and as to Religion you are safe for you are sure of True Sacraments a saving Ministry the best sort of Worship and what not Ah my Brethren These however in themselves golden Pipes and sacred Conveyances of Grace to those who use them aright are yet in themselves and as the World goes Faciles Parabiles ritus a Godliness easie to be had and which may prove as destructive as easie to be come by when the outward injoyment hereof is the great matter of our Acquiescence But to examine this Cheat a little more narrowly as well for the more effectual delivery of men from it as the clearing the Point in hand That Divisions have brought men to place Godliness in matters most contrary to its nature Admit I place true Religion and so Godliness very much in being of this or that Church I say the Church I am of is either a True one or a False one one that holds to or one that has broken off from Catholick Unity If the later I am then in a Schism by being of it And then by placing Godliness in being of this Church what do I do but place it in Schism An hopeful sort of Godliness indeed And if the former if the Church in adhereing whereto I reckon my self Godly be a true one that is a sincere Member of the true Catholick Church I am never a whit the godlier by my mistake in over-valuing the Communion of the Church For 't is great odds as the stream of mens spirits runs but that my Zeal for such dearly beloved Church transport me into such admiration of it that either I shall confine Salvation to it and insist so far on the necessity of Communion with it as to forget Catholick Charity by which means again I am fallen into Schism though of a different sort from that before mentioned and still placing Godliness in being of this Church thus strictly I place Godliness in Schism Or else rest in the meer injoyment of those advantages and preeminencies I apprehend by it running a round of external Duties and Observances but little or not at all concerning my self as to a real changed heart and renewed spirit and then the Godliness with which I please my self lies only in some Formalities and Church Priviledges which come naturally under what the Apostle styles a Form of Godliness and which he says a man may have and deny its Power that is be void of Holiness without which no man can see the Lord. And is not this as pernicious a mistake Alas alas my Brethren 'T is not the Communion of Saints can save men though it be both our Duty and Interest to maintain it A man may be damned in the purest Church on Earth for a Carnal worldly heart or a disorderly unholy life however our Divisions may delude us into contrary Fansies This kind of men we have spoken of are commonly Zealots of one side or t'other But there are another sort which are Lukewarm indifferent generally to all Religions and Churches in particular Some Religion perhaps they think 't is fit there should be for the better managing the people and if in their judgment they do proceed to any Specialties possibly they will tell you 't is expedient there should be several Religions that every man may find one the profession whereof will suit his Humour A policy not unlike unto which the Church of Rome has now a long time used in inventing and maintaining so many Religious Orders Now as they before-mentioned placeâ— Religion and so Godliness or our Duty to God in being of what they apprehend to be Gods true Church so these Secondly place it in seeming to be of such or such a Church or Party for in reality and as far as Religion â—s Religion they neither believe nor own any such thing nor consequently any Church at all The other perhaps addicted themselves to Factions and Parties out of Conscience though haply erroneous and in the sincerity of their hearts these out of humour or interest seem to do so for the present and when either humour or interest vary then farewel such espoused Party or Religion And now let us put the Question in plain English and as plainly answer it What do these men place Godliness in Verily in an Atheistical humoursome Hypocrisy And is it not true that our Divisions foster and confirm these Wretches Atheistical vein They seem to themselves rationally defensible in disbelieving all Religion and our several Churches Testimonies thereof because the Witnesses are not agreed amongst themselves In a word and to conclude this particular of misplacing Godliness or deceiving our selves as to its whole nature It is sure Godliness primarily consists in a serious Belief of the Being and Nature of God and in an intire Resignation to him whence most naturally and sweetly slow all its inward and outward acts But we have above made it evident Divisions have brought Christendom to that pass that some men place Godliness in such Practices which resolve into Schism others in Formalities and Providential Advantages others in Atheistical and Humour some Hypocrisie and not a few are there of each of these sorts Now what can be more contrary to real Godliness than all these By what we have said