oppression be made mad nor driven from your innocency DIRECT LV. When you complain of violence and persecution in others take heed lest you shew the same inward sin by Church-persecution and cruelty against them or any others BUt because I know that guilt causeth impatience and passion disposeth men to mistakes and false reports before I proceed I must here foretell you 1. That I mean not by Separatists all that are so called by interessed injudicious persons But those 1. that account true Churches of Christ to be no Churches 2. or that account it unlawful to hold Communion with those Churches whose communion is not unlawful because they are faulty or because they differ from them in some opinions or circumstances of worship 3. especially if they practise and perswade others to practise according to these two opinions of which the first is the higher sort of separation and the second the lover And secondly That by Church-dividers I mean both these and all such whose principles and practises are against that love of a Christian as a Christian and that forbearance of dissenters which should be exercised to all the members of Christ and who fly from the ancient simplicity and primitive terms of church-Church-communion and adde as the Papists do their own little novelties as necessary things And those that do causlesly separate from their own lawfully called Pastors For ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia where the true Pastor is there the Church is what ever place it be that they assemble in as Cyprien once said And lastly those that are of uncharitable humerous peevish contentious and fiery spirits and will stir up mâ—tinies and â—idings and causeless diviâ—ions in any Church where they come And truly they that think of the present state of Hartford and some other Churcheses in New England which I will not here make a Narrative of me thinks should fear Separations Schismes or Divisions from oâ— in the Churches called Independent as much as those of a different Discipline do as to theirs if not somewhat more on several accounts Thirdly And remember that I am not here speaking of any mens former faults by way of uncharitable bitterness insulting or reproach but verily brethren if we are not impartially willing to know the truth of eveâ—y side and of our own selves as well as otheâ—s we choose deceit and resist the light and provoke God to forsake our understandings Do we not yet know where Iudgment hath begun after such plagues and flames and Church convulsions And do we not yet know where Repentance must begin Enquire for good news whence you will I vvill enquire whether we are awakened to a true Repentance and by that I will fetch my prognosticks of our fâ—ture state Not whether you cry out against other mens sins but against your own and that particularly with all their aggravations and whether Professoâ—rs of Religiousness do as heartily lament their own notorious publick scandals as they expect that drunkards and fornicators and the friends of loosness should lament theirs Till we see this what promise have we of the pardon of our dreadful temporal penalties to say nothing of the greater Woe to the Land and People that can multiply sin and cannot Repent And wo to them that pretend Repentance and love to be flattered in their sin and cannot endure to be admonished but take all the discoveries of their sin to be injurious reproach among the prophane we take this to be a deadly sign of impenitency And is it so bad in them and good in us It is part of my office to cry with holy Bradford REPENT O ENGLAND and to say after Christ Except ye Repent ye shall all Perish And can I call men to Repent when I must not dare to tell them of what Nor to mention the sin which is most to be repented of I use all this preface because I know that Guilt and Impenitency are touchy and tender and galled and querulous and such will bestow the time in backbiting their Monitor which they should bestow in lamenting their sin But shall I therefore forbear and betray their souls and betray the Land through cowardly silence Must I shew that I haâ—e Professours by not admonishing them Lev. 19. 17. when I must shew that I love the looser sort by my sharp reproofs Must I not fear them that can kill the body and must I fear to displease a professed Christian by calling him to Repentance in a time of Judgments Lord hide not my own miscarriages from my â—ight and suffer me not to take any sin that I have committed to have been my innocency or duty lest I should dare to father sin on God and lest I should live and die without Repentance and lest I should be one that continueth judgments and danger to the Land stir up some faithful friend to tell me with convincing evidence where it is that I have miscarried that Contrition may prepare me for the peace of remission O save me from the plague of an impenitent heart that cannot endure to be told of sin from that ungodly folly which taketh the shame that Repentance casteth upon sin to be cast upon God and Religion which bind us to Repentance and Confession Nay in this place I am not mentioning things past so much to humble you as necessarily to inform you of the groundlesness of your present arguings that you may see the truth Fourthly Note also that I lay not any miscarriages on any whole parties Anabaptists or others For I have found that all parties of Christians indeed have some good experienced sober charitable persons and some self-conceited and contentious novices 1 Tim. 3. 6. But I speak only of the persons that were guilty and no more Fifthly Lastly remember that while I seem to compare the faults of one sort of persons with anothers it is none of my intent to equal them much less to equal the state of the several sorts of Offenders as to the rest of their lives But only to mention so much of the similitude as is nenessary to represent things truly and impartially to your view Read on now with these Memento's in your eye And if after so plain a premonition you will venture to charge me with that which I disclaim do it at your own peril I stand or fall to the judgment of God and look for a better reward than the hypocrites which is to have the good opinion of men be they professours of piety or profane And with me by Gods grace it shall hereafter be accounted a small thing to the hindering of my fidelity to Christ and mens souls to be judged of men 1 Cor. 4. 3. And if there should be any Pastors of the Churches who instead of concurring to heal the flocks of these dividing principles shall rather joyn with backbiters and encourage them in their misreports and slanders because it tendeth to the supposed interest of their party or themselves Let them prepare to
1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3 4. II. On the other side if any withdraw from our Communion let us not too hastily accuse them of schism And when we do let us well distinguish of schism and not go further from them than they have gone from us and to be our selves the Schismaticks while we oppose it There are many cases in which local separation may be lawful First As if our callings justly remove us to another place or Country Secondly If our spiritual advantage bind us to remove to a better Minister and more suitable society when we are free Thirdly if our lawful Pastors be turned out of the place and we follow them and turn away but from Usurpers Fourthly If the Pastors turn Hereticks or Wolves Fifthly If the publick good of the Churches require my removal Sixthly If any sin be imposed on me and I be refused by the Church unless I will commit it In these and some other such cases a remove is lawful And when it is not lawful yet it may be but such a blemish in the departers as the departerâ— find in the Church which they depart from which will on neither side dis-oblige them from Christian Love and such Communion as is due with neighbour Churches There is a schism from the Church and a schism in the Church There is a schism from almost all the Churches in the world and a schism from some one or few particular Churches There is a separation upon desperate intollerable principles and reasons and a separation upon some weak but tollerable ones These must not be conâ—ounded The Novatians were tolerated and loved by the sober Catholicks Emperours and others when many others were otherwise dealt with If any good Christians in zeal against sin do erroneously think that an undisciplin'd Church should be forsaken that they may exercise the discipline among themselves which Christ hath appointed It is the duty of that Church to take this warning to repent of her neglect of discipline and then to love and honour those thâ—t have though upon mistake perhaps withdrawn But if when they have occasioned the withdrawing by their corruption they will prosecute the persons with hatred revising slanders contempt or persecution and continue impenitent in their own corruption they will be the far greater Schismaticks and err a more pernicious errour DIRECT LX. When the Love-killing spirit either cruel or Dividing is abroad among Christians be not idle nor discouraged spectators nor betray the Churches Peace by a few lazy wishes but make it a great part of your labour and Religion to revive Love and peace and to destroy their contraries And let nâ— censures or contempt of any Sect or party take you off But account it an honour to be a Martyr for Love and Peace as well as for the Faith OF all parts of Religion I know not how unhappily it comes to pass men think that Negatives are sufficient for the service of Peace If a man live not unpeaceably and do no man wrong nor provoke any to wrath this is thought a sufficient friend to peace And therefore it is no wonder that Love and Peace so little prosper When Satan and his instruments do all that they can by fraud and force against it and we think it enough to stand by and do no harm It is the Peace-makers that Christ pronounceth blessed for theirs is the kingdome of heaven Math. 5. 9. Here he that is not with Christ and the Church is against it Why should we think that so much actual diligence in hearing reading praying c. is necessary to the promoting of other parts of holiness and nothing necessary to Love and Peace but to do no hurt but be quiet patients Is it not worthy of our labour And is not our labour as needful here as any where Judge by the multitude and quality of the adversaries and by their power and success Is it a mark of hypocrisie to go no further in duties of Godliness than the safety of our reputation will give us leave And is it not so in the duties of Love and Peace If the Kingdome of God be in Righteousness and Peace then what we would do to promote Gods Kingdome we must do for them Rom. 14. 17. And if dividing Christs Kingdome is the way to destroy it and Satan himself is wiser than to divide his own Kingdome Math. 12. then what ever we would do to save the Kingdom of Christ all that we must do to preserve and restore the peace of it and to heal its wounds I know if you set your selves in good earnest to this work both parties who are guilty will fall upon you with their censures at least One side will say of you that you are a favorer of the Schismaticks and Sectaries because you oppose them not with their unhappy weapons love them not as little as they As they say of Socrates and Sozomen the Historians that they were Novatians because they spake truth of them called them honest men And as they said of Martyn and Sulpitius Severâ—s that they were favourers of unlearned Fanaticks and of the Priscilian Gnosticks because they were not as hot against them as Ithacius and Idacius but refused to be of their Councels or communicate with them for inviting the Emperour to the way of blood and corporal violence And the other side will say that you are a temporizer and a man of too large principles because you separate not as they do And perhaps that you are wise in your own eyes because you fall in with neither Sect of the extreams But these are small things to be undergone for so great a duty And he that will not be a peace-maker upon harder terms than these I fear will scarce be meet for the reward I again repeat Iam. 3. 17. The wisdome from above is first pure and then Peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Rom. 12. 18. If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Heb. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holiness Obj. But is it not as good sit still as labour to no purpose What good have ever any peace-makers done among differing Divines Answ. A grievous charge upon Divines and Christians Are they the only Bedlams or drunken men in the world If Princes fall out or if neighbours fall out arbitrators and peace-makers labour not alwayes in vain But I answer you It is not in vain Peace-breakers would have yet prevailed more and made the Church unhappier than it is if some Peace-makers had not hindered them The minds of thousands are seasoned with the Love of Peace and kept from cruelties and Schisms by the wholesome instructions and examples of Peace-makers And it is worth our labour to honour so holy and sweet a thing as Love and Peace and to bear our
quench it and hath these fifteen hundred years but especially these thirteen hundred been the wolvish Scatterer of the flocks of Christ And must that be now the way to build it which hath so long been the way to pull it down It is Love that must be our Union and Love that must cause it or we shall never have the Union of a Christian Church By this shall all men know that you are Christs Disciples if you have Love one to another If you believe not this pretend not to believe in Jesus Christ who doth affirm it I confess I am so far guilty of superstition my self that if I had been one of the Changers of our ancient Government I should have been somewhat the more backward for his Name sake to the beheading of Christopher Love lest it should be an ill Omen both to Church and State but especially to the Actors of it 8. Another of the Motives of this Discourse is because I know that times of most temptation are times of greatest danger and commonly of greatest sin And all faithful Pastors must know what are the special Temptations of the Time and Place which they live in When had we ever greater Temptations to Love-killing principles and practices than now except in the times of the miserable Wars I need not name them to you The harder it is for men to Love them that hate them that censure them unjustly that revile them and reproach them and make them odious or that hurt them the more cause have Ministers and all Christians to set a double watch upon their Love Lest before they are aware a flaming and consuming zeal do tell others that they know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9. 55. 9. Yea it is not only a time of great Temptation to this sin but of common guilt They are multitudes that are overtaken already with this sin Is not the Land in a continual heart war Are there not parties against parties and cause against cause and heart-risings and passions and censurings of Dissenters to say no worse And is it not time to bring water when we see the flames 10. And I perceive few know so heinous a sin to be any sin at all But all factions and parties are still justifying their Love-killing wayes and reproaching those whom they have wronged As if when they have sinfully withdrawn their Love from them it were no crime to take away next their good names and all that they have but power to take away And when they have cast their brethren out of their estimation and affection they think it a piece of commendable zeal or justice to cast them ouâ— of Christian communion and if they could out of the Land and of the world And shall Ministers stand by and see men take such sin for duty and serve God by abusing his Servants and look for a reward for dividing and pulling down his Church and never tell them what they are doing 11. And the old Non-conformists who wrote so much against separation were neither blind nor temporizers They saw the danger on that side Even Brightman on Rev. that writeth against the Prelacy and Ceremonies severely reprehendeth the separatists Read but the writings of Mr. Iohn Paget Mr. Iohn Ball Mr. Hildersham Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Baine Mr. Rathband and many such others against the separatists of those times and you may learn that our Light is not greater but less than theirs and that we see not further into that cause than they did and that change of times doth not change the truth nor will warrant us to change our Religion unless we will make our Religion subject to the wills and interests of men and change it as oft as the times shall change 12. Lastly if your friends tell you not of your faults and errours in Love those whom you account your enemies will do it in wrath And though all sober Christians should learn by the keenest rebukes of their Adversaries yet passion and prejudice maketh it so difficult that it usually hardeneth men more in their sin And this is another thing which causeth me the more to abhor division and to long for the reconciling of the minds of all dissenting Christians Because while they take each other for adversaries nothing that is written or said by any is like to do the Adversaries any good Nay I must confess when I see an adversary tell men of their sin especially with furious spleen and wrath mixing together words and swords I am greatly afraid lest by that temptation Satan will draw the reproved to impenitency and greatly harden them in their sin and make them glory in that as a virtue which such a person doth so reprove But if you will neither hear of your sin nor duty by adversaries nor friends by fair speeches nor by foul you fasten the guilt upon your selves Remember I pray you that I am not kindling fires nor drawing Swords against you nor stirring up any to do you hurt but only perswading all dissenters to love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intollerable to you the Lord have mercy on your Souls III. And now without a spirit of Prophecy I will foretel what entertainment this Paper must expect 1. Some on the one side will say It is sharper and rounder dealing than all this that must cure the Schismes in the Church And if you would heal our Divisions why do you not conform you self but stand out as one of the party that divideth 2. Some on the other side will say that it is an unseasonable time when so much anger is breaking forth against those that we account Dividers to mention their faults and so to stir up more I will give these men no other answer than to bid them read the last part of this Book or else do not talk till they know of what 3. And some will say that I am doing that which will prove a hurt to my self and others For if I should draw the People to Communion with the Conformists there would little compassion be shewed to the Ministers that cannot conform But selfish wisdome must be shut out of the Council when we are consulting about the healing of the Churches and the good of Souls And indeed there is little danger of this consequence as long as the people are far more averse to Communion or Concord with the parish-Parish-Churches than the Non-conforming Ministers are But suppose it prove true should we not do good to Souls and save men from sin and heal divisions at the dearest rate What though it cost us more than is here mentioned The reviving of decayed Love and the closure of any of the Churches wounds is a recompence worth our liberties and lives 4. And those that are most guilty of the Love-killing principles here detected and are most eminent in self-conceited ignorance will do by me and by
are but the effects of your prejudice passion or weakness of understanding 28. Do not too much reverence the revelations impulses or most confident opinions of any others upon the account of their sincerity or holiness but try all judiciously and soberly by the word of God 29. Take heed least the trouble of your own disquieted doubting minds do become a snare to draw you to some unâ—outh way of Cure and so make the fancy of some new opinion sect or practice to seem your remedy and give you ease and soperswade you that it is the certain truth 30 Keep in the rank of a humble disciple or Learner in Christs Church till you are fit and called to be Teachers your selves 31. Grow up in the great substantial practical truths and duties and grow downwards in the roots of a clearer belief of the Word of God and the life to come And neither begin too soon with doubtful opinions nor ever lay too much upon them 32. Lay not a greater stress upon your different words and manner of prayer than God hath laid And take heed of scorning reproaching or slighting the words and manner of other mens worship when it is such as God accepteth from the sincere Where the Case about forms of prayer is handled 33. When you are sure that other mens way of worship is sinful yet make it not any other or greater sin than indeed it is and speak not evil of so much in it as is good And slander not God as a hater or rejecter of all mens Services which are mixt with infirmities or as a partial hater of the infirmities of others and not yours 34. Think not that all is unlawfully obeyed which is unlawfully commanded 35. Think not that you are guilty of all the faults of other mens worship with whom you joyn no not of the Ministers or Congregations Nor that you are bound to seperate from all the worship which is faultily performed For then there must be no Church-Communion upon Earth Where is more about extemporary prayer and imposed forms 36. Yet know what Pastors and church-Church-Communion you may joyn with and what not And think not that I am perswading you to make no difference 37. In your judging of Discipline reformation and any means of the Churches good be sure your eye be upon the true End and upon the particular Rule and not on either of them alone Take not that for a means which is either contrary to the Word of God or is in â—ts nature destructive of the end 38. Neglect not any truth of God much less renounce it or deny it But yet do not take it for your duty to publish all which you judge to be truth nor a sin to silence many lesser truths when the Churches peace and welfare doth require it 39. Know which are the Great duties of a Christian life and wherein the nature of true Religion doth consist And then pretend not any lesser duty against these greater though the least when it is indeed a duty is not to be denyed or neglected 40. Labour for a sound judgement to know good from evil least you trouble your selves and others by mistakes Forsake not the guidance of a judicious Teacher nor the Company of the agreeing generality of the Godly 41. Let not the bare fervour of a Preacher or the loudness of his voice or affectionate utterance draw you too far to admire or follow him without a proportion of solid understanding and judiciousness 43. Your belief of the necessary Articles of faith must be made your own and not taken meerly on the Authority of any And in all points of belief or practice which are necessary to Salvation you must ever keep company with the Universal Church For it were not the Church if it erred in those And in matters of Peace and Concord the major vote must be your guide In matters of humane obedience your Governours must be your guides And in matters of high and difficult speculation the judgment of one man of extraordinary understanding is to be preferred before the Rulers and the major Vote 43. Reject not a good cause because it is owned by some bad men And own not a bad cause for the goodness of the Patrons of it Iudge not of the Cause by the persons when you should judg of the persons by the Cause 44. Yea take the bad examples of religious men to be one of your most perillous temptations And therefore labour to discover what are the special sins of professours in the age you live in that you may be specially fortified against them 45. Desire the highest degree of holiness and to be free from the Corruptions of the times But affect not to be odd and singular from ordinary Christians in lawful things 46. When you have to do only with stigmatized scandalous ones to vindicate the honour of Christianity from their Scandal go as far from them as lawfully you can But with the Common sort of Sinners whose Conversion you are bound to seek go not as far from them as you can but purposely study to come as near them as lawfully you may that you may have the better advantage to win them to the truth 47. Whenever you are avoiding any error forget not that there is a contrary extream to be avoided of which you are not our of danger 48. Think more and talk more of your faults and failings against others especially against Princes Magistrates and Pastors than of their faults and failings against you 49. Take notice of all the good in others which appeareth and talk rather of that behind their backs than of their faults 50. Study the duty of instructing and exhorting more than of reproof and finding fault 51. The more you suffer by Rulers or any mâ—n the more be watchful lest you be tempted to dishonour them or to withdraw or abate the Love which is their due 52. Make Conscience of heart-revenge and tongue-revenge as well as of hand-revenge 53. When you are exasperated by the hurt which you feel from Magistrates remember also the Good which the Church receiveth by them 54. Learn to suffer by good people and by Ministers and not only by ungodly people or by Magistrates 55. When you complain of violence and persecution in others take heed lest the same inward vice work in you by Church cruelties and dimning censures against them or others Persecution and separation often have the same Cause 56. Keep still in your eye the State of all Christs Churches upon earth that you may know what a people they are through the world whom Christ hath Communion with and may not ignorantly separate from almost all the Church of Christ while you think that you separate but from those about you Queres about separation 57. Yet ler not any here cheat you by the bare namees and titles of Unity to the papal usurping head of the Church nor must you dream of any Head and Center of Unity to the universal
they gather it out of the World And all this is because they know no more than they see or at least are affected with no more but live as if England or Europe were all the world One years abode in Asia or Africa might cure this errour In 2 Cor. 6. 12 13 c. the Apostle forbiddeth the Christians to marry with Infidels because light hath no communion with darkness nor righteousness with unrighteousness nor Christ with Belial And therefore inferreth that he that believeth hath no part with an Infidel nor the Temple of God any any agreement with Idols And for this he citeth the words of the Prophet Come out from among them and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing All these words which the Apostle so plainly speaketh only against marrying with Infidels and Idolaters and having communion with them either intimately or in their sin are by abundance of ignorant Professors abused as if they had commanded us to separate from the colder and common sort of Christians and to come out of the Church whereof they are members What profaning of Gods word is this and how gross and palpable a contradicting of its plain expressions It was a Church of such mixed Christians as our Churches do consist of to which the Apostle wrote those words And because he commandeth them to separate from intimacy with Heathens and Infidels yet so as when they are once married to them to continue in it therefore these men say that one part of the Church is called to come forth and separate from the rest And with the like abuse they apply the command Come out of Babylon to them that have no communion with Babylon And when ignorance uncharitableness and passion have taught them to call Christs Churches Babylon they add sin to sin the sin of separation to the sin of slander and reproach and abuse the Text according to their false exposition of it DIRECT V. Understand rightly the true difference between the Mystical and the Visible Church and the qualification of their Members and do not confound them as if it were the same persons only that must be Members of both THE Mystical Church indeed hath none but true Saints But the Visible Church containeth multitudes of Hypocrites who profess themselves to be what they are not They profess to believe in God while they neglect him and to be ruled by God while they disobey him and are ruled by their lusts They profess to Love God and forsake the world whilest they love the world and God is not in all their thoughts They profess to love the holy Scriptures whilest they neglect them and love not the holiness of their precepts They profess to believe in Jesus Christ whilest their hearts neglect his grace and government They profess to believe in the holy Spirit and to hold the Communion of Saints in the Catholick Church whilest they resist the Spirit and love not Saints All this sheweth that they are Hypocrites But abundance of Hypocrites are in the Visible Church Nay God would have no Hypocrites cast out but those who bewray their hypocrisie by impenitency in proved Heresie or gross sin We must not model the Church of Christ according to our private fancies We are not the Lords of it nor are we sit or worthy to dispose of it Look into the Scripture and take it for the Rule and see there of what manner of persons the Visible Church hath been constituted in all ages of the world till now In the first Church in Adams family a Cain was the first born member and so continued till he was excommunicated for the murder of his brother In a Church of eight persons who were saved out of all the world the Father and Pastor was overtaken with gross drunkenness and one of his sons was a cursed Cham. In a Church of six persons saved from the wickedness of Sodom two of them Lot's sons in law perished in the flames among the unbelievers a third was turned into a pillar of salt the Father and Pastor was drunk two nights together after the sight of such a terrible miracle and after so strange a deliverance to himself and committed incest twice in his drunkenness The two that remained his daughters caused his drunkenness purposely and committed incest with him In the Church in Abrahams family there was an Ishmael And in the Church in Isaacs family there was an Esau and even Rebeka and Iacob guilty of deceitful equivocation And Abraham and Isaac denied their wives to save themselves in their unbelief In Iacob's family was a Simeon and Levi who murdered multitudes under a pretense of Religion and under the cover of false deceit And almost all his sons moved with envy sold their brother Ioseph for a slave and some were hardly kept from murdering him And his daughter Dinah was defiled by desiring to see the company and fashions of the world In the Church of the Israelites in the Wilderness after all the miracles which they had seen and the mercies they had received so great were their sins of unbelief and murmuring and lust and whoredomes and idolatry and disobedience that but two of them that came out of Egypt were permitted to enter the promised land In the times of the Judges they so oft renewed their idolatry besides all their other sins that they spent a great part of all those ages in captivity for it And when the villanies of Gibeah had imitated the Sodomites and ravished a woman to death the Tribe of the Benjamites defended it by a war and that in three battels till fourty thousand of the innocent Israelites were slain and twenty five thousand of the Benjamites Look through all the Books of Samuel the Kings and Chronicles and the Prophets from the sad story of the sons of Eli and of Samuel to all the wicked Kings that followed who kept up odious Idolatry even Solomon himself and scarce two or three of the best did put down the high places And when Hezekiah was zealous to reform the hearts of the subjects were not prepared but derided or abused the Messengers whom he sent about to call the people home to God Manasseh's wickedness is scarcely to be parallel'd And when God sent his Prophets to call them to repentance they mocked his Messengers and despised and abused his Prophets till the wrath of the Lord arose and there was no remedy 2 Chron. 36. 15 16. Read over the Prophets and see there what a people this Church of God was The ten Tribes were drawn by Ierâ—boam to sin by setting up Calves at Dan and Beth-el and making Priests of the vilest of the people and forsaking the Temple and the true worship of God and the lawful Priests And these lawful Priests at Ierusalem were ravening Wolves and greedy Dogs and careless and cruel Shepherds The false Prophets who deceived the people were most accepted The people are accused of cruelty oppression whoredom drunkenness Idolatry and hatred
Church be able to prove it hath worse crimes to nullisie it than any of these had For none of these were for these faults pronounced no Churches of Iesus Christ. Secondly observe that no one Member is in all these Scriptures or any other commanded 〈◊〉 come out and separate from any one of all these Churches as if their communion in worship were unlawful And therefore before you separate from any as judging communion with them unlawful be sure that you bring greater reasons for it than any of these recited were DIRECT VI. Understand well the different conditions and terms of Communion with the Church as invisible and as visible and the different priviledges of the Members that so you may not presume to impose any conditions which God hath not imposed nor yet to grudge at the reception of those that are not sanctified and sincere ALL Christians are agreed that it belongeth to God only to make the conditions of church-Church-communion and therefore it belongeth not to us to invent them nor to our wit to censure what God hath done but to search the Scripture till we find it out and then obey it This is the great controversie which hath troubled the Church When men know not who should be Members of the Church and who not and when they have no certain rule or character to know whom they must receive it is no wonder if confusion and contention be the complexion and practice of such Churches And here the Pastors have torn the Church by running into contrary extreams Some have thought that the Visible Church must be constituted only of such persons as satisfie the Pastors and the people of the truth of their sanctification by some special account of their conversion or the work of grace upon their hearts in a distincter manner than the ancient Church required of the baptized Wherein being agreed of no certain terms to know anothers sanctification by their Churches are diversified according to the measure of the strictness or largeness censoriousness or charity of the Pastors the people while one thinks that person to have true grace whom another thinks to have done And so they that will be most uncharitable do pretend to the reputation of being the most pure because they are most strict And multitudes are shut out whom Christ would have to be received his children are numbred with the dogs On the other side there is one or two of late among us who think that the Church is but Christs School where he teacheth the way to true Regeneration and not a Society of professed Regenerate ones or Saints And that all who own Christ as the Teacher of the Church and submit to the Government of the Pastors and are willing to learn how to be regenerate should be baptized though they profess not any special saving faith or repentance And their reasons are because first else all that doubt of their sincerity must lie or be kept out Secondly because that in the Church of the Jews the multitude were such as were openly ungodly And some of the Papists talk also at this rate though indeed they are themselves yet â—tterly unresolved in this point What Church soever is constituted according to either of these two opinions will not be constituted according to the mind of Christ But yet with this difference The first Opinion introduceth Church tyranny and injustice and is founded in the want of Christian charity and knowledge and tendeth to endless separations and confusions But the second opinion inferreth all these greater mischiefs First it confoundeth the Catechumens with the Christians and maketh all Christians who are but willing to learn to be Christians Secondly it maketh the Christian Church to consist of such as are no Christians As that person certainly is not who consenteth not that Christ be his Teacher Priest and King For to such a one he is no Christ seeing these are the essential parts of his Mediatory office And the new device of distinguishing Christs Apostolike and Mediatory offices so the Church congregate and the Church regenerate accordingly will not seem to difend this conceit For as Christ is not divided so his office for which he is called Christ is but One which entirely is called the office of a Saviour or Redeemer or Mediator which are all one And the essential parts of it are first his Priestly second Teaching and Ruling offices or works And this which is called his Apostleship is but the same which is called his Teaching or Prophetical Office and is a part of his Mediatory or saving Office And he is no Christian nor is that any Congregated Christian Church which professeth not to take Christ for his Mediator his Priest and King as well as for an Apostle a Prophet or Teacher Thirdly they therefore who hold the aforesaid doctrine do introduce a new sort of Christianity Fourthly and a new sort of Baptism which the Church of Christ never knew to this day And therefore they do ingenuously profess their dissent from our form or words in Baptism because we put the baptized to renounce the flesh the world and the devil and to use such covenanting words as must signifie special grace But through the great mercy of God Baptism is still the same thing in all the Christian Churches in the world the Reformed the Roman the Greek the Armenian yea and the Ethiopian too for all their seeming reiteration of it And Baptism among them all is the same now as it hath been in all Generations from Christs institution of it So that we fully maintain as well as the Romans that Christianity hath by this sacred Tradition been safely delivered down to us to this day What a Christian is and what Christianity is may be most certainly known by this which is commonly called our Christening In which the profession and covenant which maketh men Christians is so express and unchanged from age to age Therefore these men who would have our Baptism changed do speak plainly but impudently as if they were raised in the end of the world to reform the Baptism and Christianity of all ages and were not only wiser than the universal Church from Christ till now but also at last must make the Church another thing I intreat the Reader who would know the judgement of all antiquity about Baptism as supposing saving grace to read those numerous citations of Mr. Gataker in the Margin of his book against Davenant of Baptism Fifthly and by this new doctrine they destroy all that special Love which Church-members or visible Christians as such should bear to one another For if no faith or consent must necessarily be professed at Baptism but that which is common to the ungodly and children of the devil then all Church-members as only such must be taken to be but ungodly and no man must love a Church-member as such with a special love as a visible Saint but only as one of the hopefuller sort of the
