separate from Christian Congregations for that they have not been otherwise baptized than in their Infancy and which deny Church Communion with them to be lawful for that reason and practise upon it accordingly For this is a Causless and unwarrantable rent and breach made in the body of Christ the universal Church which is Schism in the formality of it Nay it is Schism of a higher nature than ordinary The Schism in the Church of Corinth and the like in other Churches which was so much condemned in the Apostles Epistles as that scarce any thing was more was but a proud uncharitable and unpeaceable faction and siding in a particular Church which did not proceed so high as to separation of one part of the Church from the other in publick worship and Church Communion Nor was such a thing at all practised then by any Christians upon any occasion though there were great disorders among them but only by such as St. Jude saith were sensual not having the spirit ver 19. And if Schism was so highly condemned when it never rose to that height among Christians as to deny Communion one with another in the publick worship to be lawful What can we think of such a Schism then as for you without cause to deny the lawfulness of holding Communion with almost all the Churches of Christ in the World except those few Congregations which have been rebaptized and to practise accordingly not to mention your censuring them to be no true Churches nor any member of them properly a Christian but people of the World If the little Schisms in the Church which never proceeded to separation were thought of such ill consequence by the Apostles as that they laboured hardly in any thing more in their Epistles than to prevent and suppress them Then certainly such a Schism as yours cannot in reason but be of as much more a criminal nature and of so much worse consequence as the unchurching of almost all Christian Churches in the World is worse than those lesser divisions in the Church were notwithstanding which they kept on foot their Communion in the solemn worship The Schism which consisted in separation we see was perpetrated by none then but those vile Gnosticks who though they pretended to more knowledge and perfection than was in them they withdrew from yet such was the opinion the Apostles had of them and their separation as that they were not afraid to say they were sensual not having the spirit Which I note not as judging you to be as bad men as those Gnosticks were setting aside your Schism but to put you in mind that notwithstanding the great disorders that were in those Churches and the want of the due exercise of Discipline in the Church of Corinth and several of the seven Churches of Asia yet no good Christians then ever attempted to erect separate Communities for reformation sake much less were ever encouraged so to do by the Apostles but the quite contrary Now if the Apostles had such a deep sense of the mischievous nature and effects of Schism as put them upon such strenuous endeavours to prevent or supress it as we find they used Methinks this should awaken you to reflect upon your selves and what you have done by your separation in making such a rent as you have done in the Church of God and what the effects of it have been I know you cannot be without all sense of what sad effects our Church divisions have produced Such as is the exposing of our holy Religion to the scorn and contempt of Atheists Infidels and Papists and the tempting of those to become such which were not so before and such as is the discomposing unsetling and confounding the minds of many well meaning and well-designing but injudicious people to the betraying them into the hands of Seducers who have made their advantage of our divisions and such as is the diverting of mens minds from the serious consideration study and practice of the weightier matters of Religion and the engaging them in contentious Janglings and uncharitable Censurings and Revilings to the destruction of true Christian Charity and Piety and the placing Religion much in opinion and in being of a different form and party and such as is the exposing of us all to the danger of the breaking in of Popery by strengthening their hands who are of that way and by weakening our own and by incouraging them in hopes of prevailing at last to practise upon us and by all their Arts to improve the advantage we have put into their hands by our divisions and distractions You cannot be ignorant how many have taken their way to Quakerism and Scepticism through your Congregations like wandering stars having first left the Parochial Assemblies have promised themselves this and that satisfaction first in one new form and then in another until they have run themselves out of breath and at last quite lost themselves and seldom returning And if upon review and examination you find as doubtless you may that your separation which with the separation of others hath brought forth such bitter fruit hath proceeded on mistaken grounds and been undertaken without any just cause what work then will here be for repentance that ever you have been accessary to such mischiefs as those before-mentioned are and what need is there for you that are Leaders to sound a retreat to your followers I can assure you it hath been matter of no small humbling to some when they have perceived the bad effects of such separation that ever they had their hands in it The sense of which bad effects also first put them upon such a serious review of the grounds on which they first set out in it as by means whereof they came to discover the weakness and unsoundness of those grounds And as what I have herein done to help you to a sight of your mistake is intended as a real service to you so I ought to presume that it cannot but be judged to be so by such as are sincere lovers of truth if they can receive thereby any such benefit as is designed them by it And if any shall receive conviction and yet for their reputation sake among their party and for fear of the reproach of inconstancy shall still persist in their way contrary to the conviction of their own mind let them consider that such will hardly be able to buy the truth with the price of liberty estate or life that are scared from a publick owning of it by the corrupt breath of such injudicious and heady persons which cannot excuse them by answering for them to God to whom every one must give an account for himself Let it be remembred who and what they were who believed on Christ and yet would not confess that they did because they loved the praise of men of their own party more than the praise of God Joh. 12.42 43. and who they were that could not believe because they
respects than such as amount to saving grace or internal holiness Then your principle and the principle of others in the Congregational way cannot be sound when you and they assert That none are to be owned as members of the visible Church so as to be received into Church Communion who are not in the Judgment of Charity savingly sanctified For we see others than such are in Scripture account owned as really members of the visible Church And therefore the opinion and practice both of you and them in this can be no other than an innovation and humane invention and which hath been one principal cause of so much division in the Church and of the sad effects of it as we have already seen I have nothing to say against exercising as much Charity in your opinion of others as you can But that 's no judgment of Charity nor of truth neither to judg those no visible Church Members for want of saving Grace which yet are so in the judgment of God himself by the Scriptures And men should not pretend to be wiser than their Maker or think to find out better methods than he hath pitcht upon for the promoting his ends his own Glory and mans Salvation But when they do they lightly do in the total and at the long run but frustrate and disappoint those ends or greatly hinder them and promote those of a worse nature The Judgment of Charity in this matter is a rule arbitrary and uncertain and will vary as mens opinions and affections vary and he shall be a good Christian in the charitable judgment of some that shall be denied to be so in the judgment of others To set up this judgment of Charity for a rule in this matter is indeed a way like unto which there is none that I can think of so prepared and fitted to make parties and Sects in the Church as that is But to own all to be of the visible Church who are converted from a false to the profession of the true Religion and the little Children of such and the successors of such in the same profession until they desert the Church or are worthily and deservedly and in a regular way of proceeding Excommunicated is to walk by an open manifest certain and fixt rule which had it been duly observed would have preserved the Church in Unity and Peace which now is lamentably divided and disturbed by introducing other measures Which brings me to the next thing to be enquired into The next thing then which as I say we will enquire into is how or in what respect little Children were members and a part of the Old Testament Church and capable of the then initiating Ordinance And by what hath been before proved I think we may safely conclude that it was not meerly upon the account of their natural descent from Abraham or from Abrahams Seed according to the flesh For Abraham as he was Father to the Church or Church members as such it was not in his natural but his religious capacity that he was so it was as he was a believer that he was and yet is the Father of Believers And accordingly all that were of the Church whether young or old were so upon a religious account in one respect or other The Church is not a Natural Political or Civil Community but a Religious or Spiritual Community And therefore all persons and so little Children that were of the Church must needs in one respect or other have been persons of a Religious or spiritual consideration This I think is past dispute And yet I think that the little Children which were of the Church could not be looked upon to be in that religious capacity actively or by any act of their own while but little ones but were passively such This considered I know not upon what better to place the visible Church-membership of Infants or to attribute it to than Gods electing and calling them to be his people and their Parents dedicating and devoting them to God and his service First God chose them to be his people among the rest Deut. 4.37 Because he loved thy fathers therefore he chose their seed after them This was the adoption of which St. Paul speaks Rom. 9.4 Now Gods thus chusing them to be his people and declaring that he had chosen them as he did in promising to be their God was one degree of separating them from the rest of the World and by which they became a holy seed relatively holy I mean But this was not all but they became his people by Gods calling them to be so as well as by his election and promise The Lord by his Prophet stiled the whole body of the people of the Jews Israel my called Isa 48.12 By this call of his they were in a further degree separated to God as his people and differenced from the Heathen Nations that were under no such call Now God then calleth persons to be his