therefore of the misplacing of Godliness it appears Divisions so vitiate the spirits of private men as to destroy real Godliness that is the first part of Holiness in them 2. Though the Dammage Godliness must sustain in misplacing wholly its nature is the greatest we can imagine yet certainly it suffers not a little by the mixture of Heterogeneous additions and on the other hand by detraction of some of its Integral Parts or Offices And is it not evident that since the Christian Church has been thus rent in pieces by Divisions each Party as if in their own defence and in justification of their proceedings has made it their business to stand by themselves and pursuant hereto most have been running further and further from one another into the strangest Extreams Which distance must be confest most chiefly visible in Articles of Faith and Offices of Divine Worship Both these on some hands have been wisely multiplyed on others as prodigiously and not without the most dreadful Sacriledge diminished and retrenched From the multiplication of Articles of Faith amongst the Papists Believing with the Multitude is become only a blind Obedience and Resolution of submission to the Church From the like multiplication of Divine Ordinances the Publick Worship with them is mostly Pageantry and Ceremony and Private Devotion little else but some Lip-labour Bodily Exercise or small Money-matter Amongst those who call themselves Protestants there are a People who have run into contrary heights and after denying some Articles of Faith and laying aside others as useless have rejected all positive worship of God all Prayers Sacraments yea even the Ministry of the Word as belonging only to a lower State and Oeconomy than that they are in I
to obey As to those of us who have obeyed the Laws we desire only thus much charity from Dissenters which we will surely repay good measure pressed down shaken together and running over we desire I say only thus much charity that we may not all of us be thought to have acted blindfold or upon corrupt inducements There is a multitude of us can in the fear of God profess we have again and again considered the Ecclesiastical Laws and according to our duty as we believe we have been and are obedient not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Conscience we can say not meerly our own but others of whom we are and must be tender And we doubt not but in this our obedience we please God and are not unserviceable unto Men. We hope further we are able to approve our selves to the Great Judge of all in the several fore-mentioned Particulars at least according to that equitable allowance which our gracious God through Jesus Christ gives to humane infirmities and which the best of us all must crave even in our best Actions Now as to those who withdraw from us We call not into question the sincerity of their intentions we neither are nor desire to be Judges thereof We profess we generally judge the best and where we cannot so judge we suspend our judgment But we desire them to resume and reiterate the consideration of the Rectitude of their Cause For we must acknowledge and avow we neither could see nor have been shewen any warrant which makes it lawful to any much less their duty as many pretend to separate from that Church which neither urges nor receives any Article of Faith but what must be confessed pure which worships God by no Office more or less than what is of his own institution and the forms thereof not dissonant to his word whose Government if the sense of Christendom in all Ages till within this hundred and few more years and of the Generality of it still interpreting Holy Scriptures may be heard is truly Apostolical and in fine whose Discipline though forced in some things to truckle under the iniquity of times suffers few or none to be so bad as they would and encourages all to be as good as they can If it be lawful to separate from such a Church where shall we find that from which we may not separate And where then will be an end of Divisions In the Church of Corinth where were sundry greater Disorders and Corruptions tolerated than can be pretended amongst us that we know of the Apostle does not tolerate but severely reprove their Divisions and both censure the Authors of them as Persons to be avoided and the Abettors as Carnal Then lastly as to the Management of this departure we passionately beseech and in the Lord conjure all who are guilty of withdrawing that they will consider whether the Circumstances either of making or maintaining it be warrantable or indeed well excusable Particularly and briefly Suppose things stood so that Separation were their Duty yet is Theirs without Ostentation as all Duties ought to be Do not they publickly value themselves thereupon and despise others Are not they in their own Language The Saints and the rest of the Nation Those who are without the People of the World not to take up more odious Names Again admit Separation from us were lawful yet is theirs without scandal