thus separate must betake themselves to some other Teacher whom in opposition to the former they chuse to be their Guide and so make themselves his Followers Thirdly they must erect a New Assembly or place of Congregation as a New Church distinct from that from which they doe divide Lastly This choyce of a New Guide and Separation from the Old this Erection of a New Church and Division from the former must be upon slight unnecessary Grounds For if the Cause or Ground of their Separation be needlesse vaine unnecessary if it spring more out of Humour Pride desire of change or Hatred of their Brethren then out of any Christian love to keepe themselves from sinnes 'T is in the Scripture-Language Schisme That is a sinne of Separation Or if you will heare me expresse my self in the language of a very learned Man who hath contrived a clue to lead us through this Labyrinth This breach of Communion This separation from a Church rightly constituted This choyce of a New Guide New Teacher New Instructer Lastly This setting up of a New Congregation or place of private Meetings is the same sinne in Religion which Sedition or Rebellion is in the Commonwealth or State For upon a right examination of the matter 't will be found That Schisme is a Religious or Ecclesiasticall Sedition as Sedition in the State is a civill Lay-schisme Which two sinnes though they appeare to the World in diverse shapes the one with a Sword the other with a Bible in his Hâ—…nd yet they both agree in this that they both disturbe the publick peace The one of the State where men are tyed by Laws as Men The other of the Church where men should be tyed by Love as Christians To let you yet farther see what a grievous sinne this sinne of Schisme or Separation is If the time would give me leave I might here rayse the Schoolemen Antient Fathers and Generall Councells from the dead and make them preach to you from this Pulpit against the sinne of Separation I might tell you that in the purest Times of the Church a Schismatick and Hereticke were lookt upon as Twinnes The one as an Enemy to the Faith the other to Communion But because in our darke Times learning is so grown out of date that to quote an Ancient Father is thought a piece of Superstition And to cite a Generall Councell is to speake words to our New Gifted men unknowne I will say nothing of this sinne but what the Scripture sayes before me First then I shall desire you to heare what S. Paul sayes in this case in the last Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans at the 17. verse Turne to the place and marke it well I beseech you Now I beseech you brethren sayes he there Marke them which cause Divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which â—…e have learned and avoid them That is in other words Separate your selves from them And then he gives you a Character and Description of those Separaters at the 18. verse of that Chapter And sayes For they that are such serve not our Lord Iesus Christ but their owne Belly And by good words and faire speeches deceive the Hearts of the simple In which words Foure things are so exactly drawn to life as makes them a perfect Prophecye or rather picture of our Times The first is that there were some in S. Pauls dayes who caused Divisions in the Church Men who in a way of Schisme and Separation made themselves the Heads and Leaders of divided Congregations Next The Ground upon which they built their Separation 't was not upon any just true lawfull Scripture Ground For the Text sayes 'T was contrary to the Doctrine which the Apostles taught and preacht But the true cause or Ground why they thus caused Separations was meerly self-Interest And that they might gaine by their Divisions Nay 't was such a poore base unworthy selfe-Interest that 't is there said they did it in compliance to their Belly The third thing which will deserve your observation is the cunning Art they used to draw the weaks to be their Followers 'T is there sayd that by good Words and faire Speeches they deceived the Hearts of the simple especially the simple of the weaker sex And who these were S. Paul in other words but to the same purpose tells you in the 3. Chapter of his second â—…pistle to Timothy at the 5 6 7. verses of that Chapter Where speaking of such Coseners he sayes they had a Forme of Godlinesse an outward seeming Holynesse to deceive and cosen by And that under this Forme of Godlynesse they crept into Houses and there led Captive silly Women loaden with sinnes and drawne away with divers Lusts. Women so unable to distinguish Right from Wrong that they were alwayes learning and never able to come to the Knowledge of the Truth And certainly my Brethren 't is no new thing under the sunne to see the weaker sexe misled by holy Formes and Shews 'T is no new thing I say under the Sunne for a man that makes long prayers to eat up a Widdows House Or for a cunning Angler to catch the fillyer sort with a hooke bayted with Religion 'T was so in our Saviours time and 't was so in S. Pauls And whether their demure lookes their precise carriage their long prayers their good words and fayre speeches be not the Hooke and snare by which weake people are caught now whether the feasting of their Bellyes or the making Gayne of Godlinesse Or whether the Itch and pride of being the Leaders of a Faction Or whether the vaine Ambition of being thought more holy or more gifted than the rest be not the true end of those who doe now cause Separations I will not rashly censure but I have some reason to suspect But this is not all The fourth and last thing which most deserves your observation is that Separation in that place is such a Scripture-sinne that S. Paul commands us to separate from those who doe thus cause Separations Heare the place I pray once more repeated to you I beseech you Brethren sayes he Marke them who cause Divisions among you and avoid them That is as I said before Separate your selves from them If they who upon no just cause doe Separate must be Separated from I hope you 'l all confesse that Separation is a sinne And what sinne thinke you is this sinne of Separation Why I know some of you will thinke it strange if I should say 't is a sinne of the Flesh. And yet S. Paul sayes that 't is a sinne of the Flesh in the 3. Chapter of his first Epistle to the Corinthians Marke I beseech you what he sayes in that place Are ye not carnall sayes he there For whereas there are among you Envyings and Strifes and Divisions Are ye not carnall and walke as men Sayes He at the 3. verse Againe when one saith I am Paul And when another saith I am of
