beleeve as if you had and that you declined the rocks and shelves they ran upon But if you did discover those principles of the Brownists which were the causes of their divisions why doe you passe them over in silence In this Apologeticall Narration you make many a parenthesis and addition to what you are speaking of nothing so materiall nor proper to the points in hand for example In that passage immediately following these words you lanch out into the high praises of New-England in many lines as the laying downe those principles which are the causes of the Brownists divisions would have been So that I much wonder if you found them out that you past them over in silence for these might have been of great use to the Separatists themselves for the time to come and of great use to have preserved others from Brownisme who are inclining that way besides the benefit to your own party by looking upon them to prevent the like fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks in their way so that I know not how this omission of yours can be excused Besides how came it to passe that you who are the Authours of this Apologie and your Churches made no better an use of all your enquiry and discovery but in the time you were abroad to fall into the same fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks namely the same divisions and sins nay greater and worse then some of the Separatists Churches did as ever I heard For proofe whereof I have been informed both by word of mouth and Letters from good hands of these following particulars In Holland there were but two Churches of your way and communion one of which was at Rotterdam where Mr Bridge and Mr Sympson were members and afterwards Mr Burroughs which Church of Rotterdam like the old Separatists at Amsterdam split into two Mr Sympson at first and some others after him renting themselves from Mr Bridges Church to the great offence thereof Mr Sympson setting up a new-Church Mr White the Merchant and his wife only at first joyning with him Mr Sympsons Church being founded by a woman Mr Bridge himselfe heretofore telling me so and calling Mrs White the Foundresse of that Church And after this great rent and setting up a Church against a Church under Mr Bridges nose Mr Ward Mr Bridges colleague and old friend at Norwich was deposed from his Ministery and office for frivolous matters and some differences by Mr Bridges Church And here if I should but relate all the maine passages that fell out between these Ministers and their Churches after this Renting and Deposition within the space of a yeare following namely the Letters sent into England each for themselves and against each other all the stories told of one another and all the bitternesses and revilings between the Churches of Mr Bridge and Mr Sympsons with the desperate scandalls and reproaches cast out especially upon Mr Bridge the Readers eares would tingle and I should be too long especially because I must touch upon this string againe when I come to that story related in the Apologie page 16. The other Church was first at Viana then at Arnhim of which Mr Goodwin and Mr Nye were Teachers concerning which Church if I should but relate all the strange conceits and opinions held and practised in that Church besides some preach't even before Mr Goodwins and Mr Nye's comming back to England with all the differences and divisions that fell out I should make this answer too large I will for the present relate these few passages reserving the rest till I put out aâ—… Rejoinder upon their Reply to this Answer Anointing the sick with oyle was held in that Church of Arnhim as a standing ordinance for Church members for others had no right to that ordinance as laying on of hands was a standing ordinance for Church Officers There was a writing amongst them in many hands prooving it to be so and there were some cases propounded with what oyle the sicke members of the Church were to be anointed and there was a resolution of the case namely with Olive oyle A copy of this writing some Ministers of the Assembly have perused and one of them hath it amongst his papers in the Countrey Mr Goodwin did anoint a Gentlewoman whose name I conceale when she was sick and she recovered after it they say A Gentleman of note in that Church one of those two so much commended in the twentieth page of this book for wisedome and piety did propound in the Church that singing of Hymnes was an ordinance which is that any person of the Congregation exercising their own gifts should bring aâ—… Hymne and sing it in the Congregation all the rest being silent and giving audience now upon the propounding of this another Gentleman did oppose it as not judging it an ordinance to whom the former Gentleman replied that he destroyed in opposing this what he had built up whereupon words passing between them a difference grew between these two Gentlemen and this second Gentleman was complained of to the Church by the first and upon hearing the whole businesse and all words that past between them this second Gentleman was censured by the Church and Mr Nye charged sin upon him that was the phrase in many particulars and still at the end of every charge Mr Nye repeated This wis your sin After this censure so solemnly done the Gentleman censured brings in Accusations against Mr Nye in severall Artiles charging him with pride want of charity c in the manner of the censure And this being brought before the Church continued in debate about halfe a yeare three or foure dayes in a weeke and sometimes more before all the Congregation divers of the members having callings to follow they desired to have leave to be absent Mr Goodwin ofâ—… profest publikely upon these differences if this were their Church-fellowship he would lay downe his Eldership and nothing was more commonly spoke among the members then that certainely for matter of Discipline they were not in the right way for that there was no way of bringing things to an end At last after more then halfe a yeares debate not being able to bring these differences to an end and being to come into England they had their last meeting about it to agree not to publish it abroad when they came into England hoping that God would give some opportunity when they came into England to make an end of it which whether it be ended yet I doubt much because of some speeches reported to me spoken by one of these persons concerning the other two Now if this Church of Arnhim consisting of Ministers moderate and wise standing upon their credits and reputations and of prime Gentlemen and pick't Christians being in exile and leaving all for their consciences as they say doe yet run into such strange conceits and breake among themselves thus what can be expected of Independent Churches here that may consist of raw and fiery
liberall maintenance annually for our Ministers yea and constantly also wine for our Communions And then we againe on our parts not only held all brotherly correspondencie with their Divines but received also some of the members of their Churches who desired to communicate with us unto communion in the Sacraments and other ordinances by vertue of their relation of membership retained in those Churches In the last Section I prooved both by Letters and many other presumptions you alwayes held not that respect to the Church of England you seeme to professe in that Section if now at last you be growne more sober and wise upon reviewing your principles I am glad of it non est pudor ad meliora transire For this Section your being received and entertained with the like respect from those Reformed Churches abroad and your mutually giving and receiving the right hand of fellowship If I may beleeve reports and Letters and those not light but from Ministers and good people I have been by word of mouth told and I have in writing from thence grounds to question the truth of this Narration A godly Minister out of Holland in answer to some questions sent about the truth of your Apologie writes thus to this present Section And here I cannot but adde this that whereas the Apologeticall Narration mentions these things as an argument of the incouragements they had in these parts and their good concurrence with the Churches here it hath been affirmed to me from very good testimony that however the Magistrates at Rotterdam for politick ends as to gather company to them which is for the profit of the place yet the Churches there I meane the Dutch never approoved of the course held there by these Brethren and their people It hath been affirmed to me that many of the Dutch Ministers were much offended at Mr Bridges being ordained Minister by the Lay-elders without any preaching Presbyters And what ever right-hand fellowship and brotherly correspondency you might hold with the Dutch Divines some of the English Ministers of the Reformed Churches there have complained of your great strangenesse and distance towards them and instance hath been given me particularly by a great friend of yours now in London that when some of you have come to Amsterdam you never would goe to Mr Herrings a good old non-conformist but have gone to Mr Canne's the Separatist and to his Church And besides this report told me some yeares agoe from a friend of your owne that I might not only beleeve reports I sent over into Holland some questions about the truth of some things related by you in this Apologie the contrary whereunto I had been informed of before and among other questions upon this Section I propounded what communion and converse passed between the godly English Ministers and their Congregations and you or whether when you came to Amsterdam you went not rather to the Brownists meetings and conversed with Mr Canne more then the Reformed Ministers Unto which question I had this answer in so many words sent To this I can say that since my comming hither we have had no such communion with them as that we have prevailed with any of them to preach in our Congregation though I am sure some of them have beene earnestly importuned thereunto indeed Mr Bridge seemed once to be willing but did not And for their going to the Brownists and conversing with Mr Canne more then us that is undeniable What you may of this reade in Epistle to the Rejoinder indefence of Mr Bradshaw against Mr Canne is most true and certaine But suffer me a little to examine the particulars wherein you would proove the mutuall giving and receiving the right-hand of fellowship For the first That you were received and entertained with the like respect that you gave to our Churches in England I easily beleeve which was but little And if the Reformed Churches look't upon you and you on them as you did upon our Churches in this Kingdome you have no cause to boast here of mutuall giving and receiving the right hand of fellowship remembring what I answered to your last Section concerning your profession of our Churches As to that proofe you bring of their giving you the right hand of fellowship in their abundantly manifesting it by the very same characters and testimonies of difference which are proper to their own orthodox Churches and whereby they use to distinguish them from all those Sects c I answer this was not to all of your Churches for Mr Simpson which yet is your way and is here owned by you all in this Apologie had not a Church or publike place for worship granted to him nor the priviledge of ringing a Bell to call to meetings but was looked upon as a Sect as Mr Bridge told me And in a Letter out of Holland from a good hand to that question Whether Mr Simpsons Church had the allowance of ringing a publike Bell to call to their meeting and whether any maintenance allowed by the States 'T is answered To this I shall say I never yet heard by any that his Church had any such allowance of Bell or maintenance by the States Now if Mr Simpsons Church was lookt upon as a Sect tollerated but not owned wanting that great signall of difference between allowed Churches and all other assemblies namely the priviledge of ringing a publike Bell to call unto their meetings and the rest of your Churches being just of the same way and constitution with his as appeares by this Apologie then the ranking of you now you are here with Sects is no great injury to you Neither will the granting to your two other Churches publike places to worship with maintenance for some of your Ministers c. free you from being lookt upon as Sects by the Churches and Ministers there but I must tell you these priviledges came from other grounds as namely one of your Churches consisting of many persons of great quality and going at first to a priviledged place the other Church having formerly been a Church in the way of the Reformed Churches there and so had then the allowance of a publike place The first sensible declining of that Church to the new-way being by Mr Peters before he went to New-England Now Mr Bridge comming to that Church and bringing with him and after him wealthy Citizens and Clothiers by which the Magistrates at Rotterdam knowing well their advantage No wonder though they permitted that Church their publike place and gave to their Ministers a full and liberall maintenance yea and Wine for their Communions and yet should gaine well by it As for your holding all brotherly correspondency with their Divines which I suppose you meane the Dutch not knowing any of them I can say nothing against it but only 't is a great presumption that holding so little brotherly correspondencie with our own English Divines there you held not much with the Dutch But grant that
which you say to be true that you held all faire correspondencie with them that might be upon other grounds for your own advantage and benefit many wayes you being strangers and they in their own countrey as also to see if you could gaine any of their Ministers to your Church-way And as for your receiving some of their members unto communion in the Sacraments that might be but to strengthen your own way and to advance that Church-principle of receiving them by vertue of their relation of membership And here I desire to put two questions to you 1. Whether in receiving some members of the Dutch Churches who desired to communicate with you you put them upon professing themselves to be members of their Churches and belonging thereunto as you did the English who came to you 2. Though you received some of them unto communion in your Churches whether any of you ever received the Lords Supper in any of their Churches or in any of the English Churches in Holland who were not of your way and communion But grant all you say in all your profession of your respect and holding communion with the Dutch Churches whereby you would free your selves from the imputation of Separation and make the Reader beleeve the Brownists and you had no affinity I answer You say no more nor hardly so much as Mr Robinson writ in his Apologie 25 yeares since of those Reformed Churches page 10 11. Now for the way and practise of our Churches we give this briefe and generall account Our publike worship was made up of no other parts then the worship of all other reformed Churches doth consist of As publike and solemne prayers for Kings and all in authority c. the reading the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament Exposition of them as occasion was and constant preaching of the word the administration of the two Sacraments Baptisme to Infants and the Lords Supper singing of Psalmes collections for the poore c. every Lords day For Officers and publike Rulers in the Church we set up no other but the very same which the reformed Churches judge necessary and sufficient and as Instituted by Christ and his Apostles for the perpetuall government of his Church that is Pastors Teachers Ruling-Elders with us not lay but Ecclesiastique persons separated to that service and Deacons And for the matter of government and censures of the Church we had nor executed any other but what all acknowledge namely Admonition and Excommunication upon obstinacie and impenitency which we blesse God we never exercised This latter we judged should be put in execution for no other kind of sins then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties known light as whether it be a sin in manners and conversation such as is committed against the light of nature or the common received practises of Christianity professed in all the Churches of Christ or if in opinions then such as are likewise contrary to the received principles of Christianity and the power of godlinesse professed by the party himselfe and universally acknowledged in all the rest of the Churches and no other sins to be the subject of that dreadfull sentence In this Section you give us a Narration of the way and practises of your Churches Wherein in the beginning you tell the Reader We give this briefe and generall account But how much better had it been and more proper to have given a full and particular account here then in your other parts about New-England and the Reformed Churches in Holland A full and particular account of the way and practises of your Churches had answered more the nature of such a Narration and would have satisfied all men but why did you in the most materiall part give such a briefe and generall account knowing that under brevities and generalities there lies much mistake and deceit And let me tell you this briefe and generall account falls short of your way and practises and either you had bad memories in your writing this Apologie about the parts of your worship Officers and censures to forget some of them or else you have on purpose conceal'd them holding out the bright side of the cloud namely what the Reformed Churches practise but hiding the back which is so much the more justly to be excepted against because as you set down the words and give the account they are not true but I can say and make it good too your publike worship was made up of other parts then the worship of all other Reformed Churches namely of Prophesying in your Congregations and for Officers and publike Rulers in the Church you set up others then the reformed Churches namely Widdowes And for the matter of government and censures of the Church you have executed others besides Admonition and Excommunication namely deposition of a Minister and confession of offences publikely and orderings of solemne Fasting for Humiliation upon confession of sins as your selves relate the story in the 16th page and one and twentieth besides you hold other censures of the Church the Sentence of of non-Non-communion with Declaration and Protestation to all other Churches as appeares by your own relation page 17 18 19. For publike worship that you exercised prophecying I could name unto you who of the members have prophecied at Arnheim and upon what subject but I spare them I could tell you how Mr Bridge and Mr Sympson fell out upon the point of Prophecie as Mr Bridge informed me and of the exercising of Prophesie in Mr Sympsons Church at Rotterdam as well as at Arnheim I could out of manuscripts produce how arguments are framed to draw away people from our Churches upon this ground as being defective in some ordinances namely prophesying And besides prophesying I propound it to you whether some of you have not held out some other publike worship then the reformed Churches hold namely Hymns and annointing the sick members of the Church with oyle As also whether a little before your comming over into England some members of the Church of Arnheim did not propound the holy kisse or the kisse of love to be practised by Church-members Nay whether by some persons in that Church was it not begun to be used and practised And in this enumeration of the parts of publike worship I desire to know why you put in c. and what is meant by c. for that implies more parts then you enumerate And we know c. is a dangerous and suspicious phrase ever since the late Canons and Oath for under that c. may be meant Prophesying and Hymnes and Annointing with oyle and the Kisse of love and many other parts which the reformed Churches practise not and so your publike worship may be made up of many other parts then the worship of all other reformed Churches and that there is great cause to speake thus and doubt appeares because I know not nor cannot reckon up any other part of publike worship
aâ—…itted to fellowship with you in the Lords Supper whether would you have admitted us Now to that passage of yours in the close of this first instance and Churches made up of such we were sure no Protestant could but approve of c. This goes upon the mistake observed by me before That the question in controversie about church-Church-members is not nor cannot be meant Whether Churches made up of such members as all account faithfull be by all Protestants approved of to be true Churches with whom communion may be held But whether communion may not be held with such Churches and such received into communion and fellowship of Churches whom many Churches especially yours and those of the Church-way doe not upon your principles acknowledge true and fit matter And in this I am sure all Protestants of note are against you and for us accounting such visible Churches as you here instance in an Utopia holding it Donatisme and Anabaptisme and when the Papists doe in their writings father upon them such a visible Church as you dreame of and such principles as you hold they disclaime it as learned Whitakers it being the constant opinion of all the great Protestant Divines Calvin Luther Zanchius Iunius c. That the visible Church of Christ consists of good and bad resembled therefore to a field net floore where chasse as well as good graine c. Againe concerning the great ordinance of publike Prayer and the Liturgie of the Church whereas there is this great controversie upon it about the lawfulnesse of set-formes prescribed we practised without condemning others what all sides doe allow and themselves doe practise also that the publicke prayers in our Assemblies should be framed by the meditations and studie of our owne Ministers out of their owne gifts the fruits of Christs Ascension as well as their Sermons use to be This we were sure all allowed of though they super-added the other To this 2d Instance concerning the great ordinance of publicke prayer and the Liturgie of the Church I shall give you one Answer after another following you according to your expressions upon it wherein I finde you like your selves in the other precedent parts in generals and in the darke so as few Readers can tell by your Narration here what you hold and practise about publike prayer 1. Wheras you say There is this great controversie upon it about the lawfulnesse of set-formes prescribed I must tell you this great controversie upon it is raised onely by your selves and the Brownists there being no Divines nor no Reformed Churches that I know of but doe allow the lawfull use of set-formes of prayer composed and framed by others as by Synods and Assemblies and doe make use of such sometimes as the Churches of France and Holland in the administration of Sacraments usually doe and those who practise them not so much yet at least hold them lawfull And I challenge you in all your reading to name one Divine of note and Orthodox that ever held set-formes of prayer prescribed unlawfull excepting only Independents 2. What understand you by set-formes prescribed whether prayers onely made and framed by others As suppose by an Assembly or Synod but yet not imposed or whether prayers composed by others and then prescribed and required by authoritie to be used Now if you say you understand it in the second sence that you question the lawfulnesse of that but not in the first I aske you whether you will practise and doe hold it lawfull to use in your Assemblies Prayers made and framed by others As suppose a directory for worship which I the rather aske you because your words afterwards hinted as the ground for your owne practise and against the practises of the Reformed Churches speake against all set-formes of prayer composed by others That the publike prayers in our Assemblies should be framed by the meditations and studie of our owne Ministers out of their owne gifts which reacheth to all prayers framed by other men though they be left at libertie to use or not use them And further this argument of yours speakes only against formes of prayer as in the first sence but speaks not at all to it as imposed and enjoyned but let your expressions of set-formes of prayer prescribed be taken in the second sence yet I am readie to maintaine against you that set-formes of Prayer lawfull for their materials and establisht by a lawfull power to be used in the publick Assemblies may lawfully be practised by Ministers and the people safely joyne in them 3. As I askt of you in what sence you tooke set-formes prescribed so I desire to know whether in the questioning of the lawfulnesse of set-formes of prayer you understand onely formes of prayer framed by men and Ministers in the Church or whether not also prayers recorded in the Scriptures as for instance the Lords prayer whether ever you practise the use of that in your Assemblies which question I make because I never heard that any of you five ever used the Lords prayer either in your owne Assemblies or in ours nor indeed that any of your way did it being now made by many a note of a Formalist Now if you account the use of it lawfull considering the great offence the totall disuse of it gives to many and how it hinders the word to many considering that Scripture with other like 1 Cor. 10. 32. I wonder how you dare neglect it and by the way let me tell you that 1 Cor. 10. 32. is stronger to command you the use of the Lords prayer then for what it is alleadged by you in the 17. page namely for your principle of submission of Churches c. And I propound to you further whether if some other prayers word for word recorded in the Scriptures should be put into a directorie you would use them As also whether you would practise the reading of set Psalmes and Chapters appointed out for you 4. As for the practising your owne prayers without condemning others I answer that is not so 1. Because you bring many arguments against set-formes of prayer framed by others and prescribed that amount to a condemnation in a high nature terming such prayers will-worship inventions of men as is evident both by Manuscripts and by printed Discourses of Mr Davenports M. Cottons M. Nyes 2. You with-drew from our Sacraments and publicke Assemblies upon this ground and have drawne many away with you and have set up new Churches But it may be you will in this Narration have this evasion that though you condemne the practise yet not all the persons that use them you doe not condemne them as ungodly I answer no more doe the rigid Brownists nor Anabaptists who yet condemne sufficiently our Churches and our prayers and yours too for they acknowledge both you and us to have eminent personall graces 5. As to that Argument brought by you for conceived prayers but against set-formes made by
which is not your case denying authoritative power but if you say this text is meant secondarily of all Churches and Christians though they have not authoritative power I grant it but then it is in wayes suitable which the word of God gives warrant and allowance for as in reproving mourning for the sin c. which must be shewne in some other Scriptures For else the Presbyterians may pretend by vertue of this text that they ought not to be partaker of other mens sins that they may censure depose excommunicate members of other Churches who are suffered to goe on in sin better then you can draw from this text that you may call not only particular members but whole Churches to an account examine them and pronounce that heavy sentence of non-non-communion against them But in a word bretheren let me tell you if such generall texts as these that may be applied to any course and way conceived by men in their own braines to hinder sin and reduce from offences will serve turne for Church government and for remedies to reduce Churches then we can give you besides your own two texts quoted here for your principle of submission of Churches and non-communion many other such and more probable too for the authoritative power of Presbyteries and Sinods as that in 1 Cor. 14. 22. And the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets but we are not so hard put to it there being particular instances and examples if the nature of an Answer to such a Narration would permit me to insist at large that proove the points in difference namely of acts of power exercised by Churches in common as in elections determinations and impositions upon differences and controversies as Acts 15. 2. 4 6 7 13 22 23 24 28 29. Acts 16. 4 5. 2 Corinih 8. 18 19. But let the indifferent reader judge by this which hath been said whether the reformed Churches or the Independent practise most safely there being a ground as your selves confesse for the sentence of excommunication such a sentence you acknowledge in particular Churches and practise it and such a sentence hath been decreed and past upon members of Churches by those who were not members of those Churches as the Scriptures are cleare for it 1 Tim. 1. 19 20. But on the other hand it is not granted that the Scriptures give any ground of pronouncing the sentence of non-non-communion against whole Churches or doe allow any such practise of declarations and protestations unto all Churches against whole Churches this I utterly deny and your Scriptures prove them not and I wonder how you dare call it the command of Christ and the way of Christ as you doe in page 18 19. And brethren besides that the Scriptures give neither precept nor example for your way of non-non-communion consider whether the Scriptures give not grounds rather to the contrary namely against a particular Churches withdrawing and renouncing all Christian communion with whole Churches upon an errour and miscarriage for let me aske you may not such a Church or Churches be true Churches for all this continue in their offices upon mistaken partiality and notwithstanding all the light a particular Church can give them be unsatisfied now if a particular man may not separate nor withdraw Christian communion from a true Church though upon his counsell and advise she redresse not but 't is a schisme then for one Church upon counsell and advice given to more Churches though not taken to separate formally from many Churches by pronouncing that heavy sentence of withdrawing and renouncing all Christian communion cannot be justified Paul did not renounce nor cast-off Churches for many things amisse though upon his counsell they were not mended as appeares in the Church of Corinth that had been twice admonished 2 Cor. 13. 1 2. and â—…t repented not and now Paul doth it the third time and yet refusing Pauls counsell and power being so infallible and authoritative deserved more the sentence of non-non-communion then the often rejecting the counsell and power of any particular Church can doe But I will answer you in your own language that your sacred and undoubted principles and supreame laws of submission of Churches and of the power of Churches offended to pronounce the heavy sentence of non-non-communion against the Churches offending and of Declarations and Protestations to all other Churches of Christ that they might doe the like with your own practise exprest in the 20 and 21. page are to me Apocriphâ—… and judge it to be an additament which therefore rests on you who allow the sentence of excommunication to make evident and demonstrate that of non-non-communion Protestations Declarations c. And thus it often falls out whilst men will oppose that which hath long been received in the Church of God upon pretence of the want of Scripture grounds and bring in new wayes they practise novelties upon lesse ground and foundation from Scriptures then they rejected the old as is to be seen in this instance 2. As these principles of yourâ—… have no footing in Scripture so it will appeare they are no sufficient remedies for miscarriages and evills which fall out in particular Churches by reason of their compleate and entire power within themselves first because there are more acts of power then your principle of submission of Churches and the instances you give upon it reach unto so that granting all you say of it yet it would but reach to that particular case or some such like cases but would be no way sufficient either for preventing or remedying other evills and mischiefs which dâ—…e and would arise upon a Congregationall government thus entire within it selfe So that here lies the fallacy in the question between you and the reformed Churches in point of government you speake to some points of government but not to all and instead of laying down principles that should answer all cases they only serve but to some and so your principles that should be simpliciter are only secundum quid For in the government of the Church there are many other acts of power as of making and ordaining Ministers of receiving in Members of agreeing upon a government doctrine and worship c. which this full compleat entire power of particular Congregations takes upon them to doe of which many great mischiefes doe arise and are like errours in the first concoction which your principle of submission of Churches reacheth not unto nor doth not help But secondly besides this the principle of submission of Churches that miscarry unto the other Churches offended with that practise of Churches finally offended to denounce such a senâ—…ence of Non-communion doth not answer the case alleadged in heresies schisme or persons injured nor is not a sufficient remedie like that of combination of Elders and for the making good of that I shall examine the way and course prescribed by you in your principles here laid downe of Submission Non-communion Declarations and Protestations and