Without scandal to the weak of their own Church without scandal to the weak of Ours Without scandal to Papists or scandal even to Jews Without scandal to men of all Religions or scandal to men of None The good God be merciful unto us and deliver Christian men from Partiality and Self-flattery But I must Contract 2. My Second Exhortation shall be That being satisfied in Conscience touching the Right or Lawfulness of our own engaging in all points of our Cause or as some had rather speak touching the Excellency and Superlativeness of the way we are in we would not spoil a good Cause by our ill Management That the Religious amongst us are Divided at present there is none who sees not Nor that all the Petty Divisions are reducible to these three Grand ones Papists Regular Protestants and Non-Conforming Protestants The Cause or way of the First I do declare I judge no Power on Earth no nor with all reverence be it spoken of Heaven it self can make just For God cannot Ly that is contradict himself The Doctrine they teach profess and if we will credit them believe is against express Scripture the Analogy of Faith and the Consent of the Ancient and true present Catholick Church And indeed in divers Points also against Sense and Reason the common Principles of Mankind And too much of their Morals is no better The Cause or Way of the Second is just if any under Heaven I need not speak my mind again I do not say there is nothing amongst us defective nor that there is nothing which may be amended nor again that there is no mismenagement or no evil People amongst us I do not believe there is or will be ever such a Church on Earth That accusation to the end of the world will justly ly against the Purest Church I have a few things against thee Revel II. 4. 14 20. But I must avow I know not that Church which would take the Mote out of our Eye that has not a Beam in her own The Cause of the Third must be acknowledg'd by all indifferent and considerative men at least doubtful For he is void of reason who shall deny that disputes with the lightest Probabilities are manag'd against it and such which with the most rational persons turn the Scales Possibly to some of them who have espoused it it may not seem doubtful But whatever my Charity may induce me to think it in any of them were I my self a mainteiner of it I could not judge it in my self any thing less than Formal as well as Material Schism But for the present we 'll not dispute the Point Admit it to be lawful I only move that it be not mismanaged that Good men would not prosecute a lawful Cause in an unlawful manner or by undue means and so intangle themselves and Cause in Injustice and Iniquity Having then concluded the Cause of the Regular Protestants good and excellent and for the present admitted though not granted that of the Nonconformists to be lawful there is chiefly a double mismenagement which I must tax at present and that on both sides for I would not be partial and which the Exhortation in hand proceeds against 1. The former of which is Overcharging one another This besides that it renders us guilty of sin and makes still our matters worse does further expose us Both to our Common Enemies and create to them sweet Sport and to our selves Scorn and Contempt The Nonconformists charge us most unjustly with Popery Give me leave to beseech these our Accusers
own hands how poor a mitigation of mutual misery it will be to excuse our selves with our Ignorance and Good meaning Of which when God comes to judge the former perhaps will be found Stubborness Heedlesness or Pride and the later not what its name imports but somewhat which we mistook for it called in true and proper speaking Self-flattery or too good a conceipt of our own Deceitful hearts and ways To prevent then this misery if it be the will of God Let us all Search and Try our Ways and Hearts and be content to see our selves genuinly what we are and to judge of our ways according to Truth and Soberness And because our own Scrutinies may be partial Let that Appeal and Prayer of Davids dwell in all our hearts and lips Psalm CXXXIX 23 24. Search me O God and know my heart Try me and know my thoughts And see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting Let us inculcate such Petitions as these and beat them into our hearts at the Throne of Grace till being brought under the Power of them we become content to be led into the ways of Charity Peace and Righteousness yea though they should be found far different from those which we have traverst before with the greatest Affection and Delight The good God pour into all our hearts such Christian Sincerity and Honest Temper the true Fruit of the Holy Spirit through his Son Jesus Christ To whom c. THE CRY OF HOLINESS FOR PEACE A SERMON on Sunday in time of the Assises there By the same Author LONDON Printed in the Year 1682. The Text. HEBR. XII 14. Follow Peace with all Men and Holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. IT were easie from so pregnant a Passage