comparison or examination to reject and despise al others I am of opinion we should quickly make one Church againe if those new-borne names and words of Independent and Presbyter did not divide us And I am also Perswaded that our severall Disciplines and Doctrines have not kept the Church of Rome at a greater distance with us then the style and compellation of Protestant and Papist Thirdly that we Schollars in those high mysterious poynts which have equall argument and proofe on both sides and which both sides for ought I know may hold yet meet in heaven doe factiously or peremptorily betake our selves to neither But either lay them aside as things of meere contemplation not of practise or use or else speak of them to the people onely in that generall sense wherein all sides agree and as that generall sense is laid downe to us in the Scripture Lastly that in matters of Ceremony and forme things either altogether indifferent or at most neither enjoyned nor forbidden in the Scripture that our carriage and words be alwayes as indifferent That we call not that scandalous which is decent or that decent which is scandalous That we presse not things as necessary which are meerly ornamentall nor impose ornaments as things of necessity That where no well-establisht Law is broken by it both in Actions and Language where ever we come we conforme our selves to the harmelesse though to us unusuall custome of the place Herein imitating that sure example of S. Paul by being strong with the strong and weak with the weak as neere as we can to become all things to all men In things meerly Ceremoniall to part with our Christian liberty and peaceably to yeeld to those who being otherwise perswaded will contentiously refuse to part with theirs And where our salvation or the salvation of our neighbour is not concerned charitably to comply and sort with their infirmities neither crossing them by our practice though perhaps the better nor perplexing them with our disputes though perhaps the more rationall But if it be possible as much as lies in us not only to have peace with all men in words and speech but in society and conversation and Church-Assemblies too Which is the next degree of Unity here petitioned for that is an unity of meeting together in the same house of God set downe in these words I beseech you Brethren that there be no divisions among you That I may the clearlier proceed in the interpretation of this part of the Text I shall desire you to observe that the word which we here in English doe translate Divisions is in the Originall Greek by which we are to order our exposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A word which signifies not every kinde of rent or division or disagreement among men but such a division onely as is accompanied with a perverse unreasonable deniall of society and communion together in the same Church A division which carries with it an obstinate separation upon unnecessary grounds Which unnecessary separation upon weake slight grounds is that which Saint Paul here in this Text by way of difference and distinction from lighter Rents calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Schismes A sin my Brethren of which if I should discourse to you at large and should shew you the hainousness of it by its dangerous effects I might tell you that it is not only a sin against the sociable nature of men who are borne for Communion and Commerce and the mutuall help of one another but it is a sin directly against that unity and peace which Christ as his last Legacy bequeath'd to his Church A sin which besides the uncharitable opinion which accompanies it which is that they who are separated from must therefore be separated from because they are wicked deplorably wicked men men reprobated and utterly lost in the wayes of Errour and with whom all communion is destructive to our Salvation doth not alwaies confine it selfe within the retired sequestred limits of a bare separation But that which at first began from a scruple hath many times proceeded to a Tragedy and massacre They who at first causelesly separated themselves from their Brethren because they were wicked have many times as their strength and numbers have encouraged them and as the time hath favoured their Reformation as they have called it proceeded from the rectifying of mens Errors to the lessening of their fortunes And they only have at length been called the wicked who have been rich and have had estates to lose That onely which I shall further say to you of it is this Separation is a sin which hath alwaies veyl'd it selfe in the disguise of sanctity Thus Montanus and his followers broke off Communion with the whole Christian Church then in the world because forsooth 't was revealed to them by divine illumination that the Holy Ghost was no where to be found but in their Conventicle An Heresie which beginning in Schisme proceeded at length to this monstrous conceit among them That only the house of Montanus was the true Church and that Montanus himselfe was the Holy Ghost Thus also the Donatists an over-scrupulous Sect of men divided themselves from the then Catholique Church because it was not pure enough for such sanctified Communicants nor complied with the inspired doctrines of the Father of that Sect. And this it seems was the fault of these Corinthians here in this Text who having intitled themselves to severall Teachers proceeded by degrees to divide themselves into severall Churches and Congregations every one of which challenging to themselves the true and right Religion and charging the others with the name of the false thought at length that no way was left to keep themselves pure and unspotted but by breaking off all Religious nay Civill Commerce and Communion with each other Hence for feare of infection it was held a crime for any but the Righteous to assemble or converse with any but the Righteous or for any to meet together at a spirituall Exercise but such who first agreed in the same purity of Opinions Here then if I may once more take the liberty to parallel one people with another is not this our very case Hath it not been the practice of many many yeares for those who call themselves the godly the righteous the children of the most High to breake off society and communion nay almost neighbourly civility with those whom they call the wicked As there were among the Jewes certaine uncleane places and things and persons which whosoever toucht were for that time uncleane too so hath not the like opinion past among us that there have been certaine unholy unsanctified places and persons which make those who touch or approach neer them unholy too Have not some Pulpits been thought unsanctified because forsooth the Preacher hath been ungifted And wherein I pray hath his ungiftedness appeared Because hee hath not expressed himself in that light fluent running passionate zealous stile which
Wife in opposition to her Husband for many years together goe to another Congregation In a Word my Brethren the Church of Christ among us which was once as Seamelesse as his Coate is now so rent by Schismes so torne by Separations that 't is become like the Coate of Ioseph which you reade of in the 37. Chapter of Genesis at the 3. verse scarce one piece is colourd like another And I pray God it prove not like the Coat of Ioseph in one particular more I pray God the Weaker be not sold by his Brethren and his Coate be not once more dyed red once more imbrued in Bloud This you will say is very sad and yet this is not all That which extremely adds to the Misery of our Rents and Separations is that the wisest cannot hope they will ere be peeced or reconciled For the persons who thus Separate are so far from beleeving themselves to be in an Errour that they strongly thinke all Others erre who separate not too They thinke themselves bound in Conscience to doe as they doe Nay zealous Arguments are urged and Texts of Scripture quoted to prove that 't is a damning sinne not to goe on in Separation The Churches where their Neighbours met are now contemned and Scorned Nay I have with mine owne Ears heard a Dining Room a Chamber a Meeting under Trees Nay I have heard a Hog-stye a Bâ—…rne called places more sanctified then they In a word one of the great Reasons which they urge why they thus forsake our Churches and make divided Congregations is because They say the people which assemble there are