people when he placeth them in such circumstances or vouchsafeth them such means as by which they do or will come to take him for their God and to imbrace the Religion which is of God Now as to the manner of this call it is either extraordinary or ordinary As for Abraham himself he seems to have been called by God in a way extraordinary by his appearing and speaking to him as he did in Mesopotamia Acts 7.2 But his seed and posterity were called in an ordinary way by being educated from their Childhood in Abrahams Religion by their Parents deriving it from Abraham and so successively from one Generation to another from Generation to Generation according to Psal 78.5 6. The Lord established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a Law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their Children that the generation to come might know them even the Children which should be born who should arise and declare them to their Children that they might set their hope in God And in this way the little Children who were then members of the Church as all confess were called to that Church membership unless you can suppose that any can be Members of the Church without being called to it And it was doubtless the Election and Call aforesaid by which little Children were brought into that spiritual relation to God and his people which qualified them for a solemn admission into the Church by the Church initiating Ordinance for the time then being which other Children were not duly capable of who were not under that Election and Call God's placing those Infants in such circumstances as was their being under the care and tutorage of such Parents as would issue in their owning God for their God and his Religion for the way of their worshiping and serving him was his calling of them in the beginning of it unto such a profession And the Scripture useth to reckon little Children as having begun to do this or that
Anabaptists more true to their principles than they and that then the baptizing of persons may be as well deferred till they have special grace as their particular Church-membership may and so upon that account among others have gone over to them Secondly hereby some who may have no saving grace are in great danger of being betrayed into self flattery and into a being confident that they have because so good and knowing a Congregation as they esteem such a Church to be hath judged that they have and so rest secure in an unsafe condition Which made several of the New-England Ministers after their long experience of the effects of this way at last in their joint answer to Mr. Davenports Apologetical Preface p. 43 44. to say thus Indeed when men confound these two and do tie visible Church-membership unto such conditions and qualifications as are enough to salvation this may tend to harden men and to make them conceit that if they be got into the Church they are sure of heaven whenas alas it may be they are far from it Thirdly A guiltiness of a great Schism in the Church and consequently of the many sad effects of it some of which I have mentioned before If the separation built upon the principle under consideration had been matter of duty by vertue of that principle they that have engaged in it would not have been accountable for the evils consequent upon it no more than they were of setting Father against Son and Son against Father Mother against Daughter and Daughter against Mother by preaching the Gospel Lu. 12.53 But whosoever hath undertaken a separation from though but part of the Church upon insufficient grounds and mistaken principles must be accountable for the ill effects and consequences of it until they repent and leave off as well as for the Schism it self which caused them But now I have already represented to you why a Judgment in the Church that persons have not saving grace cannot be the rule of non-admission of them to particular Church Communion supposing them to have been baptized into the Church Universal and I have shewed likewise how that in the account of Scripture such have been visible Church-members and externally related to God and to Christ and called by his name and denominated Saints upon another account than that of saving grace or internal holiness Which if truly represented then it cannot be matter of duty but the contrary to ground a separation from such Congregations as are constituted upon other terms and because they are so In that those of the Churches mentioned in Scripture have been stiled Saints it is no argument why none are to be admitted to Church-fellowship but such as are Saints in a saving sense though this principle of separation I now speak of is wont to be grounded on that For some in those Churches which were not Saints in that sense were yet stiled Saints from their being separated and set apart to own and profess the worshipping of the most holy God only and to be of his holy Religion as I have shewed both in this discourse and elsewhere more at large Saints then was the common appellation of those that profest the Christian Religion as Christian is now and was not then used to discriminate the sincere from the unsound Christians as it is now This was a device of a later date and is too like that of the Church of Rome which does appropriate the honour of being Saints unto such only as they esteem to have been eminently Religious The conclusion then is that if the separation of these friends with that of your own be unaccountable from the Scriptures then they and you must needs be accountable for it as an unlawful and naughty Schism and for the many evils produced by it until pardon be obtained by repentance which none can promise themselves but upon reformation THE last thing I shall observe from the foregoing discourse is that it doth afford us a substantial ground for National Churches That is it affords us ground to conclude that the whole body of a Nation who are baptized into the Universal Church and that profess Gods true Religion are in that respect subject matter of a Church though this is indeed a thing which lies cross to your thoughts and which you are wont to oppose with some indignation The whole body of the Nation of the Jews as was shewed before were by Gods call and their profession Abrahams Spiritual Seed and as such were Church matter and a Church inorganically considered And for the same reason if the whole body of a Nation now by Gods call and their profession of the true Religion become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a sense they must needs be as well National Church matter as the Nation of the Jews were Now that other Nations which have profest Gods true Religion have thereby become Abrahams Spiritual Seed in a large sense as well as the Nation of the Jews ever were we have good reason to believe not only from the nature of the thing it self but also from the Scriptures The Lord said unto Abraham My Covenant is with thee and thou shalt be a father of many Nations a father of many Nations have I made thee Gen. 17.4 5. Which is not to be understood in a restrained sense of his being a father of many Nations by natural generation only but also if not only of his being a spiritual father of many Nations who were to derive their being and what they should be in a spiritual or religious capacity from him from whom the true saving doctrine hath been since propagated first to the Nation of the Jews and then to Nations of the Gentiles And thus St. Paul interprets the aforesaid promise of God to Abraham Rom. 4.16 17. That the promise might be sure to all the seed not to that only which is of the law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all as it is written I have made thee a father of many Nations Now if Abraham be hath been and shall be a spiritual Father of many Nations then many Nations must needs be his spiritual Children For Father and Children are corlaretives and in what sense the one is a Father the other must be his Children And when St. Paul saith if ye be Christs then are ye Abrahams seed Gal. 3.29 is true of all that are so and in the same sense in which men are Christs in that sense they are Abrahams Seed whether it be by profession only or by a sound Faith also And in correspondence to all this the Kingdoms of this World are said to become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Which must be understood of their becoming professors of the Gospel of Christ or the Christian Religion Revel 11.15 And this hath come to pass according as was foretold by the Prophets as well as to Abraham himself To instance in one instead
our Liturgical Form of Administration or that it might be mended or a better way pitcht upon if the Higher Powers over us thought it fit if this should be granted yet this is no argument why you may lawfully separate It is not its being less useful or less desireable to you than it might be made that will bear you out in your separation so long as you should do nothing in it self sinful in worshipping God in the use of it The question is not at all whether this or another way were most eligible were you at liberty to chuse without danger of making any Schism But the great question to which you must bring your selves is Which is most eligible whether to do that which comparatively you think is inconvenient less profitable less useful but yet not unlawful or to make your selves guilty of a great and notorious Schism and therein of a great Sin and thereby also to make your selves accountable for the most dismal effects of our sad breaches and divisions the very thought or suspicion of which is enough to make the stoutest heart to tremble Do not flatter your selves with this and that apology and pretence for this seems to be clearly the State of your Case You talk of more purity of Communion for the sake whereof you separate but if you make your selves guilty of Schism to obtain a more pure Communion and such a Schism as hath already produced most lamentable effects in vain do you flatter your selves with a conceit of a more pure Communion For your Communion being founded in a great Schism must needs pollute it and make it far more impure than Parochial Communion can upon any reasonable account be suspected to be You cannot say Parochial Communion is at all impure because a man does not defile himself with sin in making his way to it or having his share in it as they do that make their way to yours through a sinful Schism So that upon the whole matter there is incomparably more cause to scruple Communion in your Assemblies under your circumstances than Communion in our Parish Congregations Nor does a defect in the exercise of Discipline by reason whereof some are admitted perhaps to Parochial Communion that should be debar'd it make the Communion impure to them who cannot help it A man is to examine himself and then he may eat of that bread and drink of that Cup his examining anothers Case is not made the condition of it There were but a few names in the Church of Sardis but what had defiled their garments and were dead having only a name to live and yet those few held Communion in the same Church without defiling their own Revel 3.4 You may if you please exercise that Discipline which the Scripture directs private persons to use towards scandalous Church-members that is not to keep