of Holy Scripture as this read to suggest great variety of particular Subjects each of which would administer matter for much a larger Discourse than I may be allowed at present The Holy Spirit in laying out our Christian Duties considers us either as single persons and so the sum of all that concerns us is Holiness Or else as Members of some Society more or less Publick and so our main Duty is Peace Of both these the most zealous Endeavours and Practice we see strictly injoyned in the Text. Follow Peace that is Pursue it with all urgency yea though it fly from you And this in the greatest extent With all men Then as to Holiness this is not only injoyned with equal Emphasis but the pursuit thereof inforced with the most moving Consideration without which 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately relates to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is without Holiness no man shall see the Lord. That at present incomprehensible fruition of the Supream and Infinite Good which shall at once transport and satisfie all the powers of the Humane Soul shall be vouchsaf'd to none but the Holy man I will not hold you in suspense but immediately fix on these two as considered injoyn'd in conjunction And whereas such joint injunction of them may be conceived to have different respects I shall not at present consider much their Connexion as the Later may be thought the Condition or Qualification of our pursuit of the former thus Follow Peace with all men and Holiness that is so far seek and maintain peace with all as Holiness will permit a sense not to be neglected But as the Former is a means to or a Causa sine qua non of the Later thus Follow peace and holiness that is Follow Peace as it is a means unto Holiness and without which Holiness will be very imperfectly if at all attained A little more distinctly yet Peace according to the different Society to which it relates may be either Civil or Ecclesiastical The study and pursuit of both is undoubtedly our duty designedly comprehended in the Text and conducive to Holiness and the injoyment of both to be reckoned as one of the greatest Blessings The one of them Peace in the State blessed be God and the Conduct of our gracious Soveraign we have had much of and still have notwithstanding all our Fears and Murmurings which God cure and forgive The other Peace in the Church we neither have had now a long time no not since our Soveraigns blessed Restauration nor have at present so much of as we might were we not on all sides much wanting to our selves And this is that which I design now to press and to press under this consideration as it connects with Holiness in the present injunction of both as it tends unto Holiness and as certainly we should have much more of Holiness than is now publickly to be seen amongst us had we more of Peace and Holiness in the Church My Brethren there are many amongst us pretend a great deal of Zeal for Holiness nothing is more frequent in their mouths and I wish there lay nothing closer to all our hearts than Reformation and the need of it I censure none but only shall at present endeavour to demonstrate that the most likely and proper way to a Publick Reformation is Ecclesiastical Peace and Union and that those who with all their might pursue not this are so far forth as they are negligent of it or averse to it real Enemies to Reformation and true Holiness whatever their pretences otherwise may be By Peace in general we mean such a Conjunction of mens Minds and Manners that one man is not in any thing designedly troublesome to another but rather favours every others advantages And this being applyed particularly to Causes and Matters Ecclesiastical will amount to no less than such an Union of Judgment and Affections as engages Christian people to maintain Fellowship and Communion in all Offices of Divine Worship and Matters pertaining to the Glory of God In whatever Church this is wanting in that proportionably is wanting Peace By Holiness we understand an Habitual Separation or being separate from all Vice and Vitious Practices and a like Devotedness of Heart and Life to God according to the Rule of the Gospel Now I say the first much conduces to the second Publick Peace in the Church to real Holiness and whatever practices are at present contrary to Peace amongst us are proportionably destructive of Holiness The main Evidence I shall give shall be to set forth the pernicious Effects of Faction and let none suspect I will in the least be bitter or invective herein I promise to speak the words of meekness and soberness as well as of truth I shall then present to your consideration the Effects of Faction or Church-division First upon the State Secondly upon the Church And Thirdly upon the spirits of Private men And if all these are found most fatal to Holiness I shall hope it will be concluded there is no following Holiness without Pursuing Peace 1. I begin with the sad effects of Church-division upon the States and Kingdoms within which such divided Churches lye
