That God is not onely the Author of sin KK but also of the sinfulnesse the very Formality the Anomy the Ataxy the Pravity of sin LL A doctrine which all Protestants ever did abhor as high Blasphemy and which the Assembly of Divines with both the Houses of Parliament did condemn as such appointing Master Archers Book for that worst Heresie of the Libertines and grossest Blasphemy of the Antinomians to be solemnly burnt by the hand of the Hangman MM There was also another sparkle of new Light brake up in that Church wherein one of their Doctors doth so much delight to this day That not being content to have holden it out in Holland he is said to have Preached it over and over in the most solemn Assemblies both of Scotland and England That it is a duty incumbent to all who would be perfit to know God as God without Christ without the Scripture in notions abstracted not onely from all Grace but from all Scripture and from Christ NN I dare not affix unto this the late Doctrine of some Seraphick Jesuites and Monks wherein they have extravagated in their Lent Sermons so many absurd and Heretical senses as some very learned and good men have done in Print without any answer OO yet I must professe if it be a truth it is a very metaphysical one and much transcending my shallow understanding In that Church also the Doctrine of extreme Unction was so far brought back That they began to annoint their sick with oyl PP taking it as an Ordinance of Christ and a kinde of a Sacrament for the people at least a holy Ceremony no lesse of divine Institution then Ordination and imposition of hands were for Officers QQ Also they set on Foot another Religious ceremony in their Congregation the holy Apostolick kisse RR And as if all these innovations had not been sufficient they begun to put down all singing of Psalms and to set up in their place Their singing Prophets making one man alone to sing in the midst of the silent Congregation the hymns which he out of his own gift had composed SS 1 And this as I am informed by some who have been present is now the settled practice of the remainder of the Church of Arnhem Master Edwards layes to their charge not onely that their principles lead to that horrible Errour which 〈◊〉 of their followers maintain The mortality of the sou◠〈◊〉 but also that their cheif Doctors had Preached both is 〈◊〉 and England without the rebuke of any of their fr◠〈…〉 of the Saints go not after death to the Heavens SS◠〈…〉 same place the Pastor of Arnhem without the reproof o◠any of his party to this day so far as ever I heard doth take away and deny that Heaven and that Hell which all Christians before him did ever beleeve and in the place thereof gives us new Heavens and new Hells of his own invention He tells us confidently That no soul before Christs Ascension did ever enter into that place which we commonly call Heaven neither ever shall enter there if you except Christ alone unto the last day That all the souls of the godly remain in a place of the higher Region of the Air or at highest in the Element of the Fire That Enoch and Elias that the soul of Christ before the Resurrection and the soul of the good Theif went no higher SS 4. He tells us That the place of the damned before the last judgement is not any infernal fire but some prison in the low Region of the Air or at lowest in some place of the Sea After the day of judgement he makes Hell a very large place the whole Elements the Heavens of the Planets and of the fixed Stars yea the whole Heavens except that wherein God and the Angels do dwell being all turned to their first matter to him is Hell With such fine new speculations do the Independent Pastors feed their Flocks SS 5 I have heard also one of their Doctors deliver it as his opinion That it was expedient for the Minister in Preaching to have his head covered and the people in time of Preaching to sit uncovered But in the holy Communion that it was expedient the Minister should celebrate that Sacrament uncovered unto the people covered I do not deny my suspition of the Spirit of these men who are not affraid in so short a time to vent such a multitude of strange novelties But the clearest memento which God hath given us to beware of the wayes of that Church is Their bitter and shameful contentions among themselves which if not stopped by the Churches dissolution might long before this day have produced as foul effects as any of the former A part of this story and but a part of it you may read in that unanswerable Book of Master Edwards where at length you will see how their new fancies brought them to so bitter publike contention and irreconcileable strife as made their people confesse their doubting of the truth of their way TT and their principal Doctor Master Goodwin to avow his inclination to desert their society and leave their Church VV The Testimonies A Anatomy of Independency pag. 24. That Independent Church at Roterdam was formerly under Presbyterial Government and conformable to the Dutch Churches and had onely begun to decline