Superstition and Idolatry avert them from our Church and make them sit down in the scorners chair Doth not this say in effect that all those good laws formerly made against Papists and all penalties and mulcts by virtue thereof inflicted were most unjust in punishing them for refusing to join with us in that form of worship which we our selves cannot approve of We may say with the Athenians Auximus Philippum nos ipsi Athenienses We have strengthned the hands of our Enemies against us by our own divisions and contentions It is an odious quality and that which obscures the lustre of all the commendable vertues which Franzius notes of the Cranes that oftentimes they are so vehemently enraged one with an other and maintain such a combate among themselves that they neither observe nor fear the coming of the Fowler Yea that they rather desire his approach and to be taken by him than to be reconciled to their mates with whom they are faln out It is a thing much to be feared that these men will never be at quiet and peace in the Church untill they make that true of themselves which I have read objected to the aforesaid people of Athens by way of reproach that they would never vouchsafe to treat or hear of peace but in mourning gowns namely after the loss of their friends and fortunes in the wars He hath no mind that considers not this nor heart that condoles it not Put the case that though the Liturgy of our Church was composed with so much piety and prudence yet there might remain any thing capable of amendment as a freckle in a fair Face what if it be not in all things suitable with every man's judgment or fancy as there is nothing in the world the Directory it self not excepted so well done that doth not displease some the best cook'd dishes please not every Palate yet as St. Augustine of old answered the Donatists Si peccavit Caecilianus non ideo haereditatem suam perdidit Christus Shall God therefore loose his publick worship and service shall it be trampled upon slighted and prophanely neglected because we differ about black and white as Bishop Ridley told Bishop Hooper in a Letter to him And though in these latter days preaching hath gotten ground of the Prayers of the Church in the opinion of some whom we shall see present now and then at the former but seldom or never at the latter yet withouâ— any detraction to that excellent ordinance of God be it spoken this most despised part of God's worship must needs be granted to have the preheminence of the other especially in these days wherein the Church is so maturely composed and throughly setled in the faith and the Book of the holy Scriptures so complete and common amongst us in our own Language by him that considers 1. First that it is the most proper and immediate worship of God and preaching but mediate as it is the means which God hath ordained to teach men how to pray and to fit them for that duty For how can they call upon him in whom they have not believed And how can they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher 2. Secondly it is a duty simply and entirely moral good in respect of its own nature and quality before any external constitution passed upon it and may be resolved into one of the dictates and principles of the Law of Nature imprinted universally in the hearts of all men at the creation For before the Law of the ten Commandments men began to call on the name of the Lord as being taught by the light of Nature that in God we all live move and have our being and that he is the Father of lights from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift But preaching and hearing are acknowledged by all to be instituted worship and moral onely by an external imposition and mandate of the Supreme Lawgiver 3. Thirdly it is a duty of longer duration than preaching the one being onely for this life the other for the life to come also the one proper and peculiar to men as members of the Church militant the other common to men and Angels in the Church triumphant The knowledge is small which we have on Earth concerning things done in Heaven notwithstandings thus much we know even of Saints in Heaven that they pray 4. Fourthly it is a duty of larger extent and benefit than Preaching is this onely profiteth those that be present that do hear it and attend upon it but Prayer is available even for those that are far distant yea though they be in the remotest parts of the world When Lot's preaching did no good at all to his hearers yet Abraham's prayers might have been so effectual as to have saved five wicked Cities if there had been but ten righteous persons in them What our Blessed Saviour's judgment was in this case we may easily gather by that place in the Gospel where he calls the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an house of Prayer not of Preaching Whence in the Primitive times all the Christian Temples were called and known by the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Oratories And publick Prayers of the Church have as much the preheminence of private as the duty it self hath of preaching in â—egard there is more force in these Prayers wherein the whole Church joyn together as one man than there can be in those that others though never so many make apart any where else I say unto you saith our Saviour that if two of you shall agree on Earth touching any thing that they shall ask it shall be done for them of my Father which is in Heaven Much more then if a Thousand and more if the whole Church They are two excellent and remarkable sayings of St. Chrysostome to this purpose which are quoted by Bishop Iewel in his reply to Harding's answer Non aeque exoras cum solus dominum obsecras atqâ—e cum fratribus tuis Est enim in hoc plus aliquid videlicet concordia conspiratio copula amoris charitatis sacerdotum clamores Praesunt enim ob eam rem sacerdotes ut populi orationes quae infirmiores per se sunt validiores eas complexae simul in câ—elum evehantur Thou dost not so soon obtain thy desire when thou prayest alone unto the Lord as when thou prayest with thy Brethren for herein is somewhat more the concord the consent the joyning of love and charity and the cry of the Priest For to that end the Priests are made overseers that they being the stronger sort may take with them the weaker Prayers of the People and carry them up into Heaven Again he saith Quod quis apud seipsum precatus accipere non poterit hoc cum multitudine precatus accipiet Quare Quia etiamsi non propria virtus tamen concordia multum