And these are generally no better worse they cannot well be than Civil Wars and all the sad Consquences thereof which are nothing but the most horrid Complications of all Impieties imaginable or in the Language of St. James Chap. III. 16. Confusion and Every evil work That Civil Wars are the Common Effects of Divisions and Factions in the Church especially where such Divisions are continued and have had age or time enough to ferment as I may so speak the yet too fresh bleeding wounds of these three Nations speak more plainly than perhaps we would all be willing to hear The point is tender and therefore I forbear further to touch it That Profaneness Irreligion and Vices of all sorts are the general effects of Wars both while they rage and too long after some composure of things the Experience oâ— all Ages and People witnesseth as well as our own There are those perhaps that will tell us It cannot be otherwise 'T is impossible it should not be so Necessity compels not only Private Persons but Publick Bodies to foul Practices When there was a General after Gods own heart Every one that was in debt and had no mind to be just Every one that was discontent the fruit commonly of mens own Vices and Debaucheries at least of their Imprudence Pride or Refractoriness and Every one that was in distress gathered themselves unto him and he became Captain over them 1 Sam. XXII 2. And 't is sure enough by the sequel of the History there were worse than such in the greatest Commands of his Army The Sons of Zerviah were too hard for the good King they were Evil-doers privy murtherers implacable they shed the bloud of war in peace yet durst not he then animadvert upon them 2 Sam. III. 39. and 1 Kings II. 5. c. Now to set up a Refuge for such men as these in any Nation as Wars do what sad influence must it have upon the Manners of the Nation To speak something closer to our own Country and the late unhappy ever to be lamented Troubles and that in the Language of those who will not be thought Railers or False Accusers of the Brethren The Assembly in their Petition to the Parliament Jul. 19. 1644. have amongst others this Prayer That some severe course might be taken against Fornication Adultery and Incest which as they complain to use their own terms do that is then did greatly abound especially of late by reason of Impunity It seems then those Odious things the Bishops Courts while standing do some good Fornication Adultery and Incest do not ordinarily pass with Impunity under them which they soon obtain'd when this Check was taken off And not only in this single kind but in most other Exorbitancies was the Case no better Particularly at present Atheism and Prophaneness are justly complained of to be reigning Sins as well as Carnality Now I say it and will at any time prove it Hell it self can scarce devise indite or vent grosser Prophaneness Leudness and Blasphemy than may be shewn justified defended and cryed up under the Notion of Perfection in diverse printed Pamphlets betwixt the years 49 and 56. Nay in the very year 1660 the greatest part of the London Ministers published A Seasonable Exhortation as they call it complaining of the great Wickedness broken loose amongst us wherein they set forth as one dreadful Instance That some as they are credibly Pag. 10. informed are grown to that heighth of wickededness as to worship the Devil himself In a word I could say much more which would prove that then Impiety broke in like a Torrent upon us when the Wars broke out But I conceive all sober men of what perswasion soever had rather confess this sad Truth and lament it too than hear it more largely proved Wherefore I say it follows hence as from one general head of proof that they are Enemies to Holiness who perpetuate at present our Church-divisions or which is much the same who do not their utmost towards a Publick Union 2. Let us in the next place consider the Effect of Schisms and Factions upon the Church and the Constitution of things therein and that Consideration will conclude the same It cannot be conceived at least expected I should reckon up or indeed that one man's head should comprehend all the general Instances or Kinds of Mischieâ—s under this Head It shall therefore suffice that I present such which I judge most obnoxious amongst our selves First then I say Although Divisions and Schisms should not through the restraining hand of God prove so direful to the Kingdom yet are they inâ—allibly a Plague unto the Church and by being destructive unto its Discipline make havock of Holiness and publick Good manners Discipline is the great expedient Christ has left his Church both for the keeping out and Purging out all the Old Leaven of Naughtiness and Wickedness 1 Cor. V. 7 8. c. Whatsoever therefore bereaves the Church of this le ts in a floud of ungodliness upon her And is it not evident to any that has but half an eye that Divisions at present both take off the Efficacy and hinder the Exercise of Discipline