so wicked so prophane that they turne Gods House of prayer into a den of Theeves To keep this infection from spreading in my Parish and to keepe this piece of Leaven from sowring the whole Lumpe And withall to satisfie one whom I looke upon as a well-meaning though a seduced and erring person who hath ingaged her selfe by promise that if I can take the mist from her Eyes and cleerly let her see her Errour she will returne back to the Church from which she hath for some yeares gone astray and being invited to doe this in a way of Christian challenge which hath raised a great expectation in the Countrey I have taken up the Gauntlet and here present my selfe before you and before I enter the Lists to let you all see the Justice of the Cause which I here stand to defend I have chosen this Text for my shield where He who wrote this Epistle to the Hebrews sayes Let us consider one another to provoke one another to love and to Good works not forsaking the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is The Division IN which words the only poynt which I shall insist upon as the fittest and most seasonable to be preacht to this divided Congregation shall be the point of Schisme or in plaine English Separation as 't is exprest to us in these Words Let us not forsake the Assembling of our selves together as the manner of some is In the pursuit and handling of which words I will proceed by these two plaine and easie steps First I will prove to you by Arguments which have a sun-beame for their parent That the Rent or Separation which is now made in the Church is a very grievous sinne Indeed a sinne so grievous that I scarce know whether Christians can be guilty of a greater Next I will Examine and answer their Arguments and Texts of Scripture who doe perswade themselves and others that their separation is no sinne Nay that would be a grievous sinne not to separate as they doe In the meane time I beseech you to lend me a quiet and favourable Attention whilest I begin with the first of these parts and that shall be to prove to you that the separations of our Times are great and grievous sinnes Among the other Characters and Descriptions which have been made of us Men we have been called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is a Creature borne and made and created for Society Towards the preservation and maintenance wherof God at the Beginning ordered his Creation of us so that whereas other Creatures take their Originall and Birth from a Diversitie of parents He made us Men to spring from one undivided single payre One Adam and one Eve were the two joyn'd parents of Mankinde And the Reason of this was That there might not onely be among us one common Kinred and Alliance but that we might hold a firme and constant League and Friendship with each other too And hence 't is we see that without any other Teacher but their owne Naturall Instinct Men in all Ages have avoided seperation by gathering themselves into formed Bodyes of Cittyes Towns and Commonwealths Neighbourhood Society mutuall help and Conversation being one of the great Ends for which God made us Men. And upon this Ground it hath been disputed whether a Hermit or Monastic man breake not the Law of Nature because he separates himselfe from the company of Men And 't is clearly stated by some great Casuists That if he seperate from others for no End but separation if he retire himselfe into a Cave or Wildernesse or Desart as some of the Ancient Hermits did not for Devotion but out of a hatred or distaste of the rest of Mankinde In that particular he cannot well be called a Man but some wilder Creature made to dwell in Caves Desarts Forrests Dens As then the Law of Nature doth require us to preserve society and Friendship so the Law of Christ hath tyed and woven this knot much faster We are all of Kinne by Nature but we are all Brethren as Christians Men allyed to one another by one common Hope one common Faith one common Saviour one common God and Lord and Father of us all And upon this Ground when one Christian shall divide or forsake the society of Another unlesse it be upon a just principle of Conscience and to avoid a sinne the Scripture calls it not barely Separation but Separation which is Schisme That is such a Separation as is a Gospel-sinne too Which that you may the more clearly understand give me leave to aske you in truth what is Schisme Why the best Definition of it that was ever yet given is this That Schisme is nothing else but a separation of Christians from that part of the Visible Church of which they were once Members upon meere fancyed slight unnecessary Grounds In which Definition of Schisme three things doe offer themselves to your serious observation to make it formall Schisme or a signe of Separation First it must be a separation of Christians from some part of the Visible Church of which they were once Members That is according to the Definition a visible Church as it concerns this present purpose it must be a Deniall of Communion with that Congregation of Christians with whom they were once united under a rightly-constituted Pastor Next they who
diversity of speech For as speech was at first bestowed upon us by God that wee might hold league and society and friendship with one another so you may read in the 11. Chapter of Genesis that as long as all the world was of one language and of one speech they lived unanimously together like men of one family and house One heart one soule seemed to move in them all But when they once ceast to be unius labii homines men of the same lip and speech when as many languages were throwne among them as they afterwards possest Countries then society and co-habitation and brotherhood ceast among them too They were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth saies the Scripture They who were before children of the same common Ancestours and derived themselves from the same common parentage and stock as if they had been borne in the adverse Hemispheres of the world or had taken their beginning from as many severall Parents as they afterwards found Islands of one great Family and Kindred became so many divided Nations As this diversity of Tongues at first broke the world into the severall crumbles and portions of men who from that time to this have divided it among them so there is not any one thing which hath so fatally divided Kingdomes and States and Churches against themselves somtimes to an utter extirpation many times to an eternall breach and Irreconciliation as diversity of Language I doe not meane when men speake divers tongues of severall dialects and significations as when they at the building of Babell spoke some of them Hebrew perhaps some of them Greek but my meaning is that nothing more directly tends to the division of a State or Church then for severall companies of men to distinguish and divide and separate themselves from one another by certaine words and names of marke and difference especially if they be words of disgrace and scandall and reproach mutually imposed and stuck upon each other Or words of faction and combination assumed and taken by themselves Then if hatred of person or difference of Religion doe accompany such words of distinction that for the most part befalls them which befell the men of the old world they breake society and Communion and crumble asunder and of one people become so many divided Nations and Churches to each other This is an Engine which the Devill and wicked Polititians have in all ages of