divorce to either of them and think how acceptable your indeavours are to Christ who make it so small a matter to cashiere so many thousands yea whole Nations from his campe Compare wee intreat you this your way with the presidents and examples recorded in holy Scripture and see whether the precious servants of God there mentioned did ever tread this your way of Separation did Moses Joshua or Samuel did Jeremiah Ezra or Nehemiah did our blessed Saviour or his Apostles ever steer your course in order to the corruptions of the Church in their times did not they lay out their indeavours for the emendation of the whole body and did not they live in communion with the Church in their times though many ways corrupted Yea look upon the Christian Churches recorded in the new Testament did St. Paul or any other Apostle commend to the sounder part of the Churches of Corinth or Galatia any such separations as you indeavour yea what servants of God did you ever read of in holy Scripture that did withdraw or separate themselves from the body of the people worshipping the same God with them upon such pretences as you or what example do you finde in all the holy Scriptures that lookes so like your case as that of the Pharisees so branded by our Saviour Consider of the singular talents that God hath bestowed upon you and the strickt account that you must give concerning your improvement of them and seriously bethink your selves whether you might not give a better account continuing in communion with us and applying your selves strongly to our emendation helping us by your godly counsel and example and cheerfully assisting us in removing desperate contemners of God and all Religion from communion than leaving the stations where divine providence had set you to cloyster up your selves in separate Congregations and so deprive us your poor brethren of those helps and assistances which wee might justly have expected from your more eminent abilities Ransack we beseech you your hearts throughly to finde out the true root and bottome of this spirit of separation and observe narrowly whether under other specious pretences or with some pious intentions there be not a bitter root of pride and haughtiness causing you to affect singularity and desire to appear alone to the view of men thinking it below your worth to be found in communion with those whom in opinion you have layed so much below your selves Yea think sadly whether those manifold revolts that have been made from your separate Congregations to monstrous opinions and unclean conversations have not been the righteous judgement of God upon you for your too high valuations of your selves and uncharitable separations from others whereby you have deprived such poor creatures as we of those brotherly helps and incouragements which by your eminent endowments God had inabled you to yeeld and by his providence put opportunities into your hands to afford unto us What construction you make of these passages of providence we know not but truly to us the more ignorant they appear strange and formidable that whereas you fish with so great a mash that scarce one of an hundred are by you taken and admitted into your Congregations that out of this hundreth part of yours more should be found revolting to desperate opinions than of the ninety nine parts by you deserted appeareth to us strange and wonderful and such as we think may rationally put you upon a just suspition and serious re-examination of that way from which there is so easie a transition to many dreadful delusions and through which so many have already passed into the campe of the enemy Having thus directed our complaints to each of you in particular we now return unto you all to whom this our mournful supplication is intended and again prostrate our selves before you humbly beseeching you by all the tender compassions of that God who stiles himself The God of mercy by all the precious blood of Christ shed for such poor sinners by all the bowels of mercy in that Spirit who as we hope ruleth in your hearts by all the bands both natural and civil wherein we stand related unto you by the invaluable price of an immortal soul and high concernment of an everlasting state Have pity on us in our ignorance and weakness and apply your selves more earnestly to rescue us from the rage and malice of our soul-devouring enemies let your endeavours for our help be somewhat answerable to the greatness of our danger to the weight of an eternal state and to the invaluable price paid by the Lord Jesus Christ for our redemption What if you finde us peevish froward and sometimes sleighting your Christian endeavours for our good do not presently give over but remember that the great God of heaven hath waited long both upon us and you be assured that we shall in the end be convinced of your faithfulness and that what ever thanks you have from us the Lord Jesus will certainly remember this work and service of your love O dissolve not that nail that yet we have in Christs holy place restore unto us those colours which you have begun to take from us let us be entertained