amongst us I know there are some who cry out We have no such thing as Discipline in our Church we have only a Shadow and Skeleton of it There is at present it must be confest something of truth in the Accusation We have indeed too little of the Primitive and Apostolical Discipline But we appeal to God and Men where the fault lies 1. We complain our present Divisions take off the Edge of our Spiritual Weapons There are some and those Leading men too in their party that deny any such thing as a National Church and much more any Catholick Church in the sense that Article of our Creed has ever been believed by all Christians from the beginning What should men acted by such Principles care for our Excommunicating them upon any Scandals they should be found guilty of They own no such Church as we are and as all Christian Ages have ever believed Again there are others who have renounced their Baptism for another thing they call so Others that laugh at all Baptism as well as Sacraments in general Suppose any of these sorts become obnoxious to Church-censures for their Immoralities as too often they do we censure them and tell our Christian people they ought to look upon them as Heathens and Publicans What now signifies this They have before cast off the Badge of their Christianity and scorn it and us for esteeming it They are already as Common and as far without the Pale as we can set them I have no pleasure to urge these things further 2. We say moreover besides this that the Divisions take off for the main the Efficacy of such Discipline as we have they have also hindred all along as well the setting up as the Exercise of that Primitive Discipline which our Church long ago
this evil Lastly I must not conceal a third Mischief which our Divisions bring on the Church and that is a sad number of insufficient Pretenders and Intruders to the Ministry Amongst too many of the Factious whoever can but boldly pretend to Gifts and we know what pittiful reproaches of the Spirit of God some men are used to call so falls on exercising and if after some practice he gain a few ignorant Admirers these shall be his Followers otherwise perhaps styled his Converts and he may set up especially if such his Adherents choose him for their Pastour he may set up I say by the very Principles of divers of them without any other Ordination for a Minister of the Gospel This is up and down the Country a great Evil. But I am very far from saying all the Ministers amongst the Dissenters are such There are divers of them of Learning and good Conscience and possibly some of Legitimate Ordination However even these in the Point in hand we fear will find themselves to have acted prejudicially to the Interest of Holiness not only by conniving at and joyning with such insufficient Intruders into this Holy Office but also in not doing what they profess they can and what would have sufficed them and by this means in leaving their places to be filled sometimes with men much less serviceable to the Interest of Holiness than themselves who unhappily occasion many weak peoples following such Intruders and whose Admission as the Laws and Constitution of things stand the Governours of the Church cannot now hinder God be blessed there are few that I know or no Instances of this case hereabouts but too many elsewhere in our Israel Whose is the fault God will judge To conclude this Point Corruptions in Religion whether in Doctrine or Manners can never prevail much without corruption of the Holy Order Jerohoam could not effect the Alienation of the people from the Temple and true Worship of God meerly by his setting up his Golden Calves at Bethel till he had made of the Vilest sort of people Priests which were not of the sons of Levi persons no wise qualified for their Office of Priesthood by Education or Exercise 1 Kings XII 31. XIII 33. Let those who have been guilty of doing occasioning or contributing to the like evil look to it and lay it home to their hearts and Consciences The generality of such insufficients is a consequent of our Divisions and hereby Holiness has suffered and will suffer till such practice can be remedied which will never be effected till Union and Regularity may take place and operate Thus as to the Effects of Divisions upon the Church destructive to Holiness 3. The third Head proposed now only remains viz. the Consideration of the Effects of Faction prejudicial to Holiness on the spirits of private Christians and these I say it strangely vitiates I have already stated what I conceive genuinly meant by Holiness and according to the Account given in it signifies in a word an Habitual Complexion of all Christian Graces and Virtues Now let us look through the whole three Families or Tribes of Christian Duties towards God Men and Our selves and see how miserably peoples practice is corrupted under each Head by our Divisions I. I begin with Godliness but must admonish here as before none may expect I should touch on all particulars Time would fail Some enumeration