whilst he would strike his foe They cannot confute it without condemning themselves This unguided zeal will be sure to run far enough from Popery and so runs into it as he that sails round the Globe the farther he goes after he is half way the nearer he approacheth to the place whence he set out The Quakers a considerable part of the Nonconformists railed at Popery till they began to be taken for Jesuits or their Disciples The like Stygma the Apostle St. Iude casts upon such Persons There are certain men crept in unawares c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How disgracefully and disdainfully the Scripture seems to speak of them who irregularly and contrary to good order and lawfull appointment intrude themselves as Teachers into the Church under pretence of Religion They creep in amongst People they come in by stealth as if they came in at a Window or Back-door insinuating themselves into flocks and societies of God's People creeping to Conventicles professing themselves to be the onely Gospel-preachers and pure Worshippers of God as if all Religion were lost except what they bring and profess Whereas they are indeed unless we will mince the Appellation the Holy Scripture fastens on them but a new sort of Creepers gotten into the body of the Church From such saith the Holy Ghost turn away Again St. Paul Now we command you brethren in the name of the Lord Iesus Christ that ye withdraw your selves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not according to the Tradition he hath received from us With more Apostolical Gravity and Authority a Duty cannot be urged on Christians than this of withdrawing or separating from such as walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 disorderly The Metaphor say Expositours is borrowed from the custome of War wherein every Souldier hath his proper station and employment appointed him from which when he swerves he becomes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 out of his rank Now in an Army every Officer hath his place Company and Command assigned him by his General whereunto he must keep and from which he must not stir And if he should leave his place and take upon him either to make an attempt on the Enemy of his own head without Commission and Orders from his General though with never so good success or Command in another Company than that which is assigned and allotted to him by Authority he is guilty of a breach of that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good order and discipline that ought to be in an Army and brings in a most odious and destructive disorder and confusion and so deserves to be either quite cashiered or otherwise by Martial Law severely to be punished Yea so absolutely necessary hath it been thought in the opinion of experienced Souldiers that the Laws and Orders of Martial-discipline in an Army should be strictly observed that whosoever have erred from it though in the least Punctilio have been adjudged worthy of death without mercy Famous to this purpose is that story we reade in Valerius Maximus of Manlius Torquatus Consul of the Romans in the Latin War who commanded his own Son to be beheaded for fighting the Enemy without his Father's Privity and Command though he was provoked thereunto by Geminius Metius General of the Tusculans and although he had obtained a signal Victory and very much and rich spoil Satiâ—s esse judicans patrem forti silio quam patriam militari disciplina carere Judging it better that a Father should be deprived of a valiant Son than that his Country should want Military discipline The Church is by Christ twice together in one place said to be an Army with banners he that is the Commander in chief is God himself holy just and wise not the Authour of Confusion but the institutour and lover of order and the hater and punisher of such as wilfully transgress such good rules of wholsome discipline as he either immediately by himself or mediately by his Deputies on earth shall establish amongst his People And is Discipline so needfull in an Army and can it be thought needless in the Church Is our spiritual warfare of less danger of concernment than our bodily Shall it be thought to be a venial offence to be committed without danger when a person shall undertake to intrude himself into the place and company of another and lead on and engage a Party in the Church militant into ways of schism and profaneness in opposition to the way of true Religion and Worship of God established not onely without any lawfull allowance but contrary to all Law and Discipline both Civil and Ecclesiastical The baseness and wickedness of such doings is excellently displayed by Learned Doctor Henry More in his Apology annexed to the second part of his enquiry into the Mystery of iniquity Because some men saith he think themselves of more popular gifts for Prayer and Exhortation for these to spur out and run on in a Career without attending the direction of their Superiours were as if the Toy should take those Troopers that are best horsed to set madly a gallopping because they find their horses will goe so freely and so turn the orderly March of the Army into a confused Horse-race and put themselves into a rout even without the assault or pursuit of any Enemy Can it be pleasing to Christ that any should follow such men in their irregular and hare-brain'd ways when his Apostle bids all men from such to withdraw To what end should there be such flocking after them unless their followers could be partakers of some spiritual benefit from them But this cannot be For their disorderly walking and busie medling where they have not to doe renders all they doe unprofitable and is in effect a spending of a great deal of pains to no purpose wearying themselves out to weave the Spiders Webb and to sow to the wind The Apostle doth most excellently express it in a most elegant allusion of words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 working not at all but are busie-bodies Their work is neither lawfull nor profitable For seeing that the Ministers of Christ are disposed of in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 according to the dispensation of God it doth follow that those things which they teach or doe receive their force and effect not from their own wills and authority but from the Authority Approbation and Concurrence of him that sends them And therefore what a Minister doeth contrary to the will of God cannot be of any force or effect at all as to the accomplishment of the end on mens souls for which God ordained the Ministry for he is bound to preach not onely those things but in that manner as God hath appointed God's Command for a separation and withdrawing from such dividing house-creeping and disorderly Persons must needs argue their Ministry not to be his ordinance since he so brands it and gives such Cautions against it ARGUMENT VII THAT