complaints and appeals now the Presbyterians in that give the Magistrate a power about the use and abuse of Ecclesiasticall discipline and Ecclesiasticall Causes and businesses yea and definitive to namely a politicall objective consequent power which may be diversly exercised both ordinarily and extraordinarily in a Church constituted and in a good estate and in a Church fallen and corrupted Voetius in his disputations upon that question In whose hands the Ecclesiasticall power is a great Presbyterian in that question grants and gives to the Magistrate a publick judiciall power of judging not onely with the judgement of knowledge but definitive in causes and matters Ecclesiasticall which judgement is consequent not antecedent because the ultimate disquisition is not in that whether that be true but whether they will by publicke Authoritie maintaine and execute that So * Apollonius in his Answer to Vedelius where he strongly pleads for the Presbyterians in that point of Ecclesiasticall power yet gives much to the Magistrate ordinarily in a Church constituted and well reformed in the point of this part of power and extraordinarily in the state of a Church corrupted and greatly disordered when the doctrine is corrupted and the Sacraments contaminated with idolatrous rites and discipline turned into tyrannie and when the Ministerie and all Ecclesiasticall meetings both inferiour and superiour conspire to oppresse the truth of God and to establish tyrannie in the Church in such cases the Magistrate may do many things besides the ordinary way now let me entreate you to consult the books of the Presbyterians and especially Apollonius answer to Vedelius of the severall particulars of the power of Magistrates about the use and abuse of discipline in a constituted Church besides the power given them in extraordinarie cases and in your Reply to this Answer satisfie me what you give more But let me tell you whatever power you five may have found out for the Magistrate which the principles of Presbyteriall government will not suffer them to yeeld some new power may be like that devise of non-Non-communion of Churches and Protestation to all Churches that they may doe the like yet your Churches may not grant it and so the Magistrates shall be never the nearer the power you give the Magistrate in the 17. and 19. pag. is not yeelded by many of your own Churches whereof you are Ministers A Gentleman a prime member of one of your Churches immediately after the comming forth of your Apologeticall Narration disclaimed and renounced that power of the Magistrate exprest by you in the hearing of a Minister a member of the Assembly who related it to me But what is it wherein you give more to the Magistrates sure there is something you meane and aime at in it if we could find it out suffer me to guesse at it and you shall see though you doe not formally expresse so much yet I have some reason to judge so First Doe you not meane in this phrase the Magistrates power to which we give as much and as we thinke more then the principles of Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeeld that your Church-way consisting all of particular Congregations and not growing into great bodies by combinations and Synods the Magistrates power is greater over you in that he may easily deale with you and dissolve you at pleasure but for a power to grow into so great a body an Ecclesiasticall power as large as the civill so combined this may be formidable and dangerous to the State and too great for the Magistrate hereafter to rectifie this hath been by an active Independent upon discourse of these points suggested to me and how farre one of you hath reasoned thus in the hearing of many against Presbyteriall government and for Congregationall you can remember Or secondly Doe you understand by this phrase that when heresies schismes or strange opinions are broacht in your Churches and you cannot tell what to doe with them nor how to suppresse them nor how to have the persons censured being so powerfull in particular Congregations whereof they are members in such a case you give the civill Magistrate a power to question them for these heresies schismes and to imprison banish c. if they doe not revoke them New-England practising the way of Independencie and not having Classes Synods that have authoritative power to call to account and censure such persons were necessitated to make use of the Magistrates and to give the more to them a power of questioning for doctrines and judging of errors and punishing with imprisonment banishment and they found out a prety fine destinction to deceive themselves with and to salve the contrariety of this practise to some other principles that the Magistrate questioned and punished for these opinions and errors which now for want of Ecclesiasticall discipline and censure they knew not what to doe with not as heresies and such opinions but as breaches of the civill peace and disturbances to the Common-wealth which distinction if the Parliament would have learned from you and proceeded upon they might long agoe have put downe all your Churches and Congregations and justly have dealt with you as the Magistrates in New-England did with Mr Williams and the Antinomians Familists and Anabaptists there and yet have said they punished you not for your consciences nor because of such opinions but because your opinions ways and practises were an occasion of much hurt to the Common-wealth a breach of civill peace a great cause of many people sitting so loose from the Parliament a great hinderance to the Reformation and a ground of much distraction to the publike and of strengthening the enemy whereas the Presbyterians give the power in cases of heresies errors c. that are not remedied in the particular Congregation to Classes Synods Assemblies to question convince judge of censure and to apply spirituall remedies proper to spirituall diseases which I am confident of had such been in New-England in the Presbyteriall way there had never beene so many imprisoned banished for errors nor the Magistrates put upon that distinction Or thirdly Is it that you doe give a power to the Magistrate in Ecclesiasticall things of the ultimate determination of matters purely Ecclesiasticall which the Presbyterians principles doe not as now in matters of doctrine and in matters of scandall and in matters of censures excommunication deposition c. which are brought before and have past in Ecclesiasticall Assemblies to appeale from them to the civill Magistrate and to carry causes from thence to civill Courts to repeale and revoke them Your words and passages about the Magistrates power imply this and I find that many quick sighted men as the Walachrian classis nay a whole Synod after them in their late Letters to the Assembly apprehend you so and therefore I may upon good grounds judge besides the two former that you aime at this third in saying you give more to the Magistrates power then the Presbyterians
therefore where any one repâ—…nts the Church receives him so that in substituting the Magistrates power in defect of excommunication and giving a great deale more civill power for want of spirituall to make it as availeable for those spirituall ends of the Church is to leave the proper remedies and meanes and to take up others and I would desire you to answer me whether the proper remedies and meanes appointed for such ends and uses or the improper remedies nay remedies appointed and intended mainly for other ends be most effectuall and powerfull to accomplish those ends as also whether a part of a proper remedy being assisted and backt with a great proportion of a remedy of another nature and kind can be as effectuall as the whole remedy and meanes as for instance whether a little grace assisted by civility and fairenesse of nature will doe as much to overcome lusts and destroy the flesh as the highest degrees of grace that Saints may attaine unto and whether a little spirituall knowledge seconded with a great deale of common and outward knowledge is as availeable for a Christian conversation as great measures of spirituall knowledge though a man have but a little knowledge in Philosophy Physick Law c. But more particularly to let you see that your recourse unto the Magistrate and the Magistrates assisting and backing the sentence of non-communion is not comparable to that of excommunication and Presbyteriall government I shall commend to your consideration these eight following particulars First There may be many sins and errors which the Christian Magistrate meddles not with are not matters of his cognisance if you would have recourse to him or if the sentence of non-non-communion be pronounced against a Church because of impenitencie in them he hath nothing to doe to assist and back it there are no laws for such things which yet being spirituall evills and prejudiciall to the souls of men should be dealt with to recover men out of them Learned Zanchius in his differences that he gives between the censure of excommunication and the Magistrates censure observes this for a speciall one There are many wickednesses against which the Magistrate truly Christian doth not use to proceed neither is bound by his Laws as for instance private fallings out hatreds c as also many evill manners both domesticall and publike which doe not disturbe the publike peace or the publike good but the Church ought not to bare these but to correct them according to Christs institution Now what will you doe in this case here your recourse of submission to the Magistrate with the Magistrates backing non-non-communion faile you and conduce nothing at all Secondly In case the Magistrates be of those Churches and chiefe in those sins and miscarriages for which non-non-communion is denounced against those Churches as may easily fall out how will you have the sentence of non-non-communion now backed and assisted both those Churches and the Magistrates members of them shall have nothing to back non-non-communion to make it equivalent to excommunication nay I aske of you who bring in more of the Magistrates power to supply the want of excommunication where the particular Church will not and the Classes may not what shall be done with the Magistrates offending what meanes hath God left for the recovery of them you cannot imagine they will make use of their power against themselves now if they may not have spirituall remedies and censure as of excommunication this principle of the Magistrates power falls short here whereas in Presbyteriall government ther 's a remedie and redresse for all and certainly Gods ways of governing his Church provides for all whereas yours falls short 3. What if upon the sentence of non-non-communion denounced against a Church or Churches the Magistrate judge otherwise and hold the sentence of non-non-communion unjust and will not assist it which may ordinarily fall out what effectuall meanes hath the offending Church of being reduced now by vertue of the Magistrates power and what must be done in this case May the Magistrate revoke that sentence of the Church or Churches offended and declare it null and cause the Churches who passed the sentence to recall it and to continue their communion and suppose those Churches will not revoke it but stand to their act what shall be done in this case who must judge now between these Churches and the Magistrate may the Magistrate now by his power which you give him in Ecclesiasticals instead of backing the sentence of non-non-communion against a Church miscarrying as the Church supposed now turne his power against the Church for denouncing the sentence of non-non-communion uojustly as the Magistrate judgeth and not only declare it void but punish this Church or Churches for denouncing such a sentence of non-non-communion and declaring and protesting to all other Churches that they may doe the like and what if all the Churches protested to will continue to renounce communion with the Church censured with the sentence of non-non-communion notwithstanding the Magistrates refusing to assist that sentence nay though he declare it void or what if upon the Magistrates declaration some of the Churches give the righ-hand of fellowship againe but others will not what must the Magistrate or the Churches doe in these cases and the like consider well of it whether this effectuall way of yours the Magistrates assisting and backing the sentence of non-non-communion instead of a powerfull meanes to relieve injured persons or reduce Churches will not prove a meanes of great differences and divisions as well between the Churches and the Magistrate as between the Churches themselves 4. Must the Magistrate assist and back the sentence of non-non-communion against the Church or Churches offending and persisting therein upon the comming of it to him and so punish it according to the nature of the crime as he judges meet without first hearing what the Church can say for it selfe or must he first heare them both and in case more Churches mutually renounce communion with one another and protest against each other with other particulars instanced in about the remedie of non-communion under the fourth generall head what shall he doe in these cases must he heare all 5. What Magistrate or Magistrates doe you meane to whom in Ecclesiasticall causes you will have recourse unto and that must assist and back the sentence of non-communion Doe you meane the supreame and chiefe Magistrate the highest powers only or all inferiour Magistrates in their severall stations and divisions where these things fall out as Majors of Cities and Townes Justices of Peace and such Magistrates or doe you meane the Christian Protestant Magistrate or Magistrates though Heathens Popish Arrians or doe you meane by the Magistrates power that there shall be Courts of civill Judicature erected in every division of the Counties to heare the differences that fall out between Churches offended one with another c. or what doe you meane If you understand the supreame Magistrate
doe not goe to heaven to be with Christ expresly contrary to the 2 Cor. 5. 6 8. and to Philip. 1. 23. now whether some of you may not hold those opinions seeing they were publiquely preached at Arnheim and never condemned as ever I heard I know not but have reason rather to suspect you doe how ever though you doe not nourish any Monsters or Serpents of opinions in your bosomes yet I feare you have running wormes in your heads and together with the gold silver and Ivory of Orthodox truths you have store of Apes and Peacocks conceits and toyes as strange coined distinctions new strained expositions of Scriptures odd opinions about the personall raigne of Christ on earth and I aske you what the annointing with oyle of sick persons as an Ordinance for Church-members and what the bringing in of Hymnes composed by the gift of a Church-member cum multis aliis are whether are not these strange conceits and how ever you may be free of Monsters and Serpents of opinions lurking in your bosomes yet there is much of a Monster and the Serpent lurking in this Apologie and to be sure one Monster of opinions you all hold generally and some of you have preacht for A Toleration of divers sects and opinions and let me tell you granting you five be so Orthodox and supposing your argument good to prove it exposing your selves to the hazard of discovery in this Assembly which is no concluding argument yet there are many members of those Churches to which you belong besides many other members of Churches of your way and communion whom I suppose must be tolerated as well as your selves that doe hold very odd and strange things Some of Arnheim hold strange conceits and some members of Mr Sympsons Church hold some of the points of the Anabaptists and daily the Independent Churches like Africa doe breed and bring forth the Monsters of Anabaptisme Antinomianisme Familisme nay that huge Monster and old flying serpent of the Mortality of the soul of man and indeed there is no end of errours that the Independent principles and practises lead unto As for those words if we had carried it so as that hitherto such errours were not aforehand open to the view and Iudgement of all yet sitting here unlesse we would be silent we could not be long hid c. I answer some one or two Heterodox opinions may be hid where men are Orthodox in the most especially if all points of doctrine have not been discussed nor reviewed as in the Assembly they have not many Articles of our Church not having yet been gone through so that your errours in doctrine may be behind and your triall of being Orthodox will be when the Assembly comes to these Articles Article 19 22 23. 26. and when that doctrine concerning the Lawfulness of a Toleration of divers sects and opinions shall come to be discussed But before I passe from this I desire the Apologists to remember and the Reader to observe they call the Church of England Our Church and so in the fift page of this Apologie Our own Congregations we meane of England So that if you meane as you here write then the Nationall Church of England is your Church and the Parochiall Congregations are yours and so you establish a Nationall visible Church under the new Testament and if so why doe you erect other Churches and withdraw from your own but if you doe not meane so nor beleeve there is a Nationall visible Church nor account your selves members of this Nationall Church why doe you speake so and call the Church of England your own Church and the Parochiall Churches your own Congregations As for that part of this Section which concernes your good carriage in the Assembly in matters of Discipline In matters of Discipline we are so farre from holding up the differences that occurre or making the breaches greater or wider that we endeavour upon all such occasions to grant and yeeld c. I not being present at the debates will say nothing against it but whether since the writing of your Apologie and the Assembly comming to the points of Discipline which are properly yours your free-hold you have been so faire and moderate endevouring upon all occasions to grant and yeeld to the utmost latitude of your light and Consciences that I doubt and your best friends are not satisfied in it but rather much offended and you have much lost your selves with them by your demeanour and way of managing matters of difference in the Assembly But supposing all you say of your selves in this Section were fully so both before and since your Apologie yet it were not much materiall nor much to be trusted to being upon the triall of your good behaviour for it is probable all that may be done out of policie in reference to the main designe of obtaining a Toleration which at first cannot be imagined to have any probabilitie of being gained without all seeming fairenesse and compliance and drawing neere to us and therefore this Apologie is so framed in the words phrases and composure of it that in it you have stretcht your selves to the utmost latitude and highest compliance with the Church of England and the Reformed Churches even beyond what is meant by you in our sence and in common acception and beyond what many of your followers will own As also you hide and reserve severall things you hold both in matter and manner that so by all this you might court the Parliament Assembly Reformed Churches to beare with such conscientious men who differ so little from them and are so moderate and temperate also in and about the debate of those differences but the Parliament and the Assembly are wise to see into and thorough these Artifices and to consider that if once a Toleration were granted there would quickly be discovered another face of things which hitherto stands behind the curtain As for this passage in the close of this Section your not being backward urgers unto a temper not only in things concerning your own consciences but others also such as may suit and tend to union as well as searching out of truth judging this to be as great and usefull an end of Synods as a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding determintions of truth one way I judge then you had but a weake ground to urge you to temper in matter of difference and I question whether you were so forward to a temper in the things that might suit and tend to union for I suppose you are so farie from holding that a great and usefull end of Synods a curious and exact discussion of all sorts of lesser differences with binding Determinations of truth one way as that you deny it I have read a letter out of New-England from a Minister of note there speaking of that Synod which met upon occasion of the Antinomians and Familists formally denying this power of binding
spread and they gained so many of the Magistrates on their side we should have found there would have been no ground for Mr Simpson to write thus As is cleare in the Low-Countries where so many Ministers and people turned Arminians Papists and Socinians In a word till the calling of Synods and the power of Presbyteriall government was shaken and some Arminians by flattery and policie wrought to put by Ecclesiasticall Assemblies and appealed to the Magistrates as Mr Simpson does in this Apologie from the Assembly there was not so great a defection both of Ministers and people unto errors in turning Papists Socinians c. 3. Though Presbyteriall government hath not its free course in the Low-Countries as in France Geneva Scotland besides the Toleration there yet there are infinitely fewer miscarriages in censures divisions errors in the Presbyteriall Churches then in the Independents there having been more contentions miscarriagâ—…s falling into errors in one small Church of the Independent way at Amsterdam and that within lesse then one yeere then in all the Churches in some Provinces I remember perfectly I have read in Mr Pagetts Arrow against Separation a man who lived long in Holland and much versed in the Controversie how he showes that out of a few members in the Brownists Churches more fall to Anabaptisme c. then out of many thousand members of the Presbyteriall Churches amongst the Dutch or out of all the English Reformed Churches there So that notwithstanding this new objection brought against Presbyteriall government if the Parliament should please to settle it and that in the full power and free use of Classes and Synods denying also a Toleration for Independencie unto which all erroneous and discontented spirits upon all occasions would flow and gather instead of opening a wide gate for errors divisions and many other mischiefes they shall lay a sure foundation for truth and peace in these Churches And in the last words of the Commissioners of the Church of Scotland I conclude this last Reason against a Toleration The Church of England which God hath blessed with so much learning and piety by this Reformation and uniformity with other reformed Churches which all of us have solmnely sworne and subscribed to endeavour in our severall places and callings should be a praise in the earth Now did not other occasions call me to take off my hand besides the booke it selfe swelled already to such a number of sheets I would have answered all the reasons brought both for Tolerations in generall and particularly for the Congregationall way as that men are to be perswaded in matters of Religion and not compelled as that the Conscience is to be left free as that the deniall of a Toleration will be a great persecution as that this is the way to make men hypocrites as that Gods people are a willing people c. but reserving this to another season in the close of this Discourse I will propound these following questions to the Apologists 1. Whether the commanding of men by the power of Lawes to doe their duties to doe the things which God requires of them with the using of outward meanes to worke them to it when unwilling be unlawfull for the Magistrate and against Christian libertie yea or no 2. In your moving for a Toleration doe you desire it for you five only with those who are actually and will come in to be members of your Churches or for all the Churches who are of the same way and Communion if for your selves and Churches onely which would be more tolerable a few then a great number and you being persons of more worth then most of the others consider the solemne League and Covenant is against it That we shall without respect of persons endeavour the extirpation of schisme and whatsoever shall be found contrary to sound Doctrine so that you cannot be tolerated more then others besides if that were granted you being but five Ministers and making up but three or foure Churches the Parliament would be never the neerer in giving satisfaction for what should become of all the rest of the Ministers and Churches in City and Countrey of Mr C. Mr B. Dr H. Mr L. Mr G. Mr W. c. the Parliament would be accounted partiall and further off from giving content then if they granted none at all But if it be said you desire it for all Churches of your constitution I answer expresse so much under your hands and I will then give you an answer 3. Whether would you have a Toleration granted in the generall and indifferently for all consciences sects and opinions or only for some sort of opinions I suppose being wise men you will not expresse your selves for a Toleration in the first sense but in the latter I desire to know of you then what limits and bounds you will set and where the Parliament shall stop and what rules you will give for this as first whether the limitation shall be a Toleration only for all different formes of Church-Government and order so long as they agree in Doctrine with the Church established and are Orthodox but not of doctrine Now if you hold so then the Brownists and the Bishops with those who are for the Hierarchie must be tolerated as well as you many Episcopall men being sounder in doctrine then some of your way and if so then the simple Anabaptists and that sort of simple Anabaptists called Dippers will come in too saying that Baptisme at such an age and baptizing in rivers by dipping are but matters of order and time and what if yet a new forme of Church Government and way of externall order in the Administration of Gods Ordinances be set up by some a way which hath never yet beene practised by any must that be tolerated also consider with your selves whether there may not be a safer allowance of difference in some doctrines and opinions then of different governments as also what you have expressed of the consequence of Church Government and order and then resolve me whether you will have all formes of Church-Government allowed and in my Rejoynder I will apply my selfe particularly to show you the danger of that and how much hazard there is even of the Doctrine from the Discipline and Order if that be not right Or secondly would you have a Toleration in points of Doctrine too namely in lesser differences I desire to know what you will make the rule and measure of those lesser differences whether whatever may stand with saving grace and is not against the fundamentals of Doctrine and civill Government or what else Now if you meane so who shall determine and judge what may stand with saving grace c. every Heretick Socinian c. will plead his opinion may and I aske of you whether many points and practises very bad and pernitious may not stand with saving grace in some men at least for a time what say you to Polygamie that hath stood with saving
HAving diligently perused this Antapologia I find it so full and just and necessary an examination and discovery of the Apologeticall Narration both in matters of fact and of opinion that because I dare not as too many have the faith of our Lord Iesus Christ the Lord of glory with respect of persons I approve it to be imprinted and commend it Reader to thy most serious consideration Ia. Cranford ANTAPOLOGIA Or A Full Answer to the Apologeticall Narration OF Mr Goodwin Mr Nye Mr Sympson Mr Burroughs Mr Bridge Members of the Assembly of Divines Wherein is handled many of the Controversies of these Times viz. 1. Of a particular visible Church 2. Of Classes and Synods 3. Of the Scriptures how farre a Rule for Church Government 4. Of Formes of Prayer 5. Of the Qualifications of Church members 6. Of SubmissioÌ„ non-Non-CoÌ„munioÌ„ 7. Of Excommunication 8. Of the Power of the Civill Magistrate in Ecclesiasticals 9. Of Separation and Schisme 10. Of Tolerations and particularly of the Toleration of Independencie 11. Of Suspension from the Lords Supper 12. Of Ordination of Ministers by the people 13. Of Church Covenant 14. Of Non-residencie of Church-members Humbly also submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament By THOMAS EDWARDS Minister of the Gospel Ephes. 4. 14. That we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the slâ—…ight of men and cunning craftinesse whereby they lie in wait to deceive Vers. 〈◊〉 But speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things which is the head even Christ. Matth. 24. 26. Wherefore if they shall say unto you Behold he is in the desart go not forth Behold he is in the secret chambers believe it not Augustinus Vincentio epist. 48. Non enim propter malos boni deserendi sed propter bonos mali tolerandi â—…ti sicut toleraverunt prophetae contra quos 〈◊〉 dicebant 〈◊〉 communionem sacramentorum illius populi relinquebant Bezae epist. prima D'Andreae Duditio lactabimusne libertatem conscientiis permittendam esse Minime ut haec quidem liberta intelligitur id est ut quo quisque modo volet Deum colat Est enim hoc mere diabolicum dogma Sinendum esse unumquemque ut si volet pereat Et illa est diabolica libertas quae Poloniam Transylvaniam hodiè tot pestibus implevit quas nullae alioqui sub sole regiones toleratent London Printed by G. M. for Ralph Smith at the Bible in Cornhill neer the Royall Exchange 1644. To the tender Consciensed scrupulous doubting Christian. DEare and beloved Christians for your salâ—…es in speciall who are apt to be troubled with many doubts and feares about the Constitution and Government of the visible Church and the way of Worship and Communion in it have I drawn up this present Answer as to undeceive you in the Apologists the Apologie and their Church-way so to satisfie you in your scruples and doubts about Presbyterie It was my love care and respect to tender consciences that more especially moved me at first now some seven yeares agoe to fall upon the more thorough studying and searching into the controversies of the Church c. And the grounds which now of late have afresh revived my thoughts and studies that way are 1. The recovering and reducing conscientious Christians who are not too far engaged 2. The setling some who are wavering and doubtfull 3. The keeping of others from falling Now the first borne of my latter thoughts and studies in this kind is this Antapologiâ—… which I here recommend to you for a true glasse to behold the faces of Presbyterie and Independencie in with the beauty order strength of the one and the deformity disorder and weaknesse of the other And good Reader I have some reason to beleeve and hope that if you will indeed reade and consider looke impartially and throughly into this glasse you may be either changed into the image of it or at least so stumbled at Independencie as to be kept from falling into it and willing in the meane time to waite upon God in that way of his an Assembly of so many learned and godly Divines to see what he will be pleased to speake by them I at first intended and accordingly provided materials for a large Epistle to this Book the more to make way for it in the hearts and consciences of the people as well knowing there are laid in before hand by many of the Independent party many prejudices both against my person and the Book to hinder if possible the fruit and benefit of it yea to keep people from so much as reading any part of it that so receiving and beleeving the Independent Grounds without hearing or examining the other side they may be still kept in ignorance and error I had many thoughts and purposes in my Epistle to have given the Reader an accompt of my especiall call to the making this Answer as also to have laid downe the Principles and Rules I more especially went by in the studying of these controversies and then to have Apologized for my selfe and Book by answering some objections and clearing aspersions cast abroad in this mistaking age and by representing to the Reader my many sufferings constant labours c. and so to have compared my grounds moving me to make this Antapologia with the Apologists grounds occasioning their Apologeticall Narration and my Principles with their three Principles expressed in their Apologie and my sufferings troubles patience and labours with their exile and patience c. and then left them to the Reader to judge in those matters between us but conceiving the danger of this way in comparing with the Apologists least I might become a foole in glorying and runne into the same fault I charge upon the Apologists and least it might be thought I sought to commend my Answer by such wayes rather then by the strength of the discourse it selfe I resolved to forbeare all those comparisons and vindications of my selfe and to refer all to God and that I may not hold the Reader too long in the portch I will only insist somewhat upon justifying and clearing the lawfulnesse of the way and manner of this Answer and the grounds I goe upon for matters of fact reported in it and this I must doe of necessitie for besides other grounds calling for it within these few dayes just before the Antapologie was comming forth a Pamphlet entituled The Anatomist Anatomized was printed rather to prepossesse the Reader against the Antapologie then to answer the Anatomie of Independencie as all may see and to be a shelter rather against this shower as the Anatomizer calls it ready to fall then to dry up the drops already fallen But 〈◊〉 shall by the helpe of God not only satisfie the Reader that this covering is too narrow and the stuffe too slight to keep out the shower from wetting but make an advantage of it even
