Manuscript of Dr. Owen's containing Twelve Arguments against joyning with the Liturgy in Publick Churches was sent me which I answered whereupon a swarm of Revilers powred out their keenest Censures whom I answered Another said that my Treatise of Episcopacy fully proved the duty of Separation whereupon I explained that Treatise and all these things together I Published in a Treatise in defence of Catholick Communion to which I refer such as desire farther Satisfaction § 7. I shall name but one Passage more on this Head in his Defence of the Principles of Love pag. 88. The Covenant he saith bindeth us to Reformation according to God's Word and the Example of the best Reformed Churches But to prefer no Publick Worship or a worse before the Liturgy is Deformation and Profaneness and it is greater Reformation to prefer the Liturgy before none than to prefer Extemporate Publick Worship before the Liturgy for all the Reformed Churches in Christendom do commonly profess to hold Communion with the English Churches in the Liturgy if they come among us where it is used so that it seems in Mr. Baxter's Judgment a breach of the Covenant to prefer no Publick Worship before the Liturgy or to refuse Occasional Communion in the use of the Liturgy as if it were unlawful when in Mr. B's as well as in the Judgment of all the Reformed Churches it is to be preferred to Extemporate Publick Worsip My Opinion as to Liturgy in general is 1. That a stinted Liturgy is in it self lawful 2. That a stinted Liturgy in some parts of Publick Service is necessary 3. In the parts where in is not necessary it may not only be submitted to but desired when the peace of the Church requireth it 4. It is not of such necessity to take the matter and words out of the
them How Forms may be imposed publickly on the Congregations of Believers and on the Ministers yea though the Forms imposed be worse than the exercise of their own gifts though among us no Man be forbidden to use his own gifts in the Pulpit The Pharisees long Liturgy it is like was in many things worse than ours yet Christ and his Apostles often joyned with them and never condemned them I shall now only add that the Lord's Prayer is a Form directed to God as in the Third Person and not to Man only as a directory for Prayer in the Second Person it is not Pray to God your Father in Heaven that his name may be Hallowed his Kingdom come c. But Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed be thy name c. And it seems by the Disciples words that thus John taught his Disciples to pray Luke 11. 1. and we have in the Scripture the mention of many Set Forms of Service to God which therefore we may well use And I desire the Reader again to Note that though Prayer was corrupted by the Pharisees yet Christ usually joyned in their Synagogues Luke 14. 17. and never medled with our controversie about the lawfulness of Set Forms This Mr. Baxter infers from Calvins note on Matth. 6. before the Preface to the Defence Pag. 76. Of Concord I constantly joyn with my Parish Church in Liturgy and Sacraments and hope so to do while I live I take the Common-Prayer to be better incomparably than the Prayers or Sermons of many that I hear As for the Common Prayer it self I never rejected it because it was a Form or thought it simply unlawful because it was such a Form but have made use of it and would again in the like case He that separates upon the account of the unlawfulness of our Liturgy and the badness of our Ministry doth separate upon a reason common to almost all of the far greatest part of the Churches See the Defence p. 54. The defects of the Liturgy and the faults of those by whom we suffer are easily heightned even beyond desert Defence p. 68. Apology p. 9. Having perused all the Foreign and Antient Liturgies in the Bibliotheca Patrum I doubt not but our own is incomparably better than any that is there That which is not unlawful in it self is not therefore unlawful because it is commanded Obedience to Superiors is our duty and not our sin unless in sinful things p. 152. Christ Direct 2d Edit Of Obedience to our Pastors We are indangered by divisions principally because the self-conceited part of Religious people will not be ruled by their Pastors but must have their way and will needs be rulers of the Church and them But pleasing the ignorant Professors humors is a Sin that shews us to be too humane and carnal and hath always sad effects at last It is a high degree of pride for persons of ordinary understandings to conclude that almost all Christs Churches in the World for Thirteen Hundred Years at least have offered such Worship to God as that you are obliged to avoid it and all their Communion in it and that almost all the Catholick Church on Earth at this day is below your Communion for using Forms Mark Is it not more of the Women and Apprentices that are of this mind than of old experienced Christians I think till we have better taught even our godly People what credit and obedience is due to their Teachers and Spiritual Guides the Church of England shall never have peace or any good or established Order We are broken for want of the knowledge of this truth till this be known we shall never be well bound up and healed The People of the New Separation so much rule their Ministers that many of them have been forced to forsake their own judgments to comply with the violent