in Master Peters his time B Antap. p. 17. Master Bridge and Master Burrows were men judged conformable till the yeer of Bishop Wrens visitation and the sending down of his Injunctions to Norwich C Ibid. Master Bridge fell suddenly into the Church-way as the short space between his Suspension at Norwich and his being received into a Church at Roterdam and thereupon his first Letter to some of his old friends in Norwich will fully shew D Anatom pag. 23. They all renounced their Ordination in England and ordained one another in Holland first Master Bridges ordained Master Ward and then immediately Master Ward ordained Master Bridges E Antap. pag. 142. Master Simpson after some time of beholding the order and way of the Church at Roterdam desired to be admitted a Member and was upon his Confession received in F Ibid. Master Simpson stood for the Ordinance of prophecying and that the people on the Lords day should have liberty after the Sermon to put doubts and questions to the Ministers Mr. Bridge opposed Yet he yeelded so far that the Church should meet on a week day and then they should have that liberty but this would not satisfie Master Simpson whereupon the difference increased and Master Simpson would abide no longer but quitted that Church and with the help of a woman whom Master Bridge called the Foundresse of Master Simpsons Church set up a Church against a Church G Mistresse Bridge laid these bitter differences and reports so to heart that they were a great means of her death H Ibid. Whether Master Bridges weaknesse and distempers were not occasioned by the divisions
whom they being not satisfied in the answer of an offender may appeale unto and in so doing tell the Church such a small number may be a Church and may have the blessing of his presence to be among them ll Ibid. p. 8 9. When a visible Church is to be erected it is necessary that in respect of quantity it be no more in number in the dayes of the New Testament but so many as may meet in one Congregation mm Ibid. p. 15. The Church is before the Ministers seeing the power of chusing Ministers is given to the Church by Christ nn Ibid. p. 68. The Church that hath no Officers may elect Officers unto themselves therefore it may also ordaine them if it hath power from Christ for the one and that the greater it hath also for the other which is the lesser now Ordination is lesse then Election oo Ibid. p. 42. Vnto the 13 question whether you think it convenient that a company of private and illiterate persons should ordinarily examine elect ordaine and depose their Ministers a part of the answer to this question is if there were none among them who had humane learning we doe not see how this could hinder them of their Liberty to chuse Ministers purchased to them by Christs precious blood for they that are fit matter to be combined into a Church body have learned the Doctrine of the holy Scriptures in the fundamentall points thereof they have learned to know the Lord in their owne hearts therefore they may not bee reproached as illiterate or unworthy to chuse their owne Ministers nay they have the best learning without which all other learning is but madnesse and folly pp Plaine Dealing p. 3. They set a day for the Ordination of their Officers and appoint some of themselves to impose hands upon them where there are Ministers or Elders before they impose their hands upon the new Officers but where there is none there some of their chiefest men two or three of good report amongst them though not of the Ministry doe by appointment of the same Church lay hands upon them Cottons way p. 40 41. Towards the end of the day one of the Elders of the Church if they have any if not one of the graver Brethren of the Church appointed by themselves to order the work of the day standeth up and enquireth in the Church c. he advertiseth him who is chosen what duties the Lord requireth of him in that place towards the Church then with the Presbytery of that Church if they have any or if not with two or three others of the gravest Christians among the Brethren of that Church being deputed by the body he doth in the name of the Lord Jesus ordaine him to that Office with imposition of hands calling upon the Lord and so turning the speech to the person on whom their hands are imposed he as the mouth of the Presbytery expresses their Ordination of him and puts a solemne charge upon him to look well to himselfe and the flock After this the Elders of other Churches present observing the presence of God in the orderly proceeding of the Church to the Officers Election and Ordination one of them in the name of all the rest doth give unto him the right hand of Fellowship in the sight of all the Assembly qq Answer to the 32 questions p. 48. If the Church hath power by election to chuse a Minister and so power of instituting him then of destituting also Instituere destituere ejusdem est potestatis rr Ibid. p. 44. We conceive that every Church properly so called though they bee not above ten persons or the least number that you mention have right and power from Christ to transact all their owne Ecclesiasticall businesse if so be they be able and carry matters justly for the power of the Keyes Matth. 