their desires For instance how is a story with the Apologists practise upon it pag. 16 17 20 21. brought to prove the effectuall successe of submission and Non-communion how is their good carriage since their returne into England and their exile made use of to move for a Toleration how is all that Narration of 3 4 〈◊〉 pages of their enquirie into the Word of Christ c. laid downe as so many grounds to possesse the Reader of the truth of the Church way let the Apologeticall Narration be analiz'd and it will be found there is no point of fact or personall thing in it but is brought in some way or other as a motive or argument for their way so that of necessitie I could not avoid matter of fact unlesse I would betray the truth Paul in the second of the Galathians 11 12 13. openly rebukes Peter because he was to be blamed for his with-drawing and separating himself and because others thereupon were carried away with it and so because the Apologists doe not only withdraw and separate themselvâ—… but by their Apologeticall Narration doe even compell others also I cannot but speak 3. Propos. That 't is not argumentative against the cause that falsly called Independencie nor rationall or conducing to decide any or this controversie 1. That the Apologists and the Anatomizers way is not falsly but truly cald Independencie I referre the Reader to these pages in this present answer 201 202 203. Secondly were all the matters of fact and the Narration of them argumentative for the Apologists cause to move the Parliament and to draw the Reader to their way and is not the disproving of them argumentative against it if this be not argumentative against Independencie then I am sure the greatest part of the Apologet. Narration is nothing materiall for it and wherâ—…fore then was that storie of a Minister deposed and matter of fact upon it inserted in the Narration with many other and supposing that to be true that ther 's no reasoning from the qualitie of the person to his cause why then doe you so much doe it in your Apologie taking all occasions to magnifie your partie and reasoning from your persons to your cause from your sufferings patience c. but whether there be any strength or no in that it matters not t is strongly argumentative in any point to overthrow mens own mediums and that the Antapologie doth in a word there 's more consequence then the Anatoâ—…zer is willing to see in that maine Assertion of the Apologie That one Church may non-non-Communion but not excommunicate another as he termes it to the miscarriages of M. Sympson and his Church for might Presbyteriall Government take place we should not have men so easily principled into Anabaptisme nor make a covenant with separation c. as in this answer in many places is proved And so much for answer to Mr. Sympsons Book as far as it concernes the Antapologie and may be a block in the way of it Now besides this there is one objection more that hath been in the mouths of some Independents and may be instilled into many more to hinder the fruit 〈◊〉 benefit of this Answer namely against the maner of the Answer that t is 〈◊〉 Answer full of bitternesse malice reproaches railings and that t is a booke written against Gods people and good men For consutation of this objection I present to the Readers apprehension these following particulars 1. I have endeavoured for the manner of doing it that it might be without all just exceptions in regard of hard words and better speeches and I can truly say I have declined many words and phrases more proper and taken other words which in some places have readred the stile more rugged to avoide offensive phrases and all along though I often disprove matters of fact yet I never use so harsh a word to my remembrance as false much lesse a lye but untrue and this is not so whereas M. Sympson in his Pamphlet useth falsly and hath the word lye 2. I desire the conscientious indisterent Reader to consider my book is not a Treatise or Tractate upon what subject I please to speak of but an Answer and so must follow where that leads me speak to that 2. T is an Answer to a book full of matter of fact and stories of the Authours themselves so that I cannot answer without particularising the truth cannot be evidenced to the Reader without coÌ„ming somewhat to particulars 〈◊〉 The Book contains matter of high praise of themselves and their partie a few inconsiderable persons comparatively with many close indirect and dangerous insinuations against all the Reformed Churches which cannot be answered particularly without some recrimination and charge 4. There are many particulars in matters of fact I prove and charge the Apologists with and some too bad for untruth 5. I forbeare menâ—…oning the names of many particular persons which this Apologie leads me unto some wholly others I speak of only under the 〈◊〉 letter of their names and for the Apologists though I often particularly name them yet in some places of my Book and in some grosser things I forbeare particularizing them too 6. I medle not with personall things and matters of fact that are heterogeneall to relate other kind of facts and practises which I have heard on knowne of any the Apologists but speake only of such as are proper to the matter occasioned from their Apologie or the effects and fruits of their Church way the Apologists themselves giue the occasion to the laying open so many particulars which no other occasion but such an one as this could have drawn forth from me to have made their names and practices thus publike 7. In many passages of this Answer I doe upon severall occasions give the Apologists a just testimonie of that worth for parts and piety which is in them and speak to them and of them as Brethren so that let but all these things be laid together considering also the Rules of Scripture in such Cases and that I intended a plaine particular down-right Answer and this Answer will then be accounted candid moderate my peâ—…dipped in oile and not in vinegar 3. I can truly speak it that this present Antapologia is so farre from being written out of any malice or ill will to the Apologists that I love their persons and value them as brethren yea some of them above brethren and besides that love I beare to them as Saints I have a personall love and a particular love of friendship to some of them and I can truly speake it that I writ not this book nor any part of it out of any personall quarrell old grudge or former difference for to this day there never was any such difference or unkindnesse passed between us but I have writ it with much sorrow unwillingnesse and some kind of conflict in respect of that old personall love and friendship still strong in me
upon our persons in our absence began by our presence againe and the blessing of God upon us in a great measure to scatter and vanish without speaking a word for our selves or cause And if at your first appearing so many of those mists and in so great a measure were vanisht then surely by that time your writ this Apologie all might have been vanisht and scattered But let me aske you Whose mis-apprehensions doe you understand you lay under that you present this Apologie to the Parliament and appeale to them Doe you meane you have laine under the darke cloud of the manifold mis-apprehensions of the Parliament 〈◊〉 or of the people of the Kingdome Certainely not under the darke cloud of the mis-apprehensions of the Parliament They are too great and wise a Body to be guilty of manifold misapprehensions of you Besides what Ministers have had the sunne of their favour shining upon them more then your selves You all have been made Members of the Assembly by them called to preach before them upon their publike solemne occasions and some of you employed in extraordinary services But if you understand the mis-apprehensions of the body of the people why doe you present this Apologie to the Parliament what would you have them doe for you or how shall they free you from the darke cloud of manifold misapprehensions I suppose you doe not expect that the Houses should set forth a Declaration to cleere you five neither make an Ordinance that whosoever mis-apprehends you and your wayes shall be reputed ill affected to the publike though M. S. your new great friend sets the brand of malignancie on them who are against you Why doe you then appeale to them in respect of the misapprehensions of the people or trouble them with so triviall a matter Doe you not know the people will mis-apprehend persons and opinions though plainely and fully laid downe which yours never yet were And indeed for any cloud of manifold mis-apprehensions you have hitherto laine under you may thanke your selves and never appeale to the Parliament to be a refuge and Asylum for your mistaken and mis-judged innocence whenas according to your owne confessions in this Apologie going in a new and different way from all the Reformed Churches you have never yet declared what you hold and what not neither have answered the Bookes written against your way but have reserved your selves And yet whereas you pretend a cloud of manifold mis-apprehensions as the ground in this way first to present your selves and to appeale to the Parliament And 't is a usuall phrase in the mouthes of your party to put off arguments with that you are mistaken I know not for mine own part and some others of my bretheren wherein any of you have been mis-apprehended by us but we have so farre judged of you as to goe by no other rules but your known practises and your letters and other manuscripts given and sent out to your followers and from what some who are of your own Churches and your familiar friends have held out and pleaded for as your Principles together with what we find in the printed Treatises of them of New-England the New-England way being generally taken to be your way and I heard Mr Bridge since this Parliament openly affirme it for himselfe and others we agree with them of New-England and are of their Church-way And Mr Burroughs hath said so too As for the first presenting your selves to the Supreame judicatory of this Kingdome had it not been for the reasons given you above I should not have spoken against it but seeing you have appeal'd unto them unto them ye shall goe 〈◊〉 unto the Parliament as the most just and severe tribunall for guiltinesse and withall the most sacred Refuge and Asylum for innocence I appeale too humbly desiring them if their great affaires can spare any time to read this Antapologie with the Reasons I above two yeareâ—… since presented to the House of Commons against your Helena of Independencie and your Diana of toleration Meane time I cannot but stand and wonder that you knowing and acknowledging the Houses to be the Supreame Judicatory of the Kingdome c. how you had the face to presenâ—… an appeale to them in things untrue wherein many people can point to and say passages in the 25 and 26 pages are not so I heard saith one at such a Church one of the five preach of their Church-way and I heard saith another another of them at such a Church preach the like But why doe I wonder when it will appeare in the following discourse you have so much in your own cause at this time lost your selves and forgot your principles as that ye doe ascribe to the grace of God and call God to witnesse your constant forbearance of publishing your opinions by preaching c. which how untrue 't is I shall evince when I come to the 25 and 26 pages or else let me suffer And thus much for the occasion or Preface of this Apologeticall Narration The most if not all of us had ten yeares since some more some lesse severall setled stations in the Ministery in places of publike use in the Church not unknown to many of your selves but the sinfull evill of those corruptions in the publike worship and government of this Church which all doe now so generally acknowledge and decrie tooke hold upon our consciences long before some others of our brethren And then how impossible it was to continue in those times our service and standings all mens apprehensions will readily acquit us Here begins the Narration wherein we may consider the Matter of it and the Manner and way of the carriage and contrivance of it The Matter consists partly of Fact and Practise And partly of Opinions and Tenents both which all along in their Narration are interwoven within each other Their opinions and Tenents in their practises and their practises in their opinions The matter of the Narration consists of three maine parts First of their Opinion and fact before their Exile The second of their Opinions and Practises in their Exile The third of their carriage and behaviour since their returne into England from their first comming over to the time of putting forth this Apologie The Manner of carrying it all along is clothing the Narration in such words phrases and in such a way though the Church principles are laid downe and maintained in it as to make the Parliament and Kingdome believe they differ little or nothing from the Reformed Churches and from our Church now And in the things wherein there is some difference of which they give but three instances though the differences be many and so great in their account as to constitute new Churches and to forsake communion upon them yet they render them so to the Parliament and Reader as if the Reformed Churches in the differences between them could not but allow their way and practises though there
worship God acceptably and so most according to his word unlesse to insinâ—…ate and to cast an aspersion upon all others they had so and so and they were engaged by Education and otherwise a fine Râ—…hetoricall way of casting blemishes upon all others and freeing your selves as much as in plaine English to say That State-ends politicall interests preferments and worldly respects ingagements by Education and such like with the streame of publike interest might beare all others down that they should not find out the truth but you alas good men so fâ—…e from having any thing to doe in this world or regarding worldly preferments or hanging upon great persons that you must needs find out the truth But as you would bring Education in and conversing with the Reformed Churches as the by as to draw many to the Presbyteriall way So let me tell you though you were noâ—… engaged any way to the Reformed Churches of Europe yet you were many wayes to the Reformed Churches of New-England and to some prime mâ—…n in New-England by a high admiration of them One of you more especially was so eâ—…aged in his high thoughts of one of the Ministers of New-England by whom also I am sure he was first taken off the darke part that he hath said there was not such another man in the world againe Which Minister after his going into New-England and falling into the Church-way there and sending over Letters into England about the New-way presently after these Letters began the falling off and questioning Communion in our Churches and before these Letters were sent into England and the coppies of them communicated to divers I never by discourse with any of you nor from others heard that you were fallen into the Church-way As for your consulting with reverence what the Reformed Churches held forth both in their writings and practice that could be no long time as appeares by what I have before prooved and besides the short time you tooke to consult of Church-government and worship after your landing in Holland there are many passages in this Apologie shew no great reverence towards them and if a man should guesse of your reverence to the Churches of Scotland and France by many of your way both Ministers and people what they speake of Presbyteriall government and of those Churches he would conclude it were very little But these good words of the Reformed Churches are to make way for a back-blow to those Churches and to get some advantage still to your own way namely that you could not but suppose that they might not see into all things about worship and government their intentions being most spent upon the Reformation in Doctrine c. And why may not I suppose the same thing of Mr Goodwin Mr Nye and the rest of you that you may not see into all things about worship and government for if they might not then much more not you they excelling you in piety learning sufferings yeares But suppose the Reformed Churches at first might not yet considering that it is now above fourescore yeares since government and worship was purged as well as Reformation in Doctrine which you say was so well setled at first and since so many questions and controversies having risen about Worship and Government in their Churches and ours as about Morelius and about the Anabaptists and Brownists and of late the Independents and these differences having been debated in Synods and Assemblies having heard and seen all they could say against Presbyteriall government and what could be said for themselves if either they or you had the truth on your sides what reason can you give why they should not see into it upon so much enquity study and dispute the Reformed Churches being more free to entertaine truths and change somewhat in their Discipline then you were in your first entertaining this New-way For example The Churches of France living under persecution for their Religion and the truth of God if your way had any truth in it it were all one for matter of persecution to receive yours as their own As to that passage in this Section concerning the good old non-conformists that you say We had the advantage of all that light which their conflicts struck forth in their times c I answer a great part of their light as in Mr Cartwright Mr Hildersham c. was against the Separatists and their practises as their writings testifie as well as against the Diocesan Bishops and Ceremonies and it had been happy for you and this Kingdome that you had made better use of their light and of their draughts of Discipline the Reformation had been more easie and the godly party more united and the common enemy had never conceived such hopes and taken such heart as he does from your opinions And what ever you say it seemes that a great part of what the good old non-conformists writ came not much commended to you though your own and for all their sufferings because you follow it no better As to that passage about the Separation following the passage of the Non-conformists It is well you acknowledge that the Separation had fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks in their way and it was well you tooke such notice of them that you counted them as Land-markes to fore warâ—…e you of those rocks and shelves they ran upon and that thereupon you did enquire into the principles that might be the causes of their divisions this is one of the best passages in your book As there are foure passages among so many bad that are good and usefull One of the Parliament A second of the Assembly of Divines The third this of the Separatists The fourth a Description of many of the Proâ—…torus and people of this Kingdome But it had been better you had made so good a use of this observation and enquirie in Gods visibly witnessing from Heaven against the Separation in giving them up to fearfull sins in inflicting fearfull judgements and leaving them to strange divisions which your selves allude to in this passage and you know was in the stories of Browne Bolton Barrow Smith Iohnsons c. so as to have kept further from their principles and thereupon to have feared forsaking communion with our Churches and setting up Separated Assemblies and agreeing so much with them in most of the fundamentall and essentiall principles and practises and not to have come so nigh to them against whom God witnessed by so many fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks as only to resine and qualifie Brownisme and to spinne it of a finer thred then the old Separatists did But let me here put this Dilemma to you Seeing the Separatists fatall miscarriages and ship-wracks did put you upon an enquiry into the principles and causes of their divisions upon the enquiry either you found out and discovered those principles or you did not If you did not discover them why doe you insert these words here and carry it so to make the Reader
known to us by their confessions and I never knew till this Apologie came forth that ever the Churches of New-England were stiled the reformed Churches as the Brownists and Separatists never yet were unto whom yet the Parenthesis relates as well as to any of the other Churches And for our own Congregations we meane of England in which through the grace of Christ we were converted and exercised our Ministeries long to the conversion of many others we have this sincere profession to make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements we conceived to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of us any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery Much lesse did it ever enter into our hearts to judge them Antichristian we saw and cannot but see that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. though more reformed yet for their mixture must be in like manner judged no Churches also which to imagine or conceive is and hath ever been an horrour to our thoughts Yea we alwayes have professed and that in these times when the Church of England were the most either actually over spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof and when our selves had least yea no hopes of ever so much as visiting our own Land againe in peace and safety to our persons that we both dâ—…d and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ. And besides this profession as a reall testimony thereof some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations and as we had occasion did offer to receive into the Communion of the Lords Supper with us some whom we knew godly that came to visit us when we were in our exile upon that relation fellowship and commembership they held in their Parish Churches in England they professing themselves to be members thereof and belonging thereunto What we have since our returne publikely and avowedly madâ—… declarations of to this purpose many hundreds can witnesse and some of our brethren in their printed bookes candidly doe testifie for us In this Section you come to declare your judgements concerning the Congregations of England and the Ministery of them wherein you apologize for your selves in regard of misapprehensions you might lye under in respect of your judgements concerning them For what good you speake of them now and for owning them as your own in which you were converted and in which you converted many others I thanke you But for the sincere profession you make before God and all the world that all that conscience of the defilements you conceive to cleave to the true worship of God in them or of the unwarranted power in Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of you any other thought much lesse opinion but that multitudes of the Assemblies and Parochiall Congregations thereof were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministery thereof a true Ministery much lesse did it ever enter into your hearts to judge them Antichristian You must pardon me if I believe not this profession Nay I must tell some of you that if Letters and other Manuscripts which goe out under some of your names and are in my hands be yours as I have great reason to believe they are I shall prove this sincere profession of yours to be insincere and shall evidence the contrary to what you professe before God and the world namely that the corruptions which did cleave to our worship and the unwarranted power did not only work thoughts and opinions in you that our Churches and Ministers were not true but that you exprest so much and acted in the vertue of it nay even to judge them Antichristian There are some passages in one Letter more especially amongst others written by Mr Bridge to his loving friends in Norwich Mr Henry King Mr Toft Mr Smith Mr Rayner Mr. Mapp the substance of which Letter to them is Not to be content with the ordinance of hearing but to looke out after the plat-forme of Government left by Christ and his Apostles by Elders Pastours Teachers Deacons and Widdowes and to consider that every Church hath the power within it selfe and is not subject to one Officer or to another Congregation but to the whole body and to that whereof the member is a part And then Mr Bridge falls upon Episcopall government under which these friends of his lived as Antichristian and that their Episcopall government under which they lived was Papall and Romish and then brings in these words And will you then submit unto it what becomes of them that doe worship the beast and what of them that receive his marke Rev 13. 8. Rev. 149 10. It is a worshipping it is a receiving a marke to practise any Canon constitution or order that is framed or injoyned by that government What you have no Elders Pastors c. What you sit stand kneele at the command of that government and in the Postscript of this Letter he adds these words paying a Pepper-corne may acknowledge a Land-lord and the standing up at the Creed may acknowledge the government Now I demand of Mr Bridge and the other Apologists what multitudes of the Assemblies and parochiall Congregations were there in England that were wholly exempt from that Government or whether there was any that did refuse wholy all the Orders injoyned by that Government and if so whether then in Mr Bridges opinion and in his letters all our Congregations and Mâ—…nisters were not Antichristian in worshipping the Beast and receiving his marke let all the world and his owne conscience judge And for further proofe unto one of Mr Bridges letters were seven Questions annexed and propounded concerning the Ministerie worship and constitution of the Church Assemblies in England the usuall questions the Brownists make I have also the copie of a letter written from Mr Simpson to a man of note in London whose name out of respect to him I conceale the substance of which letter is to have him consider Whether he may live without all the Ordinances if they be any where to be had or live in danger of daily defilement and there is one thing which together with these he desires him to thinke upon namely what that state and condition is wherein we should injoy the Ordinances we should call nothing the meanes of salvation or Ordinances but what God hath appointed to his Church A Church is Christs bodie it consists of holy members in show at least joyned together to Christ as to a Head and as there is a bond whereby we are invisibly joyned so is there a bond to him visibly Ceremonies are nothing in regard
of this they make things accidentally evill according as this is things are or are not ordinances and meanes of salvation Baptisme is no baptisme unlesse it be administered by a Minister A Minister is no Minister unlesse cal'd by the Church and so I might speake of other things By all which it will appeare that Mr Simpson had thoughts and doubts and would have others have such thoughts too that we have neither Churches nor Ordinances nor Ministers according to his definition of a Church and to the matter contained in his letter and in the close of his letter though he writes I meddle not with judging of these things with you but propound you a rule or way to judge of things by I dare not say your Congregations are not Churches but desire you to looke that they be so for your owne peace yet it is evident by what he sayes in his letter that he accounts neither our Churches nor our Ministers true and would stumble him in these things to whom he wrote I have a manuscript entituled a Treatise of the Church going under the name of one of these Apologists and a godly Minister from whose hands I had it assured it me it was his In which Treatise there is an answer to this question But suppose Saints live in a Nation wherein there is some kind of a Church constituted already may they gather themselves into a Church The Answer is as followes 1. If you suppose that there are Churches in England yet such as never were truly members of any of them are free to begin and gather themselves into a Church and to be of the best Institution they can this libertie we under the Gospel have which the Jewes had not 2. Although they are Churches yet we â—…re not to continue in them and not remaine from them 1. In that they are Churches defective in some Ordinances as namely Prophecying mutuall admonition excommunication 2. They are Churches defiled in our judgements in which communicating we cannot but be defiled now though they be Churches as a leprous man was a man yet being defiled we cannot communiâ—…ate with them and so in regard of our use now no Churches and in the same page it is added we may be kept from joyning with the true Church and yet not withdraw from these as no Churches but as no Churches of use to us Now I appeale to the Reader what he can judge of your profession in the sixt page and of these passages in your letters and manuscripts and as some of your hands are contrary to this profession so your workes are contrary to it in forsaking the communion of our Churches and ministerie and in drawing others away and in writing to many to come to you and in setting up Churches and pray deale ingeniously once in your Reply seeing you ever held and doe now much more that our Assemblies are true Churches and our Ministers true Ministers how you can satisfie your owne consciences and us from any Scripture ground either of precept or example to separate from us I am assured you cannot produce any ground and that all Scripture instances whether in examples or precepts will never come up to your practise and case But Brethren why will you in a Narration that should be plaine that all who â—…unne may reade it deale thus fallaciously amuse the Reader with your profession of our Churches and Ministerie in such generals and never declare what you hold particularly of them Few Readers unlesse some who have throughly studied your principles and distinctions being never the wiser for your profession I must therefore of necessity English your words and tell the meaning of all this That is neither the Church or Churches of England nor the Ministery thereof as they are in their frame and constitution according to the Lawes and as they are in their visible order are true Churches or true Ministerie But now so farre as in many of our Parochiall Congregations there is something common with what you hold about a Church and Ministerie so farre true and not Antichristian As for example you hold that in some Congregations we have many visible Saints and in some Parishes Ministers chosen by the people which Ministers preach and pray according to your way but for what we else practise in our making of Ministers in our formes of prescribed prayers c. So no true Churches nor Ministerie And that this is your meaning will appeare by what followes 1. Letters and speeches of some of your way who write not so warily as you show so much Mr Batchelour a member of your Church-way in printed letters of his dated from Rotterdam September the 4th 1641. both to Ministers here in London and to Citizens speakes thus in reference to you And whereas it is beleeved they are friends to separation this I can assure you that they denie not the Churches in England such as M. Calamies and M. Goodwins in Coleman-street to be true Churches And why M. Goodwins and M. Calamies but because they were chosen by the Congregations and there are many visible Saints in those Congregations and so others of your way having been reasoned with how according to your principles That there is no Nationall visible Church under the new Testament no visible Church but a particular Congregation and that the Essence of Ministers calling is Election by the people and that the forme of a Church is a particular Covenant with other things of this Nature And therefore considering the Church of England is Nationall and hath no such Covenant nor such a way of Ministerie how they could hold we had true Churches and true Ministers Their Answer hath been You have Implicite Churches and Implicite Ministers But if you will say you understand your words in this Section not as M. Batchelour nor as others of your way but plainly as Divines usually take Churches and Ministerie then I desire you to reconcile together all your definitions and descriptions of true visible Churches and true Ministers with our Church and Ministery of England And for further satisfaction in this point I desire you in your reply to this Answer candidly and clearely to expresse your selves when you fell to your Church-way and were to be taken for Ministers in those Churches whether you held your selves or were look'd upon by your Churches as true Ministers by vertue of your calling in England Or whether rather you were not lookt upon only as gifted men and did not some of you at least renounce and disclaime your calling in England and were made Ministers a new by the Church consisting only of people or lay-Elders at the best without Ministers M. Williams in his Answer to M. Cottons letter openly justifies they held and practised so in New-England Now your principles agreeing so with theirs and some Stories related to me of some of you makes me doubt the same of you As for that reason you give why you never held our Churches no