Labour to maintain the Ordinances and Ministry in esteem The Church is bound to take many a Man as a True Minister to them and receive the Ordinances from him in Faith and expectation of Blessing upon promise who yet before God is a sinful invader an usurper of the Ministry and shall be condemned for it How much more then to respect their lawful Bishops and Pastors Of Lay-Elders For Lay-Elders As far as I understand the greatest part if not three for one of the English Ministers are of this mind That unordained Elders wanting power to Preach or Administer Sacraments are not Officers in the Church of God's appointment Of this number I am one and Mr. Vines was another In the Worcester Agreement Printed 1653. Mr. Baxter declared that neither Scripture nor Antiquity knew of any such Officers as Lay-Elders In the Third Defence p. 58. It was notorious that the Parliament yielded to Presbytery to exclude Episcopacy because they had no other way to uphold their Wars without which they had no way to hold up themselves but by help of the Scots My first Book Viz. the Preface to Saints Rest disclaims Lay-Elders Pag. 109. to Hinckly Of Bishops Page 832. of Mr. Baxter ' s Directory Q. 56. Mr. Baxter tells you in the Margin of those Reasons for a larger Episcopacy That in the Apostles Days there were under Christ in the Universal Church many general Officers that had the care of gathering and over-seeing Churches up and down and were fixed by stated Relation unto none And most Christian Churches think that though the extraordinary Gifts Privileges and Officers cease yet Government being an ordinary part of their Work the same Form of Government which Christ and the Holy Ghost did settle in the first Ages tho' not with the same extraordinary Gifts and Adjuncts were settled for all following Ages 1. Because we read of settling that Form viz. general Officers as well as Particular but never of any Abolition 2. Because if we affirm a Cessation without Proof we seem to accuse God of Mutability as setting a Form of Government for one Age only 3. And we leave room for audacious Wits to question other Gospel-Institutions as Pastors Sacraments c. 4. It was general Officers that Christ promised to be with to the end of the World Matth. 28. 20. And in this Premonition he says he doth not dispute the Lawfulness of Arch-Bishops over Parochial-Bishops as Successors to the Apostles and other general Officers of the first Age in the ordinary continued parts of their Office And in his Plea for Peace p. 263. Some of us incline much to think that Arch-Bishops i. e. Bishops that have over-sight of many Churches with their Pastors are lawful Successors of the Apostles in the ordinary part of their Work So also First Plea p. 35. and of his accepting two parts of Episcopacy not varying the Species in the Preface to the second Plea In Church-History p. 37. and in Plea for Peace p. 66. the Bishops in Cyprian's time had the best ordered Churches in the World
turbulent Non-conformist I differ from many in several things of considerable moment yet if I should zealously press my judgment on others so as to disturb the Peace of the Church and separate from my Brethren that are contrary minded I should fear lest I should prove a Firebrand in Hell for being a Fire brand in the Church And for all the interest I have in your Judgments and Affections I here charge you that if God should give me up to any Factions Church rending Course against which I daily pray that you forsake me and follow me not a step And for peace with one another follow it with all your might If it be possible as much as in you lieth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. mark this When you feel any sparks of discontent in your Breasts take them as kindled by the Devil from Hell and take heed you cherish them not If the flames begin to break forth in Censoriousness Reproaches and hard Speeches of others be as speedy and busie in quenching it as if it were Fire in the Thatch of your Houses For why should your Houses be dearer to you than the Church which is the House of God Or your Souls which are the Temples of the Holy Ghost Hath God spoke more against any Sin than Unpeaceableness If ye forgive not Men their trespasses neither will your Heavenly Father forgive you which Lodovicus Crocius says is the measure and essential property of the least degree of true Faith if you love not one another you are not Disciples of Christ Publick Wars and Private Quarrels usually pretend the Reformation of the Church the vindicating of the Truth and the welfare of Souls but they as usually prove in the issue the greatest means to the overthrow of all It is as natural for both Wars and private Contentions to produce Errors Schisms contempt of Magistracy Ministry and Ordinances as it is for a dead Carrion to breed Worms and Vermine Believe it from one that hath too many years experience of it it is as hard a thing to maintain even in your People a sound understanding a tender Conscience a Lively gracious Heavenly frame of Spirit and an upright Life in a way of War and Contention as to keep your Candle lighted in the greatest Storms or under the Waters The like I may say of perverse and fierce Disputings about the Circumstantials of Discipline or other Questions that are far from the Foundation they oftner lose the truth than find it Wo to those Ministers that make unnecessarry