Company with them or to eat or drink with them in a way of familiar voluntary and unnecessary Conversation 2 Thes 3.14 1 Cor. 5.11 But this is no bar against doing your duty in coming to Gods Ordinances and in Communicating with others there who have not so defiled themselves as was said before The want of due Discipline is indeed a great Calamity but Discipline is not of the essence of the Church no more than the rod is of the Family but is only necessary for the well being and good Government of it THere are two things I perceive which some of you make much of The one is that when any thing becomes a condition of Communion which is vehemently suspected to be unlawful it frees a man from the guilt of Schism although he break Communion upon it The other is that when that is imposed as a condition of Communion which ought not to be made a condition if Schism be occasioned thereby the guilt of it lies only on the imposers and not on them upon whom it is imposed It argues in my opinion that arguments run very low with you when you are fain to make shift with such as these For the first of these Mens opinions of things or suspicious concerning them does not alter the nature of the things themselves or make that no Schism which is so in it self It may make a difference in the nature of the offence to be greater or lesser before God according as men have been diligent or negligent in the use of means to understand their duty in order to practice but does by no means excuse them from all guilt in the Case for the reason aforesaid This Position therefore is doubtless false But is there indeed such a virtue in suspicion as to sanctifie Schism it self and to make it to be no Schism though otherwise it were Why then I pray you will not your suspicion do as much on the other hand Why does not your suspicion of making your selves guilty of a notorious Schism make that very lawful for you to do to avoid it which were it not for the danger of Schism and the evil of thwarting publick Laws might otherwise seem inconvenient for you to do Is there more danger in doing that in the doing whereof it is uncertain to you whether you do well or ill in reference to your personal concern than there is in doing that which it's certain tends to so publick a hurt and damage as Schism does When you alledge Rom. 14.23 where it 's said he that doubteth is damned if he eat because he eateth not of faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sin I say when you alledge this to justifie your Schism upon the account of your doubting of the lawfulness of some things in the administration of holy things you make things equal in your apprehension which are altogether unequal in themselves The Case there touched was about the eating or not eating of such meats the eating of which the Christians were not obliged to by any Law of God or Man in which Case a man might be sure he should not offend against either in forbearing to eat that about which the doubt was raised nor against the publick peace of the Church But you are at no such liberty in your Case it is not a matter of such indifferency whether you make a Schism in the Church and act contrary to publick Laws as it was for a man to forbear one sort of food by the forbearing of which he should do no hurt to the Church by disturbing the peace of it nor to Religion by causing it to be evil spoken of But yet that is not all but your case and that there spoken of is vastly different in another respect The doubting of some Christian Jews touching the lawfulness of eating some meats which the Christian Gentiles did eat without scruple did arise from a want of satisfaction in their own minds touching the abrogation of the Mosaical Law by which the eating of those meats was once expresly forbidden So that your case is no ways parallel with theirs there handled by the
account of our divisions so as it never would have done if they never had been begun besides the hazard we run of exposing our posterities to lose the substance by our contending for circumstance and besides the temptation we have thereby put upon men to call the whole of Christianity into question and thereupon to give reins to their lusts more than ever before since the Reformation was first made I pray God so to bind the consideration of these things upon your minds that you may be awakened thereby out of I know not what dream into which a great many of the good people of this Nation have fallen There is nothing hardly in Christianity more evident than that matters of less moment are to give way to those of greater circumstance to substance conveniencies to necessaries a less convenience to a greater a greater inconveniency to a less duties only by Positive Institution to those which are morally or naturally such as might be shewed in many other Scriptures Hos 6.6 Mat. 12.4 5 6 7. besides those now touch'd on about Christian liberty And I think nothing gives a more direct contradiction to all this than the Schism that is made among us or the things by which it is made because by this you make matters of greater moment to truckle and yield to those that are less circumstance to substance matters necessary to those of conveniency a greater convenience to a less and so on For I appeal to the light of your own reason and to your Conscience whether the affairs of Religion in reference to the Church of God and to the World are so much concerned in having Gods worship and Ordinances administred in your way rather than in the way of the Church of England as they are in the peace and unity of the Church and in what depends upon them Whether the Souls of men in general both of those which adhere to you and of those which do not are advantaged by your way of administration above what they are and would be in the way of the Church of England more than they are hurt by the division and separation that is made about that difference Whether the Christian Religion be more honoured abroad in other Nations among Christians and Infidels by the one than hurt by the other Whether the Protestant Cause both at home and abroad gains more by the one than it is hurt by the other and whether more secured to posterity by the one than endangered by the other Whether error and heresie be more supprest by the one than propagated by the other and lastly whether Charity Humility and other Christian vertues or graces wherein the substance and power of Religion consists are farthered in your way above what they are and would be in the way of the Church of England more than they are hindered by Schism and separation Now if the affairs and concerns of Religion among men do in these and many other respects lose more by your Schism than they get by having the worship of God administred in your way rather than in the way of the Church of England as doubtless they do and the thing is too manifest to be denied Then you must needs be as certainly guilty of making matters of greater moment to stoop and submit to those of less as ever the Pharisees were of passing over the weightier matters of the Law and contenting themselves that they tithed Mint Anise and Cummin There is no such proportion of value in your way of external administration of holy things as different from that of the Church of England as makes it worthy to be put in competition with the peace and unity of the Church and what depends thereon For the Scripture no where lays any such injunction upon us to observe one way or manner of external administration of the right substance of worship supposing it to be done in common language as it does for the keeping of the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace nor gives any such caution against any external form of administration except that which is made in an unknown tongue as it does against the breach of the peace and unity of the Church and the many consequent ill effects thereof Nor is there any such utility in your way of administration as different from that of the Church of England as makes it worthy to be put in competition with the peace and unity of the Church I presume there is no sober serious Christian among you will say that your way of administration makes any such difference in the hearts and lives of Christians but that there were heretofore and are now Christians in Communion with the Church of England as sober righteous and godly as any among you I know nothing therein to hinder a man from being as holy and as good as he hath a mind to be It is the difference in mens more or less attendance to the substance of Christianity that makes them better or worse Christians and not their using different undetermined circumstances in the administration of worship And if it be so that your way of administration as different from that of the Church of England holds no such proportion of value or utility as makes it worthy to be brought in competition with the peace and unity of the Church Then for you to bring it into competition therewith nay to prefer it above the peace and unity of the Church and what depends thereon as it is apparent you do is a thing altogether unaccountable and a flat contradiction to that vein of Doctrine in the Scripture which I have mentioned above I know you will be ready enough to say that if it be so bad a thing in us to put undetermined circumstances in the administration of holy things into competition with the peace and unity of the Church as you say it is Then it cannot be good in them who by imposing such things upon us as conditions of Communion do put them into competition with the peace and unity of the Church also which is divided upon that account There is I grant little question but that the imposing of nothing as a condition of Communion but what is generally freest from exception is a very good way to preserve peace and unity in the Church But yet the using of some indifferent circumstances in the worship of God upon the first Reformation from Popery in this Nation was doubtless thought as convenient for the bringing people to Church then as ever a complying with the Jews in their usages not sinful in themselves was at the first Conversion of them to Christianity thought convenient to bring them to and to keep them in the Church then And though you think the case is so altered since the Reformation as that what was a reason of their use then to wit the bringing folk to Church is a reason of their dis-use and laying aside now as tending to the same end yet