the world made use of to disturb the peace and trouble the happinesse of Kingdomes and Common-wealths Making holy vertuous words and names many times the partition wall of separation And the device and incitement not onely to divide Kingdomes but Corporations and private Families against themselves As long as the Jewes called themselves by one and the same common name of their Father Iacob Israelites they made but one State one Common-wealth among them But when once ten Tribes ingrossed that name to themselves and the other two for distinction sake called themselves by the name of the Tribe of Iudah the most united happiest neerliest allied people in the world a people of one blood as well as one language fell asunder and divided themselves like Iacob and Esau into two hostile irreconcileable never more to bee united Kingdomes And this was the case of these disagreeing Corinthians to whom S. Paul directed this Text. As long as they called themselves by one and the same common name of Christians they made but one City one Church one place of Concord But when they once began to distinguish themselves by their severall Teachers when some said We are of Paul others we are of Cephas A third sort we are of Apollos And onely a fourth sort more Orthodox then the rest we are of Christ Then then indeed as if Christ had been divided or had beene the Author of severall Religions preacht among them by severall Apostles they became broken and rent and torne asunder into severall Churches and Congregations Where their usuall custome was not onely to oppose Sermon against Sermon and Gospell against Gospell and Teacher against Teacher but everie one in the defence of their owne Teacher and his Gospell thought it part of their Religion to extoll and quote and urge the purity and infallibility of the one to the depression and disgrace and contempt of the other Till at length it came to passe as I told you before that that which begun in Religion proceeded to bad manners and ill behaviour Markes and words of distinction and difference grew to bitter invectives and mutuall reproaches of one another They who were the followers of Saint Pauls Doctrine called those who followed Apollos by way of marke and infamy Apolonists And they who were the followers of Apollos by way of retaliation and brand called the followers of Saint Paul Paulists though Saint Paul and Apollos preach both the same Doctrine Hard censures flew between them in as hard language who ever was not of a party nor enrolled of a side was thought to be without the pale of the Church The gates of heaven were shut against him and nothing but reprobation and the lot of the damned and hell fire were allowed to be his portion Here then my Brethren let me make my appeale to eyery one of you who heare me this day hath not this been our verie case I must with sorrow of heart confesse to you that as often as I have for some yeares made to my selfe a contemplative survey of this unhappie Kingdome I have been able to discover no cause so pernicious for the many alienations of mind or the many separations of Congregation from Congregation heightned at length into the tragedy of an over-spreading Civill War as certain vain ridiculous empty words and names of distinction among us which have sprung from some mens stricter or looser carriage of themselves in their profession of the same Religion They of the more free and open carriage and behaviour who call a severe regularity and strictnesse of life precisenesse and an abridgement of Christian liberty have called those of a more reserved and lockt up and demure conversation Puritans and Round-heads and I know not what other names of contumely and reproach And they of the more strict behaviour have equally as faulty called those of a freer and lesse composed conversation Libertines and Papists the usuall words of infamy made to signifie a Cavalier These two words my Brethren have almost destroyed a flourishing Kingdome between them To this I cannot but adde one most pernicious cause of our present divisions more which people have derived to themselves from making themselves followers too much of severall Teachers and affecting too much to bee called after their names whilest one saies I am of Paul another I am of Cephas a third I am of Apollos only a few neutrall men We are of Christ. Nay if we needs must goe severall waies I could wish wee had such sacred names as S. Paul or S. Peter or
a Drunkard or an Extortioner with such a one we are not to keep Company No not to eat I grant indeed S. Paul sayes so and doe think it very fit that S. Paul should be obeyed But how doth this prove that they are to forsake our Congregations That there are such men among us as S. Paul doth there describe is a Truth too cleare to be denyed But are our whole Congregations composed of such men Are all Drunkards Are all Fornicatours Are all Raylers Are all Extortioners Are all both Priests and People so like one another that when they meete they make not a Church Assembly but a Congregation of such sinners Or are they onely some And they perhaps the lesser part who are guilty of those sinnes Nay suppose they should be farre the greater part who are guilty of these sinnes yet you know our Saviour Christ compares the Church to a Field sowne with good seed But then he tells us too That to the Worlds end among the good seed there shall still grow Weeds and Tares Againe in the 13. chapter of S. Mathew at the 47. and 48. verses of that Chapter he compares the Kingdome of God here in this World to a Net cast into the Sea which inclosed Fishes of all sorts Bad as well as Good And what the meaning of this draught of mingled Fishes is I shall desire you to read at the 49. and 50. verses of that chapter where he sayes That at the End of the world and not till then the Angels shall go forth and shall separate the wicked from among the Iust 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes the Originall Greek They shall separate the wicked from the midst of the Iust which clearely doth prove to us That till this finall Separation in the Church of God here on earth there will alwayes be a mixture To divide or separate therefore from the whole Congregation because some wicked men are in it is a course so unreasonable as if they should refuse a Field of Corne because there grew some weeds or should renounce a Field of Wheat because it beares some Tares Besides I would faine know how farre they will extend the meaning of that Text where S. Paul sayes That they are not to eat with a Brother who is a Drunkard or Adulterer or Rayler or Extortioner Will they extend it to all sorts of persons who are such If they will Then if a Woman have a Drunkard to her Husband she must separate from him because he is a Drunkard if she doe not every time she eats with him she disobeyes S. Paul and in every meale she makes with him she commits a Scripture sinne By the same reason also If the Sonne have a Drunkard to his Father he must remove Tables and not dyet with his Father And so there will be one Division more then those the Scripture speakes of For that onely tells us that the time shall come when the Sonne shall be divided from the Father and the Mother from the Daughter But if this Interpretation be true the Wife must divide and break her selfe from her distemper'd Husband too Nay give me leave to goe one step farther yet If the sinnes of a part be a just sufficient Ground to separate from the whole Why doe not they who separate divide and