Divisions and Parties among the People that so they may get themselves a name and be cryed up by many Followers The way to prosper your labours is to quench all flames of Contention to your power Study the Peace and Unity of your Congregations keep out all occasions of Divisions especially the Doctrine of Separation and popular Church-Government the apparent Seminary of Faction and perpetual Contentions If once the People be taught that it belongs to them to govern themselves and those the Scripture calleth their Guides and Rulers we shall have mad work They that would pluck up the Headge of Government as if the Vineyard could not be fruitful except it lay waste to the pleasure of all the Beasts of the Forest are like the pond that grudged at the Banks and Damm and thought it injurious to be restrained of its liberty and therefore combined with the Winds to raise a Tempest and so assault and beat down the Banks in their rage And now where is that peaceable Association of Waters We feel now how those are mistaken that thought the way for the Churches Unity was to dig up the Banks and let all loose that every Man in Religion might do what he list Wo to those Ministers that make unnecessary Divisions and Parties among the People that so they may get themselves a name and be cried up by many Followers The way to prosper your labours is to quench all Flames of Contention Study the Peace of your Congregations keep out all occasions of Divisions especially the Doctrine of Separation and popular Government the apparent Seminarys of Faction and perpetual Contentions Every tender Conscience should be as tender of Church Divisions and real Schism as of Drunkenness Whoredom and other such enormous Sins James 3. 14 15 16. Reasons for Christ Relig. p. 485. Sect. 34. If it be objected that I preached to separate Congregations my Answer is That I preach'd only to some of many Thousands that cannot come into the Temples many of which never heard a Sermon of many years And what I did was only to preach to such as could not come to our Churches Answ to Letter p. 24. quasi dicerit that where Parish Churches are large enough there Separate Congregations are unlawful They are usually Men least acquainted with a Heavenly Life who are the violent disputers about the Circumstantials of Religion As the body doth languish in consuming Fevers when the native heat abates within and unnatural heat inflaming the external parts succeeds so when the Zeal of a Christian doth leave the Internals of Religion and fly to Ceremonials Externals or Inferior things the Soul must needs consume and languish Of Conformity For Conformity though to Ministers it be another thing by reason of the new impositions than it was to our Predecessors yet to the People Conformity is the same if not easier especially to them that I now speak to for it is the Liturgy Ceremonies and Ministry that most alienate them And the Liturgy is a little amended as to them by the change of the Translation and some little words and by longer Prayers and the Ceremonies are the same and Thirty Years ago there were many bare reading not preaching Ministers for one that is now Therefore our case of Separation being the same as of old I take it to be fully confuted by the ancient Non-conformists and I have so great a Veneration for the worthy Names much more an Estimation of the Reasonings of Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Baines Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langley Nicols Herring c. that I shall not think they knew not why they chose this Subject and wrote more against Separation than the Conformists did I am very glad that the pious Lectures of Mr. Hildersham Mr. R. Rogers and such old Non-conformists are in so good esteem among good People where they will read them urging the People not only against Separation but to come to the very beginning of the Publick Worship and preferring it before their Private Duties When I think what holy Learned Men the old Conformists were my heart riseth against the thoughts of separating from them If I had come to their Churches when they used the Common Prayer and Administred the Sacrament could I have departed and said It is not lawful for any Christian here to communicate with you What! to such Men as Mr. Bolton Whateley Fenner Dent
Divisions from a Church that separates not from it himself The sparks of Schism are kindled when proud Persons are brainsick with a fond estimation of their own opinions and heart-sick for propagating them Till Church Divisions be rightly apprehended as Whoredom Swearing and Drunkenness are they will never be well cured Imprint therefore on your minds the true Character of them and consider the Effects and then you will fear this confounding Sin as much as a consuming Plague Pag. 63 When you are tempted to separate from any Church for defectiveness in its manner of Worship enquire how God is Worshipped in all the Churches on Earth and then consider if you lived among them you would forsake communion with them all Read the Church History and consider what Heresies have been in times past and what havock Schisms have caused among Christians for if this had been known by well meaning Persons in our days we should not have seen those same opinions appleaded as New Lights which were long ago exploded as Old Heresies Nor should we have seen many honest People