of Points more obnoxious may suffice 1. The greatest corruption or adulteration of Religion and Godliness in the world is the misplacing it I mean mens taking up and holding to somewhat in stead of it which perhaps in their and some others judgment has some appearance and likeness of it or remote pretence to it but is very far from being it And if men shall not only do this themselves but teach others so to do and vent this false Godliness they are more dreadfully guilty of corrupting Religion and destroying Holiness according as he who should disperse as much false Money as he could were more a Criminal in adulterating the Kings Coin and abusing the Nation than he who fondly should please himself with the lustre of some few base pieces in his own private Cabinet Now I complain that the Divisions of the Church have brought men to place Godliness in points most distant from its nature nay some most contrary to it and not only to practice so themselves but to teach accordingly I shall assign only for the present a double instance First Some men mainly place Godliness in being of such or such a Church that is in other terms in being of this or that Sect or Party And the persons guilty herein are not meerly some weaker and ordinary people which yet some account the greatest part of Mankind but divers of a far different Grain at least as their Discourse and Conversation in other things bespeaks them How plausibly amongst men of tolerable judgment does the following Plea proceed Out of the True Church there is no Salvation And the True Church can be but one For there is One Body as one Spirit Ephes IV. 4. And we Believe One Catholick and Apostolick Church saith the Nicene Creed It therefore concerns a man in the first place in the Choice and Entrance upon his Religion to look hereto that he joyn himself to the true Church How few see the Snare which is here laid or are wary enough to extricate their perplexed minds by distinguishing that though the Catholick Church be but One yet Particular Churches may be and must be Many and of those many God forbid but we should think several to be true ones that is true Members of the one Catholick Church And 't is most likely she 's the worst which ingrosses to her self alone at least would ingross the Title of The True and Catholick In the mean while what a stir has this Question made in Divided Christendom Which is the true Church What are the Signs and Characters of it How many private Conferences publick Sermons voluminous Treatises taken up on this Subject And when men have from these Signs or Characters agreeing to such or such a Church in some tolerable measure satisfied themselves to their own apprehension and concluded such or such A True Church to which therefore they forthwith addict themselves is not this generally the next conclusion that the same is The True Church and presently this the final Result that Themselves and all in the Ark are safe by being in it Who sees not that this wile destructive flattery and delusion derives its Original from our Divisions Every divided Party look upon themselves as the Godlier and consequently quo id hoc the Holier by how much the purer Worship they conceive their Church to have and that they take for certain The truer the Church the Purer its Worship its Sacraments its Communion and in fine the surer its Members So that with the Multitude this passeth current Get into the true Church
consideration and I suppose not excepted against And the Oath of Canonical Obedience which binding expresly only In licitis honestis I wonder men make such a clamour of and the Oath against Simony are administred only to such who are instituted into Livings So that upon the whole a man would think the business of Swearing should never hinder any Loyal Subjâ—ct from Conformity being that Swearing properly so called is not required to Conformity And then Secondly as to Subscribing and Declaring those who pretend they more scruple these than they do the performing the things they thereby engage to would either without them perform those things that is observe the Liturgy and Ceremonies constantly or only when they saw fit and as they pleased If the Later this would be much worse than plain Nonconformity Magis ingenuè Peribomius If the former when they shall have proved that it is much more to declare a thing lawful and promise either to do it or submit to the Penalty for not doing it than it is without any such promise ordinarily to practice it when I say they shall have proved this by any consent they shall be accounted Conformists upon such practice without any Subscription or Declaration Nay further I dare engage let any of them come into our Churches put on the Surplice read Prayers orderly go up and Preach they shall have leave so to do though they never Subscribe or Declare and for their so doing they shall suffer no Penalty And till they will prove the one or do the other I must conceive Subscribing and Declaring is reasonable For seeing they have to do