in the last page save one they have these words Gathering Churches out of Churches have no footsteps in Scripture is contrary to Apostolical practice is the scattering of Churches the Daughter of Schism the Mother of Confusion but the Step-mother to Edification If this Doctrine of theirs be as doubtless it is true and godly then surely the practices of many of them that are Antipodes to it must needs be by their own confession very false and impious We reade in Scripture that if fire break out and catch in thorns so that the stacks of corn or the standing corn or the field be consumed therewith he that kindleth the fire shall surely make restitution By thorns are generally understood such thorns as Husbandmen use in hedges wherewith they separate and distinguish their Land from other mens By breaking out of fire any man's making a fire in the field to burn up weeds or otherwise to make their Land fruitfull And 't is meant say interpreters of such kindling of fire when any hurt comes of it proeter intentionem accendentis besides the intention of him that kindles it it being carried by the wind and lighting on some dry hedge and finding combustible matter goes farther and burns the Corn either in shocks or standing by And in this cafe of Casualty by the Law of God restitution was to be made because firing the hedge was the cause of the Corn's being burnt Otherwise if a man did wilfully and purposely set Corn on fire he was to sustain greater punishment by the Civil Law vel decapitetur vel comburatur vel bestiis subjiciatur he was to be beheaded or burnt or cast to wild beasts God whose own the whole Field of the Church is hath set an hedge of separation and distinction to bound out every one of his servants the Minister's property These are your limits and this the portion of my people committed to your charge this piece of Land is your several to manure for me the fruit whereof I will require at your hands at harvest He that shall not casually but wilfully break down or fire that hedge and so cause a combustion in the Church the least that can be required of such a person is that he make full restitution for the damage he hath caused that he set himself to quench the fire he hath kindled and to make up the hedge again which he hath consumed undeceive the People he hath seduced by acknowledgment of his fault restoring what he hath fraudulently taken and cease to be any more an incendiary for the time to come To the poor deceived People shall I say out of zeal to God's Glory and safety of your souls as St. Paul to the Galatians I would they were even cut off that trouble you It were better one man or a few did perish than that the Unity of the Church should be broken Rather for loves sake I heartily wish that those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filii sonitus tumultuous ones that delight to make a noise in the Church that they may be heard had more peaceable and quiet spirits and would either content themselves to doe their own business if they have any or else sit still and cease troubling you or themselves in matters that belong to others And though you have been drawn away from your Conjugal duty to your own Pastours and have gone aside to others in stead of them by means of the amarous Courtship of such as want not fair speeches and winning Oratory to deceive the hearts of the simple but intrude themselves in amongst you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with feigned words or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with wisedom of words or as elsewhere the Apostle persueth it with excellency of speech and of wisedom or intising words of man's wisedom insomuch that if it were possible the very Elect would be deceived by them Yet I hope through the assistence of Divine grace you will soon bethink your selves and repent and so return from following after your Lovers with the house of Israel and say I will goe and return to my first Husband for then it was better with me than now Secondly it divides the intire body of Christ also and makes such factions as were in the Church of Corinth where one said I am of Paul another I am of Apollos and another I am of Cephas Than which there is nothing that more demonstrates People to be carnal whatsoever they pretend to the contrary It makes the Church of Christ which should always be as some time the Children of Israel were from Dan even to Beershebah all as one man to be a Baal-Perazim the place where David smote the Philistins A Valley of Divisions and Breaches It breeds such animosities and exasperations of mind amongst Christians that it makes the Members of the Church militant among themselves and against their Ministers doeing us though unwillingly the kindness as to free us from that woe denounced by our Saviour when all men shall speak well of us and none at last but Satan and his Servants Atheists and Papists triumphant It causeth such rents in the Church that the end thereof will be unless a prodigy of Divine mercy prevent it the common Enemy of our Religion will laugh whilst the promoters of such divisions have cause to weep It promotes such a War whose Victory shall have a sorry triumph It deals worse with the feamless Coat of Christ which St. Cyprian saith was a sign intended by our Saviour to shew how his Church should be woven together in Unity than the Prophet Ahijah the Shilonite did with the new garment wherewith Ieroboam had clad himself who even rent it in twelve pieces It mangles the body of Christ into as many parts as there are parties as if it were no better than the body of the Levite's Concubine which he divided with her bones and sent into all the quarters of Israel It was a worthy saying of the late reverend and learned Bishop of Sarum Si schismata Ecclesiae tolli possunt uti proculdubio possunt suspendi mallem ad collum meum molam asinariam c. If the schisms that are in the Church may be taken away as doubtless they may I had rather a Milstone were hanged about my neck and I drowned in the bottom of the Sea than that I should any way hinder that work or not withall my heart and strength promote it which is so pleasing to God and so necessary for the avoiding of scandal A gracious speech not unlike that of an holy Father of the Church before him Greg. Nazianzene who as Ruffinus reports it in the tumultuous division of the People cryed out mitte me in mare non erit tempestas He offered himself Ionah like to be cast into the Sea to appease the tempest in the Church that neither the peace of it might be disturbed or Unity broken