16.19 is committed by Christ unto the Church ss Cottons Catechism p. 10. It is committed to the Presbytery to prepare matters for the Churches hearing tt Answer to the 32 quest p. 60. In this sense matters with us are carried according to the vote of the major part that is with the joynt consent of the whole Church but yet because it is the mind of Christ ww The propositions to which almost all our Elders did agree when they were assembled together the first the Fraternity is the first subject of all Presbyteriall power radicaliter id est causatim per modum collationis non habitualiter non actualiter non formaliter xx Anatom p. 26. I heare of no ruling Elders that ever Mr Simpson had in his Church Anatomist anatomised p. 12. It is true de facto wee had none but were resolved to have them Notwithstanding this answer of Mr Simpsons that Church of Rotterdam to this day hath never had a Presbytery after more then seven yeares delay yy Antap. p. 52. Pastors are necessary Officers in your Churches and yet according to your practises your Churches are many yeares without them zz Keyes p. 10. Authority is a morall power and a superiour Order or State binding or releasing an inferiour in point of subjection Christ hath given no Iurisdiction but to whom he hath given office The Key of power in a large sense or Liberty is in the Church but the Key of authority or rule in a more strict sense is in the Elders of the Church aaa Excommunication is one of the highest acts of Rule and therfore cannot bee performed but by some Rulers now where all the Elders are culpable there be no Rulers left in that Church to censure them as therefore the Presbytery cannot excommunicate the whole Church though apostate for they must tell the Church and joyne with the Church in that censure so neither can the Church excommunicate the whole Presbytery because they have not received from Christ an Office of Rule without their Officers Ib. preface p. 4. He gives unto the Elders or Presbytery a binding power of Rule and Authority peculiar unto them and to the Brethren distinct and apart an interest of power and priviledge to concurre with them and that such affaires should not be transacted but with the joynt agreement of both though out of a different Right so that as a Church of Brethren only could not proceed to any publike censures without they have Elders over them so neither in the Church have the Elders power to censure without the concurrence of the people so as each alone have not power of excommunicating the whole of either though together they have power over any particular person or persons in each bbb Ibid. also Keyes p. 13. Else the Brethren have a power of order and the priviledge to expostulate with their brethren in case of private scandals so in case of publike scandall the whole Church of brethren have power and priviledge to joyne with the Elders in inquiring hearing judging of publike scandals so as to bind notorius offenders and impenitents under censure and
Church hath alwayes and ordinarily the right of Ordination and power to lay hands on Pastors But no single Congregation or Parochiall Church huth that right and power Ergo No single Congregation is an Independent Church The Major is not questioned by the adverse party for they place the nature of their Independencie in a right and power intrinsecall and essentiall to every the least Congregation of Ordaining Deposing Excommunicating and exercising all acts of Jurisdiction upon all their own Members as well Pastors as others I said alwayes and ordinarily for we question not now what at some times in some extraordinary cases may fall out to be lawfull and necessary not onely to single Congregations but even to single persons Also the power which our adverse party disputeth for is not Hypotheticke which sometimes on supposition of such and such cases belongeth to a Church but absolute which is inherent to every Congregation at all times The Minor we prove thus What is proper to a Presbytery the right thereof belongs not to any single Congregation But Ordination and imposition of hands is proper to a Presbytery as appeareth from 1 Tim. 4 14. Neglect not the gift that is in thee which was given thee by Prophesie with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery The Apostle maketh that right proper to the Presbytery which he will have to remaine in it and not to be removed therefrom notwithstanding sundry extraordinary cases which might have excused the removeall of it For Timothy was a Pastor not altogether ordinary and inferior but an Evangelist he had for the ground of his Office the extraordinary call of some Prophets when he was sent out to Preach Paul himself laid hands upon him notwithstanding all this that the due and just right of the Presbytery migh be proclamed the Apostle marketh that the gift office and grace of