fall assunder For here let me ask them and let me ask without offence Are they all so Innocent so pure so free so voyd of sinne that there is not one disorderly Brother among them Is their place of private Meetings so much the New Ierusalem That no Drunkard no Adulterer nor Rayler enters there I wish there did not my Brethren We Ministers should not then so oft be called Dumb Doggs Idol shepheards Limbs of Antichrist Baals Priests by Tongues wich if S. Iames say true are set on fire of Hell If then it be not the meaning of S. Paul in that place that we should separate from all because some of those All are wicked upon what other just Ground doe they break Communion with us Is it because we preach in Churches They are Gods House of prayer Made his by the Piety and Devotion of our Fathers who if they lived now would hardly call them Saints who preferre a Barne nay a Hog-stye before a consecrated Temple Or is it because there is Haeresie or Superstition mixt with our once Common Forme of prayer If there had been you see that scandall is removed Or doe we persecute or force or drive them from our Congregations We are so farre from that that you see they are ready to require that our publick Congregations should stoope and bow the Knee to their private Meetings What other secret reason t is which thus divides them from us I can by no meanes think unlesse it be wrapt up in the Mystery and cloud of the 18. chap. of the Revelations which is their other strong Herculean place of Scripture which hath been urged to me to make good their Separation From which dark place of Scripture when I have removed the veyle and Curtaine I will put a period and conclusion to this Sermon T is there said that S. Iohn heard an Angel proclaime aloud and say Babylon the Great is fallen is fallen and is become the Habitation of Divels the Hold of every uncleane Spirit and a Cage of every uncleane and hatefull Bird As you may read at the 2. verse of that chapter T is farther said That he heard another voice from heaven saying Come out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues As you may read at the 4. verse of that chapter where by Babylon fallen they understand the Church of England falne By the Habitation of Divels the Hold of foule Spirits and Cage of uncleane Birds They understand our Parish Churches and Congregations which meet there which they say are so much a Cage of uncleane Birds places so corrupt so full of wickednesse and sinne that God by his Spirit as it were by a voice from the Clouds hath said unto them Come out of them my people divide your selves from them lest ye be partakers of their sinnes and go sharers in their plagues This is or must be their Interpretation of that place or else 't will no way serve to uphold their Separation If I say by the Habitation of Divells and Cage of uncleane Birds be not meant our Church Assemblyes from which they doe divide they doe but build a House of straw and choose the sand for a Foundation I am sure I have been told that this was the very Interpretation which the Gentleman gave of this place who just now disputed with me at a dispute which not long since he had with Mr. Gibson of Chinner But now will you heare my censure of this wilde Interpretation Take it then thus Among the severall Expounders of the Revelation I once met with one who when he came to interpret the
should make him for that time seem religiously distracted or beside himselfe Or because his Prayer or Sermon hath been premeditated and hath not flowne from him in such an Ex-tempore loose careere of devout emptinesses and nothings as serve onely to entertaine the people as Bubbles doe children with a thin unsolid brittle painted blast of wind and ayre Or because perhaps the sands of his Glasse have not fleeted for two tedious houres together with nothing but the bold insolent defamation and reviling of his Prince Againe have there not been some who have thought our Temples unholy because the Common-Prayer Booke hath been read there And have renounced the Congregation where part of the Service hath been tuned through an Organ Hath not a dumb Picture in the window driven some from the Church And in exchange of the Oratories have not some in the heat and zeale of their Separation turned their Parlours Chambers and Dining-roomes into Temples and Houses of Prayer Nay hath not Christ been worshipt in places yet more vile and mean In places which have reduced him the second time to a Stable If I should aske the people of both Sexes who are thus given to separation and with whom a Repetition in a Chamber edifies more then a learned Sermon in the Church upon what religious grounds or motives either taken from the Word of God which is so much in their mouthes or from reason which is so little in their practice they thus affect to single and divide themselves from others I believe it would pose them very much to give a satisfying Answer Is it because the persons from whom they thus separate themselves are irreligious wicked men Men who are Christians onely in forme and whose conversation carries nothing but evill example and pollution with it If I should grant this to be true and should allow them to be out-right what they call themselves The Elect and Godly and Holy ones of the earth and other men to be outright what they call them The Reprobate the wicked the ungodly and prophane yet is not this warrant enough to divide or separate themselves from them Nor are they competent Judges of this but God only who by the mouth of his Son hath told us in the Parable that the wheat and corne is not to be separated from the chaffe and tares when we list but that both are to grow together till the great harvest of the world Till then 't is a piece of the building of it that there bee a commixture of good and bad Besides let me put this Christian Dilemma to them either the persons from whom they divide themselves are holy or unholy If they be holy they are not to separate themselves from them because they are like themselves If they be unholy they are in charity to converse with them that they may reforme and make them better Did not our Saviour Christ and certainely his example is too great to be refused usually converse with Publicans and sinners Did he forsake the Table because a Pharisee made the Feast Or did he refuse a perfume because a harlot powred it on his head Or did he refuse to goe up into the Temple because buyers and sellers were there men who had turned it into a den of Theeves Certainely my Brethren we may like Christ keep company with Harlots and Hypocrites and Publicans and Sinners and yet retaine our innocence 'T is a weake excuse to say I will never consort my selfe with a swearer lest I learne to blaspheme Or I will utterly renounce all familiarity and acquaintance with such and such an Adulterer or with such and such a Drunkard lest I learne to commit Fornication from the one or Intemperance from the other In all such conversations we are to imitate the Sun who shines into the foulest puddles and yet returnes from thence with a pure untainted Ray. If mens vices then and corruptions bee not a sufficient cause to warrant a separation what else can be Is it the place of meeting or Church or the things done there which hath made them shun our ordinary Congregations Yes say some we have held it very unlawfull as we conceive to assemble in such a place where we have seen Altars and Windowes worshipped superstitious garments worne and have heard the more superstitious Common-Prayer