true Churches namely your seeing that if you had accounted our Churches no true Churches that by the same reason the Churches abroad in Scotland Holland c. yet for their mixture must in like manner be judged no Churches also I answer 't is no concluding Argument M. Robinson who was quick-sighted and lived in Holland long and seeing their mixture yet acknowledges those Churches true but denies ours to be true upon other grounds besides the mixture and 't is evident your reason is insufficient for if your description of a visible Church were only upon difference in the point of mixture and your grounds of separation only upon mixt communion then your Reason had some weight in it but you know your exceptions were many against our Churches which lay not against the Reformed Churches but it is strange to me if you were so good at consequences that you saw and could not but see when there was no necessitie of seeing you could not see the necessarie consequences of your principles about a Church and Ministerie nay not see even your contradictions For let a man but take your owne Positions and Assertions concerning a true visible Church and the true calling of Ministers and lay together your quarrelling with us and leaving us upon those grounds because we have no such Churches and Ministers and yeâ—… to affirme that multitudes of our Parochiall Churches are true Churches And certainly however you who are Schollars might be such good Logicians to make such distinctions to salve all as you conceited yet your people could not but they from your principles and positions about Church Ministerie Worship and Government have judged us no true Churches nor true Ministers but have wondred at this sincere profession of yours before God and the world concerning our Churches and Ministers saying they understood you otherwise and they were much deceived if you held not otherwise at first though now you expresse your selves after this manner And I can hardly beleeve had you made alwaies and frequently such professions of our Churches and Ministers and of keeping communion with them as the Churches of Christ that ever so many had fallen off to your way But thus 't is in all the way of errours men by sits will expresse things as other men do who are Orthodox but yet in a sence of their own to avoid exceptions and that they may be thought to hold as others do therby the more to draw and work some men off to their way when yet in the common sense and understanding of the points they hold otherwise As the Socinians say they hold Christ God and call him so but in a sence of their own and yet denie it in the Orthodox sense So Pelagians and Arminians will extoll the grace of God and that a man can doe nothing without it and yet in that sence wherein the controversie is they set up free-will above the grace of God And so Antinomians will say they doe not denie the law of God and yet in the sense controverted are flat against it And so the Papists will say they hold and looke to be saved by Christ as well as any Protestant though it 's well knowne there is a great difference betweene them in the point of Justification So you and many of your way in a sense of your owne give us good words and say we have true Churches and true Ministerie and yet in the sense of the controversie you teach flat contrary as doth appeare both by printed Tractâ—…tes and by manuscripts and many practises As to that Profession in this Section That in the times when the Churches of England were most either actually overspread with defilements or in the greatest danger therof that we both did and would bold a communion with them as the Churches of Christ I answer what doe I heare words when I see deeds so contrary How can I beleeve this profession that ye would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ under their greatest defilements when as you have never held communion with any of them in the time of their greatest reformation and puritie In this three yeares last since your comming over wherein we have been so free from pollution in worship and since that in so many Churches in London there hath bin the totall laying aside of prescribed formes of prayer and that great care to keepe away both ignorant and prophane persons Which of you five have received the Lords Supper in any of these true Churches and bodies of Christ I never could learne that any of you five nor any of the members of your Churches have communicated with us I can tell you of the adding to your Church Assemblies great numbers since and of your receiving the Lords Supper at night in private houses and how some of you who have not Churches here in London goe to separated Churches to partake in the Lords Supper But Brethren why doe you deale thus and write thus to make men beleeve as if you held great communion with our Churches now who would have held it with them in such bad times I desire you to speake plaine English and not to speake after this manner as you doe too often in this Apologie and to interpret to us in your Reply to this Answer what you meane by both Did and Would hold communion with the Churches of England as the Churches of Christ I know no communion you did hold or doe with us now though so reformed And if you do and will what means that wall of partition between us your new constituted Churches As for thâ—…â—…aring of Sermons sometimes in our Churches and preachiâ—…g in our Congregations I doubt whether you hold that a keeping communion with our Churches and Ministers but rather preach as gifted men and heare ours as gifted men and how ever if M. Robinson and some of your way may be beleeved they hold hearing of the Word no Act of Communion nor no proper nor peculiar thing of the Church And that you are of the same judgement I have great reason both from your principles and practise to thinke so As for that reall testimonie besides your profession That some of us after we actually were in this way of communion baptized our children in Parishionall Congregations whereby you would inferre you held a communion with our Congations as the Churches of Christ I answer this is no reall testimony thereof because it cannot be understood but in the sense before opened of Churches and Ministery And besides if Mr Sympson were one of this Some who baptized his children in Parishionall Congregations 't is so inconsistent with what he writ in the Letter before quoted of the Church and baptisme that I know not how to reconcile these together And the truth is many of your practises are oft times so in-coherent with some of your principles of Church-fellowship as for instance Pastors are necessary Officers in your Churches and yet according
to your practises your Churches are many yeares without them that a man cannot tell when he hath a reall testimony what you hold or how long you have held it And as for that other reall testimony as you had occasion offering to receive some of ours whom ye knew godly that came to visit you when you were in exile upon that relation fellowship and com-membership they held in their Parish-churches in England 1. 'T is no reall testimony because you oâ—…red it but doe not say you performed it 2. If you had actually performed it it is no such reall testimony of the truth of our Churches and ministery but of your own rather into the communion whereof they were received 3. Still their admission was founded upon that distinction of Implicit Churches as appeares by your following words For you would admit them upon such termes as you would gaine a principle of your own by them get more by it then communion with you was worth namely that such who were known to be godly might not come to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper unlesse they were members of some particular Congregation and so in their partaking with you they must yeeld that grand Brownisticall principle the foundation of other errors among the Separatists namely that Sacraments belong not to visible believers but as they are members of some particular Congregation As also you put them upon a practice and order never required by example or precept in the Scriptures And let me intreat you in your reply you give to this answer to give me a Scripture to prove that all men who come to the Lords Supper must professe their member-ship and their retaining to such a particular Congregation I professe my selfe of another judgement and cast the glove to any of you five or to you all That it is lawfull for the Ministers of Christ to receive such whom they know to be godly to the Lords Supper though they be not members of a particular Church and to receive those who are members without any professing themselves to be so Suppose some godly Merchants or Marriners who all their dayes travell and never stay long in any one place yet in all places where they come desire to joyne in the ordinances ought not such to be received The standing rule of comming to the Lords Supper will be found to be faith and godlinesse shown forth rather then the formality of membership But deale ingeniously doe you tell us here all that you required of the godly that came to visit you or doe you tell us only a part which question I the rather propound because as you doe relate in other parts of this Narration as in the eighth page so I find Mr Batchelour one of you writing from Rotterdam of your Churches that they will not keepe back the Sacrament from any of the godly of such Churches in England as Mr Goodwins and Mr Calamyes are alwayes provided that their own Pastours doe consent unto it Now the godly who are gone into Holland and especially to New-England not finding any such word in Scripture of bringing a ticket from their Ministers and so comming into those Countreyes without it may be long kept from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper till they either goe into England and fetch it or till they send for it over and have a returne back of the consent of their own Pastors which may be was the reason that though you offered to receive into the Communion of the Lords Supper some godly that came to visit you in your exile yet for want of bringing their Pastors consent unto it returned into England without partaking in the Lords Supper with you Which by the way will be a good warning for all that henceforth goe over into Holland or New-England to carry their Ministers consents over with them least otherwise they be not admitted to the Lords Supper and that you doe not deale plainely with us in this relation of admitting the godly in the Parish Churches of England into the Communion of the Lords Supper with you but there is some reservation and evasion I much doubt because the known godly in the parish-Parish-church of Coleman-street which amongst Parish-churches is one of your true Churches in England cannot be admitted to the Sacrament of the Lords Supper by vertue of their relation of membership they hold in the Parish-church never since their Pastor fell into your Church-way As for your publike and avowed declarations to this purpose which many hundreds can witnesse I never heard of any of them in any publike meetings though I have been in many nor in any Sermons you have preacht though I have heard of many things you preacht which you are like to heare of in this Answer But if I may speake what I have heard there hath been a Narrative promised from you of what you hold which many Ministers also can witnesse but was never performed by you till this day As to that in the close of this Section that some of your brethren in their printed books doe candidly testifie for you It is but one of them not some unlesse you take in Mr Herles Imprimatur to your Apologie who I doubt not before this time by what he hath heard from some of his bretheren of the Assembly and seen in that book intituled Reformation of Church-government in Scotland with the contents of the Letters from some Churches beyond the seas besides the light this Answer will give will see easily how by your courting of him he was surprized And it is no wonder that Mr Herle Mr Channell with some other men of worth having lived somewhat remote and having not been much conversant with you and your distinctions might be at first mistaken with such good words and solemne professions And as we alwayes held this respect unto our own Churches in this Kingdome so we received and were entertained with the like from those reformed Churches abroad among whom we were cast to live wee both mutually gave and received the right hand of fellowship which they on their parts abundantly manifested by the very same characters and testimonies of difference which are proper to their own orthodox Churches and whereby they use to distinguish them from all those Sects which they tollerate but not owne and all the assemblies of them which yet now we are here some would needs ranke us with granting to some of us their own Churches or publike places for worship to assemble in where themselves met for the worship of God at differing houres the same day As likewise the priviledge of ringing a publike Bell to call unto our meetings Which we mention because it is amongst them made the great signall of difference between their own allowed Churches and all other assemblies unto whom it is strictly prohibited and forbidden as Guiciardine hath long since observed And others of us found such acceptance with them that in testimony thereof they allowed a full and
should have laid downe particularly as wherein and how farre you agreed with the Reformed Churches so also wherein you departed from them namely you should have shewed in what you practised more then they doe and wherein you practise short of them and in the things you practised with them yet how you differ'd in the manner of them but to returne to that of censures Reformed Churches practise besides admonition and before they come to excommunication that which is called by Divines Abstentio à sacracaena but you doe not so but conceale this but brethren why should you not practise this especially considering how according to your principles the Church is to receive the Lords Supper every Lords day Now suppose some members commit a great sinne on the Saturday which though comming it be known to the Ministers or Elders and some of the people either there may be no time to call the Church to admonish the parties or if there be for admonition yet not time sufficient for the parties to testifie Repentance and yet the persons may not be judged obstinate and impenitent as to be excommunicated but the persons offending will come now to the Lords table in the interim what will you doe in this case And further the Reformed Churches enjoyne the censure of open confession of sinnes and practise deposition of officers from their places which may justly arise upon some cases and yet not thinke it fit to proceed unto excommunication as your selves practised in M. Wards case never proceeding to give him up to Satan but how lame and defective is this your Narration about the governement of the Church onely relating two things you practised in common with the Reformed Churches and as concealing other things you practised not with them so wholly passing over in silence here all your different way of practising from all Churches in the way of ordination in the way of constituting Churches and admission into them and in the way of governing by the votes and suffrages of the whole bodie in the way of celebration the Lords Supper receiving it at night c. in the Sacrament of Baptisme with many other particulars which whether it be fairly done I appeale to the Reader who is by this much deceived thinking upon the reading of this Narration that you had agreed in all things of Worship Officers Censures with the Reformed Churches But to returne to that censure of Excommunication which you insist upon laying downe your judgement about the subject of that censure As for your blessing God you never exercised it There may be but little ground for such a blessing but cause rather to be humbled for not using it seasonably I judge had you practised it some revilings evill speakings between many members of your Churches with some other offences might have been prevented But there is no such great cause to set out your selves by the non-exercise of Excommunication if what you hold for the matter of it be considered wherein I suppose you differ from all Orthodox Reformed Churches and doe open a wide gappe to much licentiousnesse both in doctrine and practise What doe you judge Is it not to be put in Execution for no other kind of sinnes then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties knowne light c. What if men practise Polygamie prophane the Lords day by using it as they doe any other daie what if they doe hold and accordingly will have practised communitie of goods amongst beleevers what if they maintaine that Christians ought not to be Magistrates all which are not condemned in all the Churches of Christ especially if some Churches may be taken for Churches of Christ and we have reason to beleeve by your manner of expressions you include such neither are perpetrated against the parties knowne light but rather are practised upon new light and as new truthes and let me intreate you in your Replie to explain your meaning what you meane by all the Churches of Christ and by the common received practises of Christianitie and what by the principles of Christianitie universally acknowledged in all the rest of the Churches whether by Churches you understand the Churches onely of your owne communion and waie or the Churches which are commonly called the Reformed Or else all Churches whatsoever that are so called as besides your owne and the Reformed the Churches of the Anabaptists Antinomians and such like And I have reason to propound this question your words being so doubtfull Now if your words and phrases be taken in the first sence of your Churches only that those sinnes and no other are to be the subject of Excommunication then great sins and errours according to the Scripture and judged so by Orthodox Churches may escape Excommunication and on the contrarie many matters which according to Scripture are neither sinnes nor errours but only your Churches hold them so may have that dreadfull sentenee passe upon them but if you meane it in the largest sence for all kind of Churches and for the received principles and practises of Christianitie professed and acknowledged in all the Churches then more sinnes and errours so judged by the word by most Churches and by your owne Churches too will not be acknowledged for such in all the rest of the Churches and so shall escape that censure But if you should say you meane onely the Reformed-churches commonly so called and the common received practises professed by them it cannot be so understood as is evident by your own expressions in this passage about Excommunication So that here are strange unsafe rules to goe by in the censure of Excommunication and I judge it is a part of the new light and now truths of these times never yet given by any learned Classicall Authour How much better were it for Churches to make the subject of Excommunication such sins and errours which the Scripture hath made so and those sinnes to be agreed upon by common consent in Assemblies and Synods so drawne up for all to know them But if it be objected that this may hinder further light and an after discoverie I answer when any thing more shall come to be found out this need be no hinderance unto any light but by the publike Government and common consent upon good grounds may be added But this your judgement about the censure of Excommunication I feare is calculated for the Meridian of pretended liberty of conscience Now this position of holding the subject of Excommunication to be onely such sins and errours as are against the parties knowne light and the common received practises of Christianity professed in all Churches and no other to be the subject of it tends much to the tolerating of Sects and Heresies which in this impure age is by many men and by too many of the Church way so studiously promoted against the nature of Reformation and true zeale But if one of the great ends of Excommunication be to preserve others from
Scriptures the authority of Councels and Synods and you shall find satisfaction to most of the materiall grounds which have misled you in your Church-way In which answers you shall find that the perfection and sufficiencie of the Scripture is principally meant in matters of doctrine and in points necessary to salvation And for policie and externall order wherein the Scriptures doe reach to them it is to be understood of the Essentials Substantials and Fundamentals of Government and Discipline and not of the accidentals accessaries and circumstantials as I could abundantly out of Calvin Beza Zanchius Iunius Daneus shew you But I intend a whole Tractate upon that question of the Scriptures how farre they are a rule for all matters of externall government and order in the visible Church with an answer to this objection particularly and will not enlarge further saving only that I will adde the resolution of this question and case out of Whitaker Chamier and Cameron who are full and cleare that 't is not against the perfection and sufficiencie of the Scriptures that all matter of externall order and policie are not laid down in the word Learned Chamier shewes the judgement of the Churches of France Holland nay he shews 't is the perpetuall opinion of all the Protestants and he adds Yea truly to speake as the matter is The Church cannot be altogether without unwritten traditions and he instances in certain Rites according to places times and persons changeable and various So Cameron For since the Scripture hath been ordained of God to make one wise unto salvation and perfect unto every good work it must without doubt containe all doctrine necessary to salvation otherwise it could not attaine its end Let us then adore as Tertullian speakes the fulnesse of the Scriptures and let us not heare as Athanasius speaketh neither receive any thing besides or above them in that which concernes the doctrine of faith For touching the policie and ceremonies used in the Church it is another matter we avouch that the Fathers did not thinke themselves bound to give an account of them by the Scripture So Dr Whitakers speaks also the same in that question and controversie of the perfection of the Scriptures against humane traditions Catholici in hoc toto negotio distinguendum putant inter râ—…s quae traduntur in Ecclesia rationem earum tradendarum res ipsas esse duorum generum scilicot alias in quibus substantia est quasi conpus religionis Christianae non tantum ad fidem sed etiam ad mores formandos politiamque Ecclesiae continendam proinde necessarias ex vi institutionis divinae alias ejuâ—… essentiae velut appondices ejusque corporis ornamenta neque ex sâ—… neque ex institutiono divina necessarias sed potiuâ—… 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 politiâ—… tantum causa in usum receptas ut sunt disciplinae partos varijs caenoâ—…ibus sancitae Imo vero ut fateamur quod res est omnino non potest Ecclesia carere Traditionibus non scripâ—…is sive intelligas quotidianam tradendae fidâ—…libus ojus veritatis quae non aliunde hauritur quam è libris sacris rationem sive ritus quosdampro locis tempâ—…ribus persâ—…nis varios aptos tamen exercendae pietati charitatique conservandae qui etsi non extent in canone totidem literis tamen a nemine contemni debent eo ipso quod ab Ecclesia id est pastoribus instituti sunt dum tamen nihil officiant aut sinceritati doctrinae aut libertati conscientiae cui propriè leges prescribit non nisi Deus Non dicimus omnes liberas ceremonias esse nominatim in Scripturis traditas ut quemadmodum se gerere debeant homines in sacris caetibus hujusmodi quas esse varias 〈◊〉 pro temporum personarum ratione minime ignoramus de caeremonijs inquam liberis quae ad externam tantum politiam decorum pertinent non contendimus sed de necessaria doctrina Haec perpetua illae vero non perpetuae sed ad tempora accommodatae Deinde fatemur Apostolos in singulis Ecclesiis ritus aliquos atque consuetudines ordinis decoris causa sanxisse non autem scripsisse quia hi ritus non fuerunt perpetui futuri sed liberi qui pro commodo temporum ratione muâ—…ri possunt Praescriptos autem ab illis esse ejusmodi ritus aliquos ad honestam Ecclesiae 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 accommodatos pater ex 1 Cor. 11. 14. cap. Tantum generalis regula habetur in Scripturis omnes istosritus ad adificationem ac decorum esse dirigendos sed ipsi particulares ritus non proponuntur At dicimus omnia quae necessaria sunt sive ad fidem sive ad vitam spectent apertè abundè in Scripturis explicari Now as for the exception made by you of this rule of meere circumstances and the rules of the law of nature where what you affirme seems to amount to this that you practised all the examples of the Primitive Churches erected by the Apostles excepting those Suffer me to aske you these few questions upon your exceptions made of this first rule First What you meane by meere circumstances and what by the rules the law of nature doth in common dictate because the Reader may be much deceived in these generall and doubtfull expressions you should have done well to have particularized what you judge circumstances and what meere circumstances and what be the rules the law of nature doth in common dictate as also have laid downe before the Reader how you in your Church-way keepe unto these and I aske the rather because I find a Sermon of Mr Bridge one of the Authors of this Apologie preacht before the House of Commons not long before this Apologie came forth that makes none of these exceptions but excepts and excludes them shewing that in the visible Church Gods word is our line able to reach unto all particular affaires of the Churches and in particular he labours to answer that of circumstances and perverts two sayings of Luther and Bishop Iewel Secondly Whether you doe practise and observe your own rule here given with the exceptions made by you or whether you doe not much depart from it in your Church-way not yeelding to meere circumstances nor the rules the law of nature doth in common dictate as for instance receiving the Lords Supper at night contrary to the practise of the reformed Churches standing upon that circumstance of time denying appeales from the particular Congregations whereas appeales are a rule the law of nature doth in common dictate Thirdly I demand of you how you could so nakedly propound the Apostolicall directions patternes and examples of the Primitive Churches to walke by excepting meere circumstances and the rules of the law of nature and not except withall extraordinary and miraculous personall and particular occasionall and accidentall temporary and locall patterns and examples
I owne the Scripture for the rule rightly understanding it and in matters of Discipline and Church-order professe to walke by it desiring to be tied to the Scripture patterns particularly to the patterns of examples and precepts recorded in the new Testament provided this be understood in essentials and fundamentals of order in matters of perpetuall use and of a common reason to all times and places only I adde that in some things where in matter of order and externall government there may be no such cleare directions either by precept or example there generall rules of the word with deductions out of Scripture examples and from precepts by way of Analogie with rules of common prudence be taken in too Now the interpretation of this rule as I have laid it downe being rejected and the rule simply taken up without such limitations will produce a wilde and strange discipline and Church-order to practise all things recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles without distinction and difference of those times persons places and ours and on the other hand to practise nothing but what hath a cleare example or precept is strange too and in so doing reasonable men cannot become a Church society nor exercise Church communion And however in matters of externall government and administration of holy things in the visible Church some pretend to this to practise whatever they find recorded in the Scriptures and to practise nothing whatsoever they find not there yet none of the Independents no not the highest forme of them the Anabaptists nor the highest sort of Anabaptists who were called Apostolici from their pretending to imitate the Apostles in all things ever yet have or doe practise all patternes and examples recorded in the new Testament or are contented with them alone but practise somewhat over and above not particularly recorded in Scripture I could lay downe a catalogue of many particulars specified in the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles not practised in your Churches nor in any Churches of the independent way as also of many things practised by you which we never read of in the Scriptures so that all the Independents are in many things according to the first patterne both defective and excessive But I referre the full handling of this to a Tractate I intend concerning the Scriptures How farre the Scriptures are a rule for all matters of Church government and order in the visible Church I adde only one thing for the Readers sake that they be carefull to understand this first principle of yours not so nakedly as you lay it downe in page 8 9 10 11. because it hath been is and may be a rock to split many on and an Ignis fatuus to lead many into waters instead of a sacred pillar of fire to guide to Heaven in a safe way This foolish imitation of the Apostles in all things in matters of externall order hath been and is the great foundation of evils on all hands both in many practises and points of Popery and amongst the Anabaptists as I could demonstrate in particulars Learned Danaeus in his Commentaries upon 1. Tim. cap. 5. speakes of it Schlusselburgius writes also that there is a sort of Anabaptists cal'd Apostolici so named because they professed to imitate the Apostles in all things they washed one anothers feet they held all things ought to be common they travailed up and downe without staffe shooes cloake money because of Christs words they went up to the tops of houses to preach because Christ had said what you have heard in the eare preach upon the house top Now how farre the want of these limitations and distinctions in this your first rule hath led some of you into errors and strange practises and may leade you further as into annoynting the sick with oyle baptising in rivers c. I leave you to consider of But yet this first and great principle upon which you went and reared up your new Church way how difficult and abstruse a rule and how doubtfull a ground-worke doe you make it before you passe from it by making that supposition upon it If the directions and examples therein delivered were fully knowne and followed And that you cannot professe that sufficiency of knowledge as to be able to lay forth all those rules c. Now then brethren consider with your selves according to your owne grant how for all this principle of the Primitive patterne to guide you by yet it being so hard to know and find out the way and you not having that sufficiencie of knowledge to lay forth the rules how easily might you be out of the way then for all this principle and how can we indeed thinke otherwise of you being a few men and going by your selves So that supposing the Apostolicall directions and Primitive examples of the Churches not excluding the Old Testament and Gospels to be the only rule of the outward administration and government of the visible Church and granting these were more especially in your eye to guide and steere your practise by considering by your own confession there is so much difficulty to make these out and to lay downe what is a binding and standing direction and what not what is meerly circumstantiall and what not and how to apply many things which fall out to such rules and such examples recorded Yet wee may see how unsafe and dangerous it was for you and for a few persons to set up Churches and Church-government and we may hence learne what great use and need there is of Synods and Assemblies to draw out Church-government and discipline and still in all difficult cases to meet for the debating and determining of things And by the way let me admonish many of your followers of their boldnesse and rashnesle of determining in matters of Church-government and order holding all things about discipline and Church-government to be so manifestly and clearely laid downe in the Scriptures as the light of the Sunne and thereupon censuring many for not holding with them imputing it to their want of self-deniall and spirituall knowledge By this they may see their great Leaders judge otherwise who speaking upon the Scriptures being a compleate rule to make the Churches perfect put in a caution and declare They cannot professe that sufficiencie of knowledge as to be able to lay forth all those rules therein which may meet with all cases and emergencies that may or sometimes did fall out amongst them Now if the Apologists men so able cannot professe that sufficiencie of knowledge c. who yet according to their owne Narration tell us how they saw the darke part before many others and how they had all that light of the Non-conformists Reformed-churches New-England c. What shall we thinke of a few private illiterate Christians setting up of Churches and framing a government will this assure them though the Scriptures be a perfect rule for Church-government and this is the supreme rule