these things how shall we know they will do them except they tell us so beforehand and that 's Declaring or else write so and that 's Subscribing This abatement therefore was not to be expected and so not to be proposed 6. I add hereto Mr. Baxter does not propound to do what yet he says he can in Conscience do and what he judges lawful no neither does he or his Brethren ordinarily practice so much as far as I can hear 1. He very honestly tells us pag. 8 9. he can Communicate with our Parish Churches in the Churches Prayers and hear the Ministers where he lives if they be but tolerable in the Sacred Office Nay he is exceedingly moved against the Separation as well by the Arguments of many of the famous old Nonconformists as by four excellent Considerations he there subjoins 2. It appears by what he discourses at large from pag. 14. to 20. and pag. 139. sub fin 240. and in divers other places that he does not at all judge it unlawful but many times very expedient to forbear their preaching in the time of the Publick Prayers and Sermons of the Church on Lords days Whether these two be his and their practice we leave it to themselves we hope it is only I do not find he propounds to do this as a Mean of Peace 3. He says he himself never scrupled Kneeling at the receiving the Lords Supper pag. 155. 4. I have heard also that in his Five Disputations pag. 409. he hath these words speaking upon a Supposal that one certain habit were enjoyned Ministers in their Ministration The thing in it self being therefore lawful I would obey him i. e. The Magistrate and use that Garment if I could not be dispensed with yea though secondarily the Whiteness be to signifie Purity and so it be made a Teaching Sign yet would I obey Now it would appear hence that he does not think the Surplice unlawful Yet do I not expect he should propound either of these two last in general whatever himself in particular might think good to do for reconciling himself to our Church because he intimates Better men than himself scruple them However this very matter I may justly mention as the Seventh and Last Defect I will take notice of in his Proposals that we can build upon little or nothing in them as Conclusive to the Body of the Dissenters Because What are his thoughts to Two thousand that are Absent or not consulted Third Part of Plea pag. 195. I have thus dealt very faithfully with Mr. Baxter and his Writings as to the matter of Peace and I hope he will approve himself so wise and good a man as not to take with the left what is given him with the right hand but if he think fit to write more on this Subject that he will study rather the closing Wounds than making or widening them He complains himself he has had but bad success in solliciting the Cause of Peace I will therefore adventure to take my leave of him in recommending to him what I am of the mind he may do to much better purpose and what were I in his Circumstances I should if not judge my self bound unto yet accept as the best Works with which I could close my Labours First Whereas he intimates pag. 71. that he has wrote above Seventy Books wherein his Doctrine and Religion are visible were I their Author lest People should take all that to be my Doctrine and Religion which is visible in them I would immediately with what care I could run them over and conscientiously retract either under some general heads or in particular as the case and my leisure would permit whatever I should judge had been said amiss or less sound Mr. Baxter well knows how great a mans Works in the Usual Editions begin with his Books of Retractations and Confessions Secondly Whereas it is apparent Mr. Baxter has been intangled miserably in the Calamities of the times and perhaps contracted thence such Circumstances as render it highly unexpedient for him as he conceives to speak in his present Condition as he would or might have done if never so intangled I would were I as he at least in conceipt disembarass my self and sit down and considering the present state of the Church what is imposed what are the pretences of those who oppose what a fair Gaim these oppositions put into the hands of the Common Enemy considering I say and comprehending as near as I could the whole I would freely present to the World my calm and uninteressed thoughts and give a candid and impartial Account what I could in Conscience do and what in prudence I would do were I to begin the World again in order to the fair and successful Exercise of any Ministry I humbly beg his pardon if I think he never can do the Christian Church and himself a greater Service than two such Works of these would amount to and so from my heart I commend him to the Grace of God I should now reflect on some others upon the same Subject and I am sorry that I can truly say I have met with some who taking up Mr. Baxter's Principles out-going him acting only like those who cast abroad Firebrands and Arrows and Death I will not name them nor their Books for neither does it conduce to Peace