Booke read that great bolster to slothfull Ministers and twin-brother to the Mass and Liturgie of Rome Were this Charge true a very heavy one I confess had there been any among us so unreasonably stupid as to spend their devotion on a pane of glass or pay worship to the dumb sensless creature of the Painter or adore the Communion-Table the wooden issue of the Axe and Carpenter as I think there were none had there I say been very Idolaters among us yet unlesse they would have compelled them to be Idolaters too I after all the impartiall Objections which my weake understanding can frame can see no reason why they should not communicate with them in other things wherein they were no Idolaters I am sure if S. Paul had not kept company with Idolaters we to this day for ought I know had remained Infidels My Brethren deceive not your selves with a fallacy which every child is able to discover If such superstitio ns had been publikely practised among us it is not necessary that every one that is a spectator to anothers mans sin should presently be an offender Nor are all offences so like the Pestilence that he that comes within the breath and ayre of them must needs depart infected Thou seest one out of a blind zeale pay reverence to a picture he hath the more to answer for But why dost thou out of a zeale altogether as blind thinke thy selfe so interested in his errour as to thinke thy self a partaker of his fault unless thou excommunicate thy selfe from his conversation Againe tell me thou who callest Separation security what seest thou in a Surplice or hearest in the Common-Prayer Booke which should make thee forbeare the Congregation where these are retained Is it the web or matter or colour or fashion of the garment or is it the frame or forme or indevotion of the Book which offends thee Or art thou troubled because they have both beene borrowed from the Church of Rome That indeed is the great argument of exception which under the stile of Popery hath almost turned Religion it selfe out of the Church But then it is so weake so accidentall so vulgar an Argument an Argument so fit for none to urge but silly women with whom the first impression of things alwaies takes strongliest that I must say in replie to it That by the same reason that thou poore tender-conscienc'd man who art not yet past milke or the food of infants in the Church makest such an innocent decent vesture as Surplices unlawfull because Papists weare them thou mayest make eating and drinking unlawfull because Papists dine and sup The subject is not high or
Chapter of his first Epistle at the first verse where as if he had prophecyed of our times he sayes Beloved beleeve not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God because many false Prophets are gone out into the world In which words you have two of the best Rules assigned you to go by that can possibly be prescribed for the settlement of minds First be not too credulous Doe not presently beleeve every man that sayes he hath the Spirit nor suffer your selves to be tost and carried about with every wind of doctrine For that is not the way to be all of one but of as many severall minds as the art or cunning of severall Teachers shall please to work upon you I am perswaded this easinesse of belief this credulity or as the Apostle calls it this admiration this overvaluing of some mens persons hath been one of the great parents of our present dissentions whilst some weak but yet well-minded people building their judgment meerly upon the outward appearances of men have mistaken the zeal and strict life of their Preacher for his sufficiency And taking their Logicke from the precisenesse of his behaviour have framed these charitable but false conclusions to themselves He is a man of a composed countenance of a reserved speech of a grave carriage and of a devout elocution therefore surely he is a holy man And because he is a holy man therefore whatever hee saies shall be to us Oracle as coming from the mouth of one so much in the favour of God that it is impossible he should deceive us or speak that which is not right My Brethren I have no designe or purpose to bring Holinesse into contempt nor can I bee so injurious to piety or a good life where ever I find it as to expose it to the scorne of the licentious by not giving it its due I am so farre also from lending encouragement to the lives of vitious Teachers Teachers who are the shame of their Mother and the scandall of their Flock that I could wish that every Congregation in England were furnished with such an exemplary Minister that his life as well as preaching might be Sermon to the people Nay give me leave I beseech you to extend my charity yet one degree farther I am so farre from disliking holinesse either in Preacher or people that I wish we all made but one united Kingdome of Priests Or if you will have me expresse my selfe in the words of one of the holiest and meekest men of the earth I could wish that all the Lords People were Prophets But then you must give me leave to say too That holinesse and strictnesse and austerity of life are no infallible signes that the Preacher may not erre Nor hath God so annext the understanding of his Word to the unstudied unlearned piety or sober carriage of the Expounder that he that is most zealous shall still bee most in the right As long as that saying of S. Paul remaines upon record That we hold this treasure this knowledge of Gods Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in earthen vessells As long as the Preacher how holy soever he be is so much one of the people as to dwell in a fraile weake Tabernacle of clay Lastly as long as men are men they will bee liable to mens infirmities And as the learned scandalous Preacher may be sometimes in the right so it is possible that the ignorant zealous holy Preacher may be often in the wrong How to know this and how to distinguish them therefore you are to make use of the next Rule prescribed to you by Saint Iohn that is when you heare an Exposition or a Sermon or a new Doctrine preached to you not rashly without distinction or choice to consent to it till you have past the impartiall sentence of a cleare judgement on it compared and weighed Sermon with Sermon and Preacher with Preacher called every Doctrine every Proofe every confident Assertion to the touch-stone and measured it by some plaine evident place of Scripture and examined whether the Holy Ghost or his owne vaine popular ambition have for that time inspired the speaker or whether his Sermon have had some dissembled secular end or Gods glory for its marke And this Saint Iohn calls â—…ying of the spirits which is then done when as I said before you reduce what you heare spoken by the Preacher to the infallible Rule of Truth the Word of God and make that well considered the scales to weigh his Doctrine in Does hee preach charity and banish strife from his Pulpit Does he not flatter Vice though he find it clothed in Purple nor speak neglectfully of Vertue though he finde it clothed in rags Does he strive to plant the feare and love of God in his Auditory the forgivenesse of their enemies and pity towards the poore Dares he arraigne a publique sinne though never so fortunate or speak in defence of afflicted Innocence though over-borne by oppression Dares he maintaine his Christian courage in Tyrannicall doubtfull times And dares he call prosperous Sedition but a more successefull mischiefe Lastly does he preach such Christian Truths for which