in the Primitive Apostolicall Churches then they will be no additaments or if some of those things alleadged by you be of the nature of circumstances in the point of government and order or according to the rules of the law of nature and the rules of common prudence agreeable also to the generall rules of the word then they are not truly by you called additaments and super-additions for it is one thing to adde to the word of God and his worship and another thing from generall rules of the word and common principles of the light of nature and prudence considering the differences of times places persons dispensations of guifts to explicate and determine of many things in the administration of the visible Church Now of things of this kind something must be which the word of God presupposes or else you can have no setled government in the Church and you may as well stile set Catechismes confessions of Faith reading of Chapters translated by others singing of Psalmes between Chapters and after Sermons preaching constantly upon Texts of Scripture giving thanks after eating meat c. additaments as some of the things instanced in by you And let me hint this to you which I know you understand well enough but forget it often to paralell it with other passages that in your practise of the administration of the Sacraments and in other parts of worship you adde severall things besides what is recorded of Christ or the Apostles practise or given particularly in any precept which I speake not to blame such practises but to minde you such things are not fitly stiled additaments To the third that you have made additaments and superadditions and that in more materiall things then the reformed Churches being your selves guilty of what you accuse them this being the strongest plea and the only plea to speake of in all your book by way of Argument the rest being bare narrations I shall make good against you by particular instances the prooving of which practises of yours from Apostolicall directions must rest upon you who doe them and in so doing have departed from your selves and other reformed Churches amongst many particulars take these following To the Ministeriall preaching and dispensation of the word you subjoyned prophesying by the people 2. To the power of government by the Officers of the Church you have added the power of the people 3. In joyning in particular Congregations you did super-adde the Church-covenant 4. To the Pastour you super-adde the Teacher as a necessary distinct Officer from him and so necessary as in one of your Churches you had two Teachers and have been some yeares without a Pastour at all which is a sad condition for people to be without a Sheapheard 5. To the Deacon you added the Church-widdow as a distinct Officer and as necessary for the perpetuall government of the Church 6. To our Parochiall Assemblies in England which you call in the sixt page the true Churches and body of Christ and abhorre the thought of counting them Antichristian where you say you hold communion as with true Churches you have super-added and erected new-Churches 7. To our Ministery of the Parochiall Assemblies which is true also by your own confession and not Antichristian you have superinstituted and superinducted another Ministery any one of which particulars to be laid downe in the Primitive patterne I professedly deny and it rests upon you who allow what reformed Churches practise but in the particulars instanced and many more doe practise over and above what the reformed Churches doe to make evident and demonstrate upon cleare grounds especially when men set up a new way and leave the practise of all reformed Churches double light being required for separation in any kind whereas single light sufficeth for any man continuing in his standing And certainly of all other things in the matter of practise in the visible Church the medling with the keyes of the kingdome of God both in doctrine and discipline with the withdrawing and forsaking the true Churches of Christ and the Ministerie thereof wherein men have been converted and built up and have converted and built-up so many with the setting up of new Churches against the leave and will of the civill Magistrate without the consent of those Churches departed from and to the scandall and griefe of so many godly Ministers and Christians nay the scandall of all Reformed Churches and all this under pretence of spirituall power and liberty purchased for them by Christ had need have a cleare and full proofe and not be built only upon such weake and slight grounds as flattering similitudes witty allusions remote consequences strained and forced Interpretations from hard and much controverted Scriptures And now by what I have alreadie answered to this Principle in these three particulars let the indifferent Reader and your owne consciences be judge whether you or the Reformed Churches practise most safely and doe that which most Churches acknowledge warrantable and who is most guilty of making additaments when as you and all of your way allow that which they practise in the seven particulars instanced in but you practise many things which all Churches condemne excepting the Churches of the Independent way and if one thing be considered to what I have said that you put the weight and stampe of divine Institution and of necessitie upon your additaments making them parts of worship and essentiall as upon prophecying as upon the office of teachers distinct from Pastours c. but the Reformed Churches in what you call their additaments even in some of them instanced in by you put not so great an authoritie but only an allowance and lawfulnesse of set-formes of prayer prescribed not a necessity but a lawfulnesse of mixtures in Congregations so as not to leave the Church for that and in other practises you count additaments in matters circumstantiall of time place manner and way of doing things which upon good reasons may be changed so that here is a wide difference between that which you call their additaments and yours truly so called and let me adde this that the great pinch of a conscience and the poyson in Ecclesiasticall matters concerning outward Government and order wherein the Scripture hath not laid downe a particular rule for lyes in the stampe of putting a necessitie and a divine Institution upon them and unto such and of such is that Scripture spoken so frequently in the mouthes of men of your way In vaine doe you worship me teaching for doctrine the commandements of men For instance whereas one great controversie of these times is about the qualification of the Members of Churches and the promiscuous receiving and mixture of good and bad therein we chose the better part and to be sure received in none but such as all the Churches in the world would by the ballance of the Sanctuarie acknowledge faithfull And yet in this we are able to make this true and just profession
as they see just ground the controversie were at an end 4. The Corporations that is those in place and power if they proceed unjustly are accountable to the State they live in that is to a higher civill power and adjudged themselves in cases of wrong condemning the innocent suffering delinquents to escape but your Corporations of particular Congregations even in case of reall Administration are against all judging and all Ecclesiasticall Authoritative power out of your own Congregations To the fifth Reason hinted by you to strengthen your practise that it was safe and allowed and the Reformed Churches more questionable namely appealing to them who have read books whether much hath been written with strength setly and directly to prove that government but rather to overthrow Episcopall and to maintaine those severall Officers in Churches which Christ hath instituted and therefore you inferre you might have more ground to question this government of combined classicall Presbyteriall government I answer the ground of that is fully laid down in the Reformation of the Church of Scotland page 17 and 18. with an account of what hath been written and done by the reformed Churches in France for the Presbyteriall way and against the popular Independent way which is more then you once in this Reason hinted but suppose that in former writings of Calvin Beza Zanchius Peter Martyr Danaeus Iunius Zeppâ—…rus Gersom Bucerus Dr Reynolds Parker there hath not been much setly and directly insisted on and with strength to prove the government of Synods and Classes though in some of these more especially as against the Church of Rome and Episcopall government much strength is brought for the government by Synods and Classes yet that which those Divines of Scotland Holland England have written of late against the Independent congregationall government might have been enough to have satisfied you and that 's not materiall that no more have written seeing out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established and if these books had not strength to satisfie you why have not you all this while answered them but I must mind you of forgetting one of your own Divines for besides the learned Licensers booke against Independencie another booke was written cald Reasons against the Independent government of particular Congregations and the Toleration of them in this Kingdome which booke in your seeming to take no notice of I beleeve you remember above the rest and in the 25 page of your Apologie it appeares you remember it but the Authour of it belike is none of your Divines And in the close now of this answer to your Reasons hinted about the government and discipline of the Church why you in your Congregationall way should be in the truth but the Presbyteriall government was a question to you and judged an additament because the Presbyterians allowed you what you practised and granted what you held but themselves held and practised over and above I answer this is no Argument at all for by the same reason the Samaritans should have worshipped God truly but the Iewes falsely and the Samaritans might have said to the Iewes as you doe to the Presbyterianns the five books of Moses which we owne to be sure they are from God you acknowledge them but for the books of the Prophets that 's a question which rests upon you that allow what we hold to make evident and demonstrate and so the Iews may now by the same reason speake against the Christians and say we are in the safer way to be sure we practise safely for you Christians confesse what we hold namely Moses and the Prophets to be the Scriptures but for the new Testament that is to us a question and an additament which therefore rests upon you Christians to make good who beleeve and practise over and above us And whereas the common prejudice and exception laid into all mens thoughts against us and our opinions is that in such a Congregationall government thus entire within it selfe there is no allowed sufficient remedy for miscarriages though never so grossâ—… no reliefe for wrongfull sentences or persons injured thereby no roome for complaints no powerfull or effectuall meanes to reduce a Church or Churches that fall into heresie schisme c. but every one is left and may take liberty without controule to doe what is good in their own eyes we have through the good providence of God upon us from the avowed declarations of our judgements among our Churches mutually during our exile and that also confirmed by the most solemne instance of our practise wherewith to vindicate our selves and way in this particular which upon no other occasion we should ever have made thus publike God so ordered it that a scandall and offence fell out between those very Churches whilst living in this banishment whereof we our selves that write these things were then the Ministers one of our Churches having unhappily deposed one of their Ministers the other judged it not only as too sudden an act having proceeded in a matter of so great moment without â—…nsulting their sister Churches as was publikely professed we should have done in such cases of concernment but also in the proceedings thereof as too severe and not managed according to the rules laid downe in the word In this case our Churches did mutually and universally acknowledge and submit to this as a sacred and undoubted principle and supreame law to be observed among all Churches that as by vertue of that Apostolicall command Churches as well as particular men are bound to give no offence neither to Iew nor Gentile nor the Churches of God they live amongst So that in all cases of such offence or difference by the obligation of the Common Law of communion of Churches and for the vindication of the glory of Christ which in common they holdforth the Church or Churches challenged to offend or differ are to submit themselves upon the challenge of the offence or complaint of the person wronged to the most full and open triall and examination by other neighbour Churches offended thereat of what ever hath given the offence And further that by vertue of the same and like law of not partaking in other mens sins the Churches offended may and ought upon the impenitencie of those Churches persisting in their errour and miscarriage to pronounce that heavy sentence against them of with-drawing and renouncing all Christian communion with them untill they doe repent And further to declare and protest this with the causes thereof to all other Churches of Christ that they may doe the like And what further authority or proceedings purely Ecclesiasticall of one or many sister Churches towards another whole Church or Churches offending either the Scriptures doe holdforth or can rationally be put in execution without the Magistrates interposing a power of another nature unto which we upon his particular cognisance and examination of such causes professe ever to submit and also to
be most willing to have recourse unto for our parts we saw not then nor doe yet see And likewise we did then suppose and doe yet that this principle of submission of Churches that miscarry unto other Churches offended together with this other that it is a command from Christ enjoyned to Churches that are finally offended to pronounce such a sentence of non-non-communion and withdrawing from them whilest impenitent ac unworthy to hold forth the Name of Christ these principles being received and generally acknowledged by the Churches of Christ to be a mutuall duty as strictly enjoyned them by Christ as any other that these would be as effectuall meanes through the blessing of Christ to awe and preserve Churches and their Elders in their duties as that other of claime to an authoritative power Ecclesiasticall to excommunicate other Churches or their Elders offending For if the one be compared with the other in a meere Ecclesiasticall notion that of Excommunication pretended hath but this more in it That it is a delivering of whole Churches and their Elders offending unto Satan for which we know no warrant in the Scriptures that Churches should have such a power over other Churches And then as for the binding obligation both of the one way and the other it can be supposed to lye but in these two things First In a warrant and injunction given by Christ to his Churches to put either the one or the other into execution And secondly That mens consciences be accordingly taken therewith so as to subject themselves whether unto the one way or the other For suppose that other principle of an authoritative power in the greater part of Churches combined to excommunicate other Churches c. to be the ordinance of God yet unlesse it doe take hold of mens consciences and be received amongst all Churches the offending Churches will steight all such excommunications as much as they may be supposed to doe our way of protestation and sentence of non-communion On the other side let this way of ours be but as strongly entertained as that which is the way and command of Christ and upon all occasions be heedfully put in execution it will awe mens consciences as much and produce the same effects And if the Magistrates power to which we give as much and as we thinke more then the principles of the Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeeld doe but assist and back the sentence of other Churches denouncing this non-non-communion against Churches miscarrying according to the nature of the crime as they judge meet and as they would the sentence of Churches excommunicating others Churches in such cases vpon their owne particular iudgement of the cause then without all controversie this our way of Church proceeding will bee every way as effectuall as their other can be supposed to be and we are sure more brotherly and morâ—… suited to that liberty and equality Christ hath endowed his Churches with But without the Magistrates interposing their authority their way of proceeding will be as ineffectuall as ours and more liable to contempt by how much it is pretended to be more authoritative and to inflict a more dreadfull punishment which carnall spirits are seldome sensible of This for our judgements And for a reall evidence and demonstration both that this was then our judgements as likewise for an instance of the effectuall successe of such a course held by Churches in such cases our own practise and the blessing of God thereon may plead and testifie for us to all the world The manage of this transaction in briefe was this That Church which with others was most scandalized did by Letters declare their offence requiring of the Church supposed to be offending in the Name and for the vindication of the honour of Christ and the relieving the party wronged to yeeld a full and publike hearing before all the Churches of our Nation or any other whomsoever offended of what they could give in charge against their proceedings in that deposition of their Minister and to subject themselves to an open triall and review of all those forepassed carriages that concerned that particular which they most chearfully and readily according to the forementioned principles submitted unto in a place and State where no outward violence or any other externall authority either civill or Ecclesiasticall would have enforced them thereunto And accordingly the Ministers of the Church offended with other two Gentlemen of much worth wisedome and piety members thereof were sent as messengers from that Church and at the introduction and intrance into that solemne assembly the solemnity of which hath left as deepe an impression upon our hearts of Christs dreadfull presence as ever any we have been present at it was openly and publikely prosessed in a speech that was the preface to that discussion to this effect that it was the most to be abhorred maxime that any religion hath ever made profession of and therefore of all other the most contradictory and dishonourable unto that of Christianity that a single and particular society of men professing the Name of Christ and pretending to be endowed with a power from Christ to judge them that are of the same body and society within themselves should further arrogate unto themselves an exemption from giving account or being censurable by any other either Christian Magistrates above them or neighbour Churches about them So farre were our judgements from that independent liberty that is imputed to us then when we had least dependency on this Kingdom or so much as hopes ever to abide therein in peace And for the issue and successe of this agitation after there had been for many dayes as judiciary and full a charge tryall and deposition of witnesses openly afore all commers of all sorts as can be expected in any Court where authority enjoynes it that Church which had offended did as publikely acknowledge their sinfull aberration in it restored their Minister to his place againe and ordered a solemne day of fasting to humble themselves afore God and men for their sinfull carriage in it and the party also which had been deposed did acknowledge to that Church wherein he had likewise sinned In this part of your Apologie are contained the fourth and fifth of those five forementioned heads unto which I referred all I should answer to what you say upon your third and last instance about the government and discipline in the Churches The scope of which fourth head is to answer and take off a common objection brought against your way the strength of which answer is made up of those parts and stands in these particulars First In laying downe your own principles which you hold in such a case Secondly Your practise according to those principles occasioned upon an offence committed in one of your Churches which story you briefly relate Thirdly The successe and effectualnesse of your practise according to your principles illustrated by an instance Now for that common
exception laid into all mens thoughts against your Congregationall way it 's both a just and strong Argument against it and that which many of your way when it hath been objected to them have confessed there is no remedy nor help in such cases but advice and counsell all must be left to Christ Christ will take care of his own way they had not found out this allowed sufficient remedy for miscarriages which you have here propounded but I shall labour to make evident that all you bring by way of answer in declaration of your judgements and practise doth not satisfie this objection And first for your judgements in the principles you hold and lay downe I shall endeavour to prove that you have no Scripture grounds nor Primitive patterns for such principles and such a way in such cases Secondly Besides that these principles have no footing in Scripture and so they are no allowed remedy for miscarriages c. are not nor will not be a sufficient remedy for miscarriages nor reliefe for wrongfull sentences nor powerfull effectuall meanes to reduce a Church c. For the first I shall take it for granted you being wise men that in such a point as this being the maine point of difference betwen you and the Presbterians and at such a time as this you would bring the strongest Scriptures and grounds you had for your sacred principle and supreame law to be observed among all Churches namely of submission of Churchrs and for that other principle of pronouncing that heavy sentence of non-non-communion against a Church or Churches and if I can shew the invalidity and weaknesse of these brought by you a man may conclude ther 's no feare of what 's behind Now a man would wonder that wise men as you are should except against a government received so generally amongst the reformed Churchâ—…s and blessed so from Heaven in the effectualnesse of it for the space of so many yeares as a sufficient remedy not only to reduce men from heresies and schisme but to prevent Churches from falling into heresie schisme c. which is more and goe set up a new way so different and so distastfull to the reformed Churches and all upon pretences of no sound proofe in Scripture for such a government because there is not an Apostolicall direction either in example or precept for it and in the meane time to contend for such a government wherein yourselves cannot deny but hath fallen out strange miscarriages and you tell us an unhappy story for proofe and yet the way and course you have substituted for remedy hath neither example nor precept in the word of God to practise any title of all that you relate to us and besides that the course prescribed by you is not commanded in the word it is no whit so rationall nor conducible to the ends you appoint it for as we will shew presently Now for the Scriptures brought by you the first is 1 Cor. 10. 32. Give none offence neither to the Iewes nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God where first the Reader may observe you alter the text putting Churches of God instead of Church of God and then you adde they live amongst The alteration I suppose you make upon this ground for feare this text in the reading of it should hint that truth how the visible Church in Scripture is taken for more then one particular Congregation the addition they live amongst to make it a seeming ground for Churches in a vicinitie whereas the Apostle speakes of the Church of God generally all the Churches whether we live amongst them or farre from them and the scope of the Apostle in this place is upon the occasion of that particular offence which might arise to some Corinthians from eating meat sacrificed to Idols having been told that this is sacrificed to Idols to lay down a generall rule to all Christians against giving offence to any whether Jewes Gentiles or Christians under which three ranks all men then in those times were comprehended Now pray tell me how will you make this text to prove that Churches offending and distering among themselves must submit themselves to the most full and open triall and examination of other neighbour Churches offended and how will you from this place draw ouâ—… a power for neighbour Churches to send unto and require this of the Churches who have offended them This Scripture if all Interpreters understand it that I have consulted with layes downe a rule that every particular Christian and so all Christians must so walke as to become all things to all men to please all men in all things lawfull as the 33 verse interprets it and to give none offence But where doth this Scripture speake and how doth it affirme that if either Churches or particular Christians doe practise things that offend other Churches they who are offended have power and authority to send to them and to call them to the most full and open triall and examination and that such who are challenged to offend must submit to such a judiciall and open triall before all commers In this text there is no more said of the Church of God then of the Jews and Gentiles who must not be offended neither and will you allow Jewes and Gentiles offended by things done in your Churches to call your Churches to an account and you must submit This text reaches to Churches that live in other Countries and unto particular Christians though they be not members of any such instituted Church as you speake of so that by vertue of this text we ought to give them no offence but will you grant that Churches of other Countries and Kingdomes may call Churches in another Kingdome to an open triall and examination and send their messengers to question them and thereupon pronounce sentence of renouncing all Christian communion with them or that every particular man offended may call Churches to an account and they are bound to submit to hearing and tryall I will give you one instance I am much offended at the great rent and difference that was betwixt Mr Bridge and Mr Simpson and at Mr Simpsons setting up a new Church and at all that great bitternesse betwixt those Churches and I am much offended at the Church of Arnheim for letting passe that schisme and all those differences never questioning it especially questioning Mr Bridges Church Now have I a power by vertue of this precept to call both you and your Churches to an account and to require of you a most full and open tryall before all commers and are you bound to submit to it answer me this question in your Reply and you shall see what I will say to you in my Rejoinder For that other Scripture 1 Tim. 5. 22. Neither be partakers of othâ—… mens sinnes that is spoken to Timothy in regard of his authoritative power in the Church of God as the scope of the chapter and the immediate precedent words shew
though as comming out in such a juncture of time wherein the strife is betweene Presbyteriall government and Independent for preeminence and comming from so many heads laid together it cannot be imagined but it should come forth doubly refined and in the most plausible advantagious way and in the best edition that 't is possible such wits and so many could set it out in an Utopia indeed rather then what it can be in common practise this being the third Edition the first that of the Brownists the second of New-England and now this the third yet the Reader may observe into what uncertainties labirinths tediousnesse delayes nay absurdities and contrarieties these principles doe leade them that follow them 1. Whereas in Presbyteriall government each part and every particular is ruled by the whole and in common the lesse by the greater in your way an equall part must take upon them cognizance and call to an account an equall 2. Not only so but suppose two or three Churches fall out and have a difference among themselves and there be but one Church free who yet is offended at the others then one must order two or three the lesse the greater and what a rule is this 3. This principle of submission being voluntary amongst the Churches we may well suppose sometimes the Churches challenged to offend or differ will submit and sometimes they will not or at least not yet and when they know themselves faulty they may pretend many things to put it off and to delay the time which time will be both very prejudiciall to the persons wronged and to the spreading of the heresie and schisme and if by delayes they see they cannot have their ends what if for all their principle of submission they flie of and refuse to yeeld to such a full and open tryall before all commers and shall denie other Churches that power of examining deposing Witnesseâ—… c. upon pretence of conscience that there is no primitive patterne for it as you do deny the power of determination and imposition how will you bring them to it whereas in Presbyteriall government times of meeting being fixt and agreed upon men cannot evade but matters will be quickly heard and remedied 4. As in reason and by experience amongst wise men it is held a vaine course which no publicke company of men will yeeld to but such practises are rather accounted ridiculous to raise such dust and make such 〈◊〉 doe to call others to account to depose Witnesses spending many daies in a judiciarie way and yet have no power to end things to be never the nearer but that Delinquents may doe neverthelesse what they please so it cannot be conceived that the wise God hath ordered in the Government of his Churches such a kind of way for Churches who are of a publike capacitie and have a power as you grant to call Churches thus to an account c. and yet nothing to be done to the offenders Churches offended either have not power to doe thus much as you grant or else they have a greater power namely to bring about the ends which these meanes tend unto namely determination and decision the righting persons injured and the censuring the offending parties But it will be said by you that if the Churches offending take not the counsell and advice of their sister Churches about them but persist in their errour and miscarriage that censure of the sentence of Non-communion will be a sufficient remedie and an effectuall meanes to reduce them and remedie all as well as that of the Presbyterians I will not here enter into comparison between these two but do reserve it to it 's proper place The 5 t and last generall head though besides Excommunicaon there are other things in the Classicall Synodicall way both to preserve and reduce Churches which are not in the Independent way But I answer this is no likely meanes nor way for which I shall give these following reasons 1. One Church may not be able to convince another of their errour or evill much lesse one Church two or three Churches offending and differing 2. The Church offending may stand upon it that what they doe is according to their light it is according to their conscience to hold such an opinion or to doe such a fact as to depose their Minister because he hath no better gifts of preaching and whether may another Church passe the sentence of non-Non-communion against whole Churches and declare and protest this to all other Churches of Christ that they may doe the like for opinions or practises that are not against the Churches knowne light For if no other kind of sins then may evidently be presumed to be perpetrated against the parties knowne light may be the subject of excommunication in particular persons may they be the subject of non-Non-communion of whole Churches 3. In reason this seemes not a powerfull meanes or probable way for if this one Church offended shall renounce the Churches challenged to offend they may and will renounce that Church also passing the sentence of non-Non-communion c. against that and how shall the matter now be healed and remedied 4. That Church or Churches thus sentenced may be care not for the Communion of this Church that cast them off nor of no others as long as they can have communion amongst themselves These kind of Churches that hold such principles of entire compleate power within themselves with that principle of sufficiencie of all gifts and all ordinances within themselvs will goe on in their errours and sinfull practises for all that 5. The Churches renounced and cast out may challenge the Churches casting them out for injuring of them and thereupon both Churches may declare and protest against each other to all other Churches of Christ which will prove as great a rent-difference nay worse then the first and this will produce a great deale of defending and proving for if the Churches on both sides doe declare against one another unto the other Churches which of them now shall be beleeved and what if the Churches protested and declared unto will not upon the Protestations withdraw and renounce all Christian communion with them must they then protest against them also and what the Churches protesting may account matter of non-Non-communion other Churches declared and protested unto may not judge so so that here will be worse matter of difference and divisions in the Church of God then before and I suppose you would not have those Churches declared and protested unto to condemne the rest sentenced without a hearing especially where there is but one to one or where one may declare and protest against two or three so that then there must be sending for all these Churches and meetings appointed for the Churches protested unto to heare the Churches on both sides and what now if the Churches declared unto upon the hearing the Churches on both sides both censuring and censured shall acquit the Churches condemned