if this thought hath not hitherto taken place in the minds of the Powers above us or supposing they should be under a mistake in thinking otherwise do you think that their prefering undetermined circumstances before the peace and unity of the Church which you deem matter of just complaint in them would at all justifie you in doing the like I am sure it will not but greatly aggravate your fault For wherein thou judgest another as St. Paul saith thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things Rom. 2.1 The consideration of the inequality disproportion that is between some undetermined circumstances in the administration of holy things and the unity and peace of the Church would as I have reason to presume have prevailed before now to have obtained some ease for the sake of such as are really conscientiously scrupulous but withal peaceable and as scrupulous to disturb the peace of the Church on the one hand as they are to disturb the peace of their own Conscience on the other I say this probably would have obtained ere now had not your carrying things with so high a hand of opposition obstructed it and hardened their hearts against you in whose power it is to ease you And I am very full of confidence that that very consideration I have now mentioned would yet prevail with them to give you ease if you would but abate your open opposition and comply so far as I am confident the greatest part of you can do without offending your Conscience For if you could but yet be prevailed withal thus to do who is so hard-hearted and so regardless of the unity and peace of the Church and what depends thereon as would not in their places and capacities seek your ease But if you cannot be prevailed withal I cannot easily tell you how much I dread the consequence of it TIme was when it was the apprehension of many of you that private and personal application by you that are Ministers to the people of your respective Parishes from House to House was of very great use for their profiting in Religion yea so great that some of you have thought you did more good that way than by your publick ministration and that in great Parishes especially more Ministers than one were necessary for the carrying on of this and the publick work Yea you thought this so profitable and so necessary as that the Ministers in several Counties as of Worcester Essex Cumberland Westmorland c. did enter into a mutual agreement to ingage in this work and published the same with intent as I suppose to excite others to do so likewise This considered if the promoting of Religion among the people both in knowledge and practice was and is your great design and I will not be so uncharitable as to judge it neither was nor is I cannot but think I confess that you were somewhat unhappy and the Nation too in that you did not think of and undertake this method of imploying your Talents rather than that you have chosen when necessity in some sort put you upon it and wherein you might have been so greatly serviceable and that not only without offending against the publick Laws and Peace of the Church but also to your great honour and high acceptation with good men And if those who now support you in point of Livelyhood in the way you are in would not or will not do the same or more in that other way not to say what might reasonably be expected from many others who do not like the way you are in they would give a shrewd ground of suspicion that not the advancement of the power and practice of Religion among us but somewhat else prevails with them to do what they do in that kind Undoubtedly the peace and unity of the Church as I have shew'd and you cannot but know is a matter of that mighty moment for the increase and growth of all kindly religiousness in your selves and the people and the contrary so certain to produce contrary effects that it would be very worthy of you to do what possibly you can to stop the one and to procure the other though it should cost you some considerable self-denial to do it Remember and consider that excellent advice of Clemens Romanus Pa. 69. in his Epistle to the Church of Corinth in a time when sad divisions and contentions prevailed among them as they do now among us He therefore saith he that is strong merciful full of Charity among you let him say If it be for me that sedition contention and division arise I will depart I will be gone whither you will I will do what the people command me so be it that the flock of Christ may live in peace with those Presbyters that are set over them He that shall do this saith he will win himself much honour in the Lord and every place will gladly receive him Let me say to you upon this occasion as St. Paul also said in his Epistle to the same Church Chap. 14.36 What came the word of God to you only or from you only Do you think that Religion in the Nation depends so much upon your publick labours as that it would sink if you did not thereby uphold it Methinks you should not I am sure there is no reason why you should And if not then either Clemens Romanus was out in his forementioned advice or else you seem to be so in your present practice as differing much from it I Will add one thing more before I conclude I find by some of your printed Papers as well as by personal discourse that it runs much in your minds that if you could but be indulged a liberty by the Civil Powers in the separate way in which you now act it would free you from the imputation of Schism which I apprehend under your favour to be a great mistake for these reasons First Because your practice herein notwithstanding such an indulgence would be a deviation from the Primitive pattern of Church Communion All the Christians then as I have shew'd before did still associate together in Church Communion in the places where they did reside and accordingly the Churches received their denomination of being the Church at Rome at Corinth c. from the civil bounds And I have shew'd also that so to do is most accommodate to the ends and purposes of Church Communion And for any in these Churches whiles they did reside upon the place to have rent themselves off from Communion with those and to have set up for themselves in the same place otherwise than what was done with consent when their numbers made it convenient to meet in distinct assemblies or should have gone and have united themselves with a Church in another place as disowning Communion with those from whom they went off when there was no necessity of doing so or of sinning would have been a down-right Schism and seems to
have been the very case of those St. Jude speaks of that separated themselves being sensual not having the Spirit Jude 19. Now then when there have been Churches of Christian Professors in this Nation and distinguished by the civil bounds and Precincts for order and government sake in like sort as they were in the Apostles times for you in this case to rend from them and set up other Churches in the same places and renounce Communion with the first by word or deed without a necessity to do so or sin though you should not perhaps sin against the Civil Power in doing so in case you had their leave yet this would not free you from Schism in making a causless breach in the Church Secondly I have shewed that a gathering out the better people from among those which are not so good and to make a new Church thereof is cross to one principal end of Church Consociation which is that the better might help the worse and the strong bring forward the weak the more spiritual part help to spiritualize the more carnal The contrary is as if the grown persons in a Family should withdraw from the Children and the healthy from those that are sick which every body would cry out of And if the Higher Powers should connive at such disorders the thing would be never the better in it self Thirdly I have shew'd what bad effects Schism does naturally produce and how contrary it is in it self to the Doctrine of the Apostles and if it be and do so leave from the Civil Powers to perpetrate this evil would never sanctifie it or make it other than it is in its own nature that is sinful HAving said thus much as you see I shall not need to make any farther Apology why I have done it than what you have in the beginning of this Address And as to what it consists of I shall Trust it to speak for it self if you will but make that allowance to the Author which considering his circumstances I am confident ingenuity will not deny him Only this I can and therefore may say that I am not conscious to my self of having offered any abuse to the Scriptures by any undue interpretation or to you by any mis-application of them nor by any mis-representation of you in principle or practice though I do not think you are all of a piece in both And therefore all that 's said is not to be applied to all alike all being not alike guilty of the Schism so much complained of in this Address As my intention in the undertaking of which was the publick good so upon review I cannot perceive that I have said any thing but what is one way or other agreeable to that design nor unbecoming any man of a modestly publick spirit And if the removal of a publick grievance out of the Church and the procuring its publick benefit hath made the mention and discovery of those things necessary the mention and discovery of which are likeliest to offend some yet the necessity off that as a means to so worthy an end will I hope plead my excuse with them and satisfie them upon after thoughts And if this Address may contribute any thing to the publick good either while I am alive or after my Death though but in the least degree of which I do not altogether despair I shall not lose my â—end Wherefore to conclude If you would not then have the power and spirit of Religion cease from among us or degenerate into form and unkindliness of temper If you would not leave the people in superstition into which you seem to have led them nor be guilty of adding to Gods word by making them believe he hath forbidden and commanded what he hath not forbidden nor commanded but left to such direction as general rules and emergent circumstances shall suggest to prudent men If you would not vary from the Primitive pattern by separating from the Christian Congregations where you reside when you are not necessitated to it or to sin If you would not tempt men to think that Religion is but an uncertain thing and matter of squable If you would not give occasion of jealousie that due regard is wanting in you to order and Government If you would not betray our Posterity into the hands of Popish Policy and Power nor expose the Church of God in this Nation to that ruin which hath befallen other Churches in other places and Ages of the World through divisions among themselves Then be perswaded I beseech you to consult some better things than the keeping still open the wide breach among us can possible promise you Farewel THE END