some holy men have died and to which he himselfe would not be affraid to fall a sacrifice This this man is to be hearkned to this man is fit to bee obeyed And this man speaking the same things which God himselfe doth in the Scripture whatever his gifts of pleasing or not pleasing sick fastidious delicate fancies be is thus at least to be thought of That though he speake not by the Spirit as a thing entailed upon him yet for that time the Spirit speaks by him which ought to be all one to you On the contrary does the Preachers Sanctity and Religion consist meerly in the devout composure of his looks and carriage Does he strive to preach downe Learning or does he call Study a humane folly Does he choose his Text out of the Bible and make the Sermon out of his Fancy Does he reprove Adultery but preach up discord Is he passionate against Superstition but milde and calme towards Sacriledge Does hee inveigh and raile at Popery and at the same time imitate the worst of Papists Jesuits urge Texts for the Rebellion of Subjects against their Prince and quote Scripture for the deposing and Butchery of Kings Does hee startle at a dumb picture in a Church-window and at the same time preach all good order and right Discipline out of the Church Does an Oath provoke his zeale yet does he count lying in the godly no sin Lastly does hee preach separation upon weake untemper'd grounds Or does labour to divide the minds which hee should strive to reconcile Let him bring what demurenesse or composure of countenance he please into the Pulpit Let him if he please joyne sanctity of deportment to earnestnesse of zeale Let him never so devoutly bewaile the calamities of his Country which
he hath helpt to make miserable Or let him weepe never so passionately over the Congregation which he hath broken into factions In short how seemingly holy how precise how unprophane soever his behaviour bee though the Scripture doe so continually over-flow in his mouth that hee will neither eat nor drinke nor speake nor scarce sleep but in that phrase yet as long as he thus forgets his Charity thus Preaches strife thus Division I shall so farre mistrust whether he have the Spirit that I shall not doubt to reckon him in the number of those false Prophets which S. Iohn sayes are gone out into the world The Conclusion then of this Sermon shall be this Men and brethren I have with all the sincerity and plainnesse which might benefit your soules preacht Truth and Concord and mutuall Charity to you I have also for some yeeres not been so sleepy an Observer but that I have perceived some of you who have thought your selves more Religious then the rest to be guilty of the I might say Crime but I will rather say of the mis-guided Zeale of these Corinthians here in my Text. There have been certaine Divisions and I know not what separations among you I have farther observed that certaine false causlesse prejudices and aspersions have been raised upon our University which to the grief of this famous Nursery of Gods Church at home and the reproach of it abroad are still kept waking against us by some of you as if Conscience and Religion as well as Learning and Gifts had so far forsaken us that all the Schools of the Prophets cannot afford you a set of able vertuous men fit to be the Lecturers to this soule-famisht Parish How we should deserve to be thus mistaken by you or why you should under-value those able Teachers which you have already or refuse to take your supply from so many Colledges which here stand present and ready to afford you choyce or why you should supplicate to the great Councell of this Kingdome in pitty to your soules to send you Godly Teachers which perhaps is but a well-meaning Petition from you but certainly 't is agreat scandall and Libell against us I know not But whatever the mysterious cause be I am confident that unlesse they will sleep over their infamy and reproach it will alwayes be in the power of our despised University-Divines to make it appeare even to those whom you intend to petition That this is but a zealous errour in you And that they are as able to edifie you certainly as he whose occupation it was to repaire the old shooes of the Prophets I should shame some of you too much who were the Disciples of that Apostle if I should discribe him to you by a larger character Instead therefore of a farther vindication of the reproach throwne upon us that which I shall say of more neere concernment to you is this If I have in the progresse of this Sermon ript open any wounds among you it hath not been with a purpose to enlarge or make them bleed but to powre wine and Oyle into them and to heale and close them up Next If I have cleared any of your sights or inabled you at length to discerne that the reason why the mote in your brothers eye seemed so big was because an over-scrupulous zeale had placed a beame in your owne and that in contributing to the ruine of one of the purest Religions in the world the reason why you have swallowed so many monstrous Camels hath been because at first you made scruple and strained at gnats I have what I intended Which was to let you see that to divide and separate your selves from the communion of our Church if it had been guilty of a mole or two is as unreasonable as if you should quarrell the Moon out of her Orb or think her unworthy of the skies because she wears a spot or two writ on a glorious ball of light Lastly if I have said any thing in the reproof of discord or the praise of charity which may re-unite your minds and make you all men of the same heart and beliefe as well as of the same Citie and Corporation I shall thinke I have done the work and businesse of a just Divider of the Word of God towards you and of a faithfull Servant and Steward towards my heavenly Master Whose blessing of peace be upon you all together with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost To which glorious Trinity be ascribed all Honor Praise Dominion and Power for ever AMEN FINIS A SERMON AGAINST FALSE PROPHETS PREACHED In St. MARIES CHVRCH In OXFORD shortly after the Surrender of that Garrison By IASPER MAINE D. D. and one of the Students of Christ-Church OXON IER 23. 16. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts Hearken not unto the words of the Prophets that prophesie unto you They make you vaine they speak a vision of their owne heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord. Printed in the Yeare M D C XLVII A SERMON AGAINST FALSE PROPHETS EZEK 22. 28. Her Prophets have daubed them with untempered Morter seeing vanity and divining lyes unto them saying Thus saith the Lord God when the Lord hath not spoken THE PREFACE THat which the best Orator said of Oratorie put to the worst use Nihil est tam horridum tam incultum quod non splendesent oratione That there is nothing so deformed or rude which may not be made amiable by Speech hath alwayes been verified of Religion too No one thing hath in all Ages been more abused to paint and disguise foule actions It hath been made the Art to cozen people with their owne Devotions and to make them in the meane time think sacredly of their seducers Conspiracies and Insurrections drest in these colours have been called holy Associations and Leagues And the Ambitious to worke the more securely on the credulity of the simple have not onely presented evill to them growing on the Tree of Good but have proceeded thus much farther in the fallacy that they have still made forbidden fruits seem pleasant to the eye And the false colours under which they have seemed pleasant have alwayes been taken from Religion Thus in these Heathen States where they first made their owne gods and then worshipt them never plot was hatcht to disturbe the Common-wealth but the writings of some Sybill or other were entitled to that plot And never any designe was laid to destroy the Roman Empire but some Augur or Priest was taken in whose part 't was to make the Entrailes and Liver of his sacrifice give credit to the ambition of the designe And thus among the Iewes some ambitious men the better to gild over their proceedings still entitled God to them Who as if he had been one of those Tutelar changeable Deities which used to be enticed and called over from one side to another they still entertained the people that they who