Mystical and as Visible is but One however the Members and their Gifts and degrees of grace are many Sixthly It is One way of Faith and Holiness which all must walk in Seventhly And it is One end and happiness which we all expect and in One Heaven that we must meet and live for ever so many as are sincere in the faith which we profess And in Heaven we shall have one Mind and Heart and One employment in the Love and praise of our Creator and Redeemer and one felicitating fruition of his Glory for evermore Therefore he that seeth not the necessity of Unity knoweth not the Nature of the Church or Faith or true Religion The Honours and Benefits of Unity and the shame and mischiefs of Divisions may appear to him that further considereth the instances which follow First Our Union with the Church is a sign of our proportionable union with Christ And our separation from the Church doth signifie that we are separated from Christ. He that is United but to the Visible Church is but visibly by Baptism and Profession united to Christ such a union is spoken of in Ioh. 15. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away He that is united to the mystical Church of the Regenerate and spiritual is united to Christ by faith and by the spirit For his union to Christ is at the same instant of time with his union with the Church but in order of nature goeth before it He that is divided from this mystical Church cannot possibly at that time be a Member of Christ in the spiritual sense As the member which is cut off from the body is also separated from the Head And he that himself forsaketh the Visible Church as such sorsaketh the mystical Church and Christ himself For to forsake the Visible Church as such is to cease to be a Professor of Christianity One may be a Member of the Visible Church and not of the spiritual but you cannot be a Member of the spiritual Church if you forsake and refuse the visible Church as such For though a man may be regenerate by the Spirit before he make an open profession or be baptized and without baptism in some few cases yet so he cannot be if he refuse to be a Professor It s possible indeed to be a member of the Universal Church both as Mystical and as Visible as spiritual and as professing while we have not opportunity to joyn with any one particular Church or to separate from some particular Church without separating from the Universal But to separate from the Universal Church is to separate from Christ. But then you must understand that the Universal Visible Church is nothing else but all professing Christians in the world as visibly subjected to Christ as their Head And that there is no such thing in being as the Papists call the Catholick or Universal Church that is the universality of Christians subjected to one Vicar of Christ as their Head either Constitutive or Governing Such a pretended Head is an Usurper and no true authorized Vicar of Christ And therefore such a Church as such is nothing but a company of seduced Christians following such a traiterous Usurper And to separate from the Pope is not to separate from Christ or from his Church Secondly Consider also that Union is not only an Accident of the Church but is part of its very essence without which it can be no Church and without which we can be no members of it It is no Kingdome no City no family and so no Church which doth not consist of United members As it is no house which consisteth not of united parts And he is no Member which is not united to the whole It is the great course of mens boldness in dividing ways that they take union to be but some laudable accident while it may be had which yet in some cases we may be without and think that separations are tollerable faults even when they are forced to confess them faults But they do not consider that Vnity is necessary to the being of the Church and to the being of oâ—r own Christianity Read 1 Cor. 12. Ephes. 4. Thirdly Remember also that our Vnion is necessary to our Communion with Christ and with his Church and to all the blessings and benefits of such communion Ioh. 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me for without me ye can do nothing If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned And Col. 2. 19. From the Head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God The member that is cut off from the body hath no life or nourishment from the head or from the body but is dead He that is out of the Church is without the Teaching the holy worship the prayers and the discipline of the Church and is out of the way where the spirit doth come and out of the Society which Christ is specially related to For he is the Saviour of his body And if we leave his hospital we cannot expect the presence and help of the Physician Nor will he be a Pilot to them who forsake his Ship Nor a Captain to them who separate from his Army Out of this Ark there is nothing but a deluge and no place of rest or safety for a soul. Fourthly The Unity of Christians is their secondary strength Their primary strength is Christ and the Spirit of grace which quickeneth them And their secondary strength is their Vnion among themselves Separation from Christ depriveth men of the first and separation from one another depriveth them of the second An Army is stronger than a man And a Kingdom than a single person A flame will burn more strongly than a spark And the waves of the Ocean are more forcible than a single drop A threefold Cord is not easily broken Therefore it is that weak Commonwealths do seek to strengthen themselves by confederacies with other States The Church is likened to an Army with Banners both for their Numbers their Concord and their Order And therefore Christ saith that a Kingdom divided cannot stand Union is the Churches strength And what good soever they may pretend Dividers are certainly the weakeners and destroyers of the Church And as those means which best corroborate the body and fortifie the spirits do best cure many particular diseases which no means would câ—re whilst nature is debilitated So are the Churches diseases best cured by uniting fortifying remedies which will be increased by a dividing way of Reformation Dividing is wounding and uniting is the closing of the wound There is no good work but Satan is a pretender to it when he purposeth to destroy
your foul back-biting reviling censorious contentious tongues do not prove the contrary 13. who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisedome that is Let him that would be thought more knowing and religious than his neighbours be so much more blameless and meek to all men and excel them in good works v. 14. But if ye have a bitter zeal for so is the Greek word and strife in your hearts glory not in such a zeal or in your greater knowledge and lie not against the truth 15. This wisdome descendeth not from above as you imagine who father it on Gods word and spirit but is earthly sensual or natural and devillish O doleful mistake that the world the flesh and the Devil should prove the cause of that conceited spiritual knowledge and excellency which they thought had been the inspiration of the spirit v. 16. For where zeal and strife 〈◊〉 that is a striving contentious zeal against brethren there is confusion or tumult and unquietness and every evil work O lamentable reformers that set up every evil work while they seemed zealous against evil v. 17. But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality or wrangling and without Hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace when peace-breakers that sow in divisions and contention shall reap the fruit of unrighteousness though they call their way by the most religious names Thus I have briefly shewed you what Vâ—nity and Division are that wrong apprehensions draw you not to sin DIRECT VIII When any thing needeth amendment in the Church remember that the best Christian must be the forwardest to reformation and â—he backwardest to Division and must search and try all means of Reforming which make not against the concord of the Church I Do not here determine in what cases you may or may not separate from any company of faulty Christians I only say that you must never separate what God hath conjoyned the Holiness and the Vnity of believers If corruptions blemish and dishonour the Congregation Do not say Let sin alone I must not oppose it for fear of division But be the forwardest to reduce all to the will of God And yet if you cannot prevail as you desire be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extream necessity Resolve with Austin I will not be the chaff and yet I will not go out of the floor though the chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour of Reformation And yet as long as possibly you can avoid it forsake not the Church which you desire to reform As Paul said to them that were ready to forsake a sea-wrackt vessel If these abide not in the ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others DIRECT IX Forget not the great difference between casting out the wicked and impenitent from the Church by discipline and the godlies separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty The second is ordinarily a great sin THe question is not Whether the impenitent should be put away from church-Church-Communion That 's not denied But whether you should separate from the Church because they are permitted This is it which we call you to beware Not but that in some cases a Christian may lawfully remove from one Church to another that hath more light and purity for the edification of his soul. But before you separate from a faulty Church as such as may not lawfully be communicated with you must look well about you and be able to prove that thing which you affirm Many weak Christians marking those Texts which bid us avoid a man that is an Heretick and to have no company with disorderly walkers and not to eat with flagitious persons do not sufficiently mark their sense but take them as if they call'd us to separate from the Church with which these persons do communicate Whereas if you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels or Idolatrous world or Antichristian and Heretical confederacies and no-Churches is but one of these two sorts First either that the Church cast out the impenitent sinner by the power of the Keyes Secondly or that private men avoid all private familiarity with them And both these we would promote and no way hinder Thirdly but that the private members should separate from the Church because such persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can Let us here peruse the Texts that speak of our withdrawing from the wicked 1 Cor. 5. Is expresly written to the whole Church as obliged to put away the incestuous person from among them and so not to eat with such offenders So is that in 2 Thes. 3. and that in Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Unless it be a Heretick that hath already separated himself from our communion And then it can be put private familiarity which we are further to avoid In brief there is no other place of Scripture that I know of which commandeth any more I have before shewed that abundance of Church corruptions or of scandalous members were then among them and yet the Apostle never spake a syllable to any one Christian to separate from any one of all those Churches Which we cannot imagine that the Holy Ghost would have wholly omitted if indeed it had been the will of God Obj. But then why did Luther and the first Pretestants separate from the Church of Rome and how will you justifie them from Schisme Ans. Its pity that sloth and sortishness should keep any Protestant or Papist either in such ignorance as to need any help to answer so easie a question at this day Let not equivocal names deceive us and the case is easie By the word Church the Scripture still meaneth first either the Universal Church which is the body or Kingdome of Christ alone Secondly or particular Congregations associated for personal communion in Gods worship But the Pope hath feigned another kind of thing and called it The Church That is The Vniversality of Christians as headed by himself as the constitutive and governing head Whereas first God never instituted or allowed such a Church Secondly nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping Head Shew me in Scripture or in Church-History that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the world as they call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn
Answ. Do not barely affirm but prove that all fore-knownâ—faults of the Pastors words in prayer are mine if I separate not How doth fore-knowing them make them mine Take heed that thus you make not God the greatest sinner and the worst being in all the world For God fore-knoweth all mens sins and God is present when they commit them and he giveth them all that life and time and strength and breath by which they do them and he hath communion with all the prayers of the faithful in the world what faults soever be in the words or forms he doth not reject them for any such failings Will you say therefore that God approveth or consenteth to all these sins I know before hand as is said before that every man will sin that prayeth either by defect of desire love faith or fervency or by wandering thoughts or disordered words c. And I know that every erroneous person commonly doth use to put his errours into his prayers and preaching But how doth all this make it mine I am bound to hold communion with all Gods people on earth as I have occasion not as they are sinners but as they are Saints And I come as to the Communion of Saints And though both they and I do bring our sins to that communion and I fore-know them yet I lament both theirs and mine and so far am I from consenting to them that they are my grief and I beg forgiveness both for them and me Obj. But you said that it belonged to the Pastors office to word his own Sermons and Prayers Therefore prescribed forms destroy the Pastors office And I may not consent to such usurpations by tyrannical men Answ. First the Pastor is the mouth of God to the people of the people to God And he doth word his own Sermons and Prayers or else his voice could not conduct you But if he that is conscious of his own infirmity do take the help of others in wording them that doth not destroy his office but help him in the exercise of it If a weak Minister learn a prayer out of the writings of some abler Divine and use it in the Pulpit this is no destroying of his office Secondly and if they that fear the effect of Ministers weakness shall force them to use the words of others the speaker still maketh them his own words before you joyn with him And if it did hinder the free exercise of all his office it doth not destroy it Obj. But he doth it voluntarily whereas the weakness of conceived prayer is involuntary Answ. It is with more probability said that a man is involuntary in doing that which another compelleth him to do than that which no man but himself only is the author of It is said to him that readeth the Liturgy Do this or nothing But no body saith to an erring weak confused Minister Put in your errours into your prayers or pray disorderly or you shall be punished Every Separatist Anabaptist and Antinomian doth too willingly put his errours into his prayers Obj. But the Liturgy is imposed on the ablest as well as on the weakest Ministers Answ. Whether it be well or ill imposed is none of the question now in hand No nor whether it be lawfully used by the Speaker But whether you may lawfully joyn in it And however it be imposed till the Minister consent to use it you shall not be put to joyn with him in it And when he doth consent he maketh it his own words and for reasons which seem good to him he doth choose those expressions rather than others Even because he must use those or none so that he is still in the exercise of his office And it is his personal fault if it be a fault to use those words and none of yours Whether he do it willingly as the best or do it with a half will as of necessity or whether there be tyranny in the imposing them or not you are not guilty of any of this by joyning with a Christian Church that useth them DIRECT XXXVI Yet know what Pastors you may own and what not and what Church-communion you may remove from or forbear And think not that I am perswading you to make no difference THis is a point that I have more largely handled elsewhere and can give you now but these brief hints lest I be too tedious First He that is not at all able to do the essential works of the Ministry that is to teach the people the Christian faith and a holy life and to pray and praise God with them and administer the Sacraments and in some measure oversee the manners of the flock is no Minister nor to be owned For he wanteth the essential qualifications As an illiterate man can be no Schoolmaster nor he a Physician a Pilot an Architect who is utterly ignorant of their work Secondly he that preacheth Heresie that is denieth any essential point of Christianity or Godliness after the first and second admonition is to be avoided Thirdly he that in his application endeavoureth to disgrace a Godly life and to disswade the people from it on false pretenses and encourage them to a life of wickedness is a traytor to Christ and not to be owned in the Ministery In a word Any one whose Ministery is such as tendeth to destruction more than to edification and to do more harm then good But then remember that it is not partiality and passion that must here be judge Nor is every one an opposer of Godliness who opposeth the errours of a party or the faults or follies of godly men Fourthly that Pastor or Church who will not let you have communion with them unless you will say or subscribe some falshood or commit any sin of wilful choice doth drive you from their communion by their unlawful terms and it is not you that are the Separatists but they Fifthly When you are to choose what Minister or Church you will statedly have your ordinary communion with you should not prefer a less reformed Church or a less worthy Pastor or one that is erroneous before a better but choose that which is most to your true edification Sixthly If you live under a worse and unreformed Church or unprofitable Minister if necessity hinder not you may remove your dwelling to a better Seventhly and where Churches are near and there is no great hurt or disorder will follow it you may joyn with another Church without removing your dwelling But this you may not do when the hurt to the publick is like to be greater than the good to you Eighthly and you must not conclude that the more faulty Church and Minister may not lawfully be communicated with though for your benefit you choose a better for this is the true crime of sinful separation But surely a mans soul is so precious that all men should prefer the greatest helps for their salvation before the less and think no just means too dear
near to sinners as we can by Love and all the offices of Love neither following them in any sin nor flying from them in any thing that is lawful that they may be convinced that it is not humour and disdain and pride but true necessity and Gods command which maketh us differ from them as we do And that we may not be disabled by any contrary errours of our own from evincing and oppugning theirs DIRECT XLVII When ever you are avoiding any errour or sin forget not that there is a contrary extream to be avoided of which you are in danger as well as of that which you are opposing THe minds of most men are so narrow that they cannot look many wayes at once If they be intent on one thing they forget another But it is a narrow bridge betwixt dangerous gulfs which Christian faith and obedience must pass over And he that looketh on the one side with the greatest fear and caution is undone if he look not also on the other The common way of avoiding any errour oâ— vice is to run into the contrary And on those terms satan himself will be Orthodox and a reformer and an enemy to vice I gave you some instances even now He is a rare person that is so wise and happy as to flye from every errour and sin with an impartial awakened fear of the contrary And thence it is that the most judicious old experienced Christians are usually in controversies for a middle way and in the croud of contentious sects they commonly are the reconcilers Not only because they are more calm and moderate and peaceable than others but especially because they have seen the errour on both extreams when others see only the errour on one side Only in our inclination to our ultimate end that is in our Love to God we never need to fear over-doing But all the means may be perverted and turned into sin by extreams Many that observe the pollution of the Church by the great neglect of holy Discipline avoid this errour by turning to a sinful separation And many that are offended at separation avoid it by a gross neglect of Christian discipline and taking it for a needless thing Many who observe how heartlesly and hypocritically prescribed forms of prayer are used by too many do avoid it by denying the lawfulness of all forms And many who see the errour of this opinion do escape it by turning to meer formality and deriding all prayer which is not written in a book or prescribed by another If any who see how those that were baptized in Infancy are admitted to adult Communion without ever understanding or seriously owning the Covenant into which they were then entered and seeing how the Church is corrupted hereby do avoid this errour by denying the baptism of Infants And many that see the errour of the Anabaptists do avoid it by countenancing the aforesaid Church-corruption and if Infants be but baptized they never care whether they be called at years of discretion to the solemn renewing and owning of their Covenant And many that see both these extreams do plead for Confirmation as the middle way But they turn it into a meer Ceremony and defeat the ends of it and never bring the baptized to a solemn renewall of their holy Vow And many who see the Papists abuse of Confirmation do wholly cast it off and deny the healing use aforesaid Many who see the effects of Papal tyranny dislike all General Ministery which taketh the care of many Churches And many who see the incoherence of Independent Churches and the calamity of sects do incline to Papal Usurpation Many who see the evils of Indepency in respect of Council and Concord are inclined to a Regimental dependency and subordination of one Church to another as of Divine appointment And many who see that there is no proof that God ever appointed such a Regimental dependency do turn to Independency in point of Council and Concord Many who observe the grossness of their error who would have the people have the power of the Keys and govern the Church by the major Vote do deny the people the liberty of choosing their Pastors and being guided in spirituals as Volunteers And many who see this errour of denying the people liberty do give them the fore-said power of the Keyes and make them Governours of themselves by Vote Many who hear the Papists talk so much of merits and of good works do deny our own Faith and Love and Repentance the place that God hath assigned them in order to pardon and salvation in subordination to Christ And many who hear the presumptuous boast of being Righteous by Christs imputed Righteousness without any fulfilling of the Conditions of the Covenant of Grace on their parts do make as a jest of imputed Righteousness as it is taken in a sound and warrantable sense and do ascribe too much to the works of man Many who hear the Socinians make faith and obedience to be all one do deny that the faith by which we are justified is a giving up the soul in Covenant to Christ intirely in all his office even as our Redeemer and Lord and so an engagement to obedience by subjection And many that hear men say that faith justifieth us only as an instrument apprehending Christs satisfaction and meritorious righteousness as their own do confound our faith and obedience and forget that the faith by which we are justified is our becoming Christians or Assent and Consent to the Covenant which we make in Baptisme nothing more or less and not our living as Christians in after obedience which is the fruit or effect of faith And even in civil things many who observe how Turkish Tartarian Japonian China's and other Heathenish and Infidel Tyranny is the chief Resister of the Gospel and Suppresser of Christianity to the damnation of millions of souls And how Papal tyranny and Muscovian and Spanish cruelties are the chief Maintainers of ignorance and unreformedness in the Churches are ready hereupon to think dishonourably of Monarchy it self and to murmure at the power of Christian Princes and to rush into seditions and rebellions And many that see the mischiefs of seditions conspiraciesâ— and rebellions are ready to forget the grand and heynous sin of Tyranny and the calamity of Souls and Churches and Kingdoms thereby As Campanella saith The abuse of the Potestative Primality is Tyranny the abuse of the Intellective Primality is Heresie and the abuse of the Volitive Primality is Hypocrisie Though indeed he should have mentioned both extreams In a word woe be to the Reformer who feareth not running into the Extream which is contrary to the Errour and Sin which he would reform DIRECT XLVIII Think more and talk more of your faults and failings against others especially against Princes magistrates and Ministers than of their faults and failâ—ngs against you THe Reason of this Counsel is very obvious and past contradiction Another mans sin as
well enough bear with themselves in such sins as this or in others as great and that they can beat with as great sins in the people with too much patience when their own interest concurreth not to raise their passions in such cases we have reason enough to fear lest pride and selfishness have too great a part in much that is said and done against schism in the world Is it a greater shame for children to cry and wrangle with the Nurse and one another or for the Nurse or Parents to go to law with them for it or to hate them and turn them out of doors Is it a fault for children to be so impatient as to cry and quarrel And is it not a greater fault in Parents that pretend to greater wisdome to be impatient with them for it I know you will say that Parents must not be so patient with sin as to leave their children uncorrected But I answer correction must not be the effect of impatiency but of Love and Wisedome and dislike of sin and must be chosen and measured in order to the cure of it It s one thing to be angry for God against sin and its another thing to be angry for our selves against the crossing of our wils and interests And it s one thing to correct so as tendeth to a cure And another thing to be revenged or do mischief or to cast out of doors Are not you guilty of Ministerial weaknesses in preaching and praying and of many omissions in your private oversight And do you think that it is meet for the people therefore to revile you with odious titles and stir up the Magistrate against you for your infirmities Is it seemly for them who are the fathers of the flock and should excel the people in Love and lowliness in patience and gentleness and meekness to be so proud and passionate as to storm against the most conscientious persons if they do but set light by us and cast off our Ministery though perhaps they hear and submit to others who are as able and as faithful and more profitable to them than we When we can â—asiâ—er bear with a swearer or drunkard or the families that are prayerless and ungodly than with the most religious if they do not choose our Miniâ—â—â—â—y but prâ—â—er some others before us as more edifying When we can bear with them that have no understanding or seriousness in Religion at all but make the world or their lusts their idols but cannot bear with the weak irregularities of the most upright and devout If they were never so irregular in preferring us before others and in leaving others to follow us we can easily bear with them and think their disorders may be well excused And to shew the height of our pride we still are confident whether we are uppermost or undermost whether we have publick liberty or are forbidden to preach that we are the persons only that are in the right and therefore that all are in the right that follow us and all are in the wrong that turn away from us That it is Unity and duty to follow us and adhere to us and all are Schismaticks who forsake us and choose others And thus the selfishness and Pride of the Pastors making an imprudent and impatient stir against all who dislike them and applauding all how bad soever who adhere to them and follow them is as great a cause of the disorders of the Church as the weakness and errours of the people DIRECT V. Distinguish between those who separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox or purest and Reformed parts of it and those who only forsake the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest AS many occasions may warrant a removal from a particular Church but nothing can excuse a separation from the Vniversal Church so he that separateth only from some particular Churches and yet is a member of the Vniversal Church may also be a member of Christ and be saved He may be a Christian who is no member of your flock yea or of any particular Church But he is no Christian who is no member of the Vniversal Church Paul and Barnabas may in the heat of a difference part from one another and yet neither of them part from Christ or the Church-Universal I do not excuse the fault of them who sin against any one Church or Pastor But I would not have the Pastors therefore sin as much by making their fault greater than it is nor to suffer their own interest partially to call men Schismaticks or Separatists in a sense for which they have no ground If they can learn more by another Minister than by me what reason have I to be offended at their edification though perhaps some infirmity of judgement may appear in it A true mother that knoweth her child is like to thrive better by a nurses milk than by her own will be so far from hatred or envy either at the nurse or child that she will consent and be thankful and pay the nurse Solomon made it the sign of the false mother that could bear the dividatur the hurt of the child for her own commodity and of the true mother that she had rather lose her commodity than the child should suffer And Paul giveth God thanks that Christ was preached though it was by them that did it in strife and envy to add affliction to his â—ands Phil. 1. He is not worthy of the name of a Physician who had rather the patients health were deplorate than that he should be healed by another who is preferred before him If I knew that man by whom the salvation of my flock were like to be more happily promoted than by me whatever infirmity of theirs might be the cause I should think my self a servant of Satan the envious enemy of souls if I were against it DIRECT VI. Distinguish between those who deny the Being of the Church or Ministery from which they separate and those who remove only for their own edification as from a weaker or worse Minister and from a Church more culpable and less pure FOr these last are not properly Separatists in a full sense Though they think it unlawful to joyn with you as supposing that you impose some sin upon them or that you deprive them of discipline or some ordinance of God Whether they be in the right or in the wrong yet still they hold inward Communion with you in faith and love and in the same species of worship And this is such a communion as we hold with many forreign Churches with whom we have no local present communion DIRECT VII Distinguish between those who hold it simply unlawful to have communion with you and those who only hold it unlawful to prefer your assemblies before those which they judge more pure but hold it lawful to communicate with you occasionally yea and statedly when they can have
no better I Excuse not all such from the guilt of all sin herein For if they prefer that Church or Ministery which they should not prefer it is their sin But it is not that sin which of old hath been called Separation and Schism While a man is free if he love himself we cannot wonder if he choose that society and Ministery where he thinketh his salvation may be best furthered and secured All sober Divines who write of the Ministery and of company do declare that the difference between good and bad yea good and better in both these is of so great impâ—â—tance that all wise men should be very careful of their choise If we may without reproach be allowed to be cautelous what wife we choose what master or servants what house what neighbourhood what soil what ayr Much more may we be allowed to be cautelous what Church and Ministers we joyn with And if we are allowed to choose what Physician we will commit our health and lives to and are not constrained to use one that we judge to be ignorant or false surely it would be no heinous schism if the like liberty be granted and used for our souls The very Papists give the people liberty to châ—ose their Confessours without removing their dwellings for it And surely my conscience would tell me at last that I am very selfish and proud if I thought none so fit to instruct and edifie any of the people as my self No nor tolerable in endeavouring it Have I not heard many do I not know many who preach more convincingly more plainly and more powerfully than I And what harm is it then if the people hear them So Christ be preached and the people instructed sanctisied and saved what if it be done by another rather than by me Have not I liberty to do my best Shall I be an envier at the Gospel and its success God forbid that I or any faithful Minister should ever be guilty of so odious a sin I speak without respect of persons It is easie and usual both in publick allowed Churches and in privater assemblies to preach our selves while we seem to be preaching Christ and by our perverse preaching to seek disciples and esteemers for our selves when we are preachâ—â—g up selfâ—denial and seem to be most zealous for the saving of souls Acts 20. 30. 11. DIRECT VIII Remember Christs interest in the weakest of his servants and do nothing to them which Christ will not take well THink well how far he beareth with them and how far he owneth them and how tender he is of them in all their weaknesses If it be a member of Christ that you are offended with though you must never the more love the fault yet remember how you must use the person It was not for nothing that he setteth little children before his disciples when he would teach them not only humility but respect and patience towards each other by his example Math. 18. And how terrible a passage is it v. 5 6. Who so shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me But who so shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me it were far better him that a milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea And Math. 25. What is done to one of the least of his brethren for so he calleth them Christ judgeth as done unto himself He will not break the bruâ—sed reed nor quench the smoaking flax until he bring forth judgement unto victory Remember but Christs interest in them and affections to them and imitate his tenderness and pity DIRECT IX Distinguish between weakness of Gifts and of Grace and remember that many that are weak in the understanding of matters of Church-order may yet be stronger in grace than you HE is the strongest Christian and the most Godly man who hath the greatest Loveto God and heavenliness of mind and life And this may be the case of many a one who by some errour about the circumstances of discipline and worship is yet a trouble to the Church He that offendeth yoâ— by his mistake and unwarrantable singularity though he be weak in judgement in that point and perhaps in many other controversies may yet be a far stronger Christian than I who see his errour He may have more Love to God and man more humility and self-denial more fear of sinning and more fitness to die and more heavenly desires and patience in tribulation Let us therefore value men according to the Image of God upon them and not despise them as weak in grace because they are weak in this point of knowledge Though still their errours are not to be owned DIRECT X. Remember the common calamity of the Church and of all mankind What strange disparity there is in mens understandings and how the Church on earth is a Hospital of diseased souls and no one man perfectly healed in this life WHo can say I have made my heart clean Prov. 20. 9. He that is kept from presumptuous sins and heartily prayeth and striveth against his known infirmities and is desirous to know his unknown sins that he may avoid them hath attained so far as to be justified by Christ and loved of those who love as Christ doth Psal. 19. Ioh. 3. 19 20. Seneca could say that to carp at thâ—t fault which was every mans fault is not to reprove an offender but to reproach humane nature and all mankind Christians indeed must lament even the vices which are common to depraved nature but it is with a common lamentation which falleth on one man no more than on another Even as we lament mortality which is the common punishment of mankind But he that would have punishment inflicted for a fault which is common to all would have all men punished or is partial If our infirmities are not all the very same yet it is certain that we are all infirm Yea we are all of imperfect and erroneous understandings though all err not the same errour â— And we are every man certain in general that we have errours though no man know in particular which be his own errours For it is a contradiction to say that while I err in judgement I know my errour so that other men know our errours when we know them not our selves as we know theirs which are unknown to them For as all have their common defects so most men have their peculiar defects and errours and others excel those persons in some particulars who excel them in almost all the rest Therefore if no errour were to be tolerated no man were to be tolerated And the wisest in the world must be numbered with the intolerable as well as the rest And every one that punisheth others must be conscious of the same intolerable evil in himself and that nothing but power exempteth him from the same suffering and therefore none but the King should escape In many things we
forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost ☞ Luk. 9. 54 55. Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did But he turned and rebuked them and said ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of for the son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them I conclude as I began that the consciousness of our own ordinary and lamentable infirmities and the greatness of the Churches sufferings thereby in all fore-going ages and in this will condemn us of impudent self-ignorance if Ministers be not compassionate and tender towards the weaknesses of the people who cannot be expected to equal them in knowledg Alas Brethren what are we even after so many years study preparation that we should be supercilious and cruel to the infirm what difficulties puzzle us what a loss are we at in our ordinary studies How weakly do we preach and pray and write How easily do we see this in one another as our mutual censures and severities shew Who troubled Paul and the first Churches but erroneous Teachers Who prated malitiously against Iohn and cast out the brethren but a Diotrephes Who brought in the errours of the Millenaries the corporeity of Angels the errours of the Arrians Eunomians Nestorians Eutychians Macedonians and almost all the rable ine Epiphanius Augustine and Philastrius but Bishops or Presbyters Who have caused and kept open the wounds of the Churches of the East and West so long Who introduced all the errours about praying for to the dead c. that are in most of the Liturgies of the Churches in East and West And all the errours that are found in so many Councils and Confessions of Churches and in so many Volumes of Controversie as are extant Who set up the Roman Usurpation and Tyranny Who set up the Papal power above Princes and determined in the Laterane Council for their power to depose them and alienate their dominions Who set up Usurpers and raised wars against Emperors and Kings upon these grounds Who brought in Transubstantiation with the rest of the Roman absurdities Who have been the Masters of the bloody Inquisitions And who hindereth the preaching of the pure doctrine of the Gospel in all the Romanists dominions Is it not an erroneous Clergy You 'l say Those are Papists and so are not we Ans. No God forbid we should But they are a mistaken Clergy which sheweth us that the Clergy are as liable to be dividers and troublers of the Church as the Laity are and have done much more If any hence would infer that the Pastors must be vilified or deprived of their just liberties and power I would more largely tell such a one that it is also the Clergy that have opposed all these Heresies and sins and that have maintained obedience to Princes and that have preserved the Scriptures and the Christian saith and that have been the salt and lights of the world without whom Christianity never long continued in any nation And that have been the chief instruments of bringing all the souls to Heaven that have passed thither from the militant Church But I have done this in two sheets for the Ministery long ago So that our faults consist with the honour of our function and of our necessary labours and with the praise of the more blameless And even so though the peoples weakness and inclinableness to unwarrantable separations and schisms be blameworthy as a fruit of their infirmity and injudiciousness Yet must we remember that they are the members of Christ and we must â—ot deny his interest in them nor judge or use them hardlier than Christ himself hath done or alloweth us to do But study his Love and tenderness and forbearance that we may follow him in serving him and not follow our uncharitable passions and call it a serving of him who liketh no such hurtful service He that loveth Christ in none of his Infants or weaker members but in the strong and more prudent sort alone doth love him in so few that he may question whether he loveth him indeed at all And whether ever he shall hear In as much as ye did it to the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me April 14. 1668. The way of Division by Violence I. Depart from the Apostolical primitive simplicity and make things un-necessary seem necessary in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Conversation II. Endure no man that is not of your mind and way But force all tâ— concord upoâ— these terms of yours what ever it cost III. â—rand all Dâ—â— â—ters with the 〈…〉 maticks â—â—ereticks or â—â—ditious Reâ—els that the◠〈◊〉 become â—teful to high â—nd low IV. When this â—ath greatly â—ncreased their â—isaffection to â—ou accusâ—â—heir Religioâ— of all the expressions of that disaffection to make iâ— odious also V. Take thosâ— for your enemies that arâ— their friends â— those for your friends which are their enemies And cherish those be thâ—y never so bad that will be against them and help you to rooâ— them out But remember that for all this you must come to judgement And read these following words of Mr. R Hookers which he useth of some part of the History which out of Sulpitius I before mentioned Eccles. Pâ—l Epist. Dedic The way of Peace by Love and Humility I. Adhere to the ancient simple Christianity and make nothing necessary to your Concord and Communion which is not necessary II. Love your neighbors as your selves Receive those that Christ receiveth and that hold the necessaries of Communion be they Episcopal Presbyterian Independants Anabaptists Arminians Calvinists c. so they be not proved Heretical or wicked III. Speak evil of no man and especiaâ—ly of Dignities Ruâ—lers Revile not when you are reviled speak moâ—â— of the good that is in Dislenters and do them all the Good you can IV. If any wrong you be the more watchful over your passions opinions and tongues lest Passion carry you into extreams Love your enemies â—less them that curse you do good to themâ—hat â—hat hate you and â—ray for them that despâ—ghtfully use you and persecute you And do noâ— evil â—hat good may come by it V. Impartially judg of men by Gods inâ—erest in them and â—ot your own or your parties Reprove the wayes of Love-killers and Backbiters and let not the fear of their Wrath or Censures carry you into a compliance with them or cause you by silence to encourage them But rejoyce if you should be Martyrs for Love and Peace For Blessed are the â—eek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God Blessed are they which are persecuted for Righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdome of heaven The way of Division by Separation I. Depart from the Apostolical Primitive simplicity on pretence