as Schollers though of the lowest form as Souldiers though in the meanest imployment in the Camp of Christ at least deny us not the favour vouchsased to the Gibeonites to be as hewers of wood or drawers of water for the house of our God You tell us you have rescued us from imminent danger of Popery and superstition but what comfort will this bee unto us if you now leave us and our posterity to perish in the deeper gulf of prophaneness and heathenism Consider what singular advantages you now have upon us for our good whilst we maintain the principles of Christianity and wear the colours of the Lord-Jesus Christ your principal work is now but to bring us to live up to the principles we do beleeve and to serve that Master whose livery we wear But if you leave us till those principles be obliterate and these colours thrown aside think seriously how much more hard and hopeless our condition then will be especially considering that you are not furnished with the power of miracles or extraordinary gifts which have been Gods ordinary means for converting heathens unto Christ O then delay not the time but hasten with all possible diligence unto our rescue before the Devil circumvent you and take advantage of your leaving us unto our selves as staving us off from the Ordinances of Christ to harden our hearts and draw us by degrees to contempt of those things which now we weakly prize and both you and we eternally bewail the loss of these present opportunities We are yet willing to ingage our children to the Lord in the Sacrament of Baptism we are yet willing to renue our own ingagements unto Christ in that other Sacrament if you would not dishearten and discourage us but we finde sin is of an
manifestation of Christ in the flesh when I consider the Muster roll given in by Joab to David I am inforced to think the 1 Chron. 21. 5 Church at that time did not consist of less than five or six millions of Souls those doubtlesse much augmented in Salomons dayes but should none bee owned as Church members but such as some of our Brethren aforesaid would admit I question whether the whole Christian world at this day would afford a tenth of that number neither have many ages since the manifestation of Christ in the flesh been much happier than ours in the number of Orthodox Christians so as whilst these separating wayes seem to aim at the honour of Christ in leaving none but precious stones in his building they are found much to detract from his honour in another way namely in abridging Prov. 14. 28 so much the number of his subjects 3 Neither do I know how to make these stricter proceedings agree with the infinite grace indulgence of God so much proclaimed in Scripture and so often proved in his compassionate Exod. 34. 6 owning those that were once entred into Covenant with him even then when their dreadfull revolts and manifold whordomes Jer. 3. 1 did seem to cry aloud for a Bill of divorce Now the people whose case I am pleading are certainly entred into Covenant with God being given up to him in the Sacram ent of Baptisme and notwithstanding many miscarriages are not found to have renounced this Covenant they truly beleeve the fundamental Articles of our holy Religion and even in their greatest extremities when they are least like to dissemble make profession thereof so as they must of necessity be accounted Beleevers not Infidels men within not without according to the language of Scripture Now how the rejecting these men by hundreds and thousands as if they were heathen or debarring them from the Ordinances of Christ unless upon their contumacious rejecting such applications as he hath appointed will stand with this infinite grace and indulgence of God I cannot conceive 4 The singular love and goodness of Christ doth inforce to beleeve that in his kingdome salus populi is lex suprema That the Ordinances were made for man not man for the Ordinances and consequently that such ways as for preserving the purity of Ordinances should destroy the souls of the people can be no ways approved by Christ now whether these wayes of withdrawing the more devout and zealous part from their communion leaving them to wander in the wildernesse as sheep without Shepheards staving them off from renuing their ingagements to Christ in that heart-melting Sacrament be not destructive to the souls of the people creating in them hard and uncharitable thoughts concerning the more eminently pious leaving them under the guilt of a dreadful sin of omission and hindering them from one special means of recovering strength against their corruptions seems not hard to determine For mine own part I cannot but strongly conceive in this case what Jonathan speaks in another that diverse of us have by our unadvised zeal hindred the people and that a farre greater slaughter might have been made amongst the enemies 1 Sam. 14. 