taking that same course to reform the Church now and advance the Gospel which in so many Ages and Nations destroyed the Church and cast out the Gospel A narrow Soul that taketh all Christs Interest in the World to lye in a few of their Separate Meetings and shuts up all the Church in a Nut-shell must needs be guilty of the foulest Schisms It is a Catholick Spirit and Principles loving a Christian as a Christian abhorring the very name of Sects and Parties as the Churches Wounds that makes a Catholick indeed Mr. Caudry in his Book of Schism against Dr. Owen p. 14. says that Toleration of separate Congregations had done more to the rooting out Religion from the hearts of many in Seven Years than the inforcing of Uniformity in Seventy Years before As to Separation Be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extreme necessity resolve with Augustine I will not be the Chaff and yet I will not go out of the Floor though the Chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour for Reformation and yet as long as you can possibly avoid it Forsake not the Church that you desire to reform as Paul said to them that were to forsake a Shipwrackt Vessel If these abide not in the Ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others Of Raising Churches against Churches Church gathering is Church scattering work p. 110. Christ Direct The Interest of the Christian Protestant Religion in England must be much kept up by keeping up as much of Truth Piety and Reputation as is possible in the Parish-Churches Therefore In Parishes where all may hear the Parish-minister I would not have you without necessity to Preach at the same hour of the day but at some middle time that you may not seem to vie with him for Auditors nor to draw the People from him but let them go with you to hear him and after come and hear you Do not meet together in opposition to the publick meeting nor at the time of publick Worship nor yet to make a groundless Schism or to separate from the Church whereof you are Members nor to destroy the old that you may gather a new Church out of its Ruines as long as it hath the Essentials and there is hope of reforming it nor yet would I have you forward to vent your own supposed gifts and parts in teaching where there is no necessity of it nor as a separated Church but as a part of the Church more diligent than the rest in redeeming time Let all your private meetings be in subordination to the publick and by the approbation and consent of your Spiritual guides Remembring them which have the rule over you Heb. 13. 7 8 9. And I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them c. Rom. 16. 17 18. I would you would ponder every one of these words for they are the precious advice of the Spirit of God and necessary now as well as then The great advantages that Satan hath got upon the Church through the sin of the Pastors in these later days is by division By this he hath promoted all the rest of his designs Our division gratifieth the Papist and greatly hazardeth the Protestant Religion more than most of you seem to believe or regard It advantageth Profaneness and greatly hindereth the success of the Ministers it pleaseth Satan and builds up his kingdom The hand of God is apparently gone out against the Separatists you see you do but prepare Persons for a further progress Seekers Ranters Quakers and too many professed Infidels do spring up from among you as if this were the journeys end and perfection of your revolt By such fearful desertions did God formerly witness his detestation of those that withdrew from the unity of the Church And separation will ruine the separated Churches themselves it will admit of no consistency Parties will arise in the separated Churches and separate again from them till they are dissolved I beseech my Brethren to open their eyes so far as to regard experience How few separated Churches do now exist that were in being an hundred years ago can you name any and would you have all the Churches of Christ to be dissolved In the year 1634. Roger Williams of New-England an Assistant to Mr. Kalph Smith Pastor at Plymouth where having vented divers singular opinions he was dismissed went to Salem which place in a years time he filled with Principles of rigid Separation tending to Anabaptistry as that it is not lawful for an unregenerate Man to pray or take an Oath in special not the Oath of Fidelity to the Magistrate He forbad any of his Church-members to hear the godly Ministers of England when occasionally they went thither He taught that the Magistrate had nothing to do in matters of the First Table that there should be an unlimited Toleration of all Religions that to punish any Man for his Conscience was Persecution He separated not only from the Churches of Old but of New-England also as Antichristian After that he would not pray or give thanks with his own Wife or Family because they went to the Church-Assemblies He kept private Meetings by way of separation from and opposition to the Church-Assembly and being banished as a disturber of the Peace he sat down at a place called Providence and there fell to Anabaptistry renouncing Infant Baptism And after a while he told his People that he was out of the way himself and had misled them for he could not find that any on Earth had power to administer Baptism and therefore their last Baptism was a nullity as well