theirs who are unreconciled to almost all the Churches of Christ or to multitudes of their Brethren because they are not of their way yea that make their Communion the very badge and means of their uncharitableness and divisions Sirs these are not matters of indifferency nor to be indulged by any faithful Pastor of the Church 7. And I know that these principles are as mortal to the Churches as they are to Souls And that if ever the Churches have peace prosperity or healing it must be by the means of Love and Concord and by destroying the principles which would destory them One thinketh that it must be by a Spanish Inquisition and by forcing or killing the dissenters And another thinketh it must be by Excommunicating them all and making them odious and making their own party seem thereby to be better than theirs But I know that it must be by revived Love or it will never be I know it and whoever is angry with me for it I cannot choose but know it When the Papists had murdered so many hundred thousands of the Albigenses and Waldenses who would have thought but they had done their work When the French Massacre had murdered 30000 or 40000 and dispatcht the Leaders of the Protestant party who would have thought that they had but strengthened them When the Duke D' Alva had done so much to drwon the Belgick Protestants in blood he little thought that he was but fortifying them Queen Maries Bishops little thought that their English Bonfires were but to light men to see the mischief of their cause and like the firing of a Beacon to call all the Land to take them for the Enemies of mankind and that the case would have been so quickly altered When the Irish had murdered two hundred thousand they little thought that they had but excited the Survivers to a terrible revenge I will come no nearer but you may easily do it your selves If we bite and devour one another we shall be devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The question is but who shall be devoured first and who reserved for the second course If any man have an ear to hear let him hear He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity He that killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword Here is the Patience and Faith of the Saints Rev. 13. 9. 10. God Ruleth the world still when he worketh not miracles Have we not seen a proud Victorious Army dissolved without a drop of blood and have we not seen that God approveth not of proud self-exaltation and violating the Sacred power of our Governours and usurping their places of Authority Hath not the drunken world had yet experience enough to teach them that the Church of God is not to be built up or repaired by their tumultuous quarrellings and frayes How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools who know not what Holiness or Healing is but think that victory over mens Bodies must be the cure of their Souls and that hurting them is the way to win their Love or that a Church is constituted of Bodies alone while Souls are absent or no parts who will make themselves the Rulers of thy Flock in despite of thee and of thy Cause and Servants without thy call or approbation and think that the work of a Soldier is the work of a Father and a Physician whose cures are all by amputation and whose piety consisteth in flying from each other and esteeming and using their Brethren as their foes who scatter thy flocks on all the mountains when Christ hath prayed that they may all be one Perhaps Reader thou art one of them that thinketh that the settlement and happiness of the Church must be won like a game at foot-ball and therefore scruplest not to toss it in the dirt and tumultuously to strive with and strike up the heels of all that are against thee so that peaceable passengers cannot safely come near your game or pass the streets But when you have got the Ball have you done the work Are you still so ignorant as not to know how uncertain still you are to keep it and that one spurn can take it from you And suppose you could secure all your conquests are the Churches healed ever the more Mens hearts must be conquered before this healing work is done And therefore the Apostle saith that we are more than Conquerours when we are killed all the day long and accountea as Sheep to the slaughter Rom. 8. 34 35. that is it is more gain and honour to our selves to suffer in faith and patience by our enemies than to conquer them in the field And it is more profitable also unto them and tendeth to a more desirable conquest of them Because when Conquerors do but exasperate them and if we hurt their bodies we harden them the more against our cause and against the means of their own Salvation our patient Martyrdom and suffering by them may â—end at last to open their eyes and turn their hearts and save their souls by shewing them the Truth the Goodness and the Power of Christ and of his Word and Spirit This is the meaning of being more than Conquerours The Irish are conquered by us but not converted The Scots and English were conquered by Cromwell but their hearts were not conquered nor their Religion changed by him They that think that if they could get and keep the upper ground and have Dissenters bodies and estates at their will they could soon settle the Church in Unity and Concord do tell all the world how ignorant they are of the nature of Christianity and of the fear of God and of the means of the peace and Concord of the Church Either you would give up your own judgments and Consciences or practice your selves to the will of men if you were in their power or not If you would not why should you think that others will If you would you do but tell the world that you are Atheists and have neither a God nor Conscience nor Religion But it is not evidence enough of your folly to say in your hearts there is no God and to fear them that can but kill the body more than Him that can punish both body and soul in hell but you must also shew that you know neither God nor Man by thinking that all others are Atheists also and judging of them by your selves as if they set their Souls and their everlasting hopes at as base a price as you do yours I tell you again that a Battel or a Footâ—ball skuffle will not settle the discomposed and divided Churches unless you think that a heap of Carkasses slain in the field possess the quietness and concord which you desire The Soul is the man and Love is the Christian Life and the true Cement of the Churches unity And Love must cause Love as fire causeth fire And hurtful wrath doth most powerfully
this book according to their Principles and as they use to do by others Before they have soberly read it over they will carry about the Sectarian reports of it from hand to hand And when one hath said it the rest will affirm it that I have clawed with one party and have girded at the other and have sought to make them odious by bringing them under the reproach of Separation and of censuring and avoiding the ungodly and that being luke-warm my self and a complyer with sin I would have all others do so too And that these Reconcilers are neither flesh nor fish and attempt impossibilities even to reconcile Light and darkness Christ and Belial And that for the sake of Peace we would â—ell the Truth and would let in Church-corruptions out of an over-eager desire of Agreement And when they have all done neither party will regard them but they shall fare worse than any others and will lose both sides whilest they are for neither I know it is the nature of the disease which I am curing to send forth such breath and scents as these And I intend not to bestow a word to answer them 5. And some of the wise and sober Ministers who mark more the inconveniences of one side than of the other and look more to outward occurrences than to the Rule and to the inward state of Souls especially such as have not seen the times and things that I have seen will think that though all this be true it is unseasonable and may give advantage to such as love not Reformation And to them I shall return this answer 1. That if we stay seven years more for a seasonable time to oppose the radical sin of uncharitableness we may be in our graves and the sinners in their graves and the sin may be multiplied and rooted past all hope of remedy And why may you not as well stay seven years more for a seasonable time to Preach down all other sins as well as this Is this the least malignant or least dangerous sin 2. There was never a more seasonable time to tell men of their sin than when the temptation to it is the greatest when it is most growing and multiplying among us When God hath been so heinously dishonoured by it when the world doth ring of it when many Volumes reproach them for it And when the sensual and ungodly are hardened by it in their scorn of godliness to the apparent peril of their damnation yea more to turn our complaints from our Law-givers upon our selves It is want of Love and it is Dividing principles and practices that have silenced so many Ministers and brought us into all the confusions and calamities which we see and undergo 6. But there are many sincere and considerate Ministers who knowing this which I say to be true will be the more excited by it to lead the younger and passionate sort of Religious people into the wayes of Love and peace and to save them from the dangers here detected and perswade them to the practise of these Directions And for the use of these I write this Book And yet to end as I began I must add these notices for your right understanding of it 1. That this is not my first attempt upon this work but the progress of what I have been upon these three and twenty years About fifteen or sixteen years ago I preacht on the third Chapter of Saint Iames in a larger and a closer manner on this Subject than here I write because the times then called me to it 2. I perswade no Christian to justifie or own the sins or the least defects of any Church Minister or People in their Worship or in their lives though I perswade you to Communion with the Churches persons and worship-actions which have many faults For on Earth there is no person Church or Worship faultless and without corruption I justifie not the faults of my own daily Prayers and yet I never pray without them 3. I am not perswading Ministers to any unwise and unseasonable Preaching against the dividing Principles of the weak when the necessities of the Auditory more require other Doctrine Much less to exasperating railings and invectives And least of all to wrathful violence But only with prudence in season and with Love and gentleness to lead men into the truth If even with Infidels and Hereticks the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. How much more must the Children of Gods family be used with Love and tenderness But if the fierceness of any contradict what I say I only add that it is not an unexperienced person that speaketh it but one who through the mercy of God hath long kept a numerous flock in Love and unity and peace by such like means and hath seen the lamentable effects of the contrary way 4. While I say so much in this Treatise against the rash censuring of others I give you not the rule for mens censuring of themselves They know more by themselves They may search into the depth of their hearts and intentions which we cannot do They are allowed to be more suspicious censorious of themselves than of any others It more concerneth them And they have more to do with themselves and may be bolder with themselves We judg others in order to visible Church-Communion by visible and publick evidence But in order to their preparation for the judgment of God we must direct them to judge themselves according to the truth in the inward parts 5. While I draw you to peace and moderation towards others I desire not to quench the least degree of Christian zeal Nay I endeavour to kill that which would kill it The purified peculiar people of the Redeemer ane zealous but of what not to consume and destroy one another nor to hate and flye from one another nor to vilifie and backbite one another but they are zealous of good works And Paul will tell you what are good works Gal. 5. 22 23. Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Be zealous in Loving all Christians as Christians and all men as men Be zealous for Peace If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. Be zealously patient gentle good meek temperate And the works of the flesh are hatred variance emulation wrath strife sedition heresies A zeal for these is earthly sensual and devilish as Iames telleth you And remember that the word which is translated there Envy is Zeal in the Original But our translators were afraid lest the prophane would have mistaken it if they had translated it Zeal ver 16. where zeal and strife is that is a striving contentious zeal there is confusion and every evil work If you believe
this how dare you blame me for writing to save you from confusion and every evil work 6. I will conclude with the repetition of one thing delivered in this Treatise that among all the rest two separating dividing principles will never give peace to the Church where they prevail The one is the confounding mens Title to visible Church Membership and Communion with their Title to Justification and Salvation The other is the Imposing of new terms and titles of Visible membership and Communion and rejecting the sufficiency of the â—erms and title of Christs appointment Christ hath solemnly and purposely made the Baptismal Covenanting with him to be the terms and title to Church membership and Communion And the owning of this same Covenant is the sufficient Title of the adult And the Imposers that come after and require another kind of evidence of Conversion or Sanctification than this do confound the Church and enflame the people and leave no certain way of tryal but make as various terms and titles as there are various degrees of wisdome and Charity and various opinions in the Pastors yea in all the people to whom they allow the judgement of such Causes in the several Churches In this point the sober Anabaptists seem to come nearer the truth than they I add no more but Christs conclusion that a house or Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand The Book it self was written near two years ago but this Preface Feb. 2. 1669. AN ABSTRACT OF THE DIRECTIONS 1. FOrget not the difference between the younger sort of Christians and the Elder The peril of the Church from young Christians 2. Observe the secret workings of spiritual pride and how deep rooted and odious a sin it is and what special temptations to it the younger and emptier sort of Christians have 3. Overvalue not the Common gift of utterance nor a high profession as if grace were appropriated to such alone who are to be called Professors 4. Affect not to be made enâ—lnent and conspicuous in holiness by standing at a further distance from common Christians than God would have you 5. Understand the true difference between the Church as Visible and as Regenerate or mystical and the several qualifications of the Members What Scandals were in the primitive Churches in Scripture times 6. Understand well the different Conditions and terms of Communion with the Church as mystical and as visible and the different priviledges of the members that you may not presume to impose any Conditions which God hath not imposed nor unjustly grudge at 〈…〉 essence of those that are not sincere 7. Get time and sleep apprehensions of the necessity and reasons of Christian Vnity and Concord and of the sin and misery of divisions and discord what Scripture saith herein 8. When any thing needeth amendment in the Church the best Christians must be the forwardest to Reform and the backwardest to divide on that pretence 9. Forget 〈◊〉 the great difference betweene the Churches 〈◊〉 the 〈…〉 and the Godlyes separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty the second usually a great sin Luthers case 10. Expect not that any one lawfully received into the Church by Baptism should be cast out of it or denyed the priviledges of the Church but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keys that is for oâ—stinate impenitency in a gross on scandalous sin upon proof and after sufficient private and publick admonition 11. Understand what the Power of the Keys is and what the Pastors office is as they are the Governours of the Church entrusted by Christ with the power of admission and rejection that so you may know how far you are to rest in the Pastors judgment and may not usurp any part of their office to your selves 12. Study well Christs gracious nature and office and his great readiness to receive the weakest that come to him that so you may desire a Church discipline agreeable to the Gospel 13. Yet lest you run into the worse extream remember still that the destroying of sin and the sanctifying of man to God was the work of our Redeemer And that Holiness and Peace must go together And that our own Church-order and discipline must be subservient to the inward spirituality and prosperity of the Church-regenerate And no such favour must be shewed to sinners as favoureth sin and hindereth Holiness 14. Though your Governours are the Iudges what persons shall be of your publick-Church-Communion yet it is you that must judge who are fit or unfit for your private familiarity 15. Vnderstand how much it hath pleased God to lay all mens happiness or misery upon their own choice And seek not to alter this order of God 16. Though the profession of Christianity which entitleth men to church-Church-Communion must be credible yet remember that there are various degrees of Credibility And that every Profession which is not proved false is credible in such a degree as must be accepted by the Church 17. Know how far it is that either Grace or Gifts are necessary to a Minister that you may give to both their due 18. Vnderstand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church and wherein it consisteth and how far it is to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church 19. Engage not your selves too far in any divided Sect and espouse not the interest of any party of Christians to the neglect or injury of the universal Church and the Christian Cause 20. Be very suspicious of your Religious passions and carefully distinguish between a sound and sinful zeal least you father your sin on the Spirit of God and think you please him more when you most offend him 21. Lend not a patient ear to backbiters nor hastily believe the most religious people when they speak ill of others 22. Make not your selves selves judges of other mens actions much less of their state before you have a Call or before you have sufficient knowledge of the person and of the Case 23. Mistake not the nature of the sin of Scandal as if it were the bare displeasing of another when it is the laying of a stumbling-block or occasion of sinning before another 24. Make Conscience of Scandalizing one party as well as another and those most who are most in danger by your offence 25. Be not over tender of your reputation with any sort of men on earth nor too impatient of their displeasure censures or contempt But live above them 26. Use not your selves needlesly to the familiar company of that sort of Christians who use to censure them that are more sober Catholick and charitable than themselves Unless you be as much or more with the soberer sort who will shew you the sin and mischief of Love-killing principles and divisions 27. Take heed of misjudging of the answers of your prayers and of taking those things to be from God which
Church but Christ himself 58. Take heed of superstition indiserâ—â—t â—â—al â—â—th been the usual beginner of superstition Mâ—lignity in that age the sharpest opposer for the Aâ—thorâ—s sake Formality in the next age hath made a Religion of it And then the zealous who first invented it have turned most against it for the sake of the last owners And thus the world hath turned round Instances lay'd down of the superstition of Religions people in this age 59. If through the fault of either side or both you cannot meet together in the same assemblies yet keep that Unity in faith love and practice which all neighbour Churches should maintain And use not your different assemblies to revâ—ling and destroying Love and Peace 60. When the Love-killing spirit either cruel or dividing is abroad among Christians be not idle nor discouraged Spectators nor betray the Churches peace by lazy wishes But make it a great part of your labour and Religion to revive Love and Peace and to destroy their contraries And let no censures or contempt of any party take you off But account it as comfortable to be a Martyr for Love Peace by blind Zealots or proud Usurpers as for the saith by Infidels or Heathens And take the pleasing of God whoever is displeased for your full reward The Additional Directions to the Pastors 1. Let it be our first care to know and do our own duty And when we see the peoples weakness and divisions let us first examine and judge our selves and lament and reform our own neglects Ministers are the Cause of most divisions 2. It is needful to the peoples Edification and Concord that their Pastors much excel them in knowledge and utterance and also in prudence holiness and heavenly mindedness that the reverence of their callings and persons may be preserved and the people taught by their Examples 3. Inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace and of the Love of God and Man And that Love is their Holiness it self and the sum of their Religion the End of faith and the fulfilling of the Law And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him so Love to man must unite us to each other And that all doctrine and practices which are against Love and Unity are against God against Christ against the Spirit against the Church and against Mankind 4. If others shew their weakness by unwarrantable singularities or divisions shew not your greater weakness by impatience and uncharitable censures or usage of them especially when self-interest provoketh you 5. Distinguish between them that separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox and Reformed parts of it and those who only turn from the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest 6. Distinguish between them who deny the Being of the Ministry and Church from which they separate and those who remove only for their own Edification as from a worse or weaker Ministry a Church less pure 7. Distinguish between those who hold it simply unlawful to have Communion with you and those who only hold it unlawful to prefer your assemblies before such as they think to be more pure 8. Remember Christs interest in the weakest of his Servants and do nothing against them which Christ will not take well 9. Distinguish between weakness of Gifts and of Graces and remember that many who are weaker in the understanding of Church-orders may yet be stronger in grace than you 10. Think on the Common Calamity of mankind what strange disparity there is in mens understandings and will be And how the Church here is a Hospital of diseased souls of whom none are perfectly healed in this life 11. Distinguish still between those truths and duties which are or are not of necessity and between the tolerable and the intolerable errors And never think of a Common Unity and Concord but upon the terms of necessary points and of the primitive simplicity and the forbearance of dissenters in tolerable differences 12. Remember that the Pestoral Government is a work of Light and Love And what these cannot do we cannot do Our great study therefore must be first to know more and to Love more than the people and then to convince them by cogent evidence of truth and to cause the warmth of our Love to be felt by them in all the parts of our ministration and converse As the warmth of the Mothers milk is needful to the good nutrition of the Child The History of Martin 13. When you see many evils which Love and evidence will leave uncured yet do not reject this way till you have found one that will better do the work and with fewer inconveniences 14. When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errors disorders and divisions reflect noâ— any disgrace upon piety it self but be the more careful to proclaim the honour of Godliness and true Conscientious strictness lest the ungodly take occasion to despise it by hearing of the faults of such as are accounted the zealousest professors of it 15. Discourage not the people from so much of Religions exercises in their families and with one another as is meet for them in their private stâ—tions 16. Be not wanting in abilities watchfulness and diligence to resist Seducers by the evidence of truth that there may be no need of other weapons And quench the sparks among the people before they break out into flames 17. Be not strange to the poet ones of your flocks but impartial to all and the servants of all Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate 18. Spend and be spent for your peoples good Do all the good that you are able for their bodies as well as for their souls And think nothing that you have too dear to win them that they may see that you are truely fathers to them and that their welfare is your chiefest care 19. Keep up the reverence of the ancient and experienced sort of Christians and teach the younger what honour they owe to them that are their Elders in age and grace For whilest the Elder who are usually sober and peaceable are duly reverenced the heat of rash and giddy youth will be the better kept in order 20. Neither neglect your interest in the Religious persons of your charge lest you lose your power to do them good Nor yet be so tender of it as to depart from sober principles or wayes to please them Make them not your Rulers nor follow them into any exorbitancies to get their love or to escape any of their censures 21. Let not the Pastors contend among themselves especially through envy against any whom the people most esteem A reproof of ignorant pievish backbiting quarrelsome Ministers 22. Study our great pattern of Love and tenderness meekness and patience and all those texts which commend these virtues till they are digested into a nature in you that healing virtue may go from you
as wasting fire proceedeth from the incendiaries The Texts recited DIRECTIONS FOR VVeak Christians How they may escape the troubling dividing and endangering of the Church by their Errours in Doctrine Worship and church-Church-Communion IF we had never been warned by the History of the Sacred Scripture or of the former Ages of the Church yet our experience in this present Age is enough to tell both us and our Posterity how great perturbations and calamites may come to the Church of Christ by the miscarriages of the more zealous Professors of Religion and how great a hinderance such may prove to the prosperity of the Gospel to the Love and Unity of Christians to the Reformation and holy order of the Congregations and to all those good ends which are desired by themselves How great a dishonour they may prove to the Christian name and what occasions of hardening the wicked in their contempt of Godliness to their everlasting ruine and the sufferings of Believers Therefore seeing the peace and welfare of the Church is much more valuable than the peace and welfare of an individual soul as I have Directed you how to escape your own disturbance and undoing so I think it as necessary to direct you how to escape being the Plagues and disturbers of the Church and the instruments of Satan in resisting the Gospel and destroying others And you should be the more willing to hear me in this also because by hurting others you hurt your selves and by wronging the Church of God you cross your own desires and ends if you are Christians indeed and by doing good to others and furthering the cause of Godliness and Christianity you do good to your selves and further your own Cosolation and Salvation DIRECT I. FIrst observe this General direction see that you forget not the great difference between Novices and experienced Christians between the babes and those at full age between the weak and the strong in grace Level them not in your estimation It is not for nothing that the Spirit of God in Scripture maketh so great a difference between them as you may read in Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14 6. 1 2. 1 Tim. 3. 6. 1 Iohn 2. 12 13 14. There are babes strong men and fathers among Christians There are some that are dull of hearing and have need of milk and are unskilful in the word of righteousness and must be taught the principles and there are others who can digest strong meat who by reason of Use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Novices must not be made Pastors of the Church It is not for nothing that the Younger are so often commanded reverence and submission to the Elder and that the Pastors and Governors of the Church are usually called by the name of Elders because it was supposed that the elder sort were the most experienced and wise and therefore Pastors and Rulers were to be chosen out of them And why is it that children must so much honour their fathers and mothers and must be governed by them It is not meerly because generation giveth the Parents a propriety in their children For God would not have folly to be the governour of wisdom upon pretense of such propriety But it is also because that it must ordinarily be supposed that Infants are ignorant and Parents have understanding and are fit to be their Teachers as having had longer time and helps to learn and more experience to make their knowledge clear and firm If the young and unexperienced were ordinarily as wise as the aged or mature why are not children made governors of their Parents or at least commanded to instruct and teach them as ordinarily as Parents must do their children The Lord Jesus himself would be subject to his mother and reputed father in his Child-hood Luke 2. 51. Can there be a livelier conviction of the arrogancy of those novices who proudly sleight the judgments of their elders as presuming groundlesly that they are wiser than they Yea Christ would not enter upon his publick Ministry or Office till he was about thirty years of age Luke 3. 23. He is blind that perceiveth not in this example a most notorious Condemnation of the pride of those that run with the shell on their head into the Ministery or that hasten to be Teachers of others before they have had time or means to learn and that deride or vilisie the judgments of the aged who differ from their conceits before they understand the things in which they are so confident It was thought a good answer in Iohn 9. 21. He is of age ask him But they that are under age now think their words to be the wisest because they are the boldest and the fiercest The old were wont to bless the young and now the young deride the old It is the character of a truculent people Deut. 28. 50. that they regard not the person of the old that is They reverence not their age How many vehement commands are there in Solomons Proverbs to the younger sort to hearken to the counsel of their Parents The contrary was the ruine of Eli's sons and the shame of Samuels 1 Sam. 8. 1 5. Was Rehoboam unwise in forsaking the counsel of the aged and harkning to the young and rash And are those people wise that in the Mysteries of Salvation will prefer the vehement passions of a novice before the well-setled judgment of the experienced aged Ministers I know that the old are too oft ignorant and that wisdom doth not always increase with age But I know withall that Children are never fit to be the Teachers of the Church And that old men may be foolish but too young men are never wise enough for so high a work We are not now considering what may fall out rarely as a wonder but what is ordinarily to be expected Most of the Churches confusions and diviâ—â—ons have been caused by the younger sort of Christians Who are in the heat of their zeal and the infancy of understanding Who have affection enough to make them drive on but have not judgement enough to know the way None are so fierce and rash in condemning the things and persons which they understand not and in raising clamours against all that are wiser and soberer than they If they once take a thing to be a sin which is no sin or a duty which is no duty there is no person no Minister no Magistrate who hath age or wisdom or piety enough to save them from the injuries of juvenile temerity if they do not think and speak and do according to their green and raw conceits Remember therefore to be always sensible of the great disadvantages of youth and to preserve that reverence for experienced age which God in nature as well as in Scripture hath made their due If time labour were not necessary to maturity of knowledge why do you not trust another with your health as well as a studyed experienced
these are such as come to their knowledge by hard and laborious studies and meditation though also by the spirit blessing their endeavours And they are such as give proof of the knowledge which they pretend to And they are such as employ their knowledge to preserve the peace and concord of believers and do not proudly make a stir with it to set up their own names though thereby they set the world on fire Make therefore no more of these vain defences of your Pride Let no man think of himself and his own understanding above what is meet I perswade you not to deny any truth which indeed you know nor to doubt of any thing which is made truly certain to you But value not your understandings above their worth and fix not too rashly upon your first apprehensions and go not away with a passionate confidence in your poor raw untryed and defective conceptions But remember that you know but little and must have time and labour to grow up to the rest Be not wise in your own conceits Rom. 12. 16. 11. 25. Prov. 26. 5. 28. 11. And this is commonly the sin of the slothful that never were at that pains for knowledge by which it must be attained The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason Prov. 26. 16. You little think when you are conceited of your knowledge that you are further from wisdom than a fool Prov. 26. 12. Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit There is more hope of a fool than of him Be not wise in thy own eyes Prov. 3. 3. Wo to them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight Isa. 5. 21. Be not righteous overmuch neither make thy self over-wise why shouldst thou destroy thy self The self-conceited must become fools in their own esteem if ever they will be wise as the worldly wise must own that which is folly in the judgment of the world if ever they will be wise 1 Cor. 3. 18. 2. And there is a Religious Pride of Goodness as well as of Knowledge which must yet more carefully be avoided as being yet worse than the former as the thing abused is much better And this worketh as subtilly and secretly as the former It may not only consist with many complaints and confessions of sinfulness weakness and unworthyness but even with doubts of sincerity and so much dejectedness as seemeth to draw near to desparation It is an ordinary thing to hear the same persons talk in a complaining doubting and almost despairing manner of speech and yet to have high expectations of respect from others and to be most proudly impatient of the least undervaluing or neglect Yea Pride will make an advantage to it self of all these humble confessions and complaints And it is an old observation that many are proud of their humility For though it be true that Austin saith that Grace is a thing which no man can use amiss the meaning is only that Grace efficiently can do nothing amiâ—s For if it do amiss so far it is not grace Yet objectively all Grace may be abused that is a man may make it the object of his Pride and the occasion of many other sins And this Religious Pride of Goodness doth ordinarily work under the pretext of Thankfullness to God for his grace and Zeal for Holyness But it may be known by this that it always tendeth to lift us up and to the diminishing of Love to oothers and to the contempt of the weak and the censuring of our brethren and the division and disturbance of the Church of God They are lamentable effects which this Pride produceth in the Church and all Societies where it cometh It maketh all mens Goodness seem little except our own It causeth the people to undervalue their Pastors and turneth compassion of meâ—s weaknesses into a sowr contempt It setteth a man in his own conceit so near to God that he looketh down on other men as earthly animals in comparison of himself It maketh new terms of church-Church-Communion and teacheth men to make narrower the door of the Church than God hath made it It causeth men to deny and vâ—liâ—ie Gods grace in those that answer not their expectations And to think that the Church is not worthy of their Communion And to think that none are so fit as they to be the Reformers of the Church and of the world I intreat those who are in danger of this pernicious sin to think with themselves 1. What a heynous crime and folly it is for one that but lately was a child of the Devil and a sink of sin to be proud so quickly of their goodness And for one that so lately was groaning and weeping with a broken heart for a sinful life to be already puffed up with the conceits of godlyness And for one who daily maketh confession to God of a sinful heart and a faulty life and of great unworthyness to contradict all this by an over-valuing of his own piety And how incongruous it is for one who professeth to hope for justification by free grace mercy only to have nothing of his own but what 's defiled and who abhorreth the Doctrine of merit and talketh so much of our emptyness and insufficiency to be yet puffed up with the conceit of his spirituality and worth And what an odious self-conâ—radiction it is to make your self like the Devil in pride because you think you are like God in holiness 2. And consider that the more you are proud of your Goodness the less you have to be proud of If this sin be predominant it is certain that you have no saving grace at all And what an odious thing and miserable case is it to be proud of Holyness when you are unholy and to be damned both for want of it and for being proud of it That a man should be proud of that for want of which he must suffer the fire of Hell But if your pride be not predominant yet it is certain that in what measure soever you have that vice in that measure you are destitute of grace For true grace and pride are as contrary as life and death 3. And study well the meaning of all these Scriptures For you shall not say that I mis-interpret them to you Why was it that Christ mentioneth the Parable of the Phaâ—â—see and the Publican one thanking God that he was not so bad as others and the other thinking himself unworthy to look up to heaven Luke 18. 10 11. c. Why did he give us the parable of the prodigal who confesseth that he was unworthy to be called a Son and of his elder brother who swelled with envy at his entertainment Why was it that Christ seemed not strict enough to the Pharisees in keeping the Sabbath nor in his Diet nor in his Company but they called him a gluttonous person and a wine-bibber and a friend of Publicans