IMPRIMATUR 18 March 1675 6. Rmo D no Arch po Cant. Ã Sacris domesticis Geo. Hooper A Serious and Friendly ADDRESS TO THE Non-Conformists Beginning with the Anabaptists OR AN ADDITION TO THE Perswasive to Peace and Vnity By W. A. Luke 22.32 When thou art converted strengthen thy brethren LONDON Printed by J. M. for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops Head in St Pauls Church-Yard MDCLXXVI THE PREFACE THE design of the following Address is to perswade to the Re-uniting of a divided Church And the unity of the Church is that which our Lord and Saviour earnestly and with reiterated Petitions prayed for to his Father and which his Apostles after him did with the most pathetical expressions they could well take unto themselves perswade the Christians to maintain By which we may perceive That the success of Christs design to be carried on by the Gospel does very much depend upon this Vnion which was the reason why the Heart of Christ and of his Apostles were so much set upon it And if so Then Divisions Sidings Factions and Disaffections in the Church and separation of one part of it from another must needs tend to frustrate and disappoint our Saviour in his design of Grace and to deprive the Church where these take place of the benefit and comfort in great part which he intended them in recommending the Christian Religion to them And then it will follow also That those who are most of the mind spirit and temper of our Saviour and his Apostles are and will be most tender lest they should make any breach in the Church or disturb the Peace of it and most careful to do what in them lies to repair breaches when made But contrariwise that those who are most venturous in making breaches upon pretences that will not abide an impartial tryal and least careful to close up those which are made are to that degree that they are so devoid of a Christ-like frame of mind and temper of spirit All which looks most unpleasantly upon so many as will not do all that they can do to prevent the farther growth of Schism and to heal the Churches wounds already made by it Considering all which and the deplorable state and condition of the Church in this Nation by reason of Schism and what men suffer and are like to suffer thereby in their religious interest I cannot imagine wherein or by what good men can better approve themselves to Christ in any one thing and more answer the Joy of his heart nor better serve their Generation than by endeavouring heartily according to the capacity they are in and the opportunity they have to promote the re-uniting of the divided parts of the Church of God in this Nation And if by endeavours of this nature any think I have acted more than comes to my share in this Address or otherwise it hath been out of the abundance of my affection to so good and necessary a work which will easily obtain pardon from those that are for peace I cannot say but that many attempts of this Nature have been made by others and endeavours used to this end But the reason why so little comes of it is because those who are the Aggressors or many of them would needs make themselves the Center of Vnion and Standard of Communion But how unreasonable it is to expect that an union should be brought to pass upon such terms or to think it fit that our breaches should lie open till it can is easie to apprehend For when will all Presbyterians think you be perswaded to turn Anabaptists or Independents or Independents to turn Anabaptists or Anabaptists to turn Independents or both to turn Presbyterians Or if they should when will those of the way of the Church of England fall in with them So that there seems a necessity of one of these two things either for all the subdivided parts of the Agressors to Re-unite themselves again to the Church of England from which they unduly rent themselves Or else to perpetuate our various Schisms until we have made our selves thereby a prey to the common Adversary And whoever are of the mind to put things on this issue and to run that hazard rather than to come to such terms of accommodation as are not sinful though otherwise not altogether such as they could wish will certainly shew themselves to be persons of but private selfish spirits regarding more their own personal satisfaction and private conveniency than the publick benefit of the Church in general a temper very unworthy a Christian and far from a laying down the life for the brethren It was the true Mother who was for yielding to her Competitrix rather than the Child should be divided Besides by continuing a Schism upon such terms which will not amount to any sufficient or just cause they make themselves accountable for all the dreadful effects of it Since then there is no probability that the Aggressors in their subdivisions will ever settle or unite upon any one of their narrow foundations it will I doubt not be much more becoming them as Christians for them all to reconcile themselves to the Church of England rather than to perpetuate such a complex Schism as we see hath cast both Church and Nation into a Convulsion and threatens its final ruin Do you or can you think that there is at this day after all tryals made any men upon Earth better Christians than many of those who have been bred in the Church of England since the Reformation from Popery and who have lived and died in her Communion I can hardly think that any sober intelligent person will venture to say there is And if not what is the matter then if nothing but the being very good Christians be your design why rather than to make a Schism that will not satisfie you for the attaining to it which hath been so successful for the effecting this end in so many other worthy persons as have left us an example of holy living worthy our imitation Why the matter as I apprehend it stands thus Those whose minds had been influenced and affected with the different principles of the old Non Conformists Brownists and Anabaptists before our late unhappy Civil Wars brake out took the opportunity which it gave them to begin a work of reformation in this Nation as they Notioned it to be And although they all still agreed with the Church of England in doctrines of faith and a holy life and in those doctrines wherein it opposeth the Church of Rome yea and in the substance of Divine worship also Yet they all opposed the Church of England in the external form of worship and in her order and Government But when they had done so they could not agree among themselves what form of worship and Government in opposition to all other is indeed of Divine Right but therein sharply opposed one another So that this so called Reformation produced more divisions and
separations and multiplied more and more monstrous Sects than ever there were in the Nation before Notwithstanding the sad experience of all which and notwithstanding the means used by the Higher Powers to reduce them yet it seems these several divided parts have thought themselves concerned upon one account or other still to carry on their esteemed Reformation in their several different ways and rather to run the hazard of all the ill consequences of their division in common from the Church of England and of their several subdivisions among themselves than to return to our Parochial Communion Now then the endeavour of the following Address is to shew these two things especially The one is That both the Principles and practice in many things wherein this Reformation endeavoured by them doth consist are really corruptions and things which ought themselves to be Reformed The other is that if any Emendation in matters Ecclesiastical shall be found convenient for the peace unity and stability of the Church of England as I will not deny but there may the present genius and temper of many of this Nation considered for Moses for the hardness of the peoples hearts by Gods direction put that into the body of the Law which otherwise would not have been ncessary Yet to seek this by separation from our Parish Churches and by gathering Churches out of them and by keeping assemblies in opposition to them is no good method of proceeding therein but such as tends to hurt the Church of God much more than to do it good and to set people back and not to bring them forward in that wherein the heart and spirit of true Christianity lies And for my Justification in this undertaking I have the old Non-Conformists so far on my side as that as Mr. Baxter saith Such as Mr. Cartwright Egerton Hildersham Dod Amesius Parker Bains Brightman Ball Bradshaw Paget Langly Nicols Hering and many such wrote more against separation than the Conformists did And the former writings of the present Presbyterians abound also with invectives against the practice of gathering Churches out of our Parish Churches Yea those who have been chief in the Congregational way have in their Apologetical Narration told the World That all that Conscience of defilement they conceived cleaved to the worship of God in our Parish Churches or of the unwarrantable power of Church Governours exercised therein did never work in any of them any other thought much less opinion but that multitudes of the Parish Congregations were the true Churches and body of Christ and the Ministry thereof a true Ministry And again We have always profest say they and that in these times when the Churches of England were most either actually over-spread with defilements or in the greatest danger thereof that we both did and would hold a Communion with them as the Churches of Christ I shall not offend you by making that improvement of these Concessions by reflections which the matter is capable of Only I heartily wish That for the honour of our Religion we may all be careful to do that which is good and commendable not only in the sight of God but also in the sight of men and that nothing may be done but what we can give some competent account of unto men A thing wherein you have left even such as wish you very well much to seek as not knowing how to reconcile your principles and your practice What hath been offered by some in order to it from the consideration of the different circumstances of former and present times Doctrine of Schism opened and applyed to gathered Churches A stop to the course of separation I must needs say falls very short of it and hath met with such a return from other some as hath even left it without any strength at all especially in that which relates to Lay Communion Now the God of love and peace at last lead us out of all those distractions and confusions into which our own weakness and folly hath betrayed us into paths of purity peace and love and bestow upon us all a spirit of love and of a sound mind that so we may all come to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace A Serious and Friendly ADDRESS TO THE Non-Conformists Beginning with the Anabaptists SIRS NOW I am upon leaving the World by reason of Age some reasons have prevailed with me to leave behind me for you a few words not of bitter Contention but of Peace and to Edification and such only as are agreeable to a following the Truth in Love And in doing so methinks I might promise my self that what shall be thus offered will with a like mind be pondered and weighed by all such among you as in whom passion prejudice and partiality do not prevail more than that wisdom which is from above which is first pure then peaceable and easie to be intreated How unfit soever I may in other respects be thought for this undertaking yet my former experience in your way and the many serious and impartial considerations I have had about it may possibly have given me so much advantage for it as may excuse my present undertaking And besides if he that digged a pit Ex. 23.33 was to cover it no man need to wonder if I concern my self more than many others by endeavouring what in me lies to Cure the almost Epidemical Disease of Schism in some and to prevent it in others For however the general prevailing of it seems to have worn out that sense of the hainousness of it which the Church of God and all the famous Guides in it anciently had of it and to have changed its name and to be now adopted into the number of Virtues and to be esteemed an Ornament among too many yet I assure you it is not so with me who have seen and observed the dismal effects of it And doubtless it is not grown any whit the less hainous by prevailing so much as it hath done unless a thing becomes the less evil by how much the more mischief it does This evil took place presently after the Reformation from Popery and became a clog to it then as it hath been ever since And I know nothing so like to subvert the Reformation and at last to deliver us up again unto a Papal Power as this Sin of Schism Therefore blame me not if you find me endeavouring to awaken you into the same sense of it which I my self have If you will but take your measure of what it is like to produce among the whole Protestant party in the end if a stop be not put to it by what the divisions among your selves in the greatest part of your Congregations in this Nation hath brought forth especially in the West the prospect will be sad enough and such as one would think should create in you a great jealousy touching the practice of separating from other Protestant Congregations I should think it might well