and censured and shall condemne and judge those Churches for renouncing communion as too severe and declaring thus to all other Churches against them what must be done in these cases will these Churches censuring now acknowledge their offence and revoke their sentence of non-Non-communion or if they will not what must these Churches protested unto doe in this case must not they passe the sentence of non-Non-communion against them and if they doe so what if these Churches censuring shall also pronounce the heavie sentence of non-Non-communion even against these Churches protested and declared unto Now that these things and worse may not and will not fall out cannot be denied which things as to the neighbour Churches among themselves will be great occasion of schismes and continuall differences so will they minister matter of great scandall to all other Churches and of tryumph and evill speaking unto enemies all which will be easily prevented and remedied in the Presbyteriall government Sixthly Two or three Churches or more of your Independent way living amongst other Churches as you did in Holland or if your Congregations should be tolerated in England according to your desire you may hold this principle of submission to one another and yet all agree in holding some errours with which errours you may infect many of the members of the Presbyteriall Churches for which you will not question one another what remedie or meanes is there now to reduce your Churches or preserve ours Seventhly Some of your Churches by vertue of this principle that Church or Churches challenged to offend or differ are to submit themselves upon the challenge of the offence to the most full and open triall and examination by other neighbour Churches may be ever and anon unjustly calling upon some of the Churches to submit and challenging them first with being offended by them least themselves should be challenged to have offended and so as we speake call whore first and also they who are challenged to offend to be even with them will challenge them againe and what must be done in this case and who shall interpose to determine these differences or may both parties judged thus by each other to be offenders determine against one an other Eightly If Churches must thus submit to trials and examinations these being the acts of whole Churches here will be nothing but trials and examinations and censures one upon another and this instead of a sufficient remedy is like to proove a continuall vexation and molestation to neighbour Churches Ninethly What must be done in case one Church or more take offence unjustly at others and trouble them thus to call them to open examination c. what satisfaction must be given to the Church troubled and examined Tenthly In this principle of submission of Churches suppose that upon a hearing the Church offending will not redresse the grievance or relieve a person injured But goe on and slight communion with other Churches the persons injured in the meane time are debarred from the ordinances and cannot remove their dwellings without manifest ruine of their families how doth this help such persons injured or is a sufficient remedy for wrongfull sentences c. Whereas now in the Presbyteriall way if such a Minister or officers who are the cause of this may be deposed and acts passe against them and others placed in their roomes this will remedy and redresse it And so suppose a Minister of note fall into heresie and errour and draw the most of his people after him so that he cannot be deposed by the Church what good will the non-non-communion pronounced against this Church by other Churches do for reducing them but now if this Minister may be deposed and an orthodox Minister put in to preach the truth here is a powerfull meanes to reduce and preserve Eleventhly Let me aske you and pray determine it from the Scriptures in case two or three Churches offended doe challenge a Church or Churches offending who yet upon submitting to a hearing will not yeild to the counsell and advice of those Churches who how where after what time and how many meetings and after what manner must this sentence of non-non-communion be denounced against this Church or Churches whether must it be denounced in and upon the place where they meet to heare and examine or in the meeting place of each of these Churches offended or must these Churches offended meet in one of their meeting places to pronounce it together and who must be the mouth and who by warrant out of the Scriptures hath the power to pronounce that heavy sentence of non-non-communion and how must it be made known unto the offending Churches with other things of this like nature To say no more now this principle of non-non-communion is so farre from being a sufficient remedy for miscarriages or a reliefe for wrongfull sentences or a powerfull means to reduce a Church or Churches c. that 't is a remedy worse then the disease and if it should be practised would be the ground of many schismes separations mischiefes in the Church of God and that amongst whole Churches so that it were farre better particular persons should suffer wrong or particular persons fall into schisme and be left to their liberty then whole Churches suffer those evils which your principles of non-non-communion Declarations Protestations would undoubtedly produce as the Reader may judge by what is here written For the second your practise according to this principle occasioned upon an offence that fell out in your Churches I shall shew that as insufficient as your principles and shall animadvert upon the most solemn instances of your practise As for the Introduction into your relation of the scandall and offence I readily assent unto you had you not judged it for the advantage of your selves and way you would upon no other occasion have made it thus publike for you are good at concealing of all your principles and practises but when and where you may further and propagate your way For the story it selfe as it is related by you it is very short and generall neither expressing the Ministers name deposed nor the causes of his deposition nor the first occasion of the differences nor the way the Church took before they deposed him nor the manner how they proceeded nor how long he stood so deposed so that the Reader cannot well tell what to make of it for want of a more full particular relation or how to judge whether your principle of submission of Churches and your practise here laid downe upon it was so proper and so sufficient a remedy and so effectuall a course as you boast of in page 20 21. I must therefore of necessity in reference to the disprooving and weakning of what you would inferre from your sacred principle and supreame law of submission and the more solemne instance of your practise wherewith to vindicate your selves and way in this particular and that it may appeare it was but a
differences what if the messengers of the Churches upon hearing and examining differ among themselves about the differences and offences in the Church â—…ending and about the sentences to be agreed upon to be commended to the offending parties yea and what if the Churches themselves upon returne made by the messengers how they find matters differ also one of the Churches offended being of one mind and the other Church offended of another mind what remedy is there now for miscarriages what reliefe for a person injured or what effectuall and powerfull meanes to reduce a Church or Churches 13. In your sentence of non-non-communion against Churches and in your Declarations and Protestations to all other Churches of Christ â—…hat they may doe the like what shall become of some innocent godly persons in that Church renounced and protested against must they be renounced communion with what will you doe in the case where some in a Church may be free from the errours and evils which the greater number are guilty of which you account the Church must they be debarred of all Christian communion with the Church offended and all other Churches of Christ protested to you speake nothing here in this case nor take no care for them but wrap up all alike in your sentence of non-non-communion must the innocent party now in this Church offending separate and withdraw from their own Church and renounce communion too as well as the Church offended what if all their maintenance and livelihood depends in living in that place so that if they withdraw from them they must either live without publike ordinances and communion or else if they come away ruine themselves and families what also if in this Church offending the wife be one of the innocent persons in that Church but the husband of the number of them that persist in their errour and miscarriage the sonne and daughter among the innocent the fathers and mothers among the offenders what must the wives and children renounce communion with their husbands and parents and now either live without the ordinances there or else goe away from their husbands and pareâ—…ts to some other Churches 〈◊〉 And in your drawing up your Declarations and Protestations against those Churches persisting in their errours and miscarriages will you in the grosse doe it or will you signifie and declare all the names of those who remaine obstinate and impenitent in such Churches with the names of those who are free from those errors and offences least you should bring all the Churches of Christ protested unto into sin and a snare pray resolve these cases with many such which by these now hinted you may fore-see will fall out in your principle of non-non-communion of Churches and Protestations Thirdly For the successe and effectualnes of your practise I answer 1. Supposing the particular instance of your practise according to the principle of submission of Churches that miscarry to have had a good effect as you relate in your two Churches of Arnheim and Rottendam yet it followes not it is a powerfull and effectuall meanes to reduce Churches for a course may prevaile in one and take with one and yet have no rationality to carry it in others for though this Church at Rotterdam did submit to them of Arnheim who were of note for parts quality c. yet it is a question whether these would to some other particular Churches who had challenged them and whether these men would also at all times had there not been something cast in the ballance before hinted 2. Take the best that came of the issue and successe of this agitation between the Church of Arnheim and that of Rotterdam namely that Church which had offended acknowledging their offence in deposing Mr Ward and restoring him to his place againe it was but a slender satisfaction for the losse of his Ministery and maintenance for so long a time and for all the suffering of him and his family If the Church offending had been enjoyned or had ordered themselves to have paid him the profits of his place or to have given him a good summe of money on their fast day this had been some reliefe for a wrongfull sentence and a person injured thereby and might have been a meanes to have preserved them from doing the like for time to come but for a Minister and his family to be so long in a sad condition without all maintenance in a strange Land and in the issue for them who did this to acknowledge only their sinfull aberration and the Minister thus suffering to acknowledge his sin too and both of them to be humbled for it alike here was a poore remedy â—…ay as you relate it your selves it is very unjust and injurious for in some passages of your Narration you acknowledge the fault on the Churches side as in page 16. and in page â—…0 and that Mr Ward was wronged and yet they were both equally ordered to a publike confession of sin and solemne fasting the Delinquent and the Innocent alike deale with is this the fruit of your principle of submission of Churches and non-non-communion is this the reall evidence and demonstration of the effectuall successe of such a course held by Churches in such a case and was this the issue of all that sending to and solemne assembly and the agitation of so many dayes publike hearing by deposition of witnesses so largely and formally related in page 20 21 I wonder wise men as you pretend to be should not see into the weaknesse and folly of your own practise in this case but tell such a story so to shame your selves you should never have troubled your selves to have come so many dutch miles not the Church at Rotterdam nor made so great adoe for many dayes of deposing witnesses c. as your selves relate in page 20 21. to have put together the Innocent and Delinquents And let me here put you this dilemma either Mr Ward was unjustly deposed from his Ministery both materially and formally upon unsufficient causes as the matter for such a censure and for the way and manner of it as being too suddaine before admonition and before fasting and prayer preceding c. 〈◊〉 was justly deposed by the Church if unjustly in both these respects as your Narration implies page 16. why was Mr. Ward put upon acknowledging his sin to the Church and put in the same condition with them who had dealt so unjustly both materially and formally and whether this was not a meanes to hinder the Churches repentance and humiliation for their sin when they should be put but to doe as Mr Ward But if Mr Ward were justly doposed why was the Church then put upon publike acknowledgement and ordered a solemne day of fasting to humble themselves before God and man and whether was Mr Bridge as well as the Church injoyned to confesse his sinfull aberration in it in that he did not interpose his authority and interest in the Church nor speake a
word to hinder the deposing of Mr Ward and so to have prevented so great a scandall and offence as this was To the fifth and last generall head the comparison you make between the effectualnesse and powerfulnesse of your way of submission and non-non-communion and that of the Presbyterians to awe and preserve Churches and Elders in their duties and to reduce Churches miscarrying where you make the sâ—…ales fall on your side rather I answer Besides some considerable things already hinted under some of the former heads especially under the fourth head which doe shew a wide difference of the effectualnesse and successe which the Presbyterian principles and way hold out over your Congregationall thâ—…e are many other to 〈◊〉 the sâ—…les which I shall now speake of according as 't is laid downe here by you in the 17 18 and 19 pages 1. That you may render your way the more specious and probable you beg the question and take for granted things denied supposing that also which never hath fallen out in the reformed Churches and you speake but to a part of the way and remedie namely excommunication anâ—… from all these false premises you make your conclusion You lay downe your way of submission and non-non-communion 〈◊〉 that â—…ch is the 〈◊〉 and way of Christ and to be strictly enjoyned by Christ â—…d that it is a command from Christ enjoyned to Churches that are â—…ly offended to denounce such a sentence of non-non-communion which is a meere device of your own brains and sound out to give a colourable answer to that common and 〈◊〉 reason against the Church-way 〈◊〉 you make that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Presbyteries to be an excommunicating of whole Churches and â—…s delivering of whole Churches and their Eldere offending unto Saâ—…n which is a scandalous charge laid to tho Presbyterian government and never yet was â—…rd of in any of the reformed Churches for the space now of a hundred yeares past You lay you give more to the Magistrates power then the principle of the Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeeld whereas in some things I shall show the contrary and in other things you may out of policie at this time give more then the Scriptures allow You speake only of excommunication a part of their way whereas in combined classicall government there are many other meanes and ways from first to last to preserve and reduce from errors and offences 2. The comparison made by you between the Presbyterians and Independents stands in two things First In the Ecclesiasticall proceedings and power Secondly In the civill Magistrates power 1. For the Ecclesiasticall you make that principle of submission of Churches that miscarry and that of non-communion as effectuall as excommunication which supposing they were as I shall shew they are not yet 't is a fallacious reasoning by comparing the whole with a part for a whole of one kind may be better and more excellent then some part of another kind and yet not comparable to the whole now there are many things in Presbyteriall government besides excommunication excellent to preserve and keep the Churches Their reformation and constitution being setled by Synods and Assemblies their Ministers being ordained by Presbyteries and classes their Doctrine worship government and discipline upon serious debate and by common content drawn up then rules being fixt known and certaine their classicall meetings frequent and constant with higher Assemblies for appeales their number and abilities great their remedies and censures more solemne and more in number as deposition suspension c. all which are wanting in the Church way as I could shew at large but that this answer would be too great a volume But to come to particulars the Presbyterian is more effectuall then your Independent way 1. Because it doth prevent and preserve from those many errours divisions evils which fall in your way as is evident by experience and is founded upon good reason will fall out now how much better and more effectuall a way 't is to play the fore-game then the after-game all men know 't is better to prevent the plague and taking in poyson then to expell it government is for prevention as well as recovering if your way were as effectuall to compose differences and reduce Churches yet not so to prevent which is one of the great ends of Church government 2. Your way wraps in whole Churches in sin and guilt and you have no remedy but it must come to non-non-communion of whole Churches but in Presbyteriall 't is not so no example being extant among them of excommunicating whole Churches so that if an errour take one or two they are presently dealt with and the errour spreads not to a whole Church 3. In the Presbyteriall way the persons offending and sinning in Congregations are proceeded with and punished every man beares his own sin but the innocent persons suffer not but here in the way of non-non-communion some who are good in the Church suffer also many wayes and here is no difference made by you but all involved in the same condition 4. In your way as if all sins were equall and all offenders alike all are punished with the same sentence of non-non-communion but 't is not so in the Presbyteriall way 5. Your submissions and meetings are accidentall uncertaine free and at choice they may be and may not be there are many wayes to evade and put them off whereas the combinations and consociations of Churches are fixed set certaine Amongst your Churches in Holland in three or foure yeares there was but one act of submission and one meeting which is here related In that difference between those two Churches at Rotterdam there was no submission but each Church blew the trumpet of defiance against each other and so about the differences at Arnheim which the Church could not end in so long a time no Church interposed but in the classicall government there is such a subordination and dependencie such stated and fixed meetings that if men should escape one they do not all now in government and order there is a materiall difference between what men may doe or not doe and what they have tied themselves unto and must stand to In matters of civill difference referred to Arbitratours 't is one thing to submit to hearing and to counsell upon it and another thing to be bound to stand to the determination There are many will doe justly and performe such trusts whilest bound who left at liberty will doe just nothing now in your submission of Churches though you submit to a hearing yet you doe not submit to their determinations unlesse it like you you doe not submit to doe what they enjoyne but you will order your selves according to their counsell as you see occasion now men being partiall in their own cause and still their own judges what a remedie is this 't is one thing when men know they are at liberty and may doe or not doe as they see good and another
thing when they must we find it so in all converse with men and good men are men there 's a great deale of difference between authority and obedience and only perswasion on the one part and free will on the other no man will deny but in civill matters there is a great difference in such cases were it in the power of particular members in your Churches to submit or not submit as they please there would be much adoe to remedy any thing as will be betwixt Churches differing But particularly for excommunication and non-communion excommunication may upon these grounds awe mens consciences more and be more effectuall then non-communion 1. Because there is something positive in it it is a delivering of the offenders up unto Satan but your non-non-communion is a privative depriving only of communion now there 's more efficacie in a positive then in a privative and negative Secondly Excommunication doth deprive the persons offending or the Churches of all communion among themselves as well as the communion of other Churches whereas the sentence of non-non-communion doth but take other Churches off from communion with them but meddles not to debar them of communion among themselves in their own particular Churches but still they enjoy the word prayers Sacraments c. which is a great difference Thirdly Your selves make excommunication the greater censure as appeares by your own phrases calling it an authoritative power c. and not practising that against other Churches whereas you doe exercise the sentence of non-non-communion and we know 't is the highest censure in the Church now certainely the greatest censures and more dreadfull punishments according to Christs institution and intention are more effectuall and powerfull to awe and to remedie things amisse then the lesser and lower censures And so much for the comparison in the Ecclesiasticall proceedings Secondly In the civill Magistrates power you granting that ought to back and assist the sentence of non-non-communion against Churches miscarrying according to the nature of the crime and you giving more as you think to the Magistrates power in matters Ecclesiasticall then the principles of the Presbyteriall government will suffer them to yeâ—…ld your way of Church proceeding will be every way as effectuall as the Presbyterians I answer supposing all that you say of giving so much power to the Magistrate c were true yet that makes not your submission and non-communion so effectuall a meanes as excommunication for the question is about Ecclesiasticall authority and spirituall power and about spirituall meanes and remedies for the conscience and soule and not about civill power and civill externall meanes and I would aske you this question upon this passage of the civill Magistrate either you give him an Ecclesiasticall spirituall power of applying spirituall remedies and meanes to Churches miscarrying or you doe not if you give him not this first as I judge your principles will not allow you he being no Church-officer of Christs â—…hurch but only Christ gave Pastors teachers c. as necessary and sufficient for the government of his Church then all you say of the Magistrate helps you not 't is nothing to the question in hand but before I speake any more to that point that the Magistrates power backing your sentence of non-communion is not comparable to the Presbyterian way I must animadvert upon the passage it selfe both in the comparative of your saying you thinke you give more to the Magistrate then the Presbyterians and upon the positive what you give them 1. For the comparison 't is an odious and dangerous insinuation to prepare King and Parliament to reject the Presbyterie as not giving so much to Magistrates in matters of Religion and Church government as is their due and 't is scandalous against Scotland and all the reformed Churches but what 's the maine â—…nd of it or what may be conceived the reason of your saying you give so much to the Magistrates power and more then the Presbyterians seeing men of your Church principles were never guilty yet of giving too much Ecclesiasticall power to Magistrates you are the first Independents and this is the first time that ever publikely you have exprest your selves thus I judge you being Politicians Politici Theologi to flatter the Parliament at this time the better to work your ends for a toleration and to promote your Church-way you write thus 'T is observed by Learned men that amongst the principall attempts and policies of the Remonstrants whereby they laboured to bring the Churches of the Netherlands into commotion and to obtaine their own ends this was a great one the crying up the power of the civil Magistrate both by writing of Bookes of their great power in Ecclesiasticals and in their Sermons every where and their aspersing the orthodox Ministers and their lawfull meetings and Ecclesiasticall actions with the contrary and amongst many other particulars of the great power they gave the Magistrates in Ecclesiasticals this was one that they did ascribe to the Magistrate the ultimate and highest jurisdiction and power of giving judgement in Ecclesiasticall matters reasoning that unto the Magistrate alone immediately under Christ did belong the judgement when controversies of faith did arise in the Church And therefore after the Arminians despaired of prevailing by the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies they brought and removed their cause from the Ecclesiasticall cognizance to another Court by their policie and artifices making use of the Authoritie of one or two chiefe men in place to worke for them And that this new-way might have some colour and that so much the more easily the favour of many Politicians or at least a toleration might be procured for these Arminian novelties there was a booke set forth by Uttenbogardus de Iure Supremi Magistratus in Ecclesiasticis Many other of the Arminians also sung the same song as Episcopius printed a Disputation de Iure Magistratus circa sacra Barlaeus Grotius c. And besides all these there was a great number of books put forth in the vulgar and mother tongue of the power and authority of the Magistrates And thus whilst the Magistrates let the Arminians alonâ—… and did nothing against them even till the Synod of Dort in the yeare 1618. they slattered them thus But after the Synod of Dort had determined against their opinions and that the Magistrates were agaiâ—…t them then they lifted up the heele and then they write books in a farre other stile and in their Apologie that power which before they had so liberally measured out for them they did not a little limit and contract and offended as much in the defect giving Magistrates too little as before they had in the excesse giving them too much For the full proofe of this I referre the Reader to learned Voetius select disputations concerning that question penes quos sit potestas ecclesiastica where he doth at large relate this and their opinions about the Magistrates power after the Synod
Concerning which question it being a point that I have not much studied I shall not declare my judgement in it But in the Church of Israel it seemes that in the things of Jehovah the last judgement did belong to the chiefe Ecclesiasticall Assembly which sate at Ierusalem Deut. 17. 8 9 10 11 12 13 verses as Iunius in his Analisis illustrates that place and the arguments brought by Apollonius in this point with his answers to Vedelius arguments have a great deale of strength in them and I entreate you in your Reply if you will formally owne the giving of this power to the Magistrate that you will answer that second chapter of Apollonius But to draw toward a conclusion of the comparison of the effectualnesse between the two wayes supposing all you say of Submission non-Non-communion Protestation were true as also that you did give more to the Magistrate then the Presbyterian and that in spirituall matters in cases of difference injuries c. you would from the Church have recourse to the Magistrate and submit to his judgement and that you did allow and would stand to the Magistrates assisting and backing the sentence of non-non-communion against Churches miscarrying according to the nature of the crime as they judge meet notwithstanding you have determined it that without all controversie your way of Church proceeding will be every way as effectuall as the other can be supposed to be yet I must tell you it falls farre short of the Presbyterian way both in preventing and remedying sins errors offences and in promoting knowledge godlinesse and peace in the Churches For suppose non-non-communion of Churches were a way of Christ and a remedie the contrary to which I have at large showne yet you must confesse 't is but a lower remedy not an authoritative powererfull dreadfull remedie and meanes like that of excommunication which is the highest and greatest censure in the Church the Churches thunderbolt and Anathema a remedy and last meanes which recovers a sinner when all others will not as admonition suspension deposition and so when non-communion and Protestation will not In the Scriptures are laid downe many eminent fruits and effects of excommunication in the people of God which are not of any censure else and I might fill a book with the ends benefits and fruits of this censure laid down by Divines in their Tractates and common places of Ecclesiasticall discipline and excommunication but I will name only that of the Professors of Leyden Excommunication is the last remedie and the sharpest for the subduing of the flesh in a man and for the quickning of the spirit and the most efficacious example least the sound part should be corrupted But against them who persevere in their contumacie and impenitencie 't is the only meanes to free the house of God of leaven and the Church of Christ from scandals and so to vindicate the Word and Sacraments from prophanation and the Name of God from the blaspheming of them without Now pray shew us in the Scripture any where the excellent fruits benefits ends of non-non-communion of Churches and Protestation against them as we can of excommunication in 1 Cor. 5. 5. 2 Cor. 2. 6 7 8 9 10. 2 Thess. 3. 14. 1 Tim. 1. 20. And then for that other remedie of the Magistrates power added to non-communion to eeke out wherein non-communion may be defective to excommunication and for that purpose you say you give more to the Magistrates power that so what you faile and come short in Ecclesiasticall power you may make it up in giving more civill power in Ecclesiasticall causes the result of which must needs be this that though in your Church-way you have not so much Ecclesiasticall authoritative power for miscarriages and for reducing Churches that fall into heresie and schisme yet you give more civill power and allow the Magistrate more to interpose for helping and reducing so that lesse Ecclesiasticall power and authority with a large civill power to back it will be every way as effectuall as much Ecclesiasticall authority with a small civill power But of this I shall shew you your mistake because the question is of Church matters and matters of conscience and the inward man and of the Kingdom of Christ Now the remedies and meanes appointed for these are spirituall and Ecclesiasticall namely spirituall punishments Christ saith my Kingdom is not of this world and the Apostle 2 Cor. 10. 3 4 5. The weapons of our warfare are not carnall but mighty through God to the pulling downe of strong holds by which the spirit and the inward man even every thought is subjected to the obedience of Christ spirituall remedies and meanes must be used in the Kingdome of Christ and by them Christ doth his worke and hence in Ecclesiasticall discipline and those scandalls in the Church which is the point in hand punishments in the body or in the purse c. which can be by the power of the Magistrate have no place at all neither can such meanes which are of a different kind from the spirituall Kingdome of Christ produce those effects which belong to that heavenly Kingdome 'T is out of the sphere of the activity of the politicall Magistrate to subdue the inward man or to inflict spirituall punishment upon the consciences And there is nothing more common in the writings of the most learned and orthodox Divines then to shew that the civill power and government of the Magistrate and the Ecclesiasticall government of the Church are toto genere disjoyned and thereupon the power of the Magistrate by which he deales with the corrupt manners and disorders of his people is in the nature and specificall reason distinct from Ecclesiasticall discipline For the power of the Magistrate by which he punishes sin doth not subserve to the Kingdome of Christ the Mediator that he may apply efficaciously to the elect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Propheticall and Priestly office of Christ he doth not affect the inward man and conscience with spirituall punishment neither is this instituted of God and sanctified as the meanes for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of Christ. Hence also by Divines the manifold difference between the censure of excommunication and the punishment of the Magistrate is observed Zanchius doth accurately shew the difference between them The cause of excommunication is not the punishment of sinne but the salvation of the sinner and the edification of the Church and the glory of God but the scope of the civill Magistrate and his office is that he should punish the sinne it selfe neither dâ—…th it looke to the salvation or damnation of the offender whereupon although the sinner repent yet he doth not spare but punisheth according to his office But the Church according to Christs doctrine doth not strike with the spirituall sword unlesse he be impenitent neither is this done for death but for salvation