and sinners Was it not because their Pride and superstition made them think too highly of their own religiousness and to make sins and duties which God never made and then to condemn the innocent for want of this humane religiousness What was the sin condemned in Isa. 65. 5. Which say stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou What meaneth that command in Phil. 2. 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Read this verse over upon your knees and beg of God â—o write it on your hearts And I would wish all Assemblies of dividers and unwarrantable Separatists to write it over the doors of their meeting places And joyn with it Rom. 12. 10. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honour preferring one another that is before your selves But specially read and study Iam. 3. In a word if God would cure the Church of Religious pride the pride of wisdom and the pride of Piety and Goodness the Church would have fewer Heresies and contentions and have much more peace and much more true wisdom and Goodness it self DIRECT III. Overvalue not the common guift of utterance nor a high Profession as if the presence or absence of either of them did prove the presence or absence of true saving grace YET I shall anon tell you that neither of these must be undervalued nor accounted needless useless things But the overvaluing them hath caused great distempers in the minds and affections and communion and practise of many very well meaning Christians When God had first brought me from among the more ignorant sort of people and when I first heard religious persons pray without forms and speak affectionately and seriously of spiritual and heavenly things I thought verily that they were all undoubted Saints and the sudden apprehension of the difference of their guifts and speech from others made me think confidently that the one sort had the mark of God upon them and the other had nothing almost of God at all Till ere long of those whom I so much honoured one fell off to sensuality and to persecuting formality and another fell to the foulest heresie and another to disturb the Churches peace by turbulent animosities and divisions But the experience of this Kingdom these twenty sixe yeares hath done so much to convince the world what crimes may stand with high professions that I know not that I ever met with the man that would deny it seeing every sect casteth it upon all the rest however some of them would justifie themselves But I greatly fear lest the generation which is now springing up and knew not those men nor their miscarriages will lose the benefit of these dreadful warnings and scarce believe what high professours did turn the proudest overturners of all Government and resisters and despisers of ministry and holy order in the Churches and the most railing Quakers and the most filthy and blaspheming Ranters to warn all the world to take heed of being Proud of superficial guifts and high professions and that he that stanndeth in his own conceitâ— should take heed lest he fall When guifts 〈◊〉 utterance in prayer or talking are thus overvalued and high professions are taken to have more in them thâ—n they have men presently moddle their â—ffections and then the Church according to these mis-conceivings And â— talkative person who by company and use hath got more of these guifts than better Christians shall be extolled and admired when many a humble upright soul that wanteth such utterance shall be said to be no professor and so to be unworthy of the Communion of Saints Mistake me not I know that though profession may be without sincerity yet sincerity cannot be without some profession when there is opportunity to make it And I know that Grace is a vital principle and like fire which will work and seek a vent if you would restrain it And that Gifts of utterance are great mercies of God for the Edification of the Church But here lyeth your unhappy errour in this case 1. You take the common profession of Christianity to be no profession at all because there is wanting a profession of greater zeal and forwardness When as the common sort of people in this Land do profess to stand to their baptismal Covenant in which they own the essential parts of Godliness and Christianity and all that is of absolute necessity to Salvation He that truly understandeth the baptismal Covenant and Consenteth to it doth perform all which is necessary to a state of grace If he profess this he professeth both true faith and repentance and sanctification and mortification and all that is necessary to make a man a Christian. How then can you say that these are no Professors I tell you except a few Apostates the common sort of people in this Land are Professors of true faith and godliness Whether they are true Professors without dissembling is another question but they are professors of the truth If you say that Their ignorance and ungodly lives doth shew that they either understand not the baptismal Covenant or Consent not to it I answer Mark well what you say your selves For this doth but shew that they are Hypocrites You cannot say then that they are no Professors but that they are diâ—sembling professors They profess the truth they do not truly and uprightly profess it I tell you all the common sort of the people in England are either Saints or Hypocrites see how I have moved this to them in my Treatise called The formal Hypocrite They all profess enough to save them if they sincerely professed it He that is baptized and professeth himself a Christian and yet is a drunkard a swearer a fornicator or such like is certainly an Hypocrite as going against his own profession The very Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments have enough to condemn him as an hypocrite And will you now come in and justifie these men from their hypocrisie by saying that they are no Professors If they were no Professors they could be no Hypocrites but meer Atheists or Infidels I know that those are the highest sort of Hypocrites who counterfeit the highest zeal and piety by the highest profession But this is but a difference in degree Who ever professeth to be a Christian professeth true Repentance faith and holiness and is an Hypocrite if he be not a Saint And then Consider that if you would exclude any of these from the Communion of the Church it must not be because they are no professors but because they are hypocrites ignorant or scandalous And if so then no man must be shut out but upon sufficient proof An unproved hypocrite or sinner is no hypocrite or sinner in the judgment of the Church and therefore Hypocrites are always a great part of the visible Church Otherwise church-Church-Communion would be founded on meer injustice
and tyranny if men shall be called Ignorant Scandalous and Hypocrites without proof And therefore to exclude baptized professors by whole Parishes or Multitudes without bringing proof against each person one by one is quite to over-turn Christs rules and order and Church Constitutions and all Church justice I confess it is the thing which I have long lamented and often written of especially in my Treatise of Confirmation that those who are baptized in Infancy are not called to a more explicite understanding profession of the Covenant then made and have not a more solemn transition into the number of adult Communicants And we are not out of hope that this may at last be brought to pass But in the mean time the same persons though less regularly do make profession of the same thing both at the Lords Table and in their publick worship and in their common claim to the faith and honour of Christianity so that all such must be rejected as hypocrites upon accâ—sation and proof of Impenitency in some gross sin and not in the lamp as if they were no professors For professors certainly they are And though I abhor their malignity who would vilisie Religion by over-hasty accusing of higher Professors and would flatter the wicked and ignorant by making an indifferency and tepidity seem sufficient in the things of God yet God would have me bear witness to this truth to cure some mens contrary extream that as this age as is said doth need no proof how heinously high professors may miscarry so in the place where I exercised my Ministry I found some give me a satisfying evidence in their last sickness that they had long lived a truly godly life who were never noted by their Neighbours for any extraordinary zeal at all If you ask me How can it stand with grace to be so much hid I answer They made the common profession of Christianity they usually attended the publick worship they lived blamelesly in their places but they were of silent retired dispositions and were inferiours who by their superiours were restrained from private meetings and some converse with more zealous persons which they desired And for ought you know there may be very many such who must not be rejected as no professors nor without a particular accusation and proof unless you would be used in the like kind your selves DIRECT IV. Affect not to be made eminent and Conspicuous in Holiness by standing at a further distance from these lower Professors than God would have you IT is the loathsome scab of the Romish Church that they who will be taken for Religious must go into a Monastery of Fryars and Nans and separate themselves from the rest of Christians as worldly secular people that so their Religion may be a noted thing they may be set up in their singularity as publike spectacles for the world to admire Though perhaps they come thither but under the gripes of Conscience to expiate the guilt of whoredome murder or some notorious sins which the contemned seculars never committed And it is somewhat easie to proud corrupted nature to enter into a life of greater self-denial than most Monasticks are put upon when by it they shall be thus separated from the rest of mankind as a people of more admired holiness To set our selves up in a separated society as persons whom the world must account more Religious than the common sort of Christians hath so much oftentation in it as is a great allurement to Pride For many a one who perceiveth how childish a thing it is to set out ones self to be observed for fine cloathes or for bodily comeliness or for high entertainments curiosities houses lands or such vanities doth yet think that it is an excellent thing to be honoured by men especially by the wisest and the best as a person of Wisdome and Piety and Goodness And indeed it is the truest and the highest Honour to be Wise and Good And it is exceeding natural to man to desire honour And it is lawful to have a due and moderate sense and regard to our honour And all this being so how easie is it for Pride to take this advantage and to go a little farther while we think that we go but this far and keep within our bounds And the root of the errour lyeth in Atheism Self-fishness and Carnality By the first we neglect the Honouring of God which should be our utmost aim and to which all our own Honour should be purely referred as a means By the second we Idolize our selves and are sunk into and centered in our selves and seek that honour to our selves which we should wholly refer to God alone And by the third we over-value Man and his esteem and live upon the thoughts and breath of mortals and seek the honour which is given by one to another more than the honour which is of God Whereas we should make it our grand care and study to be pleasing to our Maker which is the highest honour and lawful and necessary to be sought and should be more indifferent as to the esteem and thoughts of man as being no further regardable than it conduceth to our divine and ultimate end And when Pride hath thus turned the eye of the soul from God to our selves and to the Creature it is a working sin and will be alwayes seeking to fetch in fewel for its self to feed on and to find out wayes to make our selves conspicuous and observed in the world And to separate our selves into distinct societies that the world may see we are above Communion with the colder duller sort of Christians is one of the most notable means to this self-exalting end And many Christians that are more humble do yet so much mis-understand the Scripture principles of Communion that they think they should corrupt the Church and sin against God if they stood not in a separated state from those of the colder sort And this is caused much by taking those Scriptutes to speak of all cold and carnal Christians which speak only of the Heathen and Infidel world And this cometh to pass by the happiness of their birth and breeding because they are born and bred where there are almost none but professed Christians and they see not the swarms of Heathens that worship idols and creatures or of the Infidels who scorn and persecute the Christian name therefore they live as if there were no such persons They know that the world and the Church comprehend all mankind and that the Church is gathered out of the World And because they see the Church but see not the world out of which it is gathered therefore they are looking for the world in the Church and think that the commoner sort of Christians are the World and the better and more zealous sort only are the Church which therefore must be gathered out of the World And so they gather the Church out of the Church while they think that
ungodly Sixthly and hence it will follow that either none must make any profession of saving Faith and Repentance and so all appearance of holiness must be driven out of the world or else the Church must be constituted of two sorts of professions and professours tota specie distinct from one another yea more distinct than Infidels are from their new sort of Christians And consequently it must needs be indeed two Churches and not one viz. One Church of those who take Christ for their Teacher only and another of those that take him entirely as Christ. Seventhly and by this rule the Socinians and Mahometans who confess Christ to be a great Teacher but deny him to be the Priest and sacrifice for sin may be baptized and taken for Christians These and many more absurdities follow upon this new conceit But I must desire the Reader who would see more of it to peruse my Disputations about Right to Sacraments where it is handled at large As to their Objections I answer First no man is called to lie nor yet are they fearful to be shut out For as no man is perfectly acquainted with his own heart so no man is to profess a perfect knowledge of it But if a man speak as he thinketh upon faithful endeavours to avoid self-deceit no more can be expected of him He that can say Though I am not certain that there is no secret fraud in my heart yet as far as I can discern it I am willing to be a Christian upon the terms of Gods Covenant and to take Christ for my Teacher Priest and King must offer himself and must be received into the Church Secondly and as to the Jews case I have proved in the fore-mentioned Disputations First that it was no less than a profession of saving faith which was made in the Covenant of Circumcision Secondly that men were then to be put to death for almost all those enormous crimes which we now excommunicate men for And the dead are not members of the Church on earth Thirdly that all that in matter of fact was found among them contrary to this was contrary to Gods Law And to argue against the Law from mans breach of the Law a facto contra jus is very bad arguing Fourthly that it is farre surer and clearer reasoning about the Evangelical state and order of the Church from the Gospel than from the Law of Moses much more than from the violations of that law Fifthly but yet all the corruptions of the Churches as I have cited and proved them before do shew us the difference between the Church as visibly Congregate and as Regenerate and shew us that the presence of scandalous sinners will not warrant us to separate or to unchurch the Church And this may suffice against that errour The true conditions of admittance into the Church and state of Christianity are these First A true belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and a Devoting of our selves sincerely to Him as our reconciled Father our Saviour and our Sanctifier in a resolved Covenant or Consent renouncing the Devil the world and the flesh expresly or impliedly is the whole and the only condition of our Communion with the Church mystical or the living body of Christ which is called The Church in the first and most famous sense Obj. If this must be wrought in us before we are in the mystical Church then a state of holiness may be found in such as are yet out of the body of Christ in the world But if this be after our entrance into the Church than less may sufficiently qualifie us for admittance Answ. It is neither before not after but it is our change and entrance it self To be a member of the Church mystical and to be a Christian is all one And this is Christianity If I should say that the making a man a Rational free agent is the making him a member of the Rational world would you think that this must be either antecedent or consequent to his change which is nothing else but the change it self Secondly That which maketh a man a member of the Vniversal Church as Visible is his Baptism Which is his profession of the same true Faith aforesaid and consent to the Covenant or his visible dedication to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Reconciled Father his Saviour and Sanctifier by a Vow and Covenant in Baptism Where note that Baptism hath two parts The Covenant there made and openly declared between God and Man And the Sacramental obsigning and investing sign which is the washing in water The Profession it self or open covenanting with God is the thing statedly necessary to the being of Visible Christianity And the washing with water is necessary as a duty where it may be had and as a means to the orderly and regular entrance by which the Church is commonly to judge who are its admitted members and who not As inward consent and outward profession of consent and publike solemnization are the necessaries to a state of marriage the first being as the soul the second as the body and the third as the wedding garments so is it in this case So that in short if you take Baptism aright for the Covenant and the Sign there is no other entrance into the Visible Church nor any other condition necessary to a title to its communion But if you take Baptism improperly for the wasâ—ing alone there is no title to such washing necessary but Professed faith and Covenanting So that if you require more or invent and impose any further conditions and deny baptized professors of Christianity to be visible members of the Church you are superstitious devisers of a way of your own and makers of will-worship and not obedient submitters to the way of God Profession then of Belief and consent to the Covenant is our title-condition to communion with the Universal Visible Church This profession must be solemn and solemnized under the hand of a Minister of Christ who hath the Keyes of the Church or Kingdom of heaven that it may be satisfactory to the Church and valid at its barre Those that are baptized at age have present Right to communion with the adult Those that are baptized in Infancy upon good right are admitted to such Infant-communion as they are capable of And at years of discretion they themselves must own the Covenant which their Parents entered them into The more solemnly this is done as it was in baptism the better it is But if it be done but by a professing themselves to be Christians and attending Christs ordinances with his Church it is valid unless they forfeit the credit of their profession by proved Heresies or crimes in which they live impenitently But then it must be here observed what a Profession of Christianity is which intitleth to Baptism and Church-communion And objectively it must be the whole Baptismal Covenant that must be professed No less is to be taken
as a profession of Christianity And as to the Act it must be first A signification of the mind by word or writing or some intelligible sign Secondly it must seem to be understood For no man consenteth to that which he understandeth not But herein any intelligible sign of a tollerable understanding must be accepted though we find that the persons conceptions are raw and not so distinct and clear as they ought nor the expressions ready orderly or compt Thirdly it must seem to be serious For that which is apparently dissembled or Iudicrous is null Fourthly It must be de presenti a present giving up our selves to Christ and not only a promise de futuro that we will hereafter take him for our Saviour and Lord and not at present Fifthly it must seem to be voluntary and not constrained for then it is not serious Sixthly it must seem to be deliberate and resolute and setled and not only the effect of a mutable passion This goeth to make it a real Profession in the common sense of all mankind Obj. But how few among us do so much as seem be understanding serious and resolved in covenanting with Christ Answ. In the Degree of these we all fall short of that which is our duty But if you accuse any of the want of so much as is necessary to an acceptable Profession First you must be sure that you speak not by uncharitable surmise and hear-say but upon certain proof or knowledge Secondly and that therefore you speak it not at a venture of whole Parishes or families but only of those persons by name whom you know to be guilty Thirdly and that you remember that it is the Pastors office to judge and that you expect not that every one must give an account of their knowledge to you And if there be a mis-judging it is the fault of the Pastor and not yours of which more anon Fourthly that persons Baptized are already admitted into the Church and therefore if they make profession of Christianity they must not be put to bring any other proof of their title but it lies on you to disprove it if you will have it questioned And to reject them from communion without a proved accusation is Tyranny and Lording it over the Church of God These are Gods terms of church-Church-communion And if you will needs have stricter you must have none of his making but your own Obj. But all visible Christians and Churches are visible Saints and Regenerate and so are not ours Answ. To be a Visible Saint is to profess to be a Saint And whosoever doth profess the Baptismal Covenant professeth to be a Saint Conversion Regeneration Faith and Repentance are all contained into taking God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for our Father Saviour and Sanctifier Obj. But you may teach a Parrot to speak those words Answ. It s true And perhaps to speak any words which you use your selves But if you will thence conclude that words must not be taken as a Profession you grosly err or abusively wrangle or if you infer thence that your neighbour understandeth himself no more than a Parrot doth you must prove what you say to the Pastor of the Church For God hath not allowed him to excommunicate baptized persons because you say that they are ignorant And if they are willing to learn it is fitter to teach them than to excommunicate them And here I must lament it that I have met with many censorious Professors who would not communicate with the Parish Churches because the people are ignorant who when I have examined themselves have proved ignorant of the very substance of Christianity so that I have been much in doubt whether I ought to admit them to the Lords Table or not They knew not whether Christ was Eternal or whether he was God when he was on earth or whether he be Man now he is in heaven nor what Faith is or what Iustification or Sanctification is nor what the Covenant of grace is nor what Baptism or the Lords Super are nor could prove the Scripture to be the word of God or prove mans soul to be immortal but gave false or impertinent answers about all these And yet could not joyn with the ignorant Churches And next I desire you here to observe the different Priviledges as well as the different Conditions of Visible and Invisible Churchmembership The members of the Church mystical or Regenerate have the pardon of all sin and acceptance with God and communion with him and with his Church in the spirit and are the adopted children of God and heirs of everlasting life and shall live in heaven with Christ for ever The meer Visible Members of the Church that are not regenerate by the spirit as well as sacramentally by water have only an outward Communion with the Saints and have only the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament and only a name to live when they are dead And are these such great matters that we should envy them to poor sinners that must have no more Have we the Kernel and do we envy them the Shell Have we the Spirit and do we envy them the flesh or outward signes alone Yea consider farther that it is more for the sake of the truly faithful than for their own that all Hypocrites have their station and priviledges in the Church God maketh use of their Gifts and Profession for his elect to many great services of the Church And is it not then a foolish ingratitude in us to murmur at their presence Understand well the conditions and Reasons of this visible state of membership and how far it is below the state of the Regenerate and it will turn your separating murmuring into a thankful acknowledgment of the wisdom of God DIRECT VII Get right and deep aprehensions of the Necessity and Reasons of Christian Unity and Concord and of the sin and misery of Divisions and Discord WHen we have but slight apprehensions of a duty we easily neglect it and scarce reprove our selves for it or repent of our omission And when we have but slight apprehensions of the evil of any sin a little temptation draweth us to it we are hardly brought to through-repentance for it And there is in many Christians a strange inequality and partiality in their apprehensions of good and evil Some duties they dare not omit and they judge all ungodly who omit them when some others as great are past by as if they were no part of religion And some sins they fear with very great tenderness when we can scarce make their consciences take any notice of others as great And usually they let out all their zeal on one sâ—de only while they over-look the other The Papist seemeth so sensible of the good of Unity and the evil of Divisions that he thinketh usurpation of an Universal Church-Monarchy and Tyranny and horrid bloud-shed to be not only lawful but necessary for the prevention and the cure
it He resisteth Light as an Angel of Light and his Ministers hinder Righteousness as pretended Ministers of Righteousness And he will be a zealous Reformer when he would hinder Reformation And this is the mark of Satans way of Reformation He doth it by by dividing the Churches of Christ and teaching Christians to avoid each other And to that end he zealously aggravateth the faults of every party to the rest that they may have odious thoughts of one another and Christian Love may be turned into aversation As in the Plague time every one is afraid of the breath and company of his neighbour and they that were wont to assemble and converse with peace and pleasure do timerously shun the presence of each other because they know that it is an infectious time and they are uncertain who is free even so doth Satan break the societies and converse of Christians by making them believe that every party hath some dangerous infection which as they love their souls they must avoid And he destroyeth your Love to one another by pretending Love to your selves O how careful will he be for your souls when the Devil would undo you he will do it as your Saviour And when his meaning is to save you from Heaven and from Christ and from his saving grace and from Union and Communion with his Church and from the impartial Love of one another he takes on him that he is saving you only from sin and from Church-corruptions Or rather that it is Christ and not he that giveth you counsel And he can do much in imitating Christ in the manner of his suggestions to make you believe that it is Christ indeed Perhaps his counsel shall come in in the midst of a fervent prayer or presently after it to make you believe that it is an undoubted answer of your prayers And oft times his impulses are vehement and much affecting to make you think that it is something above nature And the pioâ—s pretence will much perswade you to think that sure this can never come from an evil spirit But if you had well studied 2 Cor. 11. 13 14 15. Gal. 1. 8. Luke 9. 55. 1 Ioh. 4. 1 2. 2 Thes. 2. 2. you might be wiser and be saved from this deceit I will not recite the words because I would have you turn to them and seriously study them And in this dividing work the Devil doth as make-bates do who first goes to one man and tell him a tale what such a one said against him and what a dangerous person he is and then go to the other and say as much of the first to him So the Devil saith to the Presbyterian O take heed of the Independents and to the Independents Take heed of these Presbyterians To the Anabaptist he suggesteth Avoid these Protestants Take heed of them for they Baptize infants And to the Protestants he saith Take heed of these Anabaptists for they are against baptizing any till they come to full age To one he saith Away from that Church or think not those persons to be religious for they pray by the book And to the other he saith Take heed of those people as whimsical and proud and brainsick fanaticks for they pray without-book by the Spirit To one sort he saith Take heed of those people for they wear a Surplice or Kneel at the Sacrament or answer the Priests in the Responses of the Common-prayer To the other he saith Take heed of these disobedient stubborn selfconceited people that will sit at the Sacrament and will not conform to the orders of the Church I am not now minding whose opinion is right or wrong among all these parties or any like them But how charitable to your souls the Devil is when he would destroy your charity and your souls and how piously and kindly he would have you take heed when he would lead you to perdition and how great a Reformer he will be if he may but do it by Dividing It may be the young unexperienced Schismatick of what sect soever will distast these words and think I speak like an adversary to Reformation And so the Devil would make him think of all other Christians as well as of me except his party But if one should give such counsel for the preservation of his own health and bodily comfort as the Dividing spirit giveth him for the Church and for his soul he would quickly understand it according to my present sense If one should come in kindness to him and bid him O take heed of that mouth and belly for it getteth nothing but devoureth all that the hands do get by labour Cut off that hand for it hath a crooked finger Cut off that gouty foot that it may not trouble the whole body Rip up those guts which have such filthy excrements he would not swell against me if I advised him to suspect such kindness Fifthly Remember also that the Unity of Christians is their peace and ease as well as their strength and safety Psal. 133. 1. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity As the amity and converse with friends is pleasant and the concord of families is their quietness and ease so is it as to the amity and concord which is the bond of Church society And the divisions and discord of Christians is their mutual pain and trouble Do you not feel your minds disturbed by it Do you not see the Church discomposed by it The itch of contention doth ordinarily make it pleasant for the time to every Sect to scratch by zealous wranglings and disputes for their several opinions till the blood be ready to follow But the smart and scab doth use to convince them of their folly But if they will go more than Skin-deep they may need a Surgeon Children will claw themselves but it is Madmen that will wound themselves The hurtâ— which we get in the Christian warfare by mortifying the flesh or by the persecution of the malignant enemy is tenderly healed by the hand of Christ and usually furthereth our inward peace But if we will hurt and wound and divide our selves what pity or comfort can we expect Sixthly Consider also that the Unity and Concord of Believers is their Honour and their Divisions and discord are their shame And consequently the honour or dishonour of Christ and the Gospel and Religion is much concerned in it Agreement among Christians telleth the world that they have a certainty of the faith which they profess and that it is powerful and not ineffectual and that it is of a healing nature and tendeth to the felicity of the world But Divisions and discords among Christians perswade unbelievers that there is no certainty in their belief or that it is of a vexatious and destructive tendency or at best that all its power is too weak to overcome the malignity which it pretendeth to resist where did you ever see Christians live in undivided
Papist But if you ask why we separated from the Papal Church I answer Because first it was no Church of Christ as such And secondly It was a Church of traiterous combination against the prerogative of Christ and therefore by the Protestants called the Anti-christian Church We separated not from Rome either as the Universal Church for that it was not nor as part of the Universal Church for so we hold communion with those that are Christians in it still Nor as a true worshipping Congregation for they consist of many thousand congregations which we had never local communion with And as true worshipping congregations in specie we still hold communion with them in mind so far as they are such indeed But in two senses we separate from them First as a Papal Catholick Church because in that sense they are no Church of Christ but a pack of rebels Secondly as particular Congregations in specie which have mixed Gods worship with false doctrine and Idolatrous bread-worship and other unlawful things which by oaths and practise they would force those to be guilty of who will communicate with them And thus we disown them only as neighbour Churches that never were their lawful subjects but bear our testimony against their sin And our forefathers who were members of their Churches departed to save themselves from their iniquity and because they were refused by themselves unless they would lie forswear be idolaters and communicate with them in their sin Nor would they then nor will they to this day admit any into communion of their particular Churches as such who will not first come in to their pretended Universal Church which is no Church and worse than none If this answer seem not plain and full to you it is because you understand not Christian sense and reason DIRECT X. Expect not that any one lawfully received by Baptism into the Christian Church should be cast out of it or denied the priviledge of members but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keyes that is for obstinate impenitency in a gross or scandalous sin which the person is proved to be guilty of and this after private and publick admonition and tender patient exhortation to Repentance HEre are two things which I desire you to observe First what is Christs appointed way for removing members from the Communion of the Church Secondly how great a sin it is to remove them by a contrary and arbitrary way of our own presumptuous invention First It is here supposed that the person is not a professed Apostate For there needeth no casting out of such He that turneth Turk or Heathen or openly renounceth Christianity or ceaseth the Profession of it doth go out of the Church himself and needeth not to be cast out Unless it be any Tyrant who will come to the Communion in scorn while he professeth but to shew his lawless will He that seeketh the Communion of the Church in sobriety thereby professeth himself a Christian. and for such as being Baptized continue this profession Christs way of rejecting them is plainly described in the Gospel Mat. 18. 15 16. If thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man or a Publican Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject 1 Cor. 5. Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have jâ—dged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan V. 7. Purge out therefore the old leaven v. 11 12 13. With such a one no not to eat Do not ye judge them that are within Therefore pâ—â— away from among your selves that wicked person By all this it is plain that the Church must exercise a regular course of justice with every person that it shall reject He must first be told prâ—vately of his fault and then before two or three unless at least the open notoriety make the private admonition needless And then it must be told the Church And the Church must with compassion tenderness and patience and yet with the authority of the Lord Jesus and the powerful evidence of truth convince him and perswade him to repent And he must not be rejected till after all this he obstinately refuse to hear the Church that is to Repent as they exhort him Note here that no sin will warrant you to cast out the sinner unless it be seconded with Impenitency It is not simply as a drunkard or a fornicator or swearer that any one is to be rejected but as an impenitent drunkard or fornicator or swearer c. Also that it is not all impenitency that will warrant their rejection But only impenitency after the Churches admonition Note also that no private person may expect that any offender be cast out either because his sin is known to him or because he is commonly famed to be guilty till the thing be proved by sufficient witness Yea that the admonition given him must be proved as well as the fault which he committed Yea if all the town do know him to be guilty and witness prove that he hath been privately admonished he may not be rejected till he be heard speak for himself and till he refuse also the publike admonition This is Christs order whose wisdom and mercy and authority are such as may well cause us to take his way as best And yet the ignorance or rashness of many professors is such that they would have all this order of Christ overturned And some of them must have such a drunkard and such a swearer kept away and rejected before ever they admonished them or exhorted them to Repentance or prove that any one else hath done it much more before they have told the Church or proved that he hath neglected the Churches admonition And some go so much further that they must have all the Churches taken for no Churches till they have gathered them a new and must have all the Parish at once rejected till they have gathered out some few again without any such order of proceeding with them as Christ appointeth It may be a thousand shall be cast out at once when never a one of them was thus admonished Obj. They were never members of a true