sought honour one of another and not the honour that comes from God only John 5.44 I the rather mention these things to you because I know in part how strong a temptation of this nature is and how hard to be overcome But let it be considered that it is not counted a disparagement to any man that he is not infallible when as it is truly dishonourable for any to carry it as confidently as if he were when almost all knowing and good men in the World are of another mind It is in the Judgment of the wisest truly commendable and praise-worthy for a man to acknowledge and retract his error when he is convinced of it If this should not be admitted what place is left for men to grow in knowledge or to perfect that which is lacking in their repentance which is not done without a change of mind There are few men that arrive at any great wisdom but have found occasion to alter their opinion in many things THere is another principle of separation besides this of Infant Baptism which is common both to you and those of the Congregational way and though you differ in the former yet in this you are one This principle of separation consists in an opinion that none are to be held Communion with in Church-fellowship who are not in the Judgment of the Church savingly called and savingly sanctified which you and they call a Judgment of Charity or of discretion This is an opinion and the practising upon it a thing plainly contradicted by the testimony of the Scriptures both in the old Testament and the new This I have shewed already in this discourse And to what I have already said I shall add one or two things more The one is that herein you and they take upon you to judge in matters wherein you neither are nor can be competent Judges He that judgeth a man to have saving Grace or not to have it must pass a Judgment of what is in the heart and not of his outward actions only And this is the Prerogative of God only who as the Scripture saith only knows the hearts of the Children of men 1 Kings 8.39 and therefore may not be usurped by men It 's true indeed we may and must judge the best of men with a Judgment of Charity so far as there is any ground to hope well of them in reference to their state Godward but we must not take upon us to judge in the Negative against men in the worse sense that is that they have no saving Grace or which is the same that they are in a damnable condition except they have those black Characters on them for which the Scripture expresly excludes them from having any inheritance in the Kingdom of God and of Christ such as are enumerated in 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Gal. 5.19 20 21. We may judge of mens declared principles and actions in order to their reception to or rejection or at least suspension from the Communion of the Church when we may not judge of their state Godward A man may be so scandalous as for which to be deprived of Communion with the Church when yet we may not judge that man to have no Grace If any man obey not our word by this Epistle note that man and have no company with him that he may be ashamed Yet count him not as an enemy but admonish him as a brother 2 Thes 3.14 15. The reason of all which I have signified already which is because we are incompetent Judges in this at least unless they are monstrously wicked persons The parting difference between the lowest degree of saving grace and that which is but common grace is so little and to the wisest of men so undiscernable that it is impossible but that they will be in great danger of judging them to have no saving grace that have who sit in Judgment upon that matter Yea and of depriving them also of those Church priviledges which according to your own tenent they have a right to having saving grace And thus in going about to weed out the tares you will root up the wheat also contrary to the mind of our Master Mat. 13.29 When our Saviour saith judge not that ye be not judged Mat. 7.1 as he would not have us severe in judging other mens words and actions or intentions so much less their state and standing before God Who art thou that judgest another mans Servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Rom. 14.4 And again who art thou that judgest another Jam. 4.12 St. Paul saith of him that is a Jew not outwardly but inwardly and whose Circumcision is not outward in the flesh but inwardly in the heart That his praise or approbation is not of men but of God it is not of men decisively or determinately but of God only who knoweth the heart And if it be not of men then men should not attempt it or undertake it Rom. 2.28 29. That 's one thing Another which respects those of the Congregational way chiefly is this That their practice in pursuance of their principle aforesaid is contrary to the constant practice of the Apostles and Primitive Christians We do not find that they refused any adult persons Communion with them in the Supper of the Lord who had been received into the Universal Church by Baptism but only in case of being orderly proceeded against in a way of Church censure for notorious scandalous offences but that such as were baptized continued stedfastly in the Apostles doctrine and in breaking of bread and prayer Acts 2.41 42. And the Proselyte strangers of old who were Circumcised were by Gods appointment admitted to the same Church priviledges as the Jews were Exo. 12.49 Whereas those of the Congregational way though they baptize their Children yet refuse them Church Communion when they are grown if they have any strong suspicion that they have no saving grace although they never came under Church Censure for notorious scandalous offences Which is an Arbitrary and unscriptural way of proceeding and so much the worse in them who scruple some things because not commanded in Scripture though they be not forbidden So that their foresaid principle of separation in Conjunction with their practice of baptizing their Children renders them inconsistent in their way and their way contradictious in it self There are further great inconveniences to say no worse attending this practice of theirs First they have hereby prepared a way to Anabaptism and give occasion for many to take their way to that throughth eir Congregations as taking a degree towards it there For when some have perceived the interferings that are in their way in baptizing persons into the Universal Church and yet not to receive them into their particular Churches nor permitting them Communion with them therein when come to Age notwithstanding their profession of the Christian Religion but upon a new account of special grace they have been thereby drawn to think the
of many Zech. 2.11 Many Nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day and shall be my people As the Nation of the Jews were Nationally Gods people and God was the God of Israel so here it 's foretold that many Nations nationally should be joined to him and be his people also and consequently he must be the God of those Nations in the same sense in which they are his people Thus far the matter is so evident that one would think that nothing but an inveterate prejudice and prepossession of a contrary opinion unduly taken up and an averseness to confess your selves to have been mistaken should hinder you from accepting of a conviction in this matter and of yielding up your judgments as conquered by the truth To proceed then yet farther If Nations professing the true Religion are in a more general sense Abrahams spiritual Seed and a people joined to the Lord so as to be his people Then it is as well the duty of the people of such Nations to associate and knit together in Christian Congregations for publick worship in the places where they reside as it was for the Primitive Christians who lived in Rome in Corinth in Cenchrea by Corinth c. to associate as they did in the same places for the same end and accordingly those Churches were called by the names of the places where they did reside And our Parochial distribution is no more a cause of quarrel than that was that the Church of Corinth and the Church at Cenchrea were distinct upon the only account that the members of each lived in distinct places And as the distribution of the whole Nation of Professors of Christianity into particular Parochial Assemblies best answers the Primitive pattern so it best answers the ends of Church association such as are the watching over conferring with admonishing exhorting and comforting one another and the assembling together for publick worship And when the Christians in a Nation are thus disposed of into Congregations in the places where they live weak and strong together it is no ways agreeable to primitive practice nor to the general ends of Church association nor to the common good of particular Churches or of the whole body of Christians in a Nation for the stronger the wiser the better the more spiritual in those Parish Churches to withdraw themselves from the more ignorant weak and carnal Christians residing in the same place with them into distinct and separate Communities so long as they can hold Communion with them without sinning in so doing This the Primitive Christians did not and if no such thing had been done in our Nation the Church of God amongst us would doubtless have been in no such bad circumstances as now it is As God hath placed in the natural body members some more necessary and useful than others to be helpful and serviceable to the meaner more helpless and less useful for the good of the whole body so it is in Ecclesiastical bodies God saith St. Paul hath tempered the body together having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked that there should be no Schism in the body 1 Cor. 12.24 25. That there should be no Schism in the body as to be sure there will and needs must when that part is most neglected which lacketh most care and pains and withdrawn from as if it were no part of the body This becomes a sore temptation to those who are despised to set against those who despise them and that again tempts them on the other side to oppose their opposers and so the breach grows wider and wider and spreads it self through the whole body of a Nation And as the withdrawing live coals from those that are but a little kindled is the way to put out the fire so is the withdrawing of the better Christians from the worse not in a way of Church Discipline but into distinct bodies the direct way to ruine the Church and to extinguish the life and heat of Religion in those places where this is