only and the highest powers can they alwayes heare or attend unto through the many great businesses of State affaires all the differences scandals schismes that both in particular Churches and betweene Churches will fall out in a Kingdome or Nation in this way of non-non-communion and protestation against one another especially in Independent Churches where people make Churches and Ministers in that way they doe and have no fixed rules nor certaine way I warrant the supreame Magistrate and higher Powers Kings and Parliaments shall have something to doe to back the sentence of non-communion and to heare all causes and differences But if you understand the inferiors also Majors Bailiffs c. I represent it to you what fit judges most of them are to judge and determine of such difficult Ecclesiasticall causes in heresies schismes scandals c. which fall out amongst the Ministers of Churches and between Churches themselves Againe If you understand the Magistrate indefinitely and obsolutely any Magistrate though Heathen Popish Arrian as Mr Robinson doth in his Apologie and I find it in your manuscripts and principles that you take it so judge then in your selves if the Church hath not remedies among themselves how fit are they who understand not Christian religion nor the doctrines according to godlinesse to judge of the great differences between Churches and to assist the sentence of non-non-communion against Churches if the Apostle Paul reproved the Corinthians so in 1 Cor. 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. for cariying matters from the Church even the smallest matters the things that pertained to this life unto unbeleevers how would he blame the carrying of things spirituall and Ecclesiasticall unto Heathen from the Ministers of the Church or doe you understand that there shall be Courts of civill Judicature to appeale unto c. then there must be certaine Laws and rules agreed upon as for particular Churches so between the Churches according to which they must proceed to back the sentence of non-communion and protestation c. which yet you practise not Now the many inconveniences that would come of such Courts you may easily fore-see so that this is not like to be an effectuall remedy 6. What shall be done in case there be no Magistrates at all to take any notice in matters of Religion and Church government but leave Churches to themselves in that as it was with you in Holland there were no Magistrates medled with the government and order of your Churches nor none to have recourse unto or to backe the sentence of non-Non-communion you being in a place and State where no outward violence or any other externall authoritie either civill or Ecclesiasticall would have enforced you what shall in this case supply the defect of Excommunication and of an Ecclesiasticall authoritative power Hath not the wisdome of Christ provided remedies in the Church for all the internall necessities of the Church and constituted it a perfect bodie within it selfe 7. Whether can it be rationally and probably thought that in an ordinary way the having recourse unto the Magistrate though orthodox and the submitting to his particular cognizance and examination of such causes with his backing the sentence of non-Non-communion in Ecclesiasticall causes in cases of sinnes errours differences that arise in Churches should be as effectuall and sufficient a remedie as the way of Classes and Synods and that the Magistrates interposing their authoritie and power of another nature will be as good as the Authoritative Presbyteriall Governement in all the subordinations and proceedings of it Now that 't is not probable it should be or that it should serve in stead of Synods and Classes take these probable and rationall grounds 1. All wanton wits and erroneous spirits all your Sectaries and Novelists are rather for this way then for Synods and Classes though most of them would have neither to meddle at all in matters of Religion as the Socinians Anabaptists c. Thus the Arminians were against Classes and Synods and all for the power of Magistrates and it was their chiefe Engine by which in those sad daies of the Netherlands they encreased their partie and came to such a height Sectaries hope that if they can decline the Ecclesiasticall Assemblies they sha'l what by flatterie and what by delay through other great businesses of State and what by sophismes and fallacies and what from principles of policie in many States-men and what by friends c. effect that which they have no hopes at all by Ecclesiasticall Assemblies they know the Presbyteries and Synods are able to discover their fallacies answer their arguments will mind those businesses wholly are not to be wrought upon by State principles c. Now if in experience and reason this way were as powerfull to reduce a Church or Churches from schisme and heresie they would never be so much for this way rather then Presbyterie 2. Naturall reason dictates that they are best able and fittest to judge and resolve of things who doe above others give themselves to the studie and profession of those things as Physitians can best judge of wholesome meats and diseases and Lawyers of the lawes and differences arising in them a Counsell of Warre of difficult cases and points in warre And therefore in things that belong to the spirituall good of the soule and the Church the Ministers of the Church are most likely to resolve and to remedie things Can it ordinarily be expected that the Magistrate should in matter of doctrine and opinion in matters of schisme and in matters of worthinesse and abilities of Ministers and in many cases that arise be able to judge and determine matters as the Ministers and Pastours of the Church 3. Those who have most time and leisure to attend a worke and businesse to sift into it to heare all that can be said and can mind it they being able and understanding are likeliest to determine best and bring things to a good end we see in experience that able and honest men through multitudes of businesse delay long slubber over businesses and cannot doe things so effectually as they ought and seldome prove good Arbitratours in difficult intricate cases Now Magistrates through many great and necessarie businesses of State having large dominions cannot so well attend as the Classes and Synods to heare and examine all the differences scandals schismes c. that doe and may arise both in Churches and betweene Churches especially as would fall out in the Independent way and particularly in this way of submission Non-communion and mutuall Protestation but matters would be delayed and neglected or escape wholly or be hudled up 4. To these I might adde as followes that the Magistrate through his just greatnesse would not know the spirits and dispositions of Ministers people nor of other matters so well as the Ministers who live among them and converse with one another frequently neither would there be that easinesse of accesse to the Magistrates and great persons as
to their Ministers and Pastours with other such like 8. But in Ecclesiasticall matters and differences upon the Magistrates interposing his power what is it you will submit unto and what will you allow him to doe And what is that power you will give him in backing the sentence of non-Non-communion upon his judgement of the cause and how farre and in what will you obey him that so we may understand how this Civill power is intended by you for a remedie and helpe in Churches and betweene Churches For instance will you submit not to gather Churches nor set up Assemblies withoâ—…â—…is leave and upon complaints of the many mischiefes and differences occasioned thereupon will you upon his hearing both sides and judging that those who are gathered shall be dissolved dissolve them and not meet in those wayes any more Will you upon some members complaining to the Magistrate of some Minister or Ministers in their Church for preaching erroneous and unprofitable doctrine meere novelties subtilties and the Magistrate upon particular cognizance and examination of such causes judging that he shall preach no more will the Minister forbeare upon it or the Church to heare him in case the Minister would not yeeld will the Church now goe chuse a new and Orthodox Minister upon it or in case a member or more be unjustly excommunicated and they complaine to the Magistrate who calling the Church to account and hearing both sides shall judge on the Complaiants side and now order the Church to absolve him and order them to confesse their sinne publikely and appoint them to keepe a day of humiliation for it and order them to give him such a summe of mony for the wrong trouble and losse of his time in following the businesse against them will the Church now submit to doe all this yea or no What say you to these and the like cases Now I aske you this in the close because you pretend a great deale of submission to the Magistrate and to give him much power which though you did grant yet for the many reasons and grounds alreadie specified this would not countervaile the way of the Presbyterians in their spirituall censures by Presbyters and Synods whether you clearely and plainly allow this to the Magistrate because I finde in Manuscripts and heare that in Sermons by men of your Church-way the contrarie is publikely preacht and held as for example in that Treatise about a Church which goes under one of your names there is this passage with more to that purpose The Saints need not expect their power or leave for to gather together so as without it such a combination is unlawfull nor should they forbeare it out of conscience of the Magistrates prohibition indeed if the Magistrate should force or compell them to forbeare or persecute them they may forbeare actuall assembling Act. 8. 1. not because the Magistrate forbids it but in mercie to themselves And indeed about a Church Christian Magistrates have no more power then Heathen Magistrates had So that this is spoken by you where Magistrates are Christian and where Churches are already setled And adde to this that M. S. in his Reply in defence of your Apologie is against coercive and coactive power in matters of Religion and that you all hold a toleration and that the Magistrates ought not to hinder men or punish them for the matter of their consciences how then notwithstanding all your discourse of the power of the Magistrate which added to non-Non-communion will be an effectuall meanes to releeve persons injured to reduce Churches and persons going in schisme and errours shall persons injured be remedied or Churches and persons reduced For suppose the persons or Churches that now fall into such errours and schismes will pretend nay 't is so really that they in their conscience hold errours for truths and thereupon with-draw from such Churches to others nay suppose those who now receive these new truths should cast out of their fellowship and excommunicate some for holding otherwise as for instance a Church falling into Antinomianisme should censure some of their members that remain orthodox for legal Christians and for being enemies to free-grace and should judge themselves bound to doe so in these and such like cases what remedie is there for miscarrying Churches by all the power of the Magistrate you pretend to give to him But this is brought in here by you and given to him to put of that strong argument against your way and that you may have something for present to blind the eyes and stop the mouths of many that looke no further that it may serve your turne at such a straight whereas upon other principles you denie the Magistrate this when it shall come to be a matter of conscience And now by all the severall particulars under this fifth head the understanding Reader may observe that not only in many respects your non-Communion and Magistrates power are not a remedie comparable to the Presbyterian way not proper nor to the nature of the offences and things in question a way in stead of bringing things to an end redressing and mending matters amisse that will be but the beginning of more strife and making more differences and evils then either it sindes or can heale the mother and nurse of Confusions Disorders and endlesse contentions but also that all the power here pretended to be given to the Magistrate upon examination is no such matter nor will not amount to make good the ends propounded whereas the Presbyteriall Government here scandalized as either wholly inconsistent with this forme of Civill Government or else not giving it its due will be found by its principles not only to have powerfull spirituall remedies for all spirituall evils of the Church but will be found in many respects to make use of and to give honour and power to the Civill Magistrate as a nursing Father from first to last even in the ordinary way of the Order and Government of the Church beyond you besides what they give more in extraordinary cases in a Church miserably corrupted disordered c. Of which the Reader may read at large in Apollonius who was a great Presbyterian cap. 2. And so learned Zanchius in his Tractate de Magistratis shewes 't is in the power of the Magistrate not to suffer Heretickes nor erroneous persons to preach and he gives him coactive punitive power to cut them off Beza a great Presbyterian in his Epistles and other writings in matters of Religion doth not exclude the Magistrate but gives him that power in some things which you deny but besides that power they give the Magistrate they stand for as needfull in the Church Classes and Synods for the Government of it Zanchy shewes that discipline cannot take place where the Ministers never meet together the meâ—…ting of Ministers and Ecclesiasticall Synods we judge most necessary As no Politie Common-wealth or Kingdome can consist without their meetings Senates and Councels
open triall and what speake you of roome for complaints and of subjecting to an open triall and review of what can be brought and of being censurable by neighbour Churches c. Whether be not all these the usuall phrases and expressions of acts of power and government can there be so much as triall and examination and judiciary charges and deposition of witnesses without authority much lesse censure can you ever shew it either in civill government in Common-wealth or in Ecclesiasticall in Churches out of Scripture or stories where all these acts were exercised and practised by persons who only had power of counsell and advice and if you cannot how can you make it good but that this must be more then advice and counsell namely authoritative power It is given as a rule by your selves that in matters of a common nature 't is in Ecclesiasticall government as in civill Now if in all civill Assemblies all these acts and practises be acts of authority and government why holds it not so in Ecclesiasticall And further to reason though Churches be sisters and equall each considered by it selfe yet in cases of offence and difference between Churches the Churches complained and appealed unto to whom the rest submit should now be greater and have more power in this thing then the Churches submitting and their acts should be authoritative as in reason 6 or 8 men falling out and choosing and submitting to others to heare the businesse and make an end of it these are now greater and have a power and authority over these quo ad hoc and in these acts and what they doe are acts of power which they must stand unto or suffer the penalty Thirdly You speake more then once upon occasion of this scandall committed in that Church at Rotterdam of Churches as in the plurall number sister Churches to be consulted with before hand and of your Churches mutually and universally acknowledging that principle of submission and how that Church â—…hich with others was most scandalized did by Letters declare their offence and of requiring a full and publike hearing before all the Churches of our Nation Now what and where were those other Churches of whom all this is spoke I grant that at Arnheim was one Church that Mr Bridges Church should have consulted with or have submitted to but where were any other Churches I will yeeld the Church at Arnheim might by letters declare their offence but I know not what other Churches did by letters doe the like I grant the Church at Arnheim was a Church of our Nation before whom the offending Church did yeeld a publike hearing but I know of no other I will not question but that the Church at Arnheim and Mr Bridges Church did upon the offence of deposing Mr Ward acknowledge that principle of submission and submit to one another but I doubt no other did then mutually submit for besides the Church at Arnheim offended and Mr Bridges Church offending there was no other Church of your way and communion for the offending Church to consult with or that did write letters or before whom the businesse was heard c. for I suppose and judge Mr Simpsons new Church being at that difference with Mr Bridges Church and Mr Bridge with him Mr Bridges Church should not have consulted with Mr Simpsons before hand and that Mr Bridges Church would not have yeelded the principle of submission to have submitted to a full triall and examination of all proceedings before Mr Simpsons and in case Mr Simpsons Church had sent letters declaring their offence they would have declined it as partiall and as accounting them the parties offending and I never heard that Mr Simpson with some messengers of his Church joyned with the messengers of Arnheim in the triall of that businesse of Mr Ward or sate as Judges c. so that I cannot tell why you use Churches in the plurall number thus all along in that businesse but that the Reader might conceive for your greater authority and esteeme and for the greater solemnity of the action there were more Churches besides that at Arnheim Fourthly For those two Gentlemen who were sent with the Ministers of the Church offended to require an account whether were those Gentlemen Elders of the Church of Arnheim or private members only If they were not Elders why were private members sent before Elders shew us a rule for that and satisfie us how private persons and no officers of the Church should represent the Church but if they were Elders why doe you name them Gentlemen only and not speake of them as officers 5. Whether though you make so sure of it yet it be not to be doubted upon the grounds of reason and light of nature that it is not more brotherly and more suited to that liberty and equality Christ hath endowed his Churches with but a point of greater authority inequality and usurpation for foure men grant them to be a Church representative to take upon them what those foure members of Arnheim did to a whole Church for so many dayes so fully and judiciarily to proceed as you write in the 21 page then for a whole Presbyterie of Ministers and Elders or a grave Synod to call to an account and heare the offences of two or three in a particular Church and together with that Church representative to decree such censures as publike acknowledgement of their offences or excommunication c. Sixtly I much wonder how you can call the meeting of Mr Goodwin and Mr Nye with two Gentlemen more calling Mr Bridge with the rest of that Church supposed to be delinquents such a solâ—…mne Assembly the solemnity of which hath left as deepe an imprâ—…ssion upon your hearts of Christs dreadfull presence as ever you have beeâ—… present at Certainely you have either been but at few solemne Assemblies where Christs dreadfull presence hath been or else your phancie was mighty high at that time as to make such a deepe impression upon you of a dreadfull presence as ever you have been at Let me aske Mr Nye what was this Assembly beyond the solemne generall Assembly of Scotland where you were present when the great solemne Covenant of the Kingdomes passed of which you write so highly into England or was it beyond the Assembly of Divines wherein not only two of you are for consultation but all you â—…ive with so many other godly Divines where instead of two Gentlemen assisting then here the Worthies of both Houses Lords and Commons assist nay a Theatre of all other the most judicious and severe where much of the piety learning and wisedome of two Kingdomes are met in one as your selves confesse afterwards in the 27 page I am of the mind there are ordinarily many Assemblies and where you may have been that have a more dreadfull presence of Christ then that had The Church meeting to partake in the Lords Supper cal'd the dreadfull and terrible houre by some of the Fathers
the Church meeting to excommunicate an impenitent sinner where there is a promise of binding in Heaven what is bound on earth which you cannot shew in your principle of submission and non-communion But this parenthesis is drawne in in the relation of your practise like many other particulars in this book to take with the simple people and to possesse them with the excellencie and majesty of your Congregationall way beyond the Presbyteriall and Synodicall and this passage here with many others in your Apologeticall Narration are paralell to passages in Mr Bachelours letters who after his suddaine conversion to the Church-way for want of better arguments to winne the people and to evince the truth of the Church-way writes thus For mine own part though but a few weeks agone when I was in England I found some objection in my spirit against the way of the Holland Churches and conceived wrongfully as Mr Edwards now doth through misunderstanding cast abroad by them whose sore eyes cannot endure the light of truth yet since by a good hand of providence I have been at Rotterdam and beheld the beautifull face of holinesse the lively representations of Iesus Christ in his ordinances the sweet and blessed communion of the Saints in all love and dearenesse mine objections are removed mine heart is convinced and I thinke many thousands in England as well as my selfe would soone be overcome at the very sight thereof A soule of gratious ingenuity needs no other Rhetorick to winne it then the presence of these heavenly administrations But what Anabaptist or Antinomian cannot say all this for their way and more too crying out the ravishments of the spirit free and glorious grace c. 7. You speake of consulting with sister Churches before that you proceed to matters of great moment and that you professed publikely in cases of concernment you ought so to doe pag. 16. and yet in page 15. you claime a full and entire power compleat within your selves untill you shall be challenged to erre grossely now how doe these agree for if you must consult before hand then 't is not an entire full compleate power before miscarrying and 't is but a power of consulting and advising after miscarriages and erring grossely and not an authoritative power 8. Whereas you call Presbyteriall excommunication excommunication pretended how much more truly may we call non-non-communion pretended and Protestation pretended for besides that in the Scripture excommunication is to be found there is such a censure there but no such sentence at all as non-non-communion there is also ground in Scriptures that Churches may be excommunicated as well as particular persons and of this in the Observations and Annotations upon your Apologeticall Narration page 43 44. you may reade strong proofes which your good friend M. S. thought best to take no notice of as not knowing how to answer them and I turne them over from M. S. to you five to give a satisfying answer 9. For that learned Speech made at the introduction and entrance into that solemne Assembly as the preface to it that it was the most to be abhorred maxime that any Religion hath ever made profession of c. I say 't is but a meere flourish and according to the Proverbe her 's a great deale of cry but a little wool and notwithstanding all these swelling words you are guilty indeed what in words and phrases you deny and in the more proper place when I shall speake to it in page 23 of your Apologie I will evince you are guilty of Independent liberty Thus we have rendred some small account of those the saddest dayes of our pilgrimage on earth wherein although we enjoyed God yet besides many other miseries the companions of banishment we lost some friends and companions our fâ—…llow labourers in the Gospell as precious men as this earth beares any through the distemper of the place and our selves came hardly off that service with our healths yea lives To this Section which containes the close and winding up of that part of your Narration during the time of your exile I answer It is a small account indeed you have rendred to what you seeme to hold out and to what such a Narration should have amounted concealing â—…nd reserving so much of your practise and wayes as I have before observed And as for those words the saddest dayes of our pilgrimage on earth c. I wonder at them sure you have been very happy men and have enjoyed many very good dayes that in your whole pilgrimage on earth of forty yeares and upwards those three or foure yeares in Holland where you enjoyed so many outward comforts and blessings should be your saddest dayes for my part I cannot say so Neither am I satisfied in those words besides many other miseries the companions of banishment For though in some banishments there are many other miseries the companions of them as deprivation of wife children friends maintenance with nakednesse hunger wandring up and downe in strange and desolate places harsh usage in a strange land yet you felt none of these But on the contrary you enjoyed wives children estates suitable friends good houses full fare I cannot imagine fewer miseries had you been in England could have waited upon you then did there unlesse that of bitter divisions and deadly differences the constant companions of your Church-way I could name many more miseries did abide some of us that stayed behind and might have done you to had you stayed in England As for those two instanced in particularly the losse of some friends and companions your fellow-labourers in the Gospell and your selves comming off hardly with your healths yea lives I must tell you those cannot properly and truly be called the companions of your banishment for those two Ministers namely Mr Archer and Mr Harris according to all reason and humane probability might not have lived longer in England both of them as it is well knowne having been long weake men in consumptions and sometimes nigh unto death before they went and for one of these Ministers Mr Archer he was so farre from being worse that he grew better and stronger in stomack sleepe strength and spirits after he went over into Holland as besides the many letters writ into England to friends of all sorts of the healthfulnesse of that place where he was with some of you and of the encrease of his strength I have letters written to me under his own hand to shew the contrary to what you affirme both of the distemper of the place and of the many other miseries the companions of that banishment In one letter he writes thus For Holland it is much better then I expected for pleasantnesse health plenty of flesh and foule we alter not oâ—…r English diet in any thing Utrich is a brave City a University with godly professors full of English a man may live as pleasantly there as at Hartford And in another My stomack sleepe strength
had gathered about us or were rather cast upon our persons in our absence begun by our presence againe and the blessing of God upon us in a great measure to scatter and vanish without speaking a word for our selves and cause And now if upon your presence only and that without speaking a word they vanished and were scattered how did they then vanish upon speaking for your selves and way and then how could this cloud of mistakes c. so easily blowne away by your breath nay without your breath be so great an affliction to you certainely you are men very tender of any mistake misapprehension or reproach upon you but I thinke it may be salved by your comparison as great to us as our former troubles and banishment both much alike great that is neither of them But what meane you by that parenthesis wherein we might seeme to differ did but your opinions seeme to differ from ours and doe they not really why then have you and doe you make all this adoe in our Church as for your opinions and wayes environed with mistakes and misapprehensions I know nothing for my part hath been fasten'd upon your wayes but what hath been found in letters manuscripts your known practises and in printed books of New-England and in the discourses of your own members and familiars But if some men who have not studied the points nor given themselves to understand your way did mistake and misapprehend you that was your own fault that walking so in the darke and having been so often desired to give a Narrative of what you hold in difference never yet would As for the calumnies east upon you of Schismes Independencie and Brownisme with the reasons inserted to vindicate your selves from them I shall first give a generall answer to them together and then to each of them apart 1. In generall how ever you doe in words wash your hands of these imputations and wipe your mouthes confidently denying them yet all the water in the Thames will not wash you from all just imputation of these It is no new thing for men who goe in bye wayes and maintaine errors whether more fundamentall or superstructory to abominate the names and titles given to those opinions whether from the Authors who first broacht them or from the matter of them and to deny the opinions and points charged upon them by finding out some distinctions or doubtfull words and expressions to cloud them with in which sense they wrap up themselves and deceive many and so give other names I might fill up a book in giving Instances out of antient and moderne writers of this Artifice Those who are commonly called Saracens their name is Haggarens as comming of Hagak but they would not be so called but name themselves Saracens sons of the free-woman The Schwenefeldians cal'd by Luther Philip Melancton and other famous Divines Stenckfeldians from the ill savour of their opinions yet Schuvenckfeldius entituled them with that glorious name the confessors of the glory of Christ. The Antinomians will not endure to be called by that name but stile themselves the Hearers of the Gospell and of Free-grace the old Separatists could not endure to be called Brownists or Barrowists as appeares by the title of Mr Robinsons Apologie so you will not endure the titles of Schisme Separation Independencie but you call it the Congregationall government and the Church way and an entire full compleate power but by no meanes Independent government that will not be indured As no sin will be called willingly by its own name but takes other names drunkennesse will be cal'd good fellowship covetousnesse good husbandry and providence so few errors will be called after the name of the first father or the matter simply they hold and I could give you many reasons of this amongst others take these 1. Many are possessed by books and arguments against such and such errours under such names and titles now that erroneous men may avoid all the dint of the arguments and the impressions such names and termes have left upon many they disclaime the ould and invent new words and phrases against which the people have not been possest the better to take them 2. Erroneous spirits would have nothing fixt or certaine to be fastned on them upon which able men might bring arguments and reasons against them But the reader shall see all this will not help you but that the just charge of these must lye upon you 2. To answer particularly You are justly charged of Schisme and Separation and if you consult with the Scriptures and Authors both antient and moderne Austin Calvin Zanchius Morneus Peter Martyr Iunius Perkins Parker and see what they write of schisme and separation you will be found guilty of it and as for the argument brought by you by which you would cleare your selves from schisme that it must either relate to your differing from the former Ecclesiasticall government of Bishops or to that constitution and government that is yet to come c. I answer though it relate to neither of them yet it may arise from other causes your disjunctive proposition doth not containe a full enumeration of all the causes or reasons of schisme for the non-conformists did of old differ from that former Ecclesiasticall government and yet were never justly accused of separation and schisme but writ most vehemently against it neither is schisme to be judged of upon some difference in judgement which may be from that constitution and government that is yet to come for though some men should differ from it as not holding it the best government yet so long as they separate not from the publike worship and ordinances neither doe draw people into separated Assemblies they cannot be charged with separation The ground therefore of schisme imputed to you comes as from your forsaking our publike Assemblies and separating from Gods ordinances and his servants because of mixt communion and setting up of Churches against our Church and going on still in that way notwithstanding all the Reformation begun and that which is likely to be perfected so also from not joyning your selves with the other reformed Churches But if you say that you cannot be counted guilty of schisme and separation because you doe not withdraw from us with condemnation of us as no true Churches nor true Ministers as the Brownists doe I answer you doe the same thing they doe though upon different grounds Now suppose a woman should withdraw from her husband and joyne to another ordinarily yet not with condemnation of him as no husband but would now and then keep communion with him suppose a servant forsake his Master and joyne to another yet comes away without rayling against him doth this justifie him But why make you such a businesse of it as you doe to forsake the communion of all our Churches and of all the reformed Churches and of joyning to Churches only of such a constitution if you condemned them