Church and therefore need no casting out Ans. Were they never baptized or is not baptisme Christâ— appointed means of admission into his Church Obj. They were baptized in their Infancy and afterward bred up in ignorance and profaneness know not what their baptisme is nor ever soberlyâ—wned it Answ. Either they still profess themselves Christians and attend Gods ordinances with the Church or not If not then they are Apostates If they do then they do own their Baptismal Covenant by a continued profession If you accuse them of not understanding this profession or of living contrary to it you must proceed against them one by one as Christ appointeth and first admonish them and then tell the Church and not say they are ignorant and profane and expect upon your saying so they should all be unchurched Yeâ— if you prove them ignorant if they be willing to learn it is fitter presently to instruct them than to excommunicate them nor do you reade of any excommunicated for meer ignorance But we confess that in gross ignorance they may shew themselves uncapable of sacramental Communion and may be denied it while they are learning to know what they do But the mercy of God hath made points absolutely necessary so few that this may be done in a short time if the Persons be willing and the Teachers diligent and sufficiently numerous for that work And though it is to be lamented that in many great City-Parishes the Ministers are not enough to catechize the twentieth part of the people yet for the generality of Parishes through the Land if Catechizing were used as it might be there would not any great numbers be long kept away for meer ignorance And he that is the cause of his Parishes ignorance by neglecting Catechizing and personal conference then unchurcheth them for the ignorance which he is guilty of doth take but a preposterous course for his own account and comfort or for the peopleâ— good Obj But they refuse to learn or be instructed Ans. If that and their gross ignorance be proved together as you may delay them for the later so you may reject them for the former because it sheweth their impenitence But this must be proved of them and not affirmed without proof Obj. But their Baptisme made them members only of the Universal Church and not of any particular Church And therefore will not prove them such Answ. True But he that is a member of the Universal Church is fit to be received into a particular Church And there wanteth no more but mutual consent And if he have statedly joyned with a particular Church in ordinary communion Consent hath bin manifested and he is a member of that particular Church and must not be rejected by it but in Christs way And this is the common case in England The persons who were baptized in Infancy were at once received into the Universal Church and into some particular Church have held communion at age with both and have right to that communion till they are publikely proved to have lost their right And if we had no Churches but particular Churches were to be gathered anew yet he that is a baptized member of the Universal Church and consenteth to communion with that particular Church in all the ordinances of Christs appointment doth lay a sufficient claim to his admission and cannot lawfully be refused unless he stand justly censured by a Church which formerly he was in Yet this we confess that he can be no member of that particular Church who subjecteth not himself to the particular Pastors of it and to the necessary acts or parts of their Office and Ministration Because he denieth his own consent 11. The sinfulness of unchurching Persons or Parishes without Christs way of regular process consisteth in all these following parts 1. It is a casting off the Laws of the great Law-giver of the Church and so a contempt of his authority wisdome and goodness and a making of our selves greater or wiser or holâ—er than he 2. It is gross injustice to deprive men of so great Priviledges without any sufficient proof of their forfeiture It is worse than to turn whole Parishes out of their Houses and Possessions without any lawful process or proof upon rumours or private affirmations that they are Delinquents It is not doing as we would be done by what if any should say of you that you are Heretical and deny Fundamental Truths Or what if they should say of a separated Church that they are generally Hereticks or of wicked lives as the Heathens did of the ancient Christians and therefore that they are no Church nor to be communicated with would you not think that they should every one personally be accused and proof brought against them and that they should speak for themselves before they were thus condemned 3. And it is an aggravated Crime in them that so much cry down Church-tyranny in others to be thus notoriously guilty of it themselves what greater injustice and tyranny can there be than that all mens Christiâ—nity and Church-rights shall be judged Nâ—ll upon the censures and rumours of suspitious men without any just proof or lawful tryal That it shall be in the power of every one who hath but uncharitableness enough to think evil of his neighbours or to believe reports against their innocency to cast them out of the Family of God and to unchristen and unchurch men arbitrarily at their pleasure That any man that is but unconscionable enough to say They are all ignorant and prophane shall expect to have his neighbours excommunicated 4. It maketh all Churches to be lubricous and uncertain shadows when a censorious person may unchurch them at his pleasure What you say of others another may say of you and as justly expect to be believed 5. It unavoidably bringeth in uncurable divisions For there is no certain rule of justice with such persons and therefore they know not who are to be received to their Communion and who not And the same man that one thinketh is to be rejected and kept out another will think is to be received And who knoweth which of them is to be obeyed If one say that a Parish is a Church and another say that they are to be unchurched who knoweth which of them to believe 6. It is a reproach to the Church and Christian religion when we tell the world that that we have not so much justice and equity among us as Heathens have in their worldly societies 7. It depriveth the Church of the solace of her Communion when the best man is not sure but a censorious person may at his pleasure turn him out as unworthy 8. It greatly wrongeth Jesus Christ who so dearly loveth the weakest of his flock and hath purchased their priviledges at so dear a rate and whose body is maymed when any of his members are cut off and who taketh the wrong that is done them as done unto himself These are the great virtues
understand it with his reason and transcribe it with his hand and travel with his feet The Pastors only excommunicate by Judgement or Sentence and the people by obedient execution of it Obj. Who then shall cast out an Heretick or pernicious Pastor if he himself must be rejected Answ. 1. The Neighbour Pastors shall renounce Communion with him and reject him from their neighbour Communion And they shall warn that people to avoid him by virtue of the common relation which they have to the universal Church of Christ. 2. The people as Cyprian determineth are bound to forsake him not by an act of Government over him or themselves but by an act of obedience to God and of self-preservation As Souldiers must forsake a trayterous General or Seamen a perfidious or desperately unskilful Pilot that would cast them all away As the people did always choose their Pastors to Govern them so may they in such a case refuse them without usurping any Government themselves Well! Now let us see what influence this truth should have upon your church-Church-Communion Do you say that your neighbours are not to be accounted members of the Church nor to be communicated with Who took them into the Church by Baptism Was it not a Minister of Christ If you say no you must prove your accusation If you grant it was it not his Office so to do Hath not God made his Ministers Judges whom they are to baptize And afterward also whom to catechise and instruct and admit to the communion of the Church There is no doubt of it If then they are admitted by an entrusted Officer will you venture to usurp the place yea and to do them the wrong to say that they are no members Is it any of your trust or work I pray you mark what a mercy it is to you that the Officers and not the private members are entrusted with this work First if it were your work you must study and be able to perform it Secondly you must watch for it and constantly attend it If a Heretick pervert the Text of Scripture you must convince him by your skil in the Originals or in the sense How many hundred or thousand persons are there in a Parish to be tried The worst of them must have a hearing and just trial at least before you can refuse him lawfully And how accurately must this difficult work be done that the weakest be not denied his right nor the unfit admitted How long must a sinner be admonished and exhorted to repentance And are you able and willing to leave all your callings to do all this If the Minister that doth it must lay by the business of the world how think you that you can do the same without laying by your worldly business If he must have so many years learning and preparation can you do it without Mistake not it is not for Sermons only that Ministers need all their learning and labour but also for the discipline and guidance of the flocks Thirdly and if it be your work you must be accountable for it before God And do you not fear such a reckoning And if these busie people had their wish would they not be in a worse case than the most dumb and lazy Minister Consider it well and you will find that you are not at all bound to know what the spiritual state of any man is as he is to joyn in Church-communion with you but upon your Pastors trust and word Whether their understanding be sufficient at their admittance you are not any where called to try but the Pastor is And if he have admitted them you are to rest in his judgment unless you would undertake the office your selves whether their profession of faith and repentance be serious and credible you are not called to try and judge But if your Pastor have admitted them he hath numbred them with the visible Christians And it is the credibility of the Pastor that you have to consider and by him you must judge of the credibility of the professour and not immediately by your own trial Who are the persons that you shall meet at a Sacrament or in publike Communion you are not at all required to try And if you never saw them before or heard them speak you may perform your duty nevertheless Indeed if as a neighbour you are called to instruct or counsel or comfort them you must do it But there may be five thousand in one Church with you whose names or faces you are not bound to know but to rest in the knowledge of them to whom the keyes are committed who according to their office take them in Obj. But what if they are notoriously wicked Must I be blind Answ. No you must do your best by neighboâ—rly watchfulness and help though not by Pastoral Government to reform all about you whom you are able to do good to And if you know them to be so bad you must privately admonish them as is proved and then if they hear not tell the Church But if you see a man in the Church at the Sacrament or a thousand men who are unreformed and you know it not you have no reason to avoid the communion of such And if there be a thousand in the Church whose case you are strangers to thâ—s may be no sin of yours and should be no impediment of your communion Obj. But what if câ—rnâ—l negligâ—nt Ministers will let in 〈◊〉 into the Church by Baptism and give them the Lords Supper Shall it be thus in their power to corrupt the Church And must we joyn with them and take no care of it Answ. There is no person in any office or trust but may too easily abuse it And the more noble the work and trust is the greater is the siâ— and calamity of such abuse And no doubt but a bad unfaithful Minister is one of the greatest sinâ—ers on earth and one of the most pernicious plagâ—es to the Church Which could not be unless it were in his power to do very much hurt But it will not follow that therefore you must take his place and become the Church Governours or try all the peoples fitness your selves If a Judge be bad you may say what an intollerable thing is it that one man shall have power to give away mens estates and take away the livâ—s of the innocent and to acquit the guilty But for all that you must not mend it by stepping up into the judgement seat your self and saying that you or the rest of the people will do it better Some body must be trusted with it If you are fittest offer your self to the office The thing that you must do is to do your best to deliver the Church from so bad a Pastor Use all your wisdome and diligence to amend him And if you cannot do that use all your interest to get him out and get a better And if you cannot do that deliver your own soul from him by removing
which Christ intended was a Vnity in himself and â— Concord in holy Obedience to his Lawes But it is a Vnity in the will of man and a Concord in obeying the Dictates of the proud which Treacherous Pastors do require It is a Peaceable progress of the Gospel and unanimous endeavor to convert and sanctifie and save the world which Christ requireth us to promote But it is a Peaceable enjoyment of their own prosperity wealth and honour and a peaceable forbearance of a holy life which Wolvish Pastors do desire It is an Orderly management of holy doctrine worship and conversation for the edification of the flock and the increase of godliness which Christ commandeth But it is an absolute obedience to their wills and an exact observance of their new-made Religions and needless scandalous inventions and an adoring of their titles and robes of honour covering their ignorance pride and sensuality which Church-yrants call the Order of the Church All Christâ— indulgent tenderness and Discipline are but to further his Holy designe of killing sin and sanctifying souls But the Images of Piety Government Unity Peace and Order which Hypocrites and Pharisees set up are devised engines to destroy the Life and serious practice of the things themselves and are set up in enmity against spirituality and holiness that there might be no other Piety Government Unity Peace or Order in the Church but these lifeless Images It is far from the mind of Christ that no difference should be made between the Holy and the profans the precious and the vile Oâ— that serious piety should be suppressed or discouraged or faithful preachers hindered from promoting it on ignorant graceless Ministers countenanced under pretence of Peace or Order The design of Christ was not like Mahomet's to get himself an earthly Kingdom and numerous followers meerly to cry up his name And therefore he will not indulge men in their sinâ— nor abate oâ— alter the conditions of his Covenant to win disciples He will have his Ministers deal plainly with all to whom they preach and let them know that without self-denial and forsaking all in estimation and resolution and a willing exchange of earth for heaven they cannot be his true Disciples Nor without a Profest consent to thus much they cannot be his visible profest Disciples But all that will not repent must perish And therefore in their Baptism they must profess a renunciation of all competitors His Ministers also must impartially exercise the Keyes which he hath committed to their trust and must not fear the faces of men who at most are able but to kill the body Luk. 12. 4. They must discern between the righteous and the wicked and draw all scandalous sinners to repentance or else exclude them from the communion of Saints that the world may see that Christ is no friend to prophane persons or sensual â—leshly bruits As Chrysostome commandeth the Presbyters not to give the body and blood of Christ to the unworthy though he were the greatest Commander or wore a Diadem and professeth that he would suffer his own blood to be shed before he would give the blood of Christ to the unworthy And as blessed Paul would become all things to all men to win them and commandeth us not to please our selves but to please our neighbours for their good to edification And yet when it came to the flattering of men in their sins he saith that if he should so please men he should be no longer the servant of Christ. And as to his own interest in mans esteem he saith With me it is a small thing to be judged of you or of mans judgment Rom. 15. 1 2 3. 1 Cor. 10. 33. Gal. 1. 10. 2 Tim. 2. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 3. Take heed therefore of pretending Unity order peace or charity against the strictest obedience of Godâ—laws or against the faithful preaching of the Gospel and exercise of true Church-discipline or against the necessity of the ancient profession of saving faith and true-repentance in all that will be admitted to the communion of the Church It is not an ungodly unity peace or order that we plead for DIRECT XIV Though your Governours and not you must judge what persons shall be of your publike Church-communion yet it is you that must judge who are fit or unfit for your private company and familiarity Here therefore exercise your strictness in your own part AS it is not you but the King that must judge who shall be of the same Kingdome with you nor the servant but the Master that must choose who shal be in the family with him Nor the scholler but the Schoolmaster that must choose who shal be of the same School with him So it is not you but your Pastor that must judg who shall be of the same Church with you As to the Universal visible Church this is confest by all And there is no reason why it should be denied of particular Churches as is proved But who shall be your Pastors or your Masters your husbands or your wives if you are yet free you your selves must be the choosers And who shall be your intimate companions or your bosome friends Here therefore make as strict a choice as you can If you meet a prophane person at the Lords Table it is his own fault or the Pastors But if you keep company needlesly with such or marry such it is your own fault If the Pastor do not excommunicate them you may choose not to be familiar with them Though you must meet them at the Church and pray with them you need not meet them at the Ale-house and drink with them Though you may not with a few of the most godly separate from the publike communion of all the rest yet may you keep a more intimate familiarity with those few than with all the rest And if you will consider this is all that is necessary to your own duty and that which is best for your own edification Keep thus to a strictness within the bounds of your own place and calling and God will bless you in such a strictness DIRECT XV. Understand well how much it hath pleased God to lay all mens good or evil happiness or misery upon their own choice And observe the reasons of it that you may not oppose this order of God THough God by his grace must change the perverse disposition of mens wills before they will make a gracious choice yet it is most certain that the teachings commands exhortations and reproofs of God are directed to the Will of man And that the promises and threatnings mercies and judgements are used to move and change the will And that in the tenor of his Laws and Covenants Christ hath set Life and Death before men and put their Happiness in their own choice and that no man shall have better or worse than he made choice of that is none shall be either happy or miserable but as they did choose or refuse
the causes of happiness or misery And the reason of this is because Natural-free-will was part of the Natural-image of God on Adam and it is as natural to a man to be a free-agent as to be Reasonable And God will govern Man as Man agreeably to his nature Therefore do not wonder if Church priviledges are principally left to mens own wills or choice when their salvation is left to it Indeed God would not have any man admitted into the Church and to its communion in his own way and on his own terms The way and terms are of Christs appointment That they must Profess Faith and Repentance is his appointed condition that the Minister must be the publike judge of this profession and accordingly receive them â—olemnly by Baptism and that they must enter under the hand of the Key-bearers of the Church All this is of Christs institution But whether they will make this profession or not and whether they will make it in truth or in falshood and whether they will live according to it or play the hypocrites and live contrary to it These are at their own choice And good reason for the gain or less must be their own If any be in the Communion of the Church who either never made profession of Christianity or who is proved before them to have apostatized from that profession or to live impenitently in any gross sin after the Churches admonition it is the Pastors fault and yours if it be by the neglect of your duty But if any other be there it is their own fault and the loss and hurt must be their own If any one that professeth Christianity ignorantly unbelievingly and hypocritically be there or if they come to the Sacrament whilest they live in secret or open sin before they have been openly admonished by the Church it is their own sin and not you but they shall bear the blame God leaveth such matters to their own choice and as they choose they speed And for us to grudge at this order of God is but to quarrel at wisdome and goodness and to correct Gods order by our disorder The man that came in without a wedding garment is blamed and bound hand and foot and punished But the Minister that called him in and admitted him is not blamed because he did as he was bidden He went to the high-ways and hedges and compelled them by importunity to come in that the House might be filled Nor are any that came in with him blamed for having communion with such For they were in their places and did as they were exhorted to do And sâ—â—will it be in the case that is before us DIRECT XVI Though the profession of Christianity which entituleth men to church-Church-communion must be credible yet remember that there are divers Degrees of credibility and that every Profession which is not proved false is credible in such a degree as must be accepted by the Church PRofession of Christianity is every mans Church-title No man is to prove the sincerity of his own profession nor may the Church require such proof at his hands For how can a man prove to another the sincerity of his own heart But the fuller testimony he giveth of it the better it is And therefore none should refuse to make his own profession as fully credible to the Church as he is able noâ— is the Church to be blamed for enquiring after the fullest credibility so be it they do it but ad melius esse and not ad esse not laying his title upon it nor refusing him for want of it But every profession as such is credible in some degree which is not disproved Because men are under God the only competent judges of their own hearts And the belief of one another is the ground of humane converse And it is an injury to any man to account him a lyar without sufficient proof He that will disprove a mans profession must prove first that he doth not tolerably understand what he saith secondly or that he speaketh not seriously but in jest or not voluntarily but in hypocrisie by constraint or for some by end Thirdly or that he contradicteth his own words by some more credible words or deeds And if you never yet thus disproved mens profession of Christianity before the Pastors of the Church and yet cry out against the Pastors for admitting them you are not true Reformers but disorderly Mutineers and peevish censurers in the Church of Christ. Christs orders and mens right and all Church-justice must not be trodden down and sacrificed to your humour and arbitrary way DIRECT XVII Know how far either Grace or Gifts are necessary to a Minister that you may give both Grace and Gifts their due THere have been two great questions which long have troubled the Church whether we may take him for a true Minister of Christ that is ungodly And what measure of Gifts is necessary to the being of the Ministry I have carefully answered them both in my Disputation of Ordination long ago and shall now only say in brief First that no ungodly man is so called to the Ministry as to excuse himself before God for his usurpation and hypocritical administrations Secondly But many an ungodly man is so far called to the Ministry as that his adminâ—st at ons are all valid to the Church and the innocent people shall not have the loss Thirdly no people should choose and prefer such an ungodly Minister before a better Fourthly but they should rather submit to such than have none when a better cannot by them be had Iudas had a place in the Ministry with the Apostles Act. 1. 17. And his ministration might be valid to others though his hypocrisie might turn it into sin to himself And his ministry might have been accepted of the people though they had known his hypocrisie as Christ did But a sincere Apostle was to be preferred before him And for Gifts First the greatest degree is best and secondly God maketh so great use of them that many an hypocrite wiâ—h excellent gifts doth edifie the Church more than many good men that are ungifted Thirdly but that measure of Gifts only is necessary to the Being of a Minister without which the essential parts of his office cannot be performed Learn therefore to prefer them that have most grace and guifts but not to take them for no Ministers that want Grace totally or want only a greater degree of Gifts And marvel not that Gifts are more necessary to the validity of ministration than Grace is He may perform the office of a Minister to the benefit of the Church that hath no saving grace at all so did Iudas so did those in Math. 7. 21. that prophesied and cast out devils in Christs name to whom he will yet say Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not For Grace is to save him that possesseth it But Gifts are to teach and profit others Yet Grace is an exceeding
furtherance of the right and successful use of gifts For ordinarily he that speaketh from the heart speaketh to the heart when an unexperienced hypocrite speaketh without life But sometimes a dulness and want of utterance in the sincere and a natural and affected servency in the hypocrite with a voluble tongue do obscure this difference and make the hypocrite the more profitable to the Church DIRECT XVIII Understand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church and wherein it consisteth and how far to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church WIth the Vniversal Church mystical you must have communion by the same spirit the same regeneration the same Faith and Love and the same Laws of God and obedience thereto With the Universal Church visible you must have communion in the same Profession of faith and repentance and the same baptism and the same sort of ministry and publike worship so far as they are universally determined of by Christ. And though you are absent in body you must be as present in spirit by consent with all the Churches of Christ on earth You must have spiritual communion with the whole spiritual Church and visible communion in kind in the same Rule of faith and kind of workship with all the visible Church and Lâ—cal-presential communion with that particular Church where you are present and with any other where your presence afterwards may be needful unless they hinder you by unlawful terms So that it is not the same kind nor measure of Communion which you are obliged to hold with all But you must have Communion with all men as a man and with neighbours as a neighbour and with relations according to the relations civil or domestical and with all true Christians as a true Christian and with all professed Christians as a professed Christian and with the particular Church of which you are a part as a part of that Church And with your bosome Friends and intimate Companions as a Friend and Companion And yet in all this you must communicate with no Church or person in their sin it self and yet not refuse their Communion in good though mixt with sin You must own all the prayers of all the Churches in the world so far as they are good and joyn in spirit by consent as if you concurred with them in presence and made all their prayers to be your own As you do by the prayers of the Church where you are present If there be disorders or imperfections or sinful blemishes in their prayers you must disown all those faults but not therefore disown any part of all their prayers which are good but desire to have a part in them and desire the pardon of their failings And here you may perceive what a mischief pievish separation is on both sides It hindereth you from prâ—ying aright for others as the members should do for all the body And it hindereth you from partaking in the benefit of the prayers of most of the Church of God on earth Indeed God may hear those prayers for you which you your selves disown But whether this may be expected according to the ordinary course of his dealing is much to be doubted seeing he hath made every mans will or choice the ordinary condition of his participation of such benefits it is hard to conceive that he that abhorreth the prayers of other men or taketh them for such as God abhorreth or will not accept and in his mind disowneth all participation and communion in them should yet have a part against his will But of this more anon As your Baptism maketh you Members of the Universal Church in order of nature before you are members of a particular Church so your relation to the Universal Church is more noble more necessary and more durable than your relation to any particular Church It is more noble because the Society is more noble The whole is more excellent than a little part It is more necssary because you cannot be saved and be Christians without being members of the Universal Church But you may be Christians and be saved without being a member of any stated particular Church It is more durable because you can never separate from the Univeâ—sal Church or cease to be a member of it without being separated from Christ But divers occasions may warrant your removeall from a particular Church Live not therefore in those narrow and dangerous principles as if your Congregation or your party were all the Church of Christ or as if you had no Christian relation to any other Ministers or People nor owed any duty to them as Members of the same Body But remember that all Christians Persons and Congregations are but the Members of the Kingdom of Christ. DIRECT XIX Take heed of engaging your selves too far in any divided Sect or of espousing the interest of any party of Christians to the neglect or injury of the common interest of the Universal Church or cause of Christianity I Doubt not but among several ranks of Christians the soundest and most upright are to be best esteemed and caeteris paribus their Communion to be preferred before theirs that are more unsound and scandalous But it s one thing to prefer the eye or hand before the foot a noble member before a more ignoble and another thing to own a Sect as such or a party as they either divide from others or take up a dividing opposite interest You are sure that the Universal Church of Christ can never erre against the essentials of Christianity nor against any truth or duty necessary to their salvation For then the Church were no Church and then Christ were not its Head And then the body of Christ might perish And then Christ were not the Saviour of his body But you cannot say of any one part that you are sure that part shall never fall away and perish There may fall out a necessity which may warrant the Body to cut off a hand or leg to save the rest But no corporal necessity can warrant you to destroy the whole nor any one member to forsake the Body before it is forcibly cut off He that seeth not how the espousing of parties and divided interests doth corrupt most Christians in the world and lacerate and deface the Church of Christ doth not understand or not observe the condition of mankind It is somewhat rare to meet with any serious Christians who are not so deeply engaged into some Sect or Side or party as to darken their judgements and pervert their affections as to all the rest and to corrupt their converse in the world How blindly do such look on all that is good in those that differ from them How partially do they judge of the judgements and practises of others How small a thing will serve the turn to excuse the faults of any of their party And how small and common a good seemeth excellent in them And how perversly do they
that is a temptation or occasion of sinning before another INdeed the word offend hath occasioned the mistake of many in this point to the great ensnaring of themselves and others Offending sometime signifieth only Displeasing or grieving another And this is not the scandal which the Scripture speaks against But it signifieth also the laying of a stumbling block before another upon which he may be occasioned to fall into sin And this is the offence which is called scandal Abundance of well meaning people have thought that they must not use any form or words or order or action especially if it be indifferent in it self which others are displeased or grieved at Because they think that is scandal Indeed there is a grieving others which is scandal that is when by grieving them we occasion them to sin But consider I beseech you these two things First what a wretched person that is who will sin against God every time that his brother doth not humor him Durst these persons profess this openly with their tongues Dare you say Do not you use such a form of prayer or such a ceremony for if you do I will sin against God What elfe do you mean when you blame men for scandalizing you I hope you do not mean that no body must displease you If not you must know that this only is true scandal to occasion you to sin And is it not a shame that you will sin so easily 2. And if bare displeasing had been scandal then peevishness and ignorance would have advanced all that had them to be the Governours of the world For what is it to govern but to have all others obliged to fulfil your wills And if no man must displease you then all must fulfil your wills And he is scandalous that is not ruled by you And if this were so the most childish and womanish sort of Christians who have the weakest judgement and the strongest wils and passions must rule all the world For these are hardliest pleased and no man must displease them But I beseech you remember that scandal lieth in Pleasing men as well as in displeasing them when it may harden them in an errour or tempt them to any sin I will instance to you but in two scandalous acts of Peter himself The first was to Christ in Math. 16. 22 23. Where he thought to please Christ and save him from suffering and would have had him to spare or favour himself And Christ saith Get thee behind me Satan thou art an offence to me the Greek word is A scandal that is Thou wouldst do as satan did even tempt me to sin neglect the work which I came into the world about The other was in Gal. 2. 12 13 Where Peter did scandalize the Iews by pleasing them For fear of offending the weak Judaâ—zing Christians he separated from familiar communion with the Gentiles By which he laid a stumbling block or temptation before them to harden them in the sinful opinion of separation If it had been done in our dayes many would have been drawn away with Barnabas and thought that Peter had not given scandal to the Iewish Christians but only separated for fear of scandalizing them Many a time I have the rather gone to the Common prayers of the publick assemblies for fear of being a scandal to those same men that called the going to them a scandal that is for fear of hardening them in a sinful separation and errour because I knew that that was not scandal which they called scandal that is displeasing them and crossing their opinions but hardening them in an errour or other sin is true scandalizing Understand this or you will displease God under pretence of avoiding scandal DIRECT XXIV Make conscience of scandalizing one party as well as another and those most who are most in danger by your offence MAny persons pretend the avoiding of scandal only to slatter one party and to preserve their own reputation and interest with that side which they are lothest to displease And perhaps discern not the deceit of their own hearts in all this but think that it is indeed the sin of scandal which they avoid But why make you no conscience of scandalizing others on the contrary side Who perhaps are more in number and whose salvation should be as much desired by you The Papist perhaps will not deliver the Lords Supper in both kinds nor will forbear his Image-worship lest he offend the Roman-Catholicks But he careth not much that by so doing he offendeth the Protestants and other Churches Nor that his Images are a scandal to all the Mahometans and keep them from the Christian faith And thus every sect saith If you do this or that you will scandalize and offend many good people Meaning their own side But they â—ever regard how many others they shall really scandalize by the contrary One saith It is scandalous to use extemporary prayers And another saith it is scandalous to pray by forms and books And both sides usually mean no more but that their own party will be displeased and take it for a sin But as he is not scandalized by me who only taketh my action to be a sin but he that is ensnared by it in any sin himself so whether it be displeasing or tempting that you mean you must regard one side as well as the other The heavenly wisdome is without partiality and without hypocrisie Jam. 3. 17. And usually they talk most against scandalizing those whom they account to be the lest And the best are least in danger of sinning And so they accuse them to be the worst or else they know not what they say For suppose a separatist should say If you hold communion with any Parish minister or Church in England it will be a scandal to many good people I would ask such a one why call you those good people that are easily drawn to sin against God Nay that will sin because I do my duty He will say No they will not sin but they will take it to be your sin and they will be troubled at it I must answer him you talk of scandal and know not what scandal is scandal is not troubling men nor making them take me for a sinner but occasioning them to sin themselves by some unlawful or needless act of mine Therefore if you know what you say you make the separatists almost the worst of men that will sin against God because another will not sin yea if they would but sin because another sinneth it were bad enough I would ask you therefore whether you take not the people of the Parish Churches to be more than you and to be worse than you If you took them not for much worse than your selves you would not separate from them And if you do think them worse you must think that they are more in danger of sinning or being turned from the liking of godliness and of the Gospel And if so then we are