your running negligence which should help to make your sophisticall criticisme perfect sense Truly Sir if it be so high a fault to picture God I may justly wonder that any picture of a Saint turned into an Idoll should be retained and pleaded for by any man that pretends to be a Protestant and if it be impossible to picture God it is also impossible to picture God-man And I beleeve that you will acknowledge our Mediatour to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. That the Sun and Images cannot be put in the scales of a comparison in point of fitness to be preserved is a truth written with a Sun-beame Sir I never durst argue from the abuse of a thing against the use of it if the thing be necessary But the Sun is necessary and Images are not necessary ergo there is no parity of reason betweene the termes of your comparison 5. It appeares to me by your shifting fallacy that you make Copes as necessary as clean Linnen 6. You will never be able to prove that all that the prelates and their Faction have borrowed out of the Missall Ritualls Breviary Pontificall of Rome are to be found in any Lyturgie received by the Primitive Church And I would intreat you to consider whether they who doe profess a seperation from the Church of Rome can in reason receive and imbrace such trash and trumpery And yet though you would willingly be esteemed a Protestant I find you very unwilling to part with any thing which the Prelates have borrowed from the Court rather then Church of Rome 7. Your next Paragraph doth concerne Tradition I shall give you leave to preferre the constant and universall consent of the Church of Christ in all ages before the reason of any single man but Sir you doe very ill to call the testimony of the spirit speaking in the word to the Conscience of private men a private spirit I thinke you are more profane in the stating of this point then Bellarmine himselfe 8. You have not yet proved that any Prelate can challenge the Sole power of Ordination and Iurisdiction Iure divino 9. I should be glad to know for how many yeares you will justifie the purity of the Doctrine Discipline and Government in England I beleeve the Doctrine Discipline and Government of the Prelaticall faction whom you call the Church was not excellent if you reckon from 1630. to 1640. and that is time enough for men of our time for to examine I beleeve that you will acknowledge that the Prelates did lay an Ostracisme upon those who did oppose them who were in the right both in the point of Doctrine and Disciplâ—…ne we shall in due time dispute Though Prelacy it selfe be an usurpation yet there were many other encroachments which may justly be called Prelaticall usurpations and the Parliament hath sufficiently declared its judgement in this point they have clearly proved that Prelacy had taken such a deepe root in England and had such a destructive influence not only into the pernicious evills of the Church but Civill State that the Law of right reason even Salus populi quae suprema lex est did command and compell them to take away both roote and branch you may dispute that point with them Sir you cannot prove that Prelacy is an Order of the Church as ancient as the Christian Church it self and made venerable by the never interrupted reception of it in all Ages of the Church but ours 10. I am no Turkish Prophet I never preacht any piece of the Alchoran for good Doctrine much less did I ever make it a piece of the Gospell all that I say is this that Christians incorporated in a Civill State may make use of Civill and naturall means for their outward safety And that the Parliament hath a Legall power more then sufficient to prevent and restrain Tyranny Finally the Parliament hath power to defend that Civill right which we have to exercise the true Protestant Religion this last point is sure of highest consequence because it concernes Gods immediate honour and the Peoples temporall and eternall good Pray Sir shew me if you can why he who saith the Protestants in Ireland may defend their Civill right for the free exercise of their Religion against the furious assaults of the bloudie Rebells doth by that assertion proclaime himself a Turke and Denison the Alchoran you talke of the Papists Religion Sir their faith is faction their Religion is Rebellion they think they are obliged in conscience to put Heretiques to the sword this Religion is destructive to every Civill State into which true Protestants are incorporated therefore I cannot but wonder at your extravagancy in this point Sir Who was it that would have imposed a Popish Service Book upon Scotland by force of Armes You presume that I conceive the King had an intent to extirpate the Protestant Religion Sir I am sure that they who did seduce or over-awe the King had such a designe I doe not beleeve that the Queene and her Agents the Papists in England who were certainly confederate with the Irish Rebells had any intent to settle the true Protestant Religion you cannot but beleeve that their intent was to extirpate the Protestant Religion by the sword and to plant Popery in its stead I know Christ doth make 〈◊〉 and breake the spirituall power of Antichrist by his word and spirit for Antichrist is cast out of the hearts and consciences of men by the spirit of the Lord Iesus but Christ is King of Nations as well as King of Saints and will breake the temporall power of Antichrist by Civill and naturall meanes If Papists and Delinquents are in readiness to resist or assault the Parliament by Armes how can the Parliament be defended or Delinquents punished but by force of Armes I know men must be converted by a spirituall perswasion but they may be terrified by force of Armes from persecution All that I say is the Parliament may repell force with force and if men were afraid to profess the truth because of the Queenes Army and are now as fearfull to maintaine errours for feare of the Parliament the scales are even and we may by study conference disputation and prayer for a blessing upon all be convinced and converted by the undenyable demonstrations of the Spirit Sir this is my perswasion and therefore I am sure far from that Mahumetan perswasion of which I am unjustly accused 11. I am glad that you speake out and give light to your darke roome I did not accuse you of Conventiâ—…les I beleeve you hate those Christian meetings which Tertullian Minutius Pliny and others speake of we had lights and witnesses good store at our meetings And as for your conceit that I deserve to be in Bedlam because of the predominancy of my pride and passion and the irregularity of my will Sir I confess that I deserve to be in Hell a worse place then Bedlam and if you scoffe at