practised I nothing doubt but that those who have taken this course let the provocation to it be what it will might have consulted the real and true interest of Religion in the main much better in another way This way savours too much of self-satisfaction and neglect of others to be of Christ who would have the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please themselves after his own example Rom. 15. New ways many times take much for a while which do not end so well at last Enquire for the old way and stand in the good way that in which the primitive Christians walked if ye would find rest and satisfaction in your own minds rest to your Souls And if it be matter of duty in it self and according to primitive practice for all Christian Professors in a Nation thus to unite in particular Congregations in the places where they reside and not to make any Schism after by one part withdrawing from the other into separate Communities so long as they can continue their Communion without a necessity of sinning Then if the Higher Powers in such a Nation do exercise their authority in commanding them to do this which is of it self their duty though they had not commanded it and do likewise forbid and restrain their making of Schisms by separating when they have no sufficient or warrantable cause to do it this cannot make it less their duty than it was of it self before and still would be were there no such Command or restraint from the Higher Powers No man sure can imagine that if Nero had used his authority in commanding the Primitive Christian Churches to do the same things which they were obliged to do though he had not commanded it as he did not that Nero's Command in that Case would have made it any whit less their duty but the more It is not unbecoming but very laudable no doubt for the Higher Powers to concern themselves and their authority in promoting the Christian Religion in their Dominions by taking order that God be publickly and solemnly worshipped by the Christians in the use of Gospel Ordinances That places for publick worship be provided for that end That Officers competently qualified be appointed to administer those Ordinances That fitting maintenance be appointed and provided them that they may attend that work without distraction That the people be required and commanded to attend the publick worship and that care be taken that they may not be disturbed in it and finally that Discipline be duly exercised for the purging of the Churches and for the keeping them pure Supposing the Higher Powers and the people of a Nation to be Christian the very light of nature and their love to the Religion they profess will dictate such things as these in the one to Command and the other to obey and to use all due means to prevent divisions amongst them as being most destructive
to all Communities of men and to the flourishing of Religion I do not find that in the Law of Moses there was any direction or command in particular that when that people should chuse them a King that he should use his authority in causing both Priests and people to do their Duty in the several parts of Gods Worship enjoined by Moses his Law any more than Kings now under the New Testament are in particular appointed and required to see that the Christians under them both Ministers and People do their duty in matters relating to Gods publick Worship And yet when Hezekiah for instance to restore Religion after a decay of it in his Dominions commanded the Priests and Levites to do the duty of their places according to the Law of Moses and with advice of the Princes summon'd the People of the Land to come and keep the Passover and the like in the Conclusion it is said thus of him Thus did Hezekiah throughout all Judah and wrought that which was right and good and true before the Lord his God and in every work which he began in the service of the house of God and in the Law and in the commandments to seek his God he did it with all his heart and prospered 2 Chro. 31.20 21. And if this and the like in other good Kings was highly acceptable to God as we see it was then we have little reason to think it should be displeasing to him when Kings now do any thing like it He is the minister of God to thee for good saith St. Paul Rom. 13.4 and so long as he promotes the publick good in things temporal or spiritual Civil or Ecclesiastical he is not out of his way If it were a thing so well pleasing to God for Abraham to command his Children and his great Houshold to keep the way of the Lord as that God himself applauded him for it Gen. 18.19 it cannot certainly be an offence to him for Kings to command their Subjects to do likewise It was no small blessing that God promised to the Church when he said that Kings should be their nursing Fathers and Queens their nursing mothers and it would be great ingratitude not to acknowledge it to be so when they use their power and authority not only to protect and incourage them in the profession of the Christian Religion but also in making provision as Nursing Fathers for their spiritual nourishment Isa 49. And the truth is the more the Higher Powers concern themselves in due ways to promote Religion in their Dominions the more usually it flourisheth as we see not only by examples in the Scriptures and other History but experience teacheth us that there is generally the least face of Religion in such places as have been most neglected in the publick provision I would advise those among you who are most tender in this point touching the Magistrates Power in matters of Religion to hear what is said in answer to a Question of this Nature by J. O. in some Sheets intituled Two Questions concerning the power of the supream Magistrate about Religion and the worship of God with one about Tythes proposed and resolved Whose words I know they will more regard than anothers The Question is Whether the Supream Magistrate in a Nation or Common-wealth of men professing the Religion of Jesus Christ may or ought to exert his power Legislative and Executive for the supportment preservation and furtherance of the profession of the faith and worship of God and whether he may and ought to forbid coerce or restrain such principles and practices as are contrary to them and destructive of them The Answer to which is managed under ten Heads of Arguments The affirmative saith he of both parts of this Question is proved 1. From the light and Law of Nature 2. From the Law of Nations 3. From Gods Institution in and by Laws positive upon Doctrines of faith and ways of worship of pure Revelation 4. From the example of all godly Magistrates accepted with God from the foundation of the World 5. From the promise of Gospel times 6. From the equity of Gospel rules 7. From the confession of all the Protestant Churches in the World 8. From the confession of those in particular who suffer in the World on account of the largeness of their Principles as to toleration and forbearance 9. From the spiritual sense of the generality of godly men in the World 10. From the pernicious consequences of the contrary assertion This was good Doctrine in 1659. And if upon apprehension and experience such Higher Powers do judge that all the Christian Ministers and People in their Dominions are never like to prove so wise and sober as not to abuse an absolute liberty by making different parties in the Church by chusing different ways of administration and if to prevent this and to preserve Peace and Unity in the Church as of great concernment for their edification and comfort and for the honour and reputation of the Christian Religion and for the better propagation of it they have thought it best to prescribe some method and form to be used by all it is to be seriously considered by you That if nothing in that method and form be enjoined you as a condition of Communion which is not sinful for you to submit to Then which is most eligible whether to separate or to submit to that method and form though it should not in your apprehension be so useful beneficial and grateful to you as a liberty for you and your Ministers would be to use what way you liked best If you say to separate is most eligible and fittest to be chosen in this case Then you must prove that which no man will ever I think be able to do to wit That it is lawful to break Churches to pieces upon the account only of some conveniencies you desire and inconveniencies which in your apprehension you suffer when otherwise you might lawfully and without defiling your selves with sin continue and maintain your Communion in those Churches to your own and their edification with whom you were united No doubt but the great differences that were on foot between the Judaising and Gentile Christians in the Apostles times did somewhat burden their Communion together in the same Church with some considerable inconvenience and so did the scandalous opinions and practices of many in the seven Churches of Asia and other Churches make the Communion which those had with them who had not defiled their garments the less pleasant and comfortable and in some respect burdensome to them But we hear nothing of separation and breaking of Churches in pieces upon that account nor of any encouragement given thereto by the Apostles but the quite contrary To bring this business down from above let us try it a little in your own Court Suppose the Higher Powers should not have concerned themselves in prescribing any Common form to be used in all particular
Churches in their Dominions but had left them all at liberty to do that which should be right in their own eyes And suppose again that any other Ecclesiastical Power over the whole should have thought fit to have prescribed the same Form for all the Parish Churches which now is prescribed by the Higher Powers in this Nation or some other as dissatisfactory to some Nay to go lower suppose yet further that the several Parishes or particular Churches had not been under any such general Ecclesiastical Power nor ruling over the whole neither but each particular Congregation had been under its own Government only And suppose in this case that the ruling prevailing or major part in one or more such Independent Congregations should have thought it fit to have such a form used in their own Congregation as is now prescribed by our Higher Powers or should have done or caused to be done in the publick administration something else as unacceptable to part of such a Congregation as the form now prescribed by our Higher Powers is to you Yet the question would still be which would have been most Christian in either of these Cases whether to divide separate and break the Church to pieces or to submit to the use of it to avoid such a breach and the bad effects of it until they could in a peaceable and regular way have obtained their desire or come to better satisfaction in their own minds Supposing still that all this while the dissatisfied part had been put upon doing nothing sinful in it self but only what was less useful and desireable in their own apprehensions And if you allow of separation upon any account less than that of necessity when men must sin or separate or an utter failure in the means of edification you open a door to confusion in and destruction to the Church It is upon this very account of necessity