will joyn with such a one no more And it is the Confession which must be the sin But if once we have to do against the sin of any that are Great or Godly that power or piety is made a patron of the errour then it may be a smarting censure indeed which we may expect One crieth out He is a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition as they did of Paul though I hate and preach-against sedition Another saith he is bitter and speaketh against the Godly when I spend my self to preach up Godliness But if it be a party that is engaged in the errour you must expect the censure of all the party And what errour is it that hath not a party or that hath neither Greatness nor Godliness for a refuge If in doctrinal or practical consultations of great moment you have to do with injudicious unskilful men if you contradict their way be it never so modestly you are proud and self-opiâ—ionated and must have your own way If you follow their mistakes and contradict them not you may wound the Church and Cause of Christ and be more generally censured at the last In a word when such a multitude of things are matters of Controversie as many may be the matters of Censure One will censure me for praying with a form or book and another for praying without it One for being too long and another for being too short one for this gesture and another for that One for preaching when I am silenced another for not preaching more One for being too gentle to dissenters and another for being too severe One for being too narrow in my principles and communion and another for being too large and universal And if in the sense of the sin and misery of some Christians Love-killing principles and practises I have spent the best of twenty years in writing preaching while I had leave conferring and praying for the Union of Christians and the Churches peace I have but made a wedge of my bare hand by putting it into the clift and both sides have closed upon me to my pain But I have turned both parties in the fray which I endeavoured to part against my self when each side had one adversary I had two Nay this is not the worst to be expected But moreover I must add that I was never more accused of any thing as a crime than of that which I did most against And even for doing so Never more suspected of Carnal compliance than when I exercised the greatest self-denial Never more accused of unpeaceableness than for labouring for the Churches peace Never was I more accused of Schism than for striving with all my power to have united the Ministers and healed the Church or at least prevented further divisions Never more accused of enmity against the true Discipline of the Church than when I have done most and at the dearest rates to stablish it and to prevent its fall In all this I meddle not with my Civil Superiours as thinking it meeter patiently to bear than to aggravate their censures though not all so tolerable as private mens I might give you as many instances of the matters of common Converse He that hath much to do in the world shall hardly escape the censure of many The buyer will say he sells too dear The seller will say he would buy too cheap Every one that expecteth a commodity will censure him that hindereth it and steps in before him If I have a friend or kinsman unworthy of any office or preferment he is nevertheless peremptory in his desires and expectations for being unworthy If I will not speak for him and further his suit I am censured as unnatural and unkind and turn a friend into an enemy If I do speak for him I am false to my conscience and the common good and I must look to be censured accordingly by many But I will add no more instances lest what I intend for instruction seem to be but a complaint But to what purpose is all this It is to let the Reader know that man is not God nor his judgement to be rested in nor his favour to be over-valued To call to you O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils whose heart is deceitful and desperately wicked For wherein is he to be accounted of Look up to God and take him for your God indeed Rest in his Love and be satisfied in his approbation Despise not man nor lay any stumbling blocks before them but as to your own interest in their esteems farther than Gods service and their benefit requireth it account it but a shadow and a thing of nought And say of it as Paul With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of mans day or judgement For I have one that judgeth me even the Lord. 1 Cor. 4. 3. It is GOD Christians it is GOD it is only GOD whose infallibility justification and unspotted truth and goodness you must make your rest It is Heaven it is Heaven it is only Heaven where perfect truth and impartial righteousness and the full vindication of all the just and the fruition of perfect Love and Concord is to be expected and where malice and lies and discord and the father of them are totally and finally shut out As you would not be used as Hypocrites by God and deprived of the true Reward of faith O seek not after the hepocrites reward What is the applause of mortal man Can you not bear the censure of such a shadow How then would you suffer martyrdome for Christ Over-value not the esteem of High or Low of the Great or of the Godly of the many or of the few Gods approbation is sufficient to be your reward See that you be Godly and then be more indifferent though you are thought ungodly See that you be loyal and peaceable and then you may bear it if you be called the contrary Abhor all unwarrantable divisions and then you may bear to be reputed schismaticks Study you to be good and not to be accounted good And what if I should look further to historical fame when I am dead Away with the over-valuing of that too as part of the hypocrites reward I confess God usually blesseth the memory of the just and sets their names above the power of the greatest tyrants and causeth the names of the wicked to rot But this is but a temporal and uncertain thing If one write in my praise to the highest and another write a Volume of false reproaches how shall posterity know which is true who knew neither party nor the cause But yet the nearer reason of all this admonition is to let you know that as contention comes by pride so over-valuing the esteem and censures of men though Good or Great is a dreadful snare and cause of schismes For then you will be stretching your consciences and using your wits to please the party whose censures you must escape And
Errour is a common cause of separations but such as will suffer no two men to joyn together but will turn all Churâ—â—es into confusion and crumble them to dust if it be fully practised For there is no man alive that worshippeth God without some sin as I said before Do you ever pray your selves in secret or in your families without sin Must all separate from you for this Or may not you bear anothers failings as patiently as your own Your own you are still guilty of because they are your own but not of another mans which you cannot help If I believed that I were partaker of the guilt of all the false doctrine or faulty preaching or prayer which was used in the Church where I am I would flye from all the Churches in the world But whither to go I could not tell Obj. But If I joyn with them that worship God amiss do I not approve of their sin or signifie my consent to it Answ. Approving and consenting are acts of your own mind and whether you do so or not is best known to your self But it is a Profession of consent that we have now to speak of And I say that our presence at the prayers of the Church is nâ— profession of consent to all that is faulty in those prayers Why do you not offer to prove it to be so but barely affirm it without any proof I never heard a word of proof for this bare assertion to this day But it s easily disproved First no man can in reason and justice take that for my Profession which I never made by word nor deed according to the common sense of words and actions But according to this common sense I never did by word or deed profess that I consent to all which is uttered by the Pastor in the publike prayers Secondly When the profession which we make by our Church-communâ—on is publikely declared to be another thing totally distinct from this no man may justly interpret it to be this which is quite different But it is another thing which we profess by our church-Church-communion That is I profess my self only to be a Christian in my Baptism when I enter into the Church and in my daily communion with it And I profess to be a member of a Christian Society and to hold Communion with them in Faith and Love and in worshipping God according to his word And I proâ—ess subjection to the particular Pastors of that Church as Christian Pastors who are to teach the people that word of God and guide them in worship and discipline according to that word This is every mans profession in his Church-communion and no more unless he make some some further particular expression of more as every sect useth to do in professing the opinions of their party Why then should any lyar charge me to make a profession which I never made when my profession in my Christian communion is described by Christ himself who instituted it And why should I turn lyar against my self and say that my presence is a profession of that consent which I never made the least profession of Thirdly The wording of the publike prayers is the Pastors work and none of mine It is part of his office as the wording and methodizing of his Sermons is And if he do it well the praise is not mine but his And if he do it ill the dispraise is not mine but his Why should any hold me guilty of another mans fault which I neither can help nor belongeth to any office of mine to help any further than to admonish him Fourthly I do not profess an approbation and consent to all the faults of my own secret or family prayers Much less to another mans who is not in my power I have dâ—sorders and defects and incongruities and other faults in all my prayers And if my very speaking and committing them signifie not my approbation of them how much less is it signified where it is not I but another man that speaketh and committeth them Fifthly And as I have said This opinion would make it unlawful to joyn with any Pastor or Church on earth because no sin must be approved of and consented to and every one mixeth sin with their prayers Obj. But say those on the one extream if I joyn with one that is known to be a Separatist an Anabaptist an Antinomian an Arminian c. his own profession doth before hand bid me to expect not only that the manner but the matter of his prayer be erroneous Answ. First it is granted that no man may in his choise prefer an erring person or mode of worship before a better Secondly But when the question is not whom you should prefer but whom you may joyn with it is not his errours that are yours nor his profession that is yours I come to joyn with him as a Christian Pastor whose office is to preach the Gospel And while men are the agents I know that all that they do will be imperfect and â—aulty And it is not my knowing their â—aults that makes them mine but rather may preserve me from them Obj. But for ought I know he may put heresie or blasphemy into his prayers when I know not what he will say before I hear it Answ. For ought you know your Physician or your Cook may give you poison and your Nurse may poison your child But though that should make you careful whom you trust yet somebody must be trusted for all that You go not upon certainty in any case where man is to be trusted but upon probability Men are not to be distrusted in their own profession if they be lawfully called to it by cautelous and able triers till they have forfeited their trust And as he would not mend the matter who should make a Law that no Physician shall give any medicine but one and the same to all in such diseases and that fetcht from the Kings Apothecary And no Cook shall sell any meat but what is drest by the Kings Cooks for fear lest they should poison men so he that would say No Pastor shall preach or pray but in prescribed words lest he should speak heresie or blasphemy would but destroy the Pastoral office for fear lest it should be abused But here you have no great temptation to this errour Because though a man may poison your bodies against your wills yet no one can poyson your souls but by your own consent If he speak words of heresie or blasphemie if you disown them in your minds and consent not to them they are none of yours nor can do you hurt They may be your temptation and your grief but they are not your sin And yet I shall tell you in the next direction how far they are to be avoided Obj. But say those on the other extream When I know before hand by their Common-Prayer-Book what their errour in worship is and yet joyn in it do I not seem to approve it
be denied or neglected HEaven-work and Heart-work are the chiefest parts of Christian duty Christ often giveth us his summaries of the Law and inculeateth his great Command Iob. 13. 35. Matth. 22. 37 38 39. Luk. 10. 27. And so doth the Apostle Rom. 13. 10. 1 Pet. 1. 22. 1 Iohn 3. 11 14 23. 4 7 11 12 20. 2 Ioh. 5. And the fruits of the spirit are manifest Gal. 5. 22 23. Iames saith that pure Religion and undefiled before God even the father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in adversity and to keep our selves unspotted of the world Jam. 1. 27. Paul saith 1 Tim. 1. 5. The end of the Commandement is Charity out of a pure heart and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned And then addeth From which some having swarved have turned aside to vain janglings In a word The effectual belief of pardon and eternal Glory given through Christ and the Love of God and man with the denial of our selves and fleshly desires and contempt of all things in the world which are competitors with God and our salvation with a humble patient enduring of all which must be suffered for these ends is the nature and sum of the Christian Religion Do nothing therefore as a duty which is a hinderance to any of this Contentious preachings and factious sidings which weaken Love are not of God The servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men 2 Tim. 2. 24. When you come into a family and find that their Religion consisteth in promoting some odd opinion and pleading for a party and vilifying others be sure that this is a Religious way of serving the devil being contrary to the great and certain duties of a godly liâ—e When you fall into company which stiâ—leth all talk of Heaven and all Heart-searching and Heart-humbling conference by pleading 〈◊〉 this or that opinion be sure that it is but one way of enmity to Holiness though not so gross as scorning and persecuting it That which I said before of Truth is applyable to this of Duty It is one of the most important things in the world for the resolving of a thousand cases of conscience and the directing of a Christian life to know which Duties are the Greater and which are the lesser and so which is to be preferred in competition For that which is a duty at another time is a sin when it is done instead of a greater as Christ hath resolved in the case of the Sabbath If Good must be loved as Good then the Greatest Good must be most loved and sought Sacrifice instead of mercy is a sin Our gift must be left at the altar while we go to be reconciled to our brother Math. â— Never hearken to those men who would set up their controverted duties or any positives and lesser things against the duties of nature it self or the great substantial parts of godliness DIRECT XL. Labour for a sound judgement to know good from evil left you trouble your selves and others by mistakes And till you grâ—w so judicious forsake not the guidance of a judicious Teacher nor the company of the agreeing generality of the Godly ALmost all our contentions and divisions are caused by the ignorance and injudiciousness of Christians especially the most self-conceited They are for the most as children that yet need to be taught the very principles of the divine Oracles and to be fed with milk when they think themselves fit to be teachers of others Heb. 5. 11 12. And therefore as children they are tossed to and fro and caried about with every wind of doctrine Eph. 4. 14. And when they have many years together been crying up an opinion and vilifying dissenters at last they turn to some other opinion and confess that they did all this upon mistake And was it not a pitiful life that they lived that while and a pitiful zeal which did set them on and a pitiful kind of worship which they thus offered to God Alas to hear a man pray and preach up Antinomianism one year and Arminianism the next and Socinianism the next To hear a man make Separation and Anabaptistry a great part of his business to men in preaching and to God in prayer for seven and seven years together and at last confess that all this was his errour and his sin Or if he confess it not it is so much the worse Is it not sad that ignorance and hasty rashness should so much injure the Church and mens souls that so many well meaning people should put evil for good and good for evil darkness for light and light for darkness Isa. 5. 20. But because there is no hope that most should be judicious there is no other remedy for such but this of Christs prescript which I have here set down First Happy is he that chooseth a judicious faithful Guide and learneth of him till his own understanding be better illuminated And that escapeth the conduct of ignorant erroneous self-seeking proud dividing Teachers Secondly Continue in the Communion of the generality of agreeing Christians The generality of the godly are more unlikely to be forsaken of Christ than a few odd self-conceited singular professours This is the way of peace to your selves and to the Church of Christ. DIRECT XLI Let not the bare Fervour of a Preacher or the Lowdness of his voice or affectionate manner of utterance draw you too far to admire or follow him without a proportionable degree of solid understanding and judiciousness IT is pity that any wise and judicious Minister should want that fervour and seriousness of speech which the weight of so great a business doth require And it is greater pity that any serious affectionate Minister should be ignorant and injudicious And it is yet greater pity that in any good men too much of their fervour should be meerly affected and seem to be what it is not or at least be raised by a selfish desire to advance our selves in the hearers thoughts and to exercise our parts upon their affections But it is most pitiful that the Church hath any hypocrites who have no other but such affected dissembled fervency And it is not the least pity that so many good people especially youths and women should be so weak as to value an affectionate tone of speech above a judicious opening of the Gospel I confess there is something in an affectionate expression which will move the wisest And as light and judgement tend to generate judgement so heat of affection tendeth to beget affection And I never loved a senseless delivery of matters of eternal consequence As if we were asleep our selves or would make the hearers to be so Or would have them think by our cold expressions that we believe not our selves when we set forth the great inestimable things of the life to come But yet it grieveth my very soul to think what pitiful raw and ignorant kind of preaching is crowded
as well as the hurt IF you look all at the evil in any man and overlook the good you cannot choose but hate hâ—m And if you think only of what you suffer by Magistrates you may easily know what the effect must be And the sin is so great that it should not be made light of by a tender conscience The good of the Office and of the person is of God and the evil is of Satan And should you so look at Satans part as to pass by all Gods part What ingratitude is it to take notice so deeply of your suffering and to take no notice of your mercies There are few Heathen Magistrates from whom those Christians who live under them receive not much more good than hurt Much more Christian Magistrates are a blessing to believers For if they persecute some yet they usually protect more from the fury of the vulgar rabble who would quickly devour them if Rulers did not restrain them And the countenancing of the Christian Religion in the essentials and defending Christian assemblies for Gods worship is an unvaluable mercy If Paul said to the Romans Rulers are not a terrour to good works but to evil Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is the Minister of God to thee for good Rom. 13. 3 4. How much more may those say so who have Christian Magistrates Or if some particular persons do suffer more under some such than Paul or the Christians did under Heathens Acts 28. last yet every true Christian must more regard the publick interest than his own and must rejoyce that the Gospel hath any protection and furtherance and the souls of the people any benefit whatever his personal suffering be Read Phil. 1. 12 to the 20. DIRECT LIV. Learn to suffer by Ministers and Good people and not only by Magistrates nor only by the ungodly I Confess it is a thing most unnatural for one true Christian to afflict another and especially for a Minister who is the father of the flock to be a hurter of them and to do like an enemy and to fleece them and devour them But yet it is a thing which sometimes must be born I have observed that Religious people when a Magistrate though a usurper persecuteth them they can in some sort undergo it as no strange thing And they are not so forward to cast off the office and abhor the persons by whom they suffer But if they suffer never so little by a Minister they flye away from him and are uncapable of comfortable communion with him and the breach is hardly ever made up I confess there is some more colour for this impatiency to be mentioned in another place But yet Gods servants have been tryed by this kind of suffering also and therefore you must not be so tender of it nor be driven by it into sinful separations or into a contempt of the Ministers of the Gospel as too many sects in these times have been Read what at large is said of the afflicting Shepherds Ezek. 34. Zech. 10. 11. And you will see that it is not a thing to be wondered at to have Shepherds which fleece and destroy the flocks and tread down their pasture and muddy their waters and feed themselves and not the flocks and gather not that which goeth â—stray Nay their own Shepherds pitied them not Zech. 11. 5 I know that it is the Magistrates that are often meant by Shepherds in the Prophets but the Priests also are usually meant with them and sometime distinctly by the same word And their falshood and cruelty oft expressed as in Ier. 2. 8 26. 5. 31. and 26. 7 8 11. 32. 32. Ezek. 22. 26. Hos. 6. 9. Mich. 3. 11. Zeph. 3. 4. Mal. 1. 6 2. 1. c. And remember that all the wickedness of these Priests and their abuse of the people did not warrant the people to forsake the Jewish Church Though the Ark was taken by the Philistines for the wickedness and violence of Eli's sons and the people tempted to desire a King by the sins of the sons of Samuel yet none of their mis-doings did warrant a separation from that Church Yea Christ who was persecuted by the Priests did yet bid the cleansed Lepeâ— go shew himself to the Priest and offer according to the Law Therefore a true Christian must learn though not to favour any mans sin nor to be indifferent what Ministery he liveth under yet patiently to suffer much abuse and persecution sometimes from Ministers themselves and to see that it drive them not in peevish impatiency into any extream or to any unlawful sect or separation nor to a disdain of the sacred office which they abuse nor to lose the benefit of it or be unthankful for it And though it be sad that true Christians should abuse each other yet this also must be born Many can bearâ—th scorn and cruelties of the openly profane who can scarce bear to be neglected or set light by much less to be hardly censured by the Religious But observe first that your Pride may notably appear in this and it is no great sign of humility to suffer only from the worst For you look on them as persons of no honour and the â—fore not capable of dishonouring you For a dog to bark at you you take for no disgrace Nay you take it for your honour to suffer by such persons as supposing it a mark of Christs disciples But the Religious you more reverence and think their contempt is a great dishonour to you and fore your pride will not suffer you to bear it patiently Secondly And remember that different opinions and interests may possibly so far exasperate some that are otherwise religious as to make them afflicters or more plainly persecâ—tors of one another though Godliness it self be applauded by them all The experience of England Scotland and Ireland within these 25 years doth sadly tell us and the world how far men can go in persecuting each other for different interests and opinions who all profess a zeal for godliness And let it have your special remark that one reason why all men as Christians and Godly do more easily and commonly love one another is because aâ— Christians and Godly they do not hurt or wrong each other But as they are of various sects they hate and envy one another because as they are sectaries they hurt and injure one another For the spirit and zeal of a sect as such is censorious hurtful unpeaceable and dividing But the spirit and zeal of Godliness and Christianity is kind and gentle and inclineth to do good to all Remember that you have never learâ—n the Christian art of suffering aright till you can suffer not only by bad men but by men that otherwise are good nor only by enemies but by friends nor only by them that bear the sword but also by some who preach the word and will not by
answer such unfaithfulness to their consciences which will shortly be awakened and to the great Shepherd of the Flock who is at the door and who told even the Devils agents that a House or Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand but is brought to nought Math. 12. If alas alas experience hath not yet not yet not yet done enough to teach them this For my part I have had humane applause enough I 'le value that Vanity as dying men do And temptations to man pleasing from covetousness I have none For I have nothing of worldly gain or expectations which I should fear to lose to tempt me to betray my conscience or the truth by silence But mark and remember brethren what I say to you whosoever is of your mind at present Pâ—sterity will say as I have told you And though wrong ways seem fit or necessary for some present exigence or jâ—bb vet nothing but Truth and Integrity and Charity 〈◊〉 Concord will do the main work and hold 〈◊〉 to the last The â—oresight of impatient guilt censure having caused me here to give you this premonition besides what is in the Epistle now Reader go on O the deceitfulness of the heart of man Little do many real Separatists who cry out against the spirit of persecution suspect that the same spirit is in them whence is persecution but from thinking ill of others abhorring them or not loving them And do not you do so by those whom you causlesly separate from you will say that though you think them not to be true Christians yet you love them as men and wish their good And so will those say by you whom you call your Persecutors Though they think you to be proud and humerous and disobedient yet they say they love you as men and do but correct you to cure your self-willedness and humour and to do you good and to preserve the publick peace They think you to be bad and therefore imprison you you think them to be bad and therefore avoid Communion with them They think you so bad as to be unworthy of civil liberty and priviledges you think them so bad as to be unworthy of Church priviledges and liberties They think you unworthy to be suffered in the land perhaps And you think them unworthy to be suffered in the Churches They cry against you Away with them they are schismatical or heretical you cry against them Away with them they are prophane Obj. But they who would not give us 〈…〉 lilerties do more against us than we would do against them Answ. I pray you think on that again First Is not the priviledge of the Church â—etteâ— than the priviledges of the Commonwealth as the soul is better than the body Secondly Is it not a deeper accusation to charge one to be ungodly and prophane than to charge him only to be schismatical Obj. But charity must not be blind They are prophane I charge them truly â—ut I am not schismatical or heretical but they accuse me falsly Answ. You say so and they say the same of you They say that you are schismatical but they are not prophâ—ne Now how shall a stander by know which of you is in the right Doubtless by the witnesses and evidences They try you in some Court or before some Magistrate before they punish you You never try them 〈◊〉 hear them speak for themselves nor examine 〈◊〉 witness publickly against them â—or allow them any Church-justice but avoid their Communion upon reports or pretense of private knâ—wledge They judge you personally one by one You condemn whole Pâ—rishes in the â—â—mp 〈◊〉 They condemn you as for a 〈◊〉 crâ—me But you condemn them without charging any one crime upon them because they have not yet given you a satisfying proof of their godliness They say we prove you guilty You say you have 〈…〉 proved your selves innocent It a 〈…〉 on the high way and you and another were both charged with the robbery and to the other it is said I prove by witness that thou didst rob me And to you it is said Do thou bring sufficient proof that thou didst not rob me Would you not think that you had the more injustice Obj. But of all men living no man can think that a persecutor is godly and fit for Church-communion Ansu. Either of these answers may stop your mouths First What is that to the whole Parishes whose communion you avoid who never persecuted you Did all the Ministers and common people persecute you Secondly Was it no persecution when many Anabaptists and Separatists made such work in England Scotland and Ireland in Cromwels time and after as they did When so many were turned out of the Universities for not engaging and so many out of the Ministry and so many out of the Magistracy Corporation priviledges And when an Ordinance was made to cast out all Ministers who would not pray for the success of their Wars against Scotland or that would not give God thanks for their Victories When I have heard them profess that they believed that there were many thousand godly men that were killed at Dunbar to instance in no other and yet we were all by their Ordinance to be cast out that would not give God thanks for this And the execution of it was much threatned though they did it not And what more harsh kind of persecution could there be than to force men to go hypocritically to God against their consciences and take on them to beg for the success of a war which they judged unlawful and to return him a publick counterfeit thanks for blood-shed yea for the blood of thousands and the blood of confessed godly men When the crime which they would have forced us to had we been so ductile as to obey them was no less than publick hypocrisie and owning such blood-gailtiness and the penalty no less than separation from our flocks and publick maintenance though not silencing I speak not any of this to trample upon those whom God in justice hath cast down A thing which I so abhorred that I have avoided it to the great displeasure of others But if you are of the mind either that Gods justice should not be observed or justified or that you should not be called to repentance or that you should be suffered quietly to forget your sin and die impenitently or that the nation should forget the effects of religious pride and faction and so lose the warning which they have had from God at so dear a rate and be tempted again into the same sin and calamity for fear of offending the ears of the guilty I am in all this as far from your minds as I was in the acting of these crimes And can no more consent to you than I should have done to have had all the Israelites murmurings idolatry and unbelief and the sins of Noah Lot David Solomon Peter c. forgotten and the history of them never mentioned in the
Bible But I pray you mark it the way of God is to shame the sinner how good soever in other respects that the sin may have the greater shame and Religion may not be shamed as if it allowed men to sin nor God the Author of Religion be dishonoured nor others be without the warning But the way of the devil is To hide or justifie the sin as if it were for fear of disparaging the goodness of the persons that committed it that so be may thereby dishonour Religion and Godliness it self and make men believe that it is but a cover for any wickedness and as consistent with it as a looser life is and that he may keep the sinner from repenting and blot out the memory of that warning which should have preserved after-ages from the like falls Scripture shameth the Professours though a David Solomon Peter Noah or Lot that the Religion professed may not be shamed but vindicated Satan would preserve the honour of the Profâ—ssâ—urs that the Religion prosessed may bear the shame and so it may fall on God himself When God turneth Lots wife into a Pillar of Salt Satan is willing to seem so tender of the honour of the godly as to take it down that it may be forgotten God saith to the Israelites that when those that pass by shall ask why hath God done all this great â—vil against this people the posterity shall recount their ancestors sins and say Because they sinned against the Lord their God c. But Satan could find in his heart to pretend more tenderness of the names and honour of the Church so he might but undo the present age by impeniâ—ency and after ages by taking Gods publick warnings from before their eyes On these terms he will be all for the honour of professours But God will make men more tender of his honour and less tender of our own and more willing openly to take shame to our selves to vindicate the honour of Religion before he will give us a 〈◊〉 discharge It is the nature of true Repentance to cry out as publickly as we can to all the world and be glad to leave it upon record It was not God or Religion that ever encouraged me to these sins but it was my own doing Religion is clear but I am guilty Pardon this long excursion on this subject And if you cannot bear it I cannot help that I made not the sore nor galled place which is so tender I only mind you in answer to your objection that Faction and opinions will raise persecutions and have done even by such as you yet do not separate from I know none of you that separate from the Anabaptists and Separatists who were the authors of these aforesaid persecutions nor do I urge you to it Therefore do but impartially judge of the sin Obj. But it is one thing to persecute for particular opinions and interests as almost all parties have sometimes done and another thing to perseâ—nte for Godliness it selfe Answ. I confess it is and the difference between these two is very great But I pray you consider first that they are but few perhaps not one of all that you separate from that ever persecuted you any way at all Nor can you prove that ever they so much as allowed of it Secondly That they whom you and I do suffer by do not believe that they persecute us for Godliness but think that here the case is more defensible than yours was For you had no just authority over us When the Anabaptâ—sts did pull down the Ministers they pull'd down the Magistrates too And therefore it was a perscution of equals without authority But those that we Ministers suffer by now are our lawful Rulers who have made Laws to require us to subscribe and say and swear and do the things which we do not And therefore they think that we suffer but for a different opinion joyned with disobedience It is not all men whom they forbid to preach but us who dissent and do not obey them It is not all men that are godly whom they imprison but those that meet to worship God in a place and manner differing from theirs and forbidden by them So that how can you say that this is not for differing opinions Obj. But we forbid not them to hold their own Church-communion though we separate from them we never denied them the liberty of their consciences Answ. Some of your judgement denied many of them much of that liberty which consisteth in worshipping of God in their own way when you were in power But suppose they had not it is but another way of uncharitableness The vice expressed seemeth to be the same For you condemn them as unfit for Christian-Communion and therefore you exclude them from yours And you take their Church-communion among themselves to be but a prophanation of holy things which maketh them the more impious and therefore the more odious And you tolerate it in them as you tolerate mens folly and madness or leprosie or plague because you cannot cure it And I pray you judge whether there be any more Christian Love in this kind of dealing than there is in that which you call persecution Or at least wheâ—her it proceed not from the same uncharitableness I suppose you to be spiritual and not carnal persons at least in profession and therefore that you are not so tender of the flesh as to take its suffering to be any great matter to you in comparison of any of the sufferings of the soul. When you refuse Communion with men as judging them unfit for fellowship with the visible Churches of Christ you judge them the visible members of the devil and condemn them to the loss of the greatest priviledges on earth and to be left out with the dogs with Publicans and Heathens Though you think that you have no more to do your selves in the execution of this sentence but to separate from them yet you declare that you think that all others should do the same So that your tolerating their Communion among themselves is no great signification of your charity The sum of all that I say to you is this It is but one and the same sin in the Persecutor and the Divider or Separatist which causeth the one to smite their brethren and the other to excommunicate them the one to cast them into prisons as Schismaticks and the other to cast them out of the Church as prophane the one to account them intollerable in the land and the oâ—her to account them intollerable in the Church the one to say Away with them they are contumacious and the other to say Away with them they are ungodly The inward thoughts of both is the same that those whom they smite or separate from are bad and unlovely and unfit for any better usage When Love which thinketh no evil till it is necessitated and believeth all things which are at all credible and hopeth all things which
are not desperate and covereth sins instead of condemning without proof would equally cure them both And let me yet conclude with this double protestation against the carping slanderer who useth to falsifie mens words First That I intend not in all this any flattery of the ungodly or making them better than they are or forbearing plain reproof or Church-discipline nor any unlawful communion with the wicked nor countenancing them in any of their sins nor neglecting to call them to repentance Secondly That while I here name persecution my purpose is not to mark out any persons or party above others or determine who they be that are the persecutors But only to detect the deceitfulness of our hearts when we most complain of it and to shew that wherever that sin is indeed it cometh but from the same principle as sinful separation doth even from the death of Love to others Thirdly and I add that though I here aggravate the persecution of unjust excommunications or separations as robbing men of the priviledge of Christians yet leaving them the common liberties of men and subjects it is none of my purpose to equal this absolutely with that destroying cruelty which leaveth them neither and will not suffer them to enjoy so much liberty as Heathens and Infidels may enjoy or as Paul had under such Act. 28. ult DIRECT LVI Keep still in your thoughts the state of all Christs Churches upon Earth that you may know what a people they are through the world whom Christ hath communion with and may not be deceived by ignorance to separate from allmost all Christs Churches while you think that you separate from none but the few that are about you THousands of well meaning people live as if England were almost all the world And do boldly separate from their Neighbours here which they durst not do if they soberly considered that almost all the Christian world are worse than they But narrow minds who can look but little further with their Reason than with their eye-sight do keep out at once both Truth and Love It is a point that I have often had occasion to repeat and yet will not forbear to repeat it here again It is but about one sixth part of the known world who make any profession of Christianity and are baptized besides how much peopled the unknown part of the world may be we know not Of this sixth part the Ethiopians Egyptians Syrians Armenians the Greek Churches the Muscovites and all the Papists are so great a body that all the Protestants or Reformed Churches are little more than a sixth part of this sixth The Papists being about a fourth or fifth part and the other Christians making up the rest And of these Protestants Sweden Denmark Saxony and many other parts of Germany making up the greatest part are such as are called Lutherans And of the other half which are supposed to be more Reformed there is scarce any of so Reformed lives as these in England and Scotland And among these how great a number are they that you separate from If you look to the Papists their worship is by the Mass If you look to the Muscovians they have a Liturgy much more blameable than ours and have a few Homilies instead of preaching If you look to the Greek Church to the Armenians the Abassines and all the Eastern and the Southern Churches in Asia and Africa they also worship God by Liturgies much more lyable to blame than ours and have but little preaching among them besides Homilies and the Members of their Churches are commonly far more ignorant than the worst of ours even than the rudest part of Wales If you look to the Lutherans they have Liturgies and Ceremonies and Images in their Churches though not adored and have far worse Preachers and of worse lives and more unprofitable preaching than is usually found with us and the people more ignorant and vicious If you look to the remnant called the more Reformed Churches in Holland France Helvetia Germany though they have much less of Liturgy or Ceremonies yet are their Church-members usually as ignorant as ours and more addicted to intemperance and there is no less scandal in their lives than among ours Now this being the true state of the world and though we daily pray that it may be better yet it is no better I would only intreat you but to think of it as it is and that to answer me deliberately these few Questions Quest. 1. Do you believe that all baptized professed Christians not denying any essential part of Christianity are Christs Universal Visible Church Qu. 2. Do you not believe that this Church is only One and that every particular Church and every Christian is a part of it Qu. 3. Do you not believe that it is unlawful in any case whatsoever to separate from it And that to separate from the Universal Visible Church is visibly to separate from Christ Qu. 4. Do you not believe that to give a Bill of Divorce to the Universal Church or to many hundred parts of it or to any one part and to declare that they are none of the Church of Christ is not great arrogancy and injury to men and unto Christ himself Qu. 5. Dare you say before God Let me have no part in any of the prayers of all these Churches on earth who use a Liturgy as culpable as ours because I will have no Communion with them Do you set so light by your part in their prayers Q. 6. If you travelled or lived in Abassia Armenia Greece or any Christian Country where their worship is not Idolatry nor substantially wicked nor they force not the worshippers to any false Oaths subscriptions or other actual sin would you refuse all communion with them and all publick worshipping of God Or would you not rather joyn with them than with no Church at all Qâ— 7. When you remember on the Lords days that now all the Christian world are congregate and are calling upon God and praising him in the name of one Christ and in the profession of one Faith dare you think of being a Body separated from them all And can you think that Christ disowneth them all save you Qu. 8. Can you think it agreeable to the gracious nature design and office of Jesus Christ to cast off and condemn so many hundred parts of the Church-universal and to accept that one part only which you joyn with Judge by his actions and expressions in the Scriptures Qu. 9. If there were bâ—t ten persons of your mind in all the world would you believe that God would save none but those ten or accept the worship of no more or that it were lawful to have communion with none but those ten If not how can you think so in a case so neer it Qu. 10. Can you prove that Christ doth separate from all the Christians of the world which you separate from or that they have no visible Commâ—nion with him or