30 of God had the people been permitted more freely to taste this heavenly food 5 When I consider this way of proceeding in order to people wherein they are excluded from communion in Sacraments and in the mean time admitted to their wonted communion in prayers praises humiliations c. I cannot finde that clearness of Scripture evidence for this halving in point of communion that should warrant our faith to expect the presence or blessing of Christ upon such kind of censures I have according to my poor ability considered what hath been published by some reverend Brethren in defence of suspensions but am inforced still to conceive that the communion of christians one with another lyeth as truly though peradventure with some gradual difference in prayer as in breaking of Bread and that the vast difference that now wee have Act. 2. 42 made admitting all to communion in one and so few in the other was never learned from the rules or examples in scripture nor yet from the practice of the Primitive Church whether Jewish or Christian and consequently that if wee will bring up our censures to the rules and patterns aforesaid wee must remove the rail from the communion table and set it nearer the door of the Church 6 Were these suspensions never so clearly proved by Scripture yet it seems justly questionable whether Christian prudence guided by Scripture-light will admit them to be so generally passed Ecclesiastical censures seem to bee enervate and loose much of their vigor when they fall upon the major part of the People yea more to resemble some Popish interdict than the censures of Christ the tender Physitian when a finger an hand or an arm is dangerously diseased the wise Chirurgion sometimes thinks of cutting it off but he would scarce bee approved as a good Chirurgion who should deal thus with the major part of the body though affected in the same manner The blessed Apostle saw several persons in the Churches of Corinth and Galatia whose case hee bewailes and peradventure might think them worthy of censure yet at present singles 2 Cor. 12. 21 1 Cor. 6. 1 Cor. 5 Gal. 5. 12 out only one not orious offender in the Church of Corinth and wishes that only the ring-leaders of error in the Churches of Galatia should bee cut off Now had we taken this course to admit more generally the body of the People to a full communion and laid some stubborn notorious offenders under more signal remarkable censures peradventure we might have seen some more happy effects of our proceedings than now we behold I have thus presumed according to the licentiousness of these times to utter my mournful thoughts in this case craving from you a candid interpretation of my meaning though you finde my words rude and unpolisht And if it shall happen that any of you shall mee in opinion concerning these things let this poor Petition have the help of your Prayers that it may finde entertainment in the hearts of those to whom it is directed if otherwise let the Author obtain the benefit of them that God will bee pleased graciously to pardon all his errors and sinful miscarriages who if he knoweth his own heart would willingly see and submit to the mind of the Lord though never so crossing to his former opinion or practice Wast Septemb. 1656 To all that love and serve the Lord Jesus Christ in the work of Magistracy or Ministry As also to all the more eminent Professors of Religion within this Commonwealth A mournful Complaint and Supplication in behalf of many Thousands of the more weak and ignorant people of this Nation Humbly lamenteth and declareth THat notwithstanding your poor Petitioners have even by your confession reasonable and immortal Souls capable of
that which was sick you have Ezâ—k 34. 44. not bound up that which was broken neither have you brought back that which was driven away or sought up that which was lost O remember that you are Officers under him who hath professed hee will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoaking Flax and who despiseth not the day of small things O! let your compassions imitate the mercies of him whose name you bear and say you concerning Isa 65. 8. our numerous cluster though it be not pleasing to the eye destroy it not there is a blessing in it O you the more eminent professors of Religion you have by the advantage of more excellent natural endowments better education greater diligence or more abundant grace from above far surpassed us in knowledge and understanding in spiritual things you have made a more glorious profession of Religion and have clean escaped some of those pollutions in which we are yet miserably intangled you as Schollers of the highest form are inabled to afford much help to us who are of the lowest in the School of Christ and divine providence hath so dispersed you amongst us in your habitations and caused such mutual intercourse of worldly businesse that you have much advantage to discover our infirmities and afford a seasonable supply of help and support unto us And blessed bee God amongst your number wee have found some humble charitable and truly self-denying Christians who have cheerfully laid out themselves and their several abilities for our good and comfort for whose faithfulness in order to our souls wee are bound always to be thankful and although sometimes through the prevalency of our corruptions wee too much slight