that we justifie our separation at first from the Church of Rome Now if such things as now supposed did proceed from any other Church Governing Power were it indulged to by the Higher Powers would be no good ground of separation neither then can they be any when they proceed from the Higher Powers For let them proceed from the one or the other it doth not alter the nature of the things themselves otherwise than as the stamp of authority may make that in some degree necessary in use which was and still is but indifferent in its own nature and might have been used or another in the stead of it Now see then where you are and to what you are brought If you cannot prove that to join in the publick worship of God administred according to our Liturgy is a Sin then if you refuse to do it and separate from the Church because of it you make yourselves guilty of as great a sin as the monstrous effects of an unlawful Schism and separation argues it to be And you cannot prove that your joining in the publick worship administred by our Liturgy is a sin unless you can prove that something therein appointed for the publick worship and which you must join in if you join in the publick worship at all is contrary to some institution rule or Precept of our Lord and Saviour which I presume you will never be able to do And the reason is because the things for which we pray therein and for which we give thanks are agreeable to the Scripture they are prayer matter and thanksgiving matter And then for the external circumstances of Form and Method you cannot prove these unlawful because it is no where forbidden in Scripture to present your prayer matter or thanksgiving matter to God in such an external form and method as is used in the Liturgy but rather countenanced therefrom as by our Saviours directing his Disciples to use a Form of Prayer and by the forms of Prayer in the Psalms composed to be used as Prayers The title of Psal 102. is this A prayer for the afflicted when he is over-whelmed and poureth out his complaint before the Lord. The title of Psal 90. is this A prayers of Moses and the man of God The 72. Psalm ends thus the prayer of David the Son of Jesse are ended Hezekiah the King and the Princes commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and Asaph 2 Chron. 29 30. The Scripture hath no where determined whether Prayer shall be made with the use of a Book or without or whether longer or shorter or whether in our publick Devotions one or two or more shall be used or whether all shall be pronounced by the Minister only or part by the people also We do not count it unlawful to pray to and praise God with united voices in singing of Psalms Now where we are left at liberty in these things there it cannot be unlawful in it self to use either the one way or other as circumstances direct Some circumstances may make one way or mode convenient at one time and in one case and other circumstances may make another more convenient at another time and in another Case about external forms of worship If our Lord had not intended us a Christian liberty in outward forms there is no doubt but we should have had as particular direction in them as we have about the substance And we may well use the words of St. Paul in exhorting one another to stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free I mean in using this liberty one way or other as it tends to Peace Charity and edification and not the contrary as some urge it The Jews had their Liturgy in their Synagogues at the use of which our Saviour we may presume used to be present in as much as we find he frequented the Synagogue where he lived Lu. 4.16 The antient Church before Popery lookt out into the World had their Liturgy and so have other reformed Churches besides ours unto this day And we in this Nation so far as I can understand have only been so unhappy as to break our selves in pieces about it Whoever soberly considers what hath been the effect of casting off the Liturgy and the established Church Government in this Nation and of the liberty that was taken in the late times of liberty may by this time be pretty well reconciled to it again whatever his thoughts may have been heretofore Can any considering man think that the Church of God and the concerns of Religion in this Nation suffered at that rate by reason of the restraint put upon it by the Liturgy before our late sad distractions brake out as it hath done by those sundry strange sects monstrous opinions and practices violent contentions sore breaches and divisions and the effects of these which that little time of liberty in which the Liturgy was cast off and the bonds of Government broken hath produced Suppose there were or are some things superfluous or wanting in
and those who have since abetted this Doctrine that asserts nothing to be lawful in the worship of God which he hath not commanded when they extend it farther than to the substance of worship have corrupted or rather gone about to overthrow the Doctrine of Christian liberty in great part And they have thereby hid from the peoples eyes the liberty left them by Christ in these matters and filled their minds with endless scruples and hurried them into unlawful Schisms If those formerly or more lately who desired some alteration in the external form of administration used in our Church had not run so high as to assert things unlawful which by all their Mediums they could never prove to be so but had peaceably and modestly pursued their desires from time to time only upon account of the inconveniency of some things as apprehended by them and had satisfied themselves that in doing so they had gone as far as in duty they were bound without ever rending themselves from Communion with the Church or disturbing the peace of it by unsetling the peoples minds and filling their heads with Jealousies and their Consciences with scruples they would without doubt have taken a more safe and Christian a more prudent and probable way to have obtained their desires in time than by that course by which they have exposed the Church and Religion to unspeakable disadvantages they have done And therefore after tryal of other ways to come now to this at last will doubtless be a more honourable and Christian course and more prudential as to all worthy ends both in reference to the honour of Religion and its influence upon mens hearts and lives the peace of the Nation the composing of peoples distracted minds the reducing of the erroneous the frustration of the designs of adversaries and the restoring Christian liberty to its right use For I have shewed before that men then use their Christian liberty best when they can and do act in ways though but only lawful when the common good of Christians and the interest of Religion in the main in the World calls for it though otherwise and in some respects not pleasing to themselves And so did St. Paul and so he exhorted others to do when he said give no offence neither to the Jews nor to the Gentiles nor to the Church of God even as I please all men in all things not seeking my own profit but the profit of many that they may be saved 1 Cor. 10.32 33. And again let no man seek his own but every man anothers wealth ver 24. And again we then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not please our selves Let every one please his neighbour for his good to edification for Christ also pleased not himself c. Ro. 15.1 2 3. And again look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others Phil. 2.4 And again I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some and this I do for the Gospel sake 1 Cor. 9.22 23. And if ever you would follow him both in his Doctrine and example you must certainly alter your course For I cannot imagine when I see how far St. Paul denied himself in his own liberty in things not otherwise acceptable to him and perswaded others to do so likewise rather than breaches should be made or continue in the Church and Charity be thrust out and rather than Jews or Gentiles without or in the Church should be scandalized against the Christian Religion I say when I consider this I cannot imagine but that if he had been in your circumstances but that he would have yielded to have done any thing not sinful in it self and every whit as much as you need to do to have prevented or removed such manifold and intolerable evils as Schism hath brought upon us You may and do perhaps think that if things relating to the external administration of Gods Ordinances and worship are at least in great part left so much undetermined and at liberty to chuse this or that as circumstances shall direct as I have asserted they are then why should you be restrained from making use of that which you apprehend to be the best There is no doubt but that this may be done this liberty be used when other mens good or hurt is not concerned in it But when my forbearing to use this liberty will tend to the publick good and my using of it to a publick hurt which is plainly the case before us then I should not act like such a Christian as St. Paul was if under these circumstances I should use that liberty which out of them I might freely use St. Paul saith all things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient all things are lawful for me but all things edifie not all things are lawfull for me but I will not brought under the power of any 1 Cor. 6.12 and 10.23 His meaning I doubt not is that though those things which he speaks of were in themselves simply considered lawful and such as to which he had an affection also yet he resolved this notwithstanding that he would not be brought under the power of them but would hold and keep himself at liberty to use his liberty one way or another according as it would be consistent with or tend to the publick good or to forbear to use it when it tended to the contrary Now I have represented to you before in part how many great and lamentable the evils are which are brought on this Church and Nation by your assuming the liberty you use under the present circumstances in which you are And therefore methinks if you can but tell how to reconcile your selves unto St. Pauls mind and resolution you should quickly and without any great hesitation desist and put a stop to your present proceeding and return to Parochial Communion I Hope you do not think that the interest of Religion in the Souls and lives of men is more advantaged than damnified in the total account by your dividing or that it would at all have lost in the general account of profit and loss in case it never had been begun since the Reformation If you do I acknowledge my self herein to differ from you unless you estimate mens religiousness by their zeal for and against outward modes and forms and opinions in Religion and for and against parties upon account of those forms and opinions and not by their sober and serious piety modesty humility fidelity Justice and Charity together with their Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ which are the things by which I measure mens religiousness And I appeal to all such among you as are in a like capacity with my self in point of age and experience in this matter to make a Judgment of this Nature whether there be not just cause to fear that Religion hath lost ground among us upon the