rest is made as vain where that is the predominant and denominating part Thus over-doing is undoing and thus the superstitious are materially righteous overmuch And not only much cost and pains is lost but the soul corrupted the Church divided Religion debased and endangered and God displeased by ignorant zeal Here note to prevent mistakes First that as God is related to our actions either as the efficient commanding or as the final cause so there is a double superstition One which is the greatest as comprehending the other when that which God never commanded or forbade is feigned to be commanded or forbidden by him The other when we feign him finally to be pleased with a Religious worship of our own invention though we confess it to have no higher an original than our selves Secondly That the matter of this later sort of superstition is either that which God forbiddeth and so is displeased with or that which he hath made and holdeth indifferent and so is neither pleased or displeased with in any moral consideration in it self considered He that ofâ—ereth God a â—â—crifice of sin or things prohibited or of a worthless and indifferent thing and taketh God to be pleased with the later or not displeased with the former doth indeed displease him by either of these conceits And the general prohibition of not adding or diminishing rightly understood may notifie things as under the former head Thirdly But it is no superstition to hold a good thing to be good a bad thing to be bad or an indifferent thing to be indifferent Fourthly Nor yet to determine of those circumstances of worship which God hath left to humane determination being made necessary in genere by nature or scripture Nor yet to judge that God is pleased with such a prudent determination Fifthly it is not superstition to do the same material thing which another doth superstitiously if we have not the same superstitious conceit of it as he hath If a Papist should ananoint the sick as a Sacrament and a Protestant do it as a medicine the former is snperstition and not the later And so in other things Sixthly Whether that indifferent thing remain indifferent to our use which others use to superstition is a case which a judicious collation of circumstances must determine His superstitious use doth not make it simply a sin in any other who hath none of his false conceits and ends else some superstitious persons so abusing meat and drink and cloaths and all things in the world might make all things become unlawful to us or at least deprive us of all our liberty in things indifferent Seventhly If we avoid anothers uperstition as to the form or intention which maketh it superstition and this as a sin we do well If we avoid the matter it self which he useth superstitiously because it is by him made scandalous we do our duty when it is scandalous indeed no contrary greater accident maketh it our duty But if we take it to be simply superstition or sin to do materially the same action which a snperstitious person doth we are superstitious in avoiding his superstitious act For instance a Papist viâ—iteth the Lady of Lauretto as a divine duty This is superstition A Protestant goeth thither upon lawful and necessary business This is no superstition Another Protestant who hath no necessary business there avoideth it that he may not be scandalous and encourage others to it This is well done A Sectary thinketh it superstition or other sin simply to go thither what ever his necessity or intention be This is superstition Or a feigning God to forbid that which he forbiddeth not A Papist fasteth on Friday or avoideth flesh in Lent as a Divine duty superstitiously A Protestant fasteth the same day because an Act of Parliament commandeth it which renounceth the Papists religious end Or because his Physician prescribeth it as necessary for â—is health This is not superstition Another Protestant avoideth it through necessity for his health And another in Popish Countries avoideth it only as scandalous Neither of these are superstitious Another fasteth on a Friday for his own necessity or conveuience as a time which he may lawfully choose And another fasteth on a Friday because the Master of the family or the Pastors of the Church have appointed a fast on that day This is no superstition A Sectary thinketh that it is superstition or some other sin to fast the same day that the Papists do because the Papists do it superstitiously This is superstition unless in the case of scandal as aforesaid The multitudes of superstitions by which the Papists or any others have corrupted and debased the Christian Religion I shall not nâ—w digress to mention But only touch upon a few instances of the superstitions of those godly persons of this age to whom I am now writing To shew them that it is the Religious sort that are the common beginners of superstition by over-doing out of a mistaken zeal or fear of sinning I refer the Reader to Biâ—â—on for full proof But here again I must first crave the patience of those that love not errour better than information and desire them not to be too angry with me for telling them what I confidently hold though it diffâ—â— from the opinions of many whom I greatly reverence and honour while I profess withall that I do it not in a Magisterial imposing way nor as slighting the persons from whom I differ but as offering my brethren that Light which I think needful to their own and to the Churches cure And I will thank them if they will do the like by me if I be guilty of any superstitious errour First the Scripture telleth us of no Church-Elders but what were ordained and of none but such as were of the same Office with the preaching Pastors or Elders of none that had not authority to baptize and administer the Lords supper Nor doth Church-history tell us of any other as a Divine office But when one Assembly had many Elders or Pastors those that were best gifted for publike Sermons did preach and the rest did help to rule the Church and to catechize and instruct and visit particular families and persons and other parts of the office as there was cause But now we have concluded that there is a distinct office of Ruling-Elders who need not be ordained and who have no power to baptize or to administer the Lords Supper This I think is a superstition For we feign God to have made a Church-office which he never made And though we must honour and hold Communion with the Churches which have this blemish yet still it cannot be freed from superstition Secondly God hath required nothing but profession of the Baptismal Covenant to prove a mans title to his enterance and priviledges in the universal Church And a consent to our Relation to the particular Churches to our membership in them But mistaking-zeal hath accounted this too loose a way and hath
devised stricter terms Many must have other proofs of Godliness besides the understanding voluntary assent and consent to the Baptismal Covenant Yea of those that are in the universal Church already before they can be admitted to its priviledges or to a particular Church And which is worse they here give the Church no certain rule instead of Christs rule which they cast by But one man requireth one account and another requireth another and the rule and test doth vary as the charity or prudence of men do vary This is a superstition which hath already torn the Churches in pieces and is going on still to do worse And it s raised by mistaking-zeal Thirdly that none that at the same time or before are not entered members of some particular Church may by Baptism be entered into the Universal Church is a superstition which some good men have taken up Fourthly that he who is a member only of the Universal Church may not in transitu be admitted to communion with particular Churches unless he bring a Certificate from a particular Church of which he â—ometime was a Member Fifthly that the Pastor may not lawfully receive any member into a particular Church without the consent of the Major Vote of the people Sixthly that a Minister of Christ may not by Baptism receive any into the Universal Church but by the consent of the Major Vote of some particular Church Seventhly that no man is a Minister or Commissioned Officer of Christ for the discipling and baptizing of those without the Church unless he be also the Pastor of some particular Church or at least have been such Eighthly that the people do not only châ—sse the persons who shall be their Pastors but also give them their office or power Ninthly that the people have the power of the Keyes or of Church-Government by Vote Tenthly that the people of a particular Church do give authority to men to be Ministers in the Vniversal Church and to preach and baptize among those that are without Eleventhly that he that is a member of one Church may not communicate with any otâ—er but by the consent of the Pastor and people of that one Twelfthly That he that is a member of a Church may not remove his relation to another Church when his occasions and personal benefit require it and the publick good of many is not hurt by it without the consent of the Pastor and people of that Church Thirteenthly that it is simply unlawful to use a form of prayer or to read a prayer on a book Fourteenthly That if a School-master impose a form upon a schollar or a parent on a child it maketh it become unlawful Fifteenth that our presence maketh us guilty of all the errours or unmeet expressions of the Minister in publick worship At least if we before know of them And therefore that we must joyn with none whose errours or mis-expressions we know of before Sixteenth that as oft as a Minister is removed from his particular flock he becometh but a private men and is no longer a Minister and Officer of Christ. Seventeenth that we are guilty of the sins of all unworthy or scandalous Communicants if we communicate with them Though their admission is not by our fault Eighteenth that he whose judgement is against a Diocesan Church may not lawfully joyn with a Parish Church if the Minister be but subject to the Diocesan Nineteenth that whatsoever is unlawfully commanded is not lawful to be obeyed Twenty that it is unlawful to do any thing in the worship of God which is imposed by men and is not commanded it self in the Scripture As what Translation of the Scripture shall be read what meetre and what Tune of Psalms shall be in use what hour and at what place the Church shall meet Pulpits Tables Fonts c. Printing the Bible c. dividing it into Chapters verses c. These and more such as these are superstitions which some religious people have brought up And among those who are of another opinion wil speak against all the fore-mentioned superstâ—tâ—ons there are too many introduced which they are as fond of because they are their own ☞ As that all the Pastors of the Protestant Churches abroad who had only the election of the people and the ordination of Parochial Pastours and not of Diocesan Bishops are no true Ministers of Christ but Lay-men That therefore those Churches are no true Churches in a political sense and as organized That therefore their Baptism is unlawful and a nullity and all those nations are no baptized Christians Though the Papists who hold the validity of Lay-mens baptizing do here censure more easily That it is not lawful to communicate in such Churches and receive the Sacrament of the Lords supper from such Ministers That those Countries which are baptized by such should be rebaptized That those Ministers who are ordained by such should be re-ordained That it is unlawful to joyn with those Churches where the Minister prayeth only from a Habit of of prayer called extemporary without a fore-known form because they know not but he mayx put somewhat unlawful into his prayers and because the mind cannot so readily try and approve and consent to words which are hastily uttered and not known to the hearers before These and abundance other superstitions some men would introduce on the other side And by all such inventions fathered upon God and made a part of Religion the minds of men are corrupted and disquieted and the Churches disturbed and divided by departing from primitive simplicity I shall only now propose this to the consideration of those of the first sort Whether they are sure that these superstitions of theirs may not run the round as other superstitions have done before them Or some of them at least What if the next age should turn them into a dead formality And what if the next age after that should make Laws to enforce them And then Godly people first scruple them and then flye from them as discerned superstition And then the worst men bâ— glad of that advantage to persecute those that would not submit to them By this circulation if the same men who invented un-ordained Elders new and needless Church-Covenants c. could but live two or 300 years they might come to be among the number of those who cry out of them as superstitious and suffer persecution because they will not use them Yea there are among you now many things of a lower nature which some dare scarce plainly say God commandeth or forbiddeth and yet they are censorious enough about them As heretofore many were against wearing the hair of any considerable length Against wearing cuffs upon a day of humiliation Against dressing meat or feasting at least on the Lords day which is a day of Thanksgiving of divine institution and held That it is necessary to feast twice at least upon a day of Thanksgiving of mans appointment That a Minister should
not life up his eyes much less kneel down to signifie his private prayer when he goeth into the Pulpit Nor any other when they enter into the Church That no prayer may be used and no Psalm sung in our common mixt Assemblies which have any expressions which all both good and bad may not fitly use as for themselves That no Minister may use notes in preaching to help his memory That the sacramental bread and wine must not say some or must say others be delivered by the Minister into each mans hand That no gesture but sitting is lawful at the sacrament That it is unlawful to wear a Gown in divine worship if it be commanded That it is unlawful to keep any aniversary day of humiliation or thanksgiving of mans appointment That just such and such hours for family worship must be observed by all Or as others say that no set times or number of family prayers are to be observed That it is not lawful to preach or hear a sermon upon a humane holiday With abundance more such about phrases and gestures and fashions of apparel and customes c. I am not at all now accusing these opinions of superstition nor telling you wheâ—her I take them to be right or wrong Much less would I perswade any to make no conscience how they order these or any other the smallest circumstances of their lives Obedience must extend to the smallest parts of the lawes of God But I am shewing you the circular course of many religious people in the world Suppose now that the next age should make strict lawes for every one of your own opinions in all these points And that the Religious people should then scruple them because they are imposed And that the Rulers then should make their Lawes more strict and that all the common people should take up these opinions and all that sort of men that first were zealous for them should turn against them because the common people are for them and should call them Popish superstitions and should suffer imprisonment rather than conform to them I pray you tell me if you fore-saw all this what is it you would advise a sober Christian to do in such a time and case as that Would you have the same men that now are for these opinions cry out against them and censure all as superstitious who are for them and separate from them and rejoyce in their sufferings on that account Why I tell you that many of the customes and practises in the Church which you now thus avoid as superstition were brought in at the first thus by the most Religious sort of people And yet it is now accounted by many a necessary part of Religion to avoid them And all because that men take up their opinions of such matters in Religigion from the estimation of the persons that are for them and avoid those things with prejudice and scrupulosity which are liked or practised or commanded by those whom they think ill of and take for the adversaries of Religion DIRECT LIX If through the faults of either side or both you cannot meet together in the same particular Church or place yet preserve that unity in Faith Love and practise which all neighbour Churches should maintain with one another and use not your different Assemblies to revile each other and kill your Love ALL distances are undesirable and tend to more But yet our Unity lyeth not so much in meeting in one place as in being of one Mind and Heart and Life Many occasions may warrant our corporal distance but Heart-divisions should be most avoided It is the principles and motives upon which you withdraw which are more considerable than the local distance Therefore on one side let us take heed how we â—nchurch and unchristen any with whom we do not corporally joyn And on the other side let us take heed how we revile them all as Sectaries and Separatists who do not joyn with our assemblies But let us know the reason of their practise before we peremptorily judge them I. Perhaps you think that such or such a Church-government or Forms or Ceremonies are unwarrantable and such and such oaths and subscriptions are unlawful and therefore you cannot have local communion with the Churches that impose them If it were so yet take heed of 〈◊〉 these no Churches of Christ or pretending that Christ disowneth and rejecteth them If they cast out you by imposing any thing which you think is sin yet take heed that you excommunicate not them If there be a difference between a weak and culpable Christian and no-Christian there is a difference between a weak and culpable Church and no-Church And as there are innumerable degrees of good or evil strength or weakness in particular Christians so there is in Churches also You may perhaps find that another Minister is more profitable to you and another Churches principles more pleasing to you and their discipline better in your account And therefore you think that you are bound to choose the best for your personal Communion Be it so There is yet some modesty in these terms But do not therefore conclude that Communion with that Church which you turn from is simply unlawful or that another may not use it who can have no better Or that you your selves should not rather joyn with that than with none Or that you may not occasionally sometimes communicate with them though your more ordinary communion be elsewhere Nor do not disown all spiritual communion with them though in body you are absent But when ever you pray to God go to him as a member of the Universal Church and and not of a Sect only Pray for the whole Church and desire a part in the prayers of the whole Own them and their worship so far as Christ owneth them While you disown their errours and failings yet own their faith and all that is sound in their prayers and worship And see that you love them as members of Christ who if weak are yet Christians and perhaps in other respects better than you To say nothing whether it be they or you that are in the right You like not all that is done in the Lutherans Churches much less in the Greek and Ethiopian And yet I hope you disown not their spiritual communion as Churches though faulty and as members of the same body But if you are not content to choose an ordinary communion most suitable to your self but you must conclude that such are no Ministers or no Churches of Christ their worship is not accepted by him it is not lawful to have communion with them but rather to joyn with no Church than with them and will accordingly contemn them and irritate and alienate mens minds against them Be sure that you prove well what you say or wonder not if all wise and sober men do take this for downright odious schism and one of the worst of the works of the flesh Gal. 5. 20 21.
strength of his arguments but were all the while thinking what to say against him or how to go on as they had begun Lastly not to run into any more causes there is an universal lamentable cause of differences that almost all people naturally are apt to be very confident of all their own apprehensions And very few have any due suspicion of their own opinions or an understanding submission to wiser men Yea boyes that are once past their Tutors dictates and the weakest women are usually as confident that they are in the right as the most learned and experienced persons Yea none are so apt to be too doubtful and diâ—â—ident of their own understandings as the Learned who are next the highest form For they have knowledge enough to know what can be objected against them and to see an hundred difficulties which the ignorant never saw So that the more weak worthless and erroneous any ones judgment is usually the more furious are they in their prosecution of it as if all were most certain truth which they apprehend These are the boldest both in schisms and persecutions as being so sure that their conceits are right that they dare censure or separate or scorn or despise or afflict dissenters It is a common thing to hear religious people speak meanly and humbly of their own understandings in the general But when it cometh to particulars it is the rarest part of humility in the world to find Very few do shew any competent modesty except the grosly ignorant who have no pretence to wisdome What abundance of good people of the darker sort have I been fain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding who when I have but crost their opinions about any thing which most groundlesly they took for a duty or a sin have held as fast their vain conceits and made as much of their most senseless reasonings and as passionately and confidently rejected the most unquestionable proof which I have offered them as if they had been infailible and had taken me for an errant fool And this is not the case of one or two Sects only but naturally of almost all men till God hath taught them that rare part of humility to have Humble Understandings and low thoughts of their own judgements and a due suspicion of their apprehensions And their cure is the harder because they know not how to have a humble suspicion of themselves without running into the contrary extream of scepticism and being cold and unfaithful to the truth They know not how to hold fast that which is good and to be constant in religion without holding fast all which they have once conceited to be good and being constant in their errour Especially when good or evil is voted to them by that party whose piety they most esteem and reverence Nor is this a Religious distemper only but it is so natural to mankind that even in common matters neighbours and neighbours masters and servants husband and wife and almost all have a strange diversity of apprehensions One thinks that this is the best way and another that the other is best and let them reason and wrangle it out never so long usually each party still holdeth his own and hardly yieldeth to anothers reasons And when they do yield they are so unhappy that they are as like to yield to one more erroneous than themselves and to change into a worse opinion as to yield to the truth For commonly Appearance Advantage Interest and a taking tone and voice do more with them than solid evidence of truth Out of all this if you infer a necessity of Government so do I. But if a necessity of force and rigor think on it again and first hear what I shall further say And consider what I have said already Distinguish between the common frailties of mankind and special enormities And forget not that you are men and live among men And let not men be cast out for Original sin nor punish a few for that which is common to all the world Nor condemn not your selves in condemning others Of which I further add DIRECT XI Evermore distinguish between the necessary truths and duties and those which are not of necessity and between the Tollerable and the intollerable errours And never think of a Common Unity or Concord but upon the terms of necessary points and of the primitive simplicity of doctrine discipline and worship and the forbearance of dissenters in tollerable differences IF I were to speak but once to the world whilest I lived this should be my Theam And yet for ought that I can perceive by any visible effects I never spake of any thing with less success One party writeth copiously of the mischiefs which will â—ollow Tolleration And they say true iâ— they mean the tolleration of things intollerable The other write as copiously of the necessity of Tolleration and Liberty of Conscience And they say true if they mean only the Tolleration of things tollerable But neither of them saith true if they mean universally and speak in any other sense There is nothing more plain and sure than that the tollerating of all errours and faults which conscience may be pretended for or of none at all are utterly destructive of Christian and humane peace and safety He is scarce well in his wits that holdeth either part universally and unlimitedly For the one would have no Government and the other would have no subjects to be governed Seeing therefore bounds and limits there must be we may reckon them as the third sort of distracted persons who think that the bounds are so undiscoverable that the mention of them is in vain and therefore either All or None must be tollerated according as Rulers are disposed or their interest seemeth to require And therefore they say What points be they that are necessary and what unnecessary What errours are tollerable and what are intollerable Can you name and number them Or who must be the judge To which I answer First Let it be first supposed that God hath given us a Law to judge by and then we shall quickly tell you who shall be the Judge A question which the confused world doth further their confusion by when they are a thousand times answered past all rational contradiction Iudgement is private or publick The judicium privatum discretionis which is but the guide of rational acts belongeth to every private man which none that is a man did ever yet deny The judicium publicum is either in foro civili determining in order to corporal coaction and this belongeth only to the Magistrates Or it is in foro Ecclesiae determining in order to church-Church-communion or Excommunication and this belongeth only to the Church but under the coactive Government of the Magistrate the Pastors being the Governors and the people in part the executioners He that requireth more understands not this Secondly And what if therâ— be a difficulty what points are necessary
and what errours are intoâ—erable Yet as long as it is certaâ—n that such a difference there is and that accordingly men must do doth it not rather concern both parties to search after it and practise as far as they can discern than to cast away Reason because there is a difficulty in using it aright Just thus the Papists do with us about the like notion of fundamentals or essentials of Christianity They call to us for a just enumeration of the fundamentals and because they find so much difficulty there as may find words and work for a perverse wrangler they insult as if they might therefore take either all things or nothing to be essentials and of necessity As if Christianity had no constitutive essentiall parts and so were nothing And when they have all done they are forced themselves in their writings to distinguish the fundamentals essentials and universally necessary points from the rest as Daveâ—pâ—rt Costerus Bellarmine Holden c. do And doth it not then concern them as much as us to know which they be What if it be a hard thing to enumerate just how many bits a man may eat and not be a glutton or how many drops a man may drink and be no drunkard or just what meats and drinks must be used to avoid exceâ—s in quality or just what sort of stuffes or silks or cloth or fashions may be used without excess in apparel will you thence infer that men may eat and drink any thing in quantity and quality or else nothing or that he may wear any thing or must go naked What if you cannot justly enumerate what herbs or roots or drugs are wholsome and what are unwholsome which purge too much and which too little Must therefore all be used indifferently or none If I am not able to enumerate just how many faults or weaknesses may be tollerable in my servants Must I therefore have none till I have those that are faultless or else must I allow them to do any thing that they list Though just at the verge of evil even that which is good may be matter of doubt yet God in Nature and Scripture hath given us sufficient light for an upright safe peaceable life Thirdly And if ever Baptism had been well understood by these objectors the essentials of Christianity had been understood Hath not Christ himself determined who they be that shall be admitted into the Church and numbered with Christians in the very tenor of the Baptismal Covenant And did not the Church take the Creed to be sufficient for its proper use which was to be the matter of the Christian profession as to the Articles of faith to be believed And yet are we now to seek in the end of the world what Christianity is and what are the essentials of our faith and who is to be received as a professor of Christianâ—ty But this is a subject more largely to be handled if Rulers will permit it And in the mean time because it is not the Magistrates but the Pastors that I am now speaking to I shall pretermit the most which is to be said and only acquaint you in the conclusion that one of these following wayes must be chosen I. Either to tollerate all men to do what they wil which they will make a matter of conscience or religion And then some may offer their children in sacrifice to the devil and some may think they do God service in killing his servants â—nd some may think it their duty to perswade people that there is no God nor life to come nor duty nor sin but all things are left to our own wills as lawless Secondly Or else you must tollerate no errour or fault in religion And then you must advise what measure of penalty you will inflict If but a little then you tollerate the errour still For they that err will err still and they that conscienciously pray as Daniel did Dan. 6. or forbear to obey the King as the three Confessours did Dan. 3. will do so still for all your penalty And so there is no cure but a tolleration still But if you inflict upon them banishment or death you must resolve that the King shall dwel alone and have no subjects and so be no King nor have any servant and so be no Masters nor endure so much as a wife and so be no husband and if he have children must use them as K. Philip of Spain did his eldest son Prince Charles and so be no Father It can be no less than this at last Or if you will imprison them every subject must be in prison and then who shall be the Jaylor and who shall find them food Thirdly Or else you must deal partially and unjustly and condemn one while you acquit another for the same fault or condemn one sort of errours while you allow to tollerate others as great As if all were to be punished who believe not Christs descent into Hell while all are tollerated who deny the rest of the Articles of the Creed Fourthly Or else you must make sure that all the Kings subjects shall be born under the same Planets and of the same parents and have the same temperament and complexion and the same teachers and company and all hear the same words and all see the same objects and all have the same callings employments interests passions temptations advantages and the same degree of natural capacity and of grace That so there may be no difference or defect in their apprehensions Fifthly or else you must â—istinguish and say that some are tollerable and shall be tollerated and some errours arâ— intollerable and shall not be tollerated in the tongue I mean for you must tollerate them in the mind whether you will or not And then you will find a necessity of discerning as well as you can the tollerable from the intollerable And if so for Christs sake and his Churches sake and your own sake bethink you whether Christ be not the King of his Church and whether he hath given his Church no Laws for its Constitution and Administration By which we must try who are to be the members of himself and his Church and to have Communion with himself and one another and who are to be rejected and avoided And whether the Holy Ghost iâ— not the Author of the Church-establishment in the Scriptures And whether we can expect more infallible deciders of such cases than Christ and his Spirit and Apostles And whether the Church be not the same thing now as then and and its universal constitution and necessary administration the same And whether the primitive Church or ours be the purer and more exemplary And whether it would do Kings and Kingdomes and the souls of men any dangerous hurt to have all Christians hold their Union and Communion just on the same terms as they did under Peter and Paul and all the Apostles Or at least whether it be worthy all the calamitous divisions
in Christendome and the blood of the many hundred thousands that have for conscience sake been shed and the enduring of the outcries of the imprisoned and banished and their prayers to heaven for deliverance from mens hands and the leaving of such a name on record to posterity as is usually left in History on the authors of such sufferings besides the present regret of mind in the calamities of others and the sad divisions and destruction of Charity which cometh hereupon I say whether it be worth the suffering of all this and O how small a part is this and all to keep our Churches from the primitive simplicity and from the same way and Communion which Peter and Paul and the Churches of their times established and practised Shall we speak so highly of Christ and his Apostles and the sacred Scriptures and yet think all this blood and misery division and distraction worthy to be endured rather than our Union and Communion should be held on the terms which they did appoint and practise or rather than such terms should be tolerated among us I know what is said against all this But this is no place to answer all that is said by such as cannot see how to answer themselves in so clear a case DIRECT XII Remember that the Pastoral Government is a Work of LIGHT and LOVE and what cannot be done by these is not at all to be done by you And therefore you must make it your great study and employment first to Know more than the people and to Love them more than they Love you or one another and then to convince them by unresistable evidence of truth and to cause the warmth of your Love to be felt by them in every word and act of your Ministration As the Miâ—k is waâ—m by the natural heat of the mother and so is fitted for the nourishment of the child AS the Gospel is the revelation of the Love of God and it is a message of Love which we have to bring and a work of Love which we cooperate to effect so it is a spirit of Love which must be our principle and it is an office and work of Love which we are called to and the manner must be answerable to the work Faith is the Head and Love is the Heart of the new Creature And as there is no Light in our office and work if there be no Faith and evidence of Truth so there is no Life in it if there be no Love God himself in the great work of our Redemption Christ in his Incarnation life and suffering hath taught the world that the manifestation of Love is the way to win Love and to cure enmity And he is not worthy the name of a Minister of Christ who hath not learned this lesson and doth not imitate his Lord in this That as our office participateth subordinately of his office both Ruling Teaching Priestly so we may participate of that Spirit of Love which was his Principle and must be ours If it be not a work of Love which we do it is not the work of a Minister of Christ and Preacher of the Gospel Can you well Preach so great Love of Christ to men without Love if you shew not Love to them you can never expect to win their Love to your selves And when you overmuch desire to be loved your selves as which of you doth not you pretend that it is to make your endeavours more successful when you perswade them to the love of Christ. And doubtless a just Love to the person of the Preacher is a good advantage to this success And in good sadness can you believe that any thing is so likely to win Love as Love or did experience ever teach you that reproach or contempt or hurting men was the effectual way to make them Love you This way hath been long tried by the Mountebanks in Italy Spain and many other Countries but alas with what success Indeed solitudinem faciunt paâ—â—m vocant as Tertullian saith When they have killed those that they had first oppressed they affrighted the rest to say they loved them and really won the Love of their surviving blood-thirsty enemies but that was all If the new knack of transfusion of blood cannot do this feat by letting in the blood of a Spaniel who loveth him that beateth him when you let out their own phlebotomy will never do it Account then that Sermon that converse that reproof that discipline in which Love is not apparently predominant to be but a lifeless useless thing as to the winning of a sinners heart to Christ. Though I deny not but when the case of the sinner appeareth desperate the severity of Discipline in casting him off may express more of another affection as to him But that is because in so doing you must shew greater Love to the Church which must be saved from the infection But perhaps you 'l say They despise me and injure me and follow others and admire them who deserve not so well of them as I do Answ. First we are most of us too partial to be competent Judges of our own deserts Selfishness too often maketh us think better of our selves our preaching and our lives than there is cause And it too often filleth men with envy against those whose greater worth and better labours cause them to be preferred by the hearers And envy usually breeds detraction I know that many giddy persons heap up Teachers to them selves and follow seducers coutemn the faithfullest servants of the Lord. But I know withall that there is usually a convincing power in the preaching of able experienced Ministers which is not to be found in the cold formal discourses of an hypocrite And that there is a suitable principle in true spiritual experienced Christians which causeth them to relish this spiritual experimental preaching much more than the more-adorned carkasâ—es of formality And seriousness is still acceptable to serious Christians Yea even to common natural men unless the malicious possess them by slanders with prejudice against it Now if this should be the cause that others are preferred before you O how heynous were your sin As if it were not enough for you to neglect your duty and to do the work of God deceitfully and injure the souls of men in a cause of such importance but you must also impenitently justifie such a crime and also maligne those that have more of the grace and gifts of God than you and that do more to help to save mens souls Secondly But suppose that your deserts be as great as you conceive and their love to you as little I would further ask you First is it for their own sake who thus hinder their own edification by it that you are troubled at them or is it for your selves because you have not the respect which is your due If it be the later I need not tell you what it is for Ministers of Christ