their gracious counsel and advice yet when our spirits are more serious wee remember feelingly their godly admonitions and esteem them the most faithful of our friends But against many of you our mournful condition sadly complaineth that you have shut up the bowels of your compassions from us that you look aloofe upon us and proclaim us blind and miserable but do not strongly apply your selves unto our help you see us in imminent danger to fall into the pit but take little care to keep us out you see us worryed and much overpowered by our lusts but hasten not to our assistance you see us chilled with cold and you rub us not many of you think it enough to slip away and shut up your selves in some separate Congregations leaving us in danger to perish in our coldnesse or bee devoured by the cruel Enemy Yea though you proclaim us blind and ignorant yet you cease not to cast many fearful stumbling blocks before us whilst wee are inforced to see and hear from some of you scornful censuring and condemning others greedy panting and grasping at the riches honours and preferments of this world fraudulent circumventing and overreaching others cruel revenges upon those you judge your enemies bitter quarrelling and contending one against another And notwithstanding those miscarriages which might justly cause you with us to lye in the dust joyntly bewailing our dreadful transgressions yet wee finde you lifted up boasting of the glorious Times proudly appropriating to your selves the honourable names of Christians Saints the godly party not remembring the sentence of our Saviour in the case of the Pharisce and Publican Luk 18. 13 or what hee sometimes said to men whose profession was as high as yours when hee saw them lofty Maâ— 21. 31. Publicans and Harlots shall go before you into the Kingdome of God That you seem to us to measure the Saintship of your selves or others rather by some private opinions or some small punctilioes of worship then by the great things of Faith righteousnesse and mercy because we find some men whose profession of the Lord Jesus Christ is attended with righteousnesse and mercy yet accounts us no better than civil by diverse of you whilst others are cried up for Saints and godly who are much deficient in these That you animate and incourage yea in some measure necessitate and inforce our Ministers to their more harsh and uncharitable dealing with us it is usually from you rather than themselves that our children are not baptized nor our selves admitted to the other Sacrament whilst they are loath to loose or anger you and if any of them hath more courage in the case of Christ or more bowels of compassion towards us you presently brand and asperse them with your tongues yea often make schismes and separations from them That you carry all things towards us in a lofty magisteriall way not as Schollers of the higher form which wee could willinging admit but as Lords and Masters over us though you live in vicinity to us we seldome hear any words of wholesom counsel or instruction from you unlesse you get into our Pulpits neither can we enjoy any communion with you in our Churches unlesse all the power may be in your hands to admit exclude rule and order all things at your pleasure having forgotten as wee think that seasonable counsel of St. James My Brethren Jam. 3. â— be not many Masters Those powers and priviledges which you challenge as belonging to the Church of Christ you share in a manner wholly to your selves not affording to us any portion in them you say it is in the peoples power to chuse or reject their Ministers yet make no scruple to obtrude them upon us you say a Christian ought not to bee rejected or dealt with as an heathen till hee bee found contumacious after several admonitions yet observe no such rules in order unto us as if your very opinion of your selves were sufficient to make you the onely Christians and to intitle you to all the honours or liberties by Christ conferred and your ill opinion of us were sufficient to degrade us and seclude us from the meanest priviledge belonging to the Church of Christ That you indeavour to bring upon us and our posterity the saddest judgement that can befal a nation namely to unchurch and unchristian us and as you for the present seem to account us as Heathens or little better so your practice tendeth if infinite mercy prevent not to make us such indeed whilst you indeavour to take from us and our posterity all the marks and badges of our Christian profession and so what lyeth in you wholly to casheire us from the Camp of Christ as if you grudged to see the promises made by the Father unto Christ of causing Nations to bee gathered to him performed in this little Corner of the world Consider wee beseech you the infinite mercyes and long-suffering of that God whom you profess how exceeding flow and loath hee is to cast off those which are once entred into Covenant with him what heart breaking expressions hee hath concerning Ephraim and Judah in the height of their apostacy and rebellion and how exceeding Hos 11. 8 Jer. 3. 15 backward he was to give a bill of