write in any other sense but in the point of Ecclesiasticall government and power did we lay to your charge in our writing against Independencie that you challenged an exemption of all Churches from all subjection and dependance or rather that you should blow a trumpet of desiance against what ever power spirituall or civill did I or any others charge you with refusing all subjection to the civill Magistrate And for that other dependance of consultation and non-non-communion upon other Churches the power you give in that kind to Synods c. I acknowledged it in my eight reason and argued from thence to the power of excommunication why then doe you deale thus deceitfully and doubly pretending to abhorre and detest Independencie as it was objected and pleaded against you when as besides the very words and phrases found in so many printed books and notes you hold all that in the question which is the difference betwixt you and the Presbyterians as also in some of your books Independent and entire power are termini convertibiles as in the title of Sions Prerogative Royall which entire full compleate power in terminis and in so many sillables you owne more then once in this Apologie so that all your great words of abhorring and detesting the exemption of your Churches from all power spirituall or civill will not save you from Independencie justly affixed unto you As for civill power it is not the question in controversie neither was it affixt unto you and for spirituall power properly cal'd you deny it all along in many pages speaking against authoritative power often page 15 18 19. And to put you this Dilemma either you give authoritative power to other Churches or you doe not if you doe give it why doe you speake so against it in your Apologie but if you doe not give it why would you make your Reader beleeve you doe give spirituall power and are not against it is not this doubling and shuffling and troubling the waters that the Reader cannot tell where to find you nor what you hold too great an evidence of a weake and bad cause becomming not such men as you would be taken for truth is open and naked and doth not seeke out holes and subterfugies But brethren doe not deceive your selves nor your Reader any longer if you be not against spirituall power properly so called of any Classes or Synods in reference to particular Congregations what meane you by all you say from page 12 to the end of the 19 and of all that controversie and Tragedies made by you against the reformed Churches for giving a power to Classes and Synods and let me intreate you that the controversie may be brought to some end between you and us in your Reply set down particularly what you will allow to Classes Synods generall Assemblies and Councels in matter of government and whether that you will allow and give Authority and power yea or no and what you will not give nor allow them and then state the question so and I doe promise you in my Rejoynder to apply my selfe to give you satisfaction as if you except Excommunication Ordination or what else to show you the grounds for them and if we love truth and peace either you shall win me or I you 3. For the odious name of Brownisme together with all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them must needs be owned by us I answer Brownisme as you in these words expresse it hath not been fastned on you by any that I know but on the contrary you have been commonly contra-distinguish'd from them being called Independents Semi-separatists and in my reasons against Independent government I doe in many passages difference you from them and for all their opinions as they have stated and maintained them namely drawing such consequences and conclusions and going so farre as they I have often vindicated you but yet for all that you cannot justly free your selves from the odious name of Brownisme in most of the fundamentall principles and practises of your Churches no not with all your Artifices and specious pretences As the Brownists growing up and out of the Anabaptists did refine and qualifie Anabaptisine in many things in government prophecying c. So have you refined and qualified Brownisme from the grossenesse and rigidnesse of it as it was held by the first Fathers and Authours of it as I could show in many particulars you doe not goe so farre as they neither are you against some practises of other Churches upon those high termes but yet for substance from the first stone to the last in departing from our Assemblies and constituting new you agree with them as by a paralell betweene the way of your Communion and the Separatists lately printed doth appeare And in a word it is evident thus You agree with the way of New-England as is confest by some of yourselves and we may judge so by your high praise of them Now the Churches of New-England agree with them of M. Robinsons Church who are moderate and qualified Brownists Now that the Church-way of New-England is the same with them of M. Robinsons Church is proved thus The Church at New-Plymouth was the first companie that planted in those parts who comming from Leiden where they were members of M. Robinsons Church a moderate Brownist in his latter time practised the Church-opinions and wayes they formerly had in Holland and when they of New-England went over first through their conversing with them and nearenesse of scituation they tooke up and learned their way as appeares by these particulars First M. W. an eminent man of the Church of New-Plymouth told W. R. that the rest of the Churches of New-England at first came to them of Plymouth to crave their direction in Church-courses and made them their patterne Secondly M. Cotton in a letter to M. Skelton one of the first Ministers that went over thither writes thus to him in way of answer to this Position that M. Skelton held That our Congregations in England are none of them particular Reformed Churches but M. Lathrops and such as his This errour requires rather a Booke then a letter to answer it you went hence of another judgement and I am afraid your change hath sprung from New-Plymouth men whom though I much esteeme as godly loving Christians yet their grounds which for this Tenet they received from M. Robinson doe not satisfie me Thirdly There is great commendations given to the Church of Plymouth by M. Cotton after comming to New-England in his letter to M. Williams pag. 13. Fourthly All the Ministers and Elders of New-England doe affirme that all the Churches in New-England viz. in the Bay in the jurisdiction of Plymouth and at Connetâ—…acute are one and the same way in Church constitution government and discipline without any materiall difference Now what can be said more plaine Adde to all these that I had it from the mouth of a
your brethren being of two distinct Churches and communions you setting up new because you cannot continue in the old with them and certainely men of one and the same Church and communion differ lesse among themselves then persons of a Church and communion set up against that Church but least from this passage your followers should make use to tax the Ministers of our Church who have desired Reformation with inconstancie and going according to the times and your selves make use of it to defend your running so farre in your way the Ministers differing farre more from themselves within this three yeares past then you doe from them I must propound this to prevent those consequences namely that most of your brethren both of the Assembly and of other parts of the Kingdome differ little from themselves in judgement from what they held three yeares past or many yeares past namely might they have had their desire and could their votes have carried it they would have voted out Ceremonies government by Arch-bishops Bishops c. this Lyturgie and Service-book and though they now practise not many things they did before but forbare yet some things are forborne as being matter of offence among the people and other things as having been an occasion of much hurt in the Church and now there being so open a dore for a full Reformation they doe labour after the best and follow what they judge most for edification now not condemning all their former practises especially considering those times unlawfull and sinfull And withall to consider us as those who in these former times for many yeares suffered even to exile for what the Kingdome it selfe now suffers in the endeavour to cast out and who in these present times and since the change of them have endured that which to our spirits is no lesse grievous the opposition and reproach of good men even to the threatning of another banishment and have been through the grace of God upon us the same men in both in the midst of these varieties And finally as those that doe pursue no other interest or designe but a subsistance be it the poorest and meanest in our own Land where we have and may doe further service and which is our birth-right as we are men with the enjoyment of the ordinances of Christ which are our portion as we are Christians with the allowance of a latitude to some lesser differences with peaceablenesse as not knowing where else with safety health and livelihood to set our feet on earth For my part I wonder with what face you can write this And withall to consider us as those who in these former times for many yeares suffered even to exile and bring it as an argument to the Parliament to consider you the more namely to grant you a toleration All the answer I shall returne is that the Parliament and Kingdome shall and may doe well to looke upon you and consider you instead of many yeares suffering even to exile as men who voluntarily went into another Countrey nigh at hand to live safely out of gun-shot and there lived richly plentifully and freely whilest other godly Ministers lived here in continuall feares dangers tossings suspensions attachments and consumptions of their estates It is strange that men should be so farre partiall as to frame an argument and make account the more to be considered and favoured for flying away and deserting the Cause in the open field Suppose some Captaines and Souldiers in the Parliaments service should put up a petition to the Houses forasmuch as they left the rest of the Army in distresse and withdrew in the day of battaile and never returned till the enemy was put to the worst and the battaile turned therefore they would be pleased to afford them an exemption from common taxes c. and vouchsafe them some speciall priviledge what would you think of such a motion the application is obvious you deserted the Cause and in as much as in you lay hazarded all and yet are not content with this to come in upon the victory and divide the spoiles with those who helped to winne the field to enjoy the prime Lectures and places in and neare the City both of note and profit with all respect and countenance from Parliament and City but you would have Peculiars and enjoy such a way as should shut out all in comparison an unreasonable request and a strange instance for all posterity if it should be granted For our parts many of us who bore the heate of the day stood to it and ventured breaking and undoing many times over request no such favour nor exemption but to take our lot in common with the Kingdome and Ministers in things established and I know no reason that upon any considerations either extrinsicall or intrinsicall you should be considered above the godly Ministers of the Church of England I know and could give many to the contrary but besides that I have before fully spoken more then once how little there is in this argument of yours so often inculcated of exile and suffering to exile the cause here rendred by you of your suffering even to exile namely for what the Kingdome it selfe now suffers in the endeavour to cast out is not true nor proper For however the Kingdome now suffers for casting out the Hierarchie and some corruptions in worship and for a Reformation according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed Churches yet your suffering unto exile was not for that for which the non-conformists more forward then you suffered but your leaving the Kingdome was to enjoy the Church way without which we suppose you will not be contented though Ceremonies Episcopacie and Lyturgie be now cast out by the Kingdome as the fruit of all their sufferings but if Presbyterie be setled and Independencie may not be tolerated you will goe away the second time and may be call that exile and banishment too As for your enduring in these present times and since the change of them that which to your spirits is no lesse grievous the opposition and reproach of good men by which you would further perswade and move the Parliament to allow you a Toleration let me minde you that I beleeve in no age five men practising and acting as you have done contrary to the Judgement of all the Churches and of the Ministers your brethren and that to the sensible disadvantage of the publique Reformation ever met with lesse opposition and contradiction of good men and as for reproach none at all I will not reiterate what I have formerly expressed in pag. 226 227. but it is beyond all president the silence compliance respects faire carriage you have been entertained with from the Ministers and good men neither Luther that eminent servant of God and excellent Instrument nor others could finde the like in their time from the Ministers differing from them and therefore the complaint is very groundlesse and to
and occasion of this feare which displeases you made Catholiques by the lawes of the Emperours from Constantine down to these present Emperours How many did therefore remaine Donatists because they were there borne and no men did compell them to come out from them and to goe to the Catholique Church The terrour of these Lawes in the promulgation of which the Kings of the earth served the Lord did so profit all these that now others say thanks be to God who hath broken our bonds and hath translated us to the bond of peace others sory we did not know this to be the truth neither would we have learned it if we had been left to our libertie but feare made us attentive to know it Others say we were terrified from entring in by false feares which we should never have knowne to have been false but by entring in neither should we have entred in unlesse we had been compelled And so Augustine against Gaudentius speakes thus Whereas you thinke none must be forced to truth who are unwilling you are deceived not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God which makes those willing who when they were compelled were unwilling And in his books of Retractations he gives the experience of this fifth Reason as the ground of retracting what he had formerly writ and held in this point Learned Beza observed it in his time that Tolerations of sects and Libertie of conscience as it was called was the ground of filling Polonia and Transylvania with so many pestilent opinions which otherwise no people under the Sunne would have suffered and that if the Magistrate had tried by all meanes in Transylvania c. to have restrained that libertie they had not been brought to that condition which he judged no lesse miserable then Mahumetisme it selfe And he wishes that France had given Polonia an example of this one thing and showes the great difference between the peace and true liberty of conscience enjoyed at Geneva and in Polonia one granting Tolerations the other none So he shewes the benefit and good of compulsion I passe by that Augustine being taught by experience it selfe witnessed so often against the Donatists many to be of that disposition that they are by nothing more kept in dutie then by severity of Discipline so that what at first they left for feare of punishment afterwards they willingly cast away professing the sharpnesse used to have been very profitable We have seene also by our own experience in this intermysticall season though there hath been no formall Toleration yet for want of Government setled and people having been left to so great libertie multitudes are fallen and doe daily to Antinomianisme Anabaptisme Independencie yea to denie the Immortalitie of the Soule and then no expectation but many will fall more and more Independents and all kinde of Sectaries as long as they can have their libertie snuffe up the wind will not hearken to any way whereby they may receive satisfaction but if once the Magistrate declares and by laws concludes one way of Church-worship and Government then it may be they will heare Reason Men as long as they have any hopes will stand out who yet when they see no remedie will examine and consider Now what account God will exact for his Name prophaned for the Sacraments and Scriptures abused by the handling and administration of them who are not called and what answer must be made for the ruine of Soules harvest of sinne corruption of doctrine alwayes following the publike Toleration of heresies and schismes I humbly leave to be fully considered of and wisely prevented by the High Court of Parliament who must thinke that silence provokes and sufferance emboldens men to forsake Gods Truth and his Church even as in civill affaires the neglecting of justice maintains disorders 6. A Toleration of one or more different wayes of Churches and Church Government from the Church and Church Government established will be to this Kingdome very mischievous pernitious and destructive in regard of the effects and consequents of it how faire soever a Toleration may be pretended and how small soever the differences yet 't is of a vast and dreadfull consequence to this Kingdome Different Formes of Churches and Church Government in one state must needs lay a foundation of strife and division therein It is the admitting of a seed of perpetuall division within its selfe an opening a sluce to let in strife and contentions in all places publike and private Church and Common-wealth in Parliaments Corporations among the Ministers in Families Now how great an evill this is all wise states know and can stand with no Christian policie however it may agree with Machiavillian The different Interests and Principles of the Churches established and tolerated with other things concurrent especially in the partie tolerated apprehending themselves the weaker will be working in them to watch all advantages to grow and increase and to get into places and favour with great men and Princes as we see the Heretiques did in Ecclesiasticall Histories and the Arminians in the Netherlands with the Magistrates and will never rest working till they get the upper hand and suppresse the other But besides the continuall heart-burnings and divisions betweene the Ministers of the different Churches the people among themselves the husband and wife with the corruption of doctrine a Toleration will be a likely meanes of producing civill warres in this land and whereas now we have a warre between King and Parliament we may expect a warre amongst the people yea the Toleration desired would prove a mighty advantage for the Court party to make use of those sects and by enlarging some favours to them being the weaker partie to gain them by their help to overthrow the Government established and to advance the Prerogative the sad effects and mischiefes already without any formall Toleration of the different Churches and Governments doe appeare in the jealousies divisions delayes laying down of places in not being so active c. whereby the Court partie is strengthened Reformation hindred and the good partie weakned Now considering the many dangerous effects and consequents of a Toleration to this state and considering the small differences betweene the Apologists and the Presbyterians as themselves say and that they can for a need come to our Churches and partake in the Sacraments hold Communion with us as the Churches of Christ why should they have different Churches and Government allowed The Parliament upon so small a ground and needlesse a cause hath the lesse cause to give way to a Toleration which would certainely produce so great mischiefs and evils 7. Independencie and the Church way besides the evill of it in its selfe considered as being a schisme in forsaking the reformed Churches and constituting new the way of constituting Churches by the people the way of making their Ministers the refusing of beleevers and their children to the Sacraments
unlesse they be Church members with many more all slat against the Primitive patterns hath ever been from first to last a fountaine of evill and a root of bitternesse of many bitter divisions and separations amongst themselves of manifold errors and other mischiefes in those Churches and places where they lived God having alwayes witnesses against it and never blessing it with peace and truth I shall not need to relate the histories of the Anaptists the highest forme of Independencie and the Church way what evils they fell into and the mischiefes they brought upon Germanie and how God cursed and scattered them As for the Brownists the middle forme of Independencie the Apologists themselves confesse they had fatall miscarriages and shipwracks And I could tell a sad storie but that it would be now too long even from Bolton and Browne the first and prime leaders down to the present Brownists at Amsterdam of the Apostasies Heresies Separations and bitter divisions with the untimely fearefull ends which have fallen out amongst them but in respect my booke so much exceeds the proportion intended I shall reserve that for a more distinct handling And for the semi-Brownists and Independents so cal'd by way of distinction they have not been free The Churches of the Apologists have had their bitter divisions and fearefull miscarriages as the Reader may remember in these pages of this present Answer pag. 35 36 37 142 143 144. with some erroneous conceits fallen into and preached in one of their Churches So in the Churches of New-England there have been so many errors differences and evils that I beleeve had we but a true impartiall storie of New-England for the first seven or eight yeares after they were come to any number we should have the strangest storie next that of the Anabaptists and old Brownists one of them in the world in a word they were brought by their Independencie and Church principles next dore to ruine both spirituall and temporall the sad experience of which hath made them wheele about of later yeeres towards Presbyteriall government and in stead of that not being yet formally come to it to take aliquid analogum in the first constituting of Churches making Ministers c. which at first they did not and to give more power to Classes and Synods then they did many yeares agoe as by comparing some Letters from thence in those times written by Ministers over into England and Mr Cottons late booke will be evident In a word he that will observe it shall find the end of Independencie infinite schismes separations errors inconstancie and uncertainty in judgement yea barbarisme and confusion and the Toleration of it by this State would be the opening of a sloud-gate to many other errors and evills besides what evill is in that being a way all along wherein it â—…iffers from the reformed Churches either beside or against the word of God And should the Parliament which God forbid and I hope is farre from their thoughts give the Independents a Toleration of their way and Churches they should give they know noâ—… what having never yet spoken out all that they hold this Apologie containing but a little part of their way besides taking in their second great principle page 10. Apolog of not making their present judgement and practise a binding law for the future the Parliament may grant grosse Brownisme Anabaptisme within a short time many falling off according their principles of new light to cast off communion with their own Churches as some of Mr Sympsons have done and let it be but remembred what I now write whether some of the Apologists if they come not in and joyne with the reformed Churches doe not within a few yeeres goe a great way further I think had they staid together in Holland till this time without any hopes of a Toleration here some of them had gone farre by this time of day Anointing with oyle was begun to be brought in Hymnes had been moved for in one of their Churches and if I may beleeve the report of a religious Person in an open company affirming it againe and againe when I doubted it that a member of the Church of Aâ—…nheim who was also named to me related that had they staid there a little longer the ordinance of Hymnes had been practised amongst them one being chosen and agreed upon by the Church to exercise that ordinance And I am able to demonstrate it that the Apologists keeping but to their principles besides the principle of a Reserve must yet goe a great way further and supposing the Parliament should make a proposition to them Wee will grant you this and this and so which be the present principlâ—…s you hold forth but if you bring in any thing more or goe farther then your Churches shall be dessolved and we will recall what we granted you because we will be sure to know what we allow in matters of Religion be at a certaintie for that I doe not thinke the Apologists would accept of a Toleration upon those tearmes and such a condition The beginnings of errors commonly are most modest but let alone some time they exceed all bounds how farre most of the Arminians proceeded beyond what Arminius held or themselves at first the learned books of many Divines and experience showes and if a Toleration were granted to the Apologists and all those of their communion to exercise their consciences I feare before a yeere went about many would turne Anabaptists c. but I desire rather to pray against a toleration then to prophecie of the evill of it But supposing the best that can be that the State had an Assurance the Apologists and their Churches would not goe one step further then now they hold the Toleration should not be made use of to any further errors yet the Parliament should not allow it unlesse they would grant a Toleratiod of Brownisme and if Brownisme be a bitter error and way then the way of the Apologists is not very sweet their way being but Browns younger brother agreeing with the Brownists in the nature and definition of the visible Church in the Independent power of a particular Congregation in the way of making Officers in the way of their ordinancâ—…s as Prophesying in the way of Forms of Prayer in the Sacraments none to be admitted but Church members cum multis alijs and I desire the Apologists to give any materiall difference however their grounds are different and they doe not goe so farre in consequences nor are not so grosse between their Churches and the Brownists As for that of the power of the people and the Officers in giving the power to the Officers but the Brownists to the people I answer however the Apologists differ in that point from the Brownists in words phrases methods and give us many fine words and flattering similitudes going about yet the truth is they differ not in substance in their practise but all comes to one end and
matters of difference in the Assembly whereby it might be brought to an Uniformitie you endeavour by this Apologie a Toleration and sue for an exemption of Conjunction and Uniformitie in Church Government which is strange you should desire especially having coveâ—…anted to the contrary which breach of covenant is aggravated also that you do not onely do it your selves but you labour to bring the Houses into it by moving them to grant you a Toleration Now if a simple and single untruth need repentance what repentâ—…nce ought there to be for such a compounded aggravated evill as yours â—…s And as I have represented it to your own consciences that you may smite upon the thigh so I turne you over to your Churches whereof you are Ministers that they deale with you for your great sin and either bring you to Conâ—…ion and Repentance or else proceed to censure did I know where your Churches dwelt and where they meet I might then come and complain to them of your great sin but in stead of comming I send them this Answer and hereby give them notice and 〈◊〉 ready to satisfie any that shall desire further proofe and in stead of declaring by letters the offence I doe by printing declare it and require of the Churches especially Mr Sympsons Church as they will not be guilty of suffering known sinne in the Church as they would not suffer sinne to lye upon a brother and as they would vindicate the glory and honour of Christ that they call Mr Sympson to an account and admonish him and bring him to publike repentance for his publike sin or else upon impenitencie and obstinacie that they cast him out of the Church and I beleeve the sin he is charged with will fall under the subject of that dreadfull sentence according to what sins your selves judge that sentence is to be put in execution for Apol. pag. 9. But if Mr Sympsons Church neglect and will not question this sin then I desire the rest of the Churches of that Communion to send to the Churches of the Apologists and to charge them with their countenancing of sin and if the Churches will still beare and wink at sin and continue impenitent that then the rest of the Churches namely Mr Lockiers Mr Carters Dr Holmes c. doe pronounce the heavy sentence of non-Non-communion against the Apologists Churches and further to dèclare and protest this with the causes thereof to all other Churches of Christ that they may doe the like to send also to New-England and give notice to all the Churches of the Separation that they may non-Non-communion the Apologists Churches But if the particular Churches of the Apologists and all the Churches of their owne Communion will all hold to favour sin neither question the Apologists nor their Churches then we shall have a cleare instance of the partialitie of those Churches and of their allowing of sin among themselves and of the insuâ—…ticiencie of those Remedies of Submission Non-Communion Declaration and Protestation FINIS * Calv. epist. 65. Melanct. Verum si in nobis omnibus esset is animus qul esse debet aliquod forsan remedium posset inveniti Et certè foedum exemplum transmiâ—…imus ad posterot c. August Vincentio Epist. 48. Nunc vero etiam si tibi nihil profit non puto nihil ijs profuturam qui eam legere cum Deitimore sine personarum acceptione curaverint a Beza Epist. 1. And 1. Duditio Dominus te totamque familiam ob omni malo ac praesertim a Daemoniss meridianis istie obambulantibus custodiat * Mat. 1. v. 18 19. Acts 7. from v. 2. to v. 57. Acts 22. v. 1. to v 2â—… Acts cap 24. Acts cap. 26. a Justin. Mart. 2. Apolog. pro Christianis Tertul. Apol. Athenag Apol. vel legatio pro Christianis Athanas. Apol. Arnobij Apol. Eulog Apologâ—…t Sanctorum Martyr b Zuinglij Apol qua ad crimina respondet Apologet. contra Episcop Constant. Bucer Apolog. contra Brentium Dannaei Apolog. pro Helvet Ecclesijs Apolog Dan. pro adoratione Melancthonis Apol. August consess Apolog. pro Luthero Gualtb Apol pro Zuinglio Beza Apolog. Jevelli Apolog. Eccl. Anglicanae Mort. Apol. Cathol c Scâ—…venfeld Apol. contra Fabium Apol ad Regeâ—… Hung. de mediatione Stancari Apolog. Vorstij Theses Apolog. Exeg Apol. Oratio Apolog. Bertij Apolog. Apolog. Remonstrantium Apolog. Schast Francae D. P. Dirick Pâ—…ps Apol Apolog. Episcop Francisc. de S tâ— Cl. d Apologie of the Brownists Robins Apolog. Justif. of Separat e Apolog. for Ch. Cove Apol. Reply Davenport * Page 4. 11 19 12 24. Apolog. Apolog. M S. to A. S. cap. 5. pag. 83. Apolog. Dissert de Guber Eccl. pag. 620. Quinam bujuâ—… criminis rei judicentur me quidem latet neque in qirere ad nos attinet Hoc scio noâ—… convenire in eos qui intra sententiae nostrae terminos se continent Apolog. To his loving friends Mr Henry King Mr Tost Mr Smith Mr Raner Mr Mapp Apolog. Apol. Iusta necessaria per Joh. Robins cap. 6. De conjugio per pastores Ecclesiae celebrato Reformat of Ch. Govern in Scotland pag. 4 5 18 19. Reformat of Ch. Govern in Scotland pag. 10. Reformat of Ch. Govern pag. 18. 'T is laid for a common ground by the Divines in all the â—…eformed Churches that where a whole Nation is converted to the Christian faith every particular Church is not to be left to it selfe as if it were alone in a Nation but that Christ hath provided a way and there is a necessity of a common Nationall government to preserve all the Churchâ—… in unitie and peace Apolog. Page 9. Meâ—…ch Adam vita Whitak pag. 177. Mr Raâ—…b Narration of Ch. courses p. 1. The rest of the Churches in New-England came at first to them in Plimouth to crave their direction in Ch. courses and made them their patterne Apolog. Letter Mr Cottons letter examined and answered pag. 44. Mr Cotton himselfe and other most eminent Ministers in Nâ—…w-England had freely confessed that notwithstanding their former profession of Ministerie in old England yet in New-England till they received a particular calling from a particular Church that they were but private Christians Apolog. Robin p. 10 11. c. 12. de Eccl. Angl. * Robins Apol. cap. 12. p 78. Propria inquâ—… peculiaria in quibus verbi auditionem simpliciter noâ—… annumero â—…pote inqua non intercedit inter docentem discentem communio spiritualiâ—… sive Eccl. sive personalis nisi ex unione prae via Ecclesiastica aut personall Robins Catechis Quest. May all the faithfull partake in the Sacraments Ans. No except they be also added to some particular Congregation Apolog. Letter out of Holland De Ecclesijs reformatis quid aliud dicam eas pro veris genuinis c. Ecclesijs bahemus cum eisdem in sacris Dei communionem prositemur quantum in nobis est colimus conciones publicas ab illarum pastoribus habitas ex