did but fast and pray more and read the Scriptures more than others he was reproached as a Heretick and favourer of the Priscillianists Martin Bishop of Turen was at that time a man of no great Learning but so famous for Holiness Charity and numerous miracles as the like is scarce written with credibility of any man since the Apostles for which he is canonized a Saint This Martin was grieved partly to hear strictness brought into reproach and partly to see Magistrates called to the suppression of heresies by the Bishops and so every heretick taught how to persecute and suppress the truth who could burget the Emperor on his side Therfore he petitioned the Emperour for mercy to the Priscillianists and told him that it was a thing not used by Christians to propagate sound doctrine or suppress mens errours by the sword He also avoided the Synods of the Bishops and refused not only their Councils but their Communion Whereupon the Bishops not only despise him as an unlearned man and one that deceived the people with false miracles but also suggested to the Emperour that he was a favourer of the hereticks himself Insomuch that Martin hardly escaped suffering with them through the Bishops calumnies But the great piety and clemency of the Emperour preserved him And at last did promise him the saving of the lives of some that were further appointed to suffer on condition that he himself would communicate with the Bishops Martin saw that there was no other means to save the life of one that else was presently tâ—odie and thinking that Christ who would have mercy and not sacrifice would in such a case allow it he promised to have Communion with the Bishops and so did communicate with them the next day and saved the mans life When he had done it he was in great doubt and perplexity about it whether he had done well or not and in this trouble went secretly out of the City homewards And by the way in a Wood as he was in heaviness and doubt an Angel appeared to him and rebuked and chastened him for communicating with them and bid him take warning by this lest the next time he hazarded his salvation it self by it And Martin professed that long after this the gift of miracles was denied him but he communicated with the Synod and Bishops no more This History I only recite without determining how far the Reader is to believe it But I must say that the reading of it was a temptation to me to doubt concerning my Communion the Reader may easily know with whom For though I know how credulous and fabulous many ancient Writers were yet I considered that thâ—s Historian is one of the most ancient one of the most learned one of the most strictly Religious of all the old Historians of the Church and that he was himself an intimate acquaintance of Martins and had it from his own mouth and most solemnly protesteth or sweareth that he feigneth nothing and that the miracles of Martin were known to him partly by his own sight partly by Martin's own Relation and partly by many credible witnesses And they were so believed commonly in that age by good men that it was the occasion of his Canonizing And if such History is not to be believed I will not mention the consequences that will hence follow And yet on the other side I considered First That it was possible that a holy man might be mistaken by fear and scrupulosity and take that for an Angels appaâ—ition which was but a dream Secondly That his avoiding Communion with the Bishops might be only a prudential act fitted to that time and place upon accidental or circumstantial reasons which will not suit with another time and place Thirdly It is dangerous making the actions of any men upon pretense of any Revelations and Miracles to be instead of Scripture the rule of our faith or duty much more to prefer them before the Scripture when there is a contrariety between them Fourthly And his separation was but temporary not from the Order nor from any of the other Pastors or from the people but only from those individual persons whom he supposed to be scandalous And these considerations I judge sufficient to resist that temptation Whoever understandeth what a man is and what a Christian is and what the office and work of a Pastor is will make no doubt but that his Guidance must be paternal and that as Love is the effect to be produced in the people so Love in him must be the means of causing it that he must expect that the success of his preaching discipline should not exceed the measure of Love which is manifested therin further thanas God may extraordinarily work beyond the aptitude of the means And when he hath complained of the people as sharply as he will he shall find that whatsoever it is that Love cannot do in order to their conversion and edification and which Light or evidence cannot do in order to their conviction is not by him to be done at all And if he will be trying with edge tools he may cut his own fingers sooner than cure an erring mind And shall find that the people will much worse endure acts of force and corporal penalty from a Pastor than from a Magistrate and will hardly believe by any cloathing that he is a sheep if they once perceive that he hath bloody teeth Our work is to win the heart to Christ And he is unfit to be a Pastor that knoweth not how hearts are to be won DIRECT XIII When you have thought of all the evils that will be uncured when Love and evidence have done their part yet reject not this way till you have found out a better which will do the work that is to be done and that with fewer inconveniences I Am not now about to state the bounds of Liberty in matters of Religion It requireth a full Treatise by it self and many tediously dispute the case before they ever truly stated it Much less am I perswading Magistrates that they must permit every deceiver to do his worst to draâ— the people from God or from Christ Iesus the Mediator from faithâ— and godliness any more than from Loyalty Peace and Honesty But I am speaking only against that partial factioâ—s needless dividing and pernicious violence which is pretended to be the chief if not the only cure of all the errours or disagreements in the Churches by those that know no part of Chyrurgery but amputation Some speak much of the many disorders which will be uncured if Violence do not more than Teaching and Love But I humbly ask of them First are those disorders such as are curable in this life or such as are the unavoidable miseries of our corrupt and imperfect state Secondly will force cure them better than evidence of truth and Love will do Thirdly will they be so cured without a greater mischief God telleth the Sabbath-breakers
of Israel that when they were rooted out the land should keep her Sabbaths Was that a mercy or a judgement Would you so cure Sabbath-breaking and disorder and take a solitude for Peace Fourthly is not the work to be done the saving of mens souls And shall any be saved against his will And then should not all force be meerly such as is subservient to the ends of Love Fifthly will stripes change the judgement in matters of Religion Sixthly is he any better than a Knave or an hypocrite who will say or swear or do that through fear which he verily thinketh God forbiddeth him and is displeâ—sed for and feareth it may damn his soul Seventhly Is it the honour and felicity of soâ—ls to be such or of Church or Kingdome to be composed of such Eighthly is not a conscientious fear of sinning against God a thing well pleasing to him and necessary to mens salvation and to the Churches welfare and to the safety of the lives of Kings and of the Kingdoms peace And is there not then great cause to cherish it though not the errours that abuse it And should not all care be used to cure the ungodly world of impiety and â—earedness of conscience which makes them make a mock of sin And if conscience were once debauched and mastered by fear and the people be brought to prefer their their fleshly interest before their spiritual and to fear mens punishment more than Gods would not such debauched consciences have a great advantage to make such men the masters of the estates and lives of others And are the lives of Kings and the estates of neighbours and the peacâ— of Kingdomes competently secured where God is not feared more than fines or corporal penalties Ninthly if force be so far followed till it have changed mens judgements or conquered conscience or exterminated and destroyed all that will not be thus changed or conquered who differ from superiors in unnecessary things will it not all things well considered prove a dear price for that which might be had at much cheaper rates Are not the most conscientious necessary helpers of the Ministery by their example to cure the unconscionableness of the rest And therefore should be countenanced encouraged Tenthly would not the cessation of unnecessary impositions cast out the most of the scruples of conscientious people and cease the saddest divisions of the Churches If Rome could have been content with a Religion of no more Articles than the Apostles was and would on those terms have held Communion with other Churches O what rends and ruines had it prevented in the Christian world Are not the old Apostolical rules and terms sufficient to the safety and peace of Christians Were those worthy persons B. Vsher B. Hall B. Davenant B. Morton with the Bergii the Crocii and all the great pacificators deceived who wrote and preached and cried out to the world that so much as all Christians are agreed in is sufficient matter for their concord if they would lay it upon no more vid. Vsh. serm before King Iames at Wansted Or do you think it was their meaning Let all Rulers multiply unnecessary scrupled impositions in their own dominion and for scrupling them let them silence imprison and banish at home And then let them send to their neighbour Churches for Unity Peace and Concord and tell them that the subscribing to the Scriptures generally and to the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and Sacraments particularly are terms sufficient to this end Supposing that good order deconcy and peace be kept up by suitable discipline both Ecclesiastical and Civil And why would not this serve for all the world Or why should more scrupled things be called necessary to order and decency than indeed are so My desire of the Churches peace which caused me to write all the rest provoketh me to touch this subject briefly which will scarce endure to be touched DIRECT XIV When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errours disorders or divisions reflect not any disgrace or contempt upon Religion and conscientious strictness but be the more careful to proclaim the innocency and honour of serious Godliness lest the prophane and ungodly take occasion to despise it by your opening the faults of such as are taken for the zealous Professours of it HOnest hearers take most notice what is the main scope which the Preacher aimeth at and the business which he driveth on Some men take occasion by the errours and faults of such as have seemed seriously religious to make all seriousness and diligence for our salvation to seem to the hearers to be meer hypocrisie and not only a needless but a hurtful thing and to perswade the people that an ignorant carelesness of their souls with good neighbour-hood quietness and mirth is better than all this ado Which is no more or less than to preach for Atheism and Ungodliness in practise so it be veiled with the hypocritical profession of the Christian faith And this unhappy sort of Preachers do seldome miss to fall upon the real and supposed miscarriages of men that are or seem religious in some part of their sermons and familiar discourse which being done to so odious an end as to bring seriouâ— Religiousness it self into dislike it maketh the best of the hearers abhor such reflections because they abhor the scope of them Believing that Holiness need not to be preached against in the world till mens hearts are more enclined to it and till all its enemies abate their opposition And if it were to be done yet not by a Minister of Christ He that preacheth against Holiness how covertly soever preacheth against God Whereas if a mans designe be to promote Religion the sober hearers though partly guilty will bear his reproof of the faults of professours with much more patience when they see it is for God and godliness that he doth it I speak by experience and must give them this testimony that I have many and many a time poured out my soul in earnest reprehensions of the errours and disorders of rash dividing zeal and the hearers have taken all with patience when the same persons could not bear the tenth part so much from some preachers whom they imagined to aim in it at the depressing of the honour of true and serious religion Therefore be sure what sort of men soever you are reproving that you say nothing which tendeth to make the ignorant or ungodly sort of your auditors think that it is zeal or strictness or careful diligence about their souls which you condemn But still put in sufficient caution for the necessity of a holy heart and life DIRECT XV. Discourage not the Religious from so much of Religious exercises in their families or with one another as is meet for them in their private stations BY this means many Pastors have been very great causes of schisms and separations Some of them are so carnal and selfish that they make
child of God And if you knew how every word of oblequy especially by back-biting against your brethren doth tend to infect the hearers with the same vices and kill their Love and lead them into divisions you would take heed for the sake of others Unless you are of those who are foolisher than the devil and would build Christs house and Kingdome by dividing it Math. 12. One raileth at Luther and another at Calvin and another at Arminius and another at this man and another at that for matters which are above their reach and the people are taught to rail at all and to make it also their talk behind mens backs â—o prate against this man and that man and the other and in time to shew it by breaking into sects In a word such carnal courses of their Teachers do make or harden carnal professors to be one for Paul and another for Apollo and another for Cephas but few sincerely and prudently for Christ so that instead of Holiness Love and Concord we have in almost all company little but ignorant censorious wrangling at the opinions of those that they never were acquainted with or at the controverted practises or circumstances of worship which are not suitable to their prejudice and custom and of which they never desired to be the impartial hearers of a just account If ever God will shew mercy to his Church he will give them Pastors after his heart who shall abound in Light and Love and lead the people into Concord upon the ancient terms and make it their work to bring this Love-killing spirit inâ—o hatred whether it work by the way of stâ—iving-disputes or dividing principles or practises or by reproaching others by corporal cruelty or by a Religious censorious cruelty which doth not strike men but unchurch and damn them and separate from them as men unfit for christian communion And whilest the Pastors take another course we must patiently wait and pity the Church and fore-see our further misery in this prognostick though the guilty being puffed up with the conceits of their preciousness to God do promise themselves the desires of their hearts Are not the sons of Levi yet refined when they have been in so many furnaces and so long When wisedom holiness and humility are their nature and selfish pride and worldliness are cured this wrinkled malignant ENVY will then cease and an honest emulation to excel one another in wisdome and Love and all good works will then take place And then we shall not like drunken men one day fight and wound each other and the next day cry out of our wounds and yet go on in our drunken fits to make them wider DIRECT XXII Lastly Let all the Ministers of Christ so deeply study their wonderfull pattern of Love and tenderness meekness and patience and all those passages of Holy Scripture which still commend those vertues to his servants till their souls are cast into this sacred mould and habituated to this Image and imitation of their Lord And then Vertue will go from them and they will be healing among all where-ever they shall come As fire goeth out from the flinty contenders by their collisions which maketh them still incendiaries and consumers of the Churches Peace I Will therefore end these Directions with the bare repetition of some more of those sacred words besides those forecited which may be fit to breed such a gracious habit in those that will faithfully study and receive them Isa. 9. 6 7. The government shall be laid upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counsellor the mighty God the everlasting father the Prince of Peace Of the increase of his Government and Peace there shall be no end Isa. 40. 11. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd he shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosome and shall gently lead those that are with young Isa. 42. 1 2 3. 4. Behold my servant whom I uphold mine elect in whom my soul delighteth I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgement to the Gentiles He shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street A bruised reed shall he not break and the smoking slax shall he not quech he shall bring forth judgement unto truth He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgement in the earth and the isles shall wait for his law Isa. 44. 3 4 5. I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground I will pour my spirit on thy seed and my blessing on thy off-spring And they shall spring up as among the grass as willows by the water-courses One shall say I am the Lords and another shall call himself by the name of Iacob and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord and surname himself by the name of Israel Psal. 110. 2 3. Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power in the beauties of holiness Ezek. 34. 2 3 4 5. Wo to the shepherds of Isâ—ael that feed themselves should not the shepherds feed the flocks Ye eate the fat and cloath you with the wool ye kill them that are fed but ye feed not the flock The diseased have ye not strengthened neither have ye healed that which was sick neither have ye bound up that which was broken neither have ye brought again that which was driven away neither have ye sought that which was lost But with Force and with Cruelty have ye ruled them and they were scattered because there is no shepherd Read the rest of that Chapter Isa. 11. And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Iesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisedome and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes nor reprove after the hearing of his ears but with righteousness shall he judge the poor and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked The wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf and the young lion and the faâ—ling together and a little child shall lead them And the cow and the bear shall feed their young ones shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the oxe and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice dâ—n They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
that he taketh them for no Churches and disowneth the administration of all the Ministers in the world whom you disown or yet that it is safe to separate where Christ doth not separate and to be gone from his Hoâ—se while he there abideth and to condemn those whom he condemneth not nor yet commandeth you to forsake or to condemn Obj. The Church of Christ is a little flock and not to be estimated by number And if he confine his grace to never so few I will confine my Communion to as few Answ. First Grace is not visible to you but the Profession of it only Therefore your Communion must be extended according to mens profession and not according to sincerity which you know not when the question is who hath grace and who hath not God hath not made you a heart searching Judge but hath made profession the sign which you must judge by And he that professeth Christianity professeth all that is of necessity to salvation Secondly If Christs flock was little when he spake those words it is much greater now And if it be little still as it is in comparison of the world of Heathens Infidels and Hypocrites will he give them thanks that will make it less yea a thousand times less than it is indeed Hath he so few and will you take from him almost all those few If you had but a hundred sheep when your neighbour had a thousand would you thank him that would rob you of all save one Thirdly So far as God hath revealed the fewness of the saved we reverence his Counsels and believe his word But if you will make it so much less a number while you falsifie Gods word you will tempt your selves at last not to bâ—lieve it because you have made it false and incredible by making it your own Brethren I beseech you be not angry with us while we pity you and would save your souls from your own snares and delâ—sions You know not how fast you are hastening to infidelity and to the renouncing of Christ himself you little suspect that your extraordinary strictness for the purity of the Church doth tend to your turning heathens and denying the whole Church But remember that the nature of God is so infiaitly Good as well as Iust and the Gospel is such glad tydings to all the world and Christ called the Saviour of the world and God is said so to love the world in giving him Joh. 3. 16. that if you should say God would save but one man in the world or ten or a thousand and damn all the rest if you did in your bravadâ— believe your selves this year by the next you might be like enough to believe that the Gospel is but a fable I have much adoe to forbear naming some high Professours known lately at Wâ—rcester Exeter and other parts who died Apostate-infidels deriding Christianity and the immortality of the soul who once were Separatists And I must profess to you that for my own part if I did believe that Christs Church were no more numerous than all the Separatists on earth it would make the work of faith more difficult For as he is no King that hath no Kingdom so he is next to no King whose Kingdom is next to none He that would prove that our King is only King of â—slington or Hackney and no more would by deriding him to day prepare for the deposing him to morrow They are glorious things that are spoken of the Kingdom of Christ even that the Kingdoms of the world are become his Kingdoms And if you will take from him all save two or three Cottages I mean the separated Churches only it is but a little addition to your treason to take the rest and to Crucifie Christ afresh and write over him in derâ—sion the title of a King You do not discern the design of Satan He that cannot entice an Apple from a Child if he can get him to let him eat all the rest till it come to a little of the Core will then easily get him to throw away that worthless relict If to day you will needs believe that Christ will reject all the world and all the Churches save only a few persons who have pride enough to condemn all the rest by to morrow or eâ—e loâ—g you are like enough to add one other degree to your derision and to deny him to be Christ. Obj. But we are more than were in the Ark of Noah Answ. First You never yet proved that all that were out of the Ark were damned and no more saved from Hell than were savedâ— from the Deluge Secondly If you had yet thâ—â— Scripture speaketh such great things of the Universal Gospel Church as that which maketh up 〈◊〉 former diminutions and losses and helpeth 〈…〉 against such difficulties DIRECT LVII Yet let not any here cheat you by overdoing nor meer names and titles of Unity deceive you instead of the thing it self Nor must you ever dream of any Head and Center of the Unity of the Catholick Church but Christ himself THere is no part of Religion which Satan doth not endeavour to destroy under pretense of promoting it And his way is to overgo Christ and his Apostles and to seem more zealouâ— than ever they were and to mend their work by doing it better or doing more Christ was not strict enough for the Pharisees in keeping the 〈◊〉 nor in his company nor in his diet Sataâ—â— hath always two ways to destroy both truth and duty The first is by direct opposing it But 〈◊〉 that will not do the next is by overdoing and pretending to defend it If he cannot destroy zeal by scorning it and quenching it he will try to do it by overheating and distempering it If he cannot destroy knowledge by the way of gross ignorance he will try to spin it out into the finer threds of vain and innumerable questions and speculations and to crumble it into such invisible atomes that it shall be reduced to scepticisme or nothing If he cannot destroy faith by open infidelity he will try to make men believe too much by making the objects of their own belief and calling that a particular faith altering God word and casting away the Reasons and evidences of faith to shew the strength and nobleness of their faith which needeth no such helps as these till by over-doing they have raised their edifice in the ayr and rejected their foundations and put out their eys in honour of the sun and of their Physician lest either of them should be accused as insufficient Even so when Satan findeth that he cannot directly destroy the Unity of the Church and bring division into credit he will be more zealous for unity than Christ himself He will then endure no disagreement among Christians no not in an opinion nor a form or ceremony not in meats or drinks or keeping of days or in judging of things lawful or unlawful which are not of necessity
to the Churches concord He is either for Tolerating all prâ—pagation of Heresie and practise of wickedness or else he is so much for Vnity that no difference almost is to be tolerated For he well knoweth that while men are imperfect such differences will still be And then if he can but perswade the world that for Concord sake they must not be endured what followeth but that the dissenters must be fined imprisoned or banished to bring them or the rest to unity And so he will seâ— all the world together by the ears in cruelties and blood-shed and in hating one another and all under pretense of making them one You may think that till mankind be all turned Bedlams they can never be so cheated by such a gross deceit nor ever guilty of so mad a work But what will you say if this be the common case of the far greatest part of the Christian world And what will you say further if after above a thousand years universal experience of the unhappy success they continue it still as the only way to unity and peace Look but about you with opened eyes and see whether it be not so Were not he a gracious promoter of Unity in the world that would say Unity is so excellent a thing that it is meet we should be all of one complexion or at least that the world should speak but one language and therefore no other but one should be tolerated And here how easie is it to dilate of the great inconveniences of many languages I could write a Volume in folio of it my self and all true and evident Methinks I see hereupon how these Books are scattered and read and how those called Learned men and politicians applaud them and shake their heads and gnash their teeth at those that would have so great a mischief tolerated And hereupon they set about the business and desire a Law that upon pain of imprisonment and banishment I know not whither no one in the world shall speak any other language but one And now I hope Unity will be promoted indeed when all the world is thus engaged in a war to perfect nature and make men one But me thinks I hear one man that is awake thus bespeak the promoters of this Concord Unity and Concord in those points where God hath made them necessary cannot be over-valued But yet it is visible that there is a marvellous diveâ—sity which nature is delighted in when of all faces and of all voices and of all the sorts of animals and plants there is so discernable a difference yea of all the millions of stones in the field no two is perfectly like each other And where greater Unity is most desirable it must first be considered how much of it is possible or to be hoped for and next what are the proper means to attain it For first the medicining of all incurable disease especially with violent Physick is not the way to make it better but to exasperate it and hasten death when a palliate and patience might do better It is very desirable that all the Kings subjects were strong and beautiful and ingenuous and Learned but it is not to be hoped But that they may be all Loyal and honest in their dealing with others may be well endeavoured And secondly a wrong kind of medicine will much more hasten and ascertain death than to let the disease alone to nature It is desirbale that all the Kings subjects be as is said both wise and Learned yea and perfect in honesty and piety without fault But if you make a Law that for the honour of Vnity all that are not Learned and perfect in vertue shall be fined imprisoned or banished the King nor his subjects will be but little beholden to you for their Unity So one Language is very desirable to the world But first it is not attainable and secondly a Law to punish all that speak another Language is not the way to procure it but to set them together by the ears You must appoint Parents and Schoolmasters to teach them all one language by degrees and keep them to their duties and remove impediments and thus stay the time and what cannot this way be attained must not be expected in this world The speech being ended the hearers derided it and made a Law for Unity to destroy it and set every man on hating and fighting against his neighbour to make all one It is very desirable that all Christians were perfect in knowledge gifts and graces and consequently that there were no different opinions nor no different forms or modes of worship but that all were equal to the wisest and to the most sober pious zealous and sincere But if a Law be made that none shall be endured in any Kingdomâ— that are not of this temperament and stature the subjects of all Princes may soon be numbered Set ` Parents Schoolmasters and Ministers at work to make men wiser and drive them on to diligence in their duty and restrain men from hindering them and from intollerable wickedness and sin and patiently expect the success of this And what this will not do expect not And I intreat the Separatists who will think this doctrine of forbearance gratifieth them to observe that I speak all this to them as well as to Magistrates I told you that there is a Church-persecution and a Church-forbearance as well as a Civil If Christ will have Magistrates frobear the weak he will have you forbear them and not say We will have no Communion with those that pray by such Fâ—rms and Lâ—ttâ—rgies or that use such a Ceremony or are not of our own opinions Read Rom. 14. and 15. and you will see that it was a Church-forbearance towards one another and a Receiving dissenters to Christian communion even as Christ receiveth us for all our weaknesses which Paul there pleadeth for and not only a forbearance of smiting them with the sword What a wonder and what a lamentation is it that those men that cry out so much for forbearance to the Magistrate should themselves be as rigid and more by Church-severities and less forbear dissenters even in a form or ceremony as to communion and yet never see the same sin in themselves which they so much complain of And here my principal business is to warn you of the Papal way of Vnity They are so great enemies to divisions and sects that they must have all the Christian world united not only in one Christ by one profession baptism but also in one mortal Monarch as his Vicar that men may know at the Antipodes when they understand not the Scripture or differ in opinions who to step to for the ending of their controversies and to give them an infallible commentary on the Bible and to tell them with whom they must hold communion And all their differences may thus have a speedy dispatch If it be doubted whether one in Abassia or much further off be
a Heretick or an impenitent sinner and to be excommunicated or not and the Church where he liveth is divided about it if the matter be but referred to the Pope as the supream Judg it is but going to Rome and sending thither all the parties and witnesses on both sides and the Pope can decide it much more judiciously than those that are on the place and know the persons and all the circumstances And all this may be done in three years time or less if wind and weather and all things serve And if all the persons die by the way the controversie is ended If one part only die let the longer liver have the better and be justified Or if the Pope will rather send Governours to the place to decide the controversie whether the next Lords day you shall hold communion with such a man or not and so forward its like in a few years time some of them may live to come thither And if you must still appeal to the Pope himself for fear lest a Priest be not the infallible or final Judg and can do no better than other folks Priests you may after all have the liberty of the voyage And if you cannot in that age get the case dispatched yet you must believe that you have appeared to the only center of Unity This cheating noise and name of Vnity hath been the great divider of the Christian world And under pretense of suppressing Heresie and Schism and bringing a blessed peace and harmony amongst all Christians the Churches have been set all together by the ears condemning and unchurching one another and millions have been murthered in the flames inquisition and other kinds of death and those are Martyrs with the one part who are burnt as Hereticks by the other And more millions have been murdered by wars And hatred and confusion is become the mark and temperament of those who have most loâ—dly cried up Vnity and Concord Order and Peace It is a common way to set up a sect or faction by crying down schism sects and factions And a common way to destroy both Unity and Peace by cryâ—ng up Unity and Peace Therefore let not bare Nâ—mes decâ—ive you Remember that one of the old sects or factions of carnal Christians cried up Cephas that is Peter and said we are of Cephas which I know not how they could be blamed for if he was the Churches Constitutive or Governing Head 1 Cor. 1. 12. and 3. 22. And remember that the Church is not the body of any Apostle but of Christ and that all the Apostles are but the nobler sort of members and none of them the Head 1 Cor. 12. 27 28. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular and God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers c. But Bellarmine aware of this hath devised this shift that the Pope succeedeth Peter in more than his Apostle-ship even his Head-ship But when he hath proved Peter more than an Apostle and the Pope his successor he will do the business Till then we must say that if the Pope were but a good Priest or Bishop below an Apostle we should give him more honour than his treasonable usurpation of Christs prerogatives is like to procure him For he that will needs have all shall have none and he that exalteth himself shall be brought low and he that will be more than a man shall be less than a man DIRECT LVIII Take heed of Superstition and observe well the circular course of zealous superstition malignity formality and peevish singularity and schism that you may not be misled by respect of persons I mean that First Indiscreet zeal and devotion hath been the usual beginner of Superstition Secondly Malignity in that age hath opposed it for the Authors sake Thirdly In the next age the same kind of men have adored the Authors and made themselves a Religion of the formal part of that superstition and persecuted those that would not own it Fourthly And then the same kind of men that first made it do oppose it in enmity to those who impose and own it and suffer and divide the Church in dislike of that which was their own invention IT is marvellous to observe this partial dance But Church-History may convince the understanding Reader that so it hath been and so it is First the zeal of some holy persons doth at first break forth in some lawful and in some indiscreet and unwarrantable expressions Secondly the malignant enemies of Godliness hate and oppose these expressions for the sake of the persons and the zeal exprest 3. When they are dead God performing his promise that the memory of the just shall be blessed Prov. 10. 7. The carnal party of that age as welâ— as others do honour those whom their fore-fathers hated and murthered Math. 23. 29 30. Wo to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because ye build the tombs of the Prophets and garnish the sepulâ—hres of the righteous and say If we had been in the dayes of our Fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets Wherefore ye be witnesses to your selves that ye are the children of them which killed the Prophets Fill you up then the measure of your fathers The wicked of one generation kill Gods servants and the wicked of the next Generation do honour their names and celebrate their memorial The reason is because it is the Life of Godliness which the sinner is troubled with and hateth And therefore it is the living saint whom he abhorreth But the name and form of Godliness is less troublesome to him yea and may be useful to make him a Religion of to quiet his conscience in his sin And therefore the name of dead saints he can honour and the form of their worship and corps of piety he can own And having become so Religious both his former enmity to living holiness and his carnal zeal for his Image of Religion engage him to make a stir for it and persecute those that are not of his way And when the zealous and devout people of that age see this they loath that carkass or Image which the formalist contendeth for and many â—lye from it with too great abhorrence for the persons sake who now esteems it forgetting its original and that it was such as they that set it up and were the first inventers For instance The most of the persons whom the Papists now keep holy dayes for were very religious godly people And the zealous Religious people of that age did think that the honouring of the memories of the Martyrs was a great means to invite the infidels to Christianity and to encourage the weak to stick to Christ And therefore they kept the dayes of their martyrdome in thanksgiving to God and in honour of them The wicked of that age hated and persecuted both the Martyrs and them that honoured them In the next age Religion