Preaching the Gospell was conferred on Timothy by the laying on of the Presbyteries hands For the proof of the last Maior we neede not much descant on the Word Presbytery and the sense of it in the fore-named place nor to refute the misinterpretations which some make of it especially they who under the mis-alledged authority of Calvin would understand not the convention of any men but the Office of a Presbyter as if an Office or any accident could have had hands which might have beene laid on Timothies head Passing therefore such digressions we prove the Maior in hand thus No single Congregation is a Presbytery nor any wayes necessarily hath a Presbytery within it selfe yea if our adverse party may be beleeved no Congregation can have at least should have in it selfe such a Presbytery whereof Paul speaketh Ergo. What is proper to a Presbytery the right thereof may not be usurped by any single Congregation Of the consequence there is no doubt the Antecedent hath three parts onely the first is needefull to be proved but for more abundant satisfaction we shall assay to prove them all The first thus A Presbytery is a member and part of a Congregation according to our adverse party we love not to strive for words be it so that the meeting of a Minister and Elders governing single Congregations which we call a Session as over-Sea it is called a Consistory may goe under the name of a Presbytery Ergo. No Congregation is a Presbytery The Consequence is clear for no member may be affirmed in the Nominative of its owne whole especially Heterogeneous The body is not the head the finger is not the hand he doore or the Window is not the house Concerning the second part of the Antecedent that no Congregation hath a Presbytery any wayes necessarily within it selfe this is cleare from the common practise of our adverse party very oft their Churches have neither Session nor Pastor nor Doctor nor Elder at all they make not any of the Officers necessary parts of the Church either essentiall or integrall without the which the Church may not subsist yea as the most learned and most acute Mr. Rutherfoord hath well observed pag. 272. their grounds take away the necessitie of any Ministry at all Mr. Paget tells us that their chiefe and Mother-Church at Amsterdame through the mis-government of their Pastor Mr. Can hath wanted now for some yeares both a Doctor and Elders and a Session or Congregationall Presbytery But the pith of the Argument is in the third part of the Antecedent that no single Congregation can have or which is all one when we speake of right and wrong ought to have within it selfe Pauls Presbytery This we prove No single Congregation may or ought to have moe Pastors than one Ergo. Neither Pauls Presbytery The Antecedent is the Doctrine of our adverse party The Consequence leaneth on this Proposition In Pauls Presbytery are more Pastors which thus is proved Where there are many layers on of hands on Pastors there are many Pastors But in Pauls Presbytery are many layers on of hands on Pastors for in the alledged place not one but many lay on their hands with Paul on Timothy The last Maior leaneth on this ground that onely Pastors lay hands on Pastors so that many laying hands on Pastors must be many Pastors and by Consequence in one Congregation where there are not many but one onely Pastor yea none at all whensoever by imposition of hands a new Pastor is to be ordained to that Congregation the act of Ordination can not be lawfully performed by the proper members of that Congregation That which alone remaineth to be proved that onely Pastors lay hands upon Pastors is cleared by an Induction against which no instance can be brought 1 Tim. 5.22 Lay hands suddenly on no man 2 Tim. 1.6 Stirre up the gift of God that is in thee by the putting on of my hands Tit. 1.5 I left thee in Crete that thou shouldest ordayne Elders Acts. 13.1.3 Certaine Prophets and Teachers laide their hands upon them and sent them away Acts. 14.23 They ordained them Elders in every Church In all these places both the first Ordination and posterior Mission to preach the Gospell is the Act onely of those who were Pastors neither else-where reade we that it was otherwise The second argument Every Independent Church exerciseth ordinarily within it selfe by its owne members all acts of Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction But this no single Congregation doth ordinarily Ergo no single Congregation is an Independent Church Onely the Minor is dubious which we prove thus Every Church ordinarily exercising all acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction is Presbyteriall But no single Congregation is a Presbyteriall Church Ergo. No single Congregation exerciseth ordinarily all acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction The Minor is cleare from the nature of a single Congregation and Presbyteriall Church as in the stateing of the Question both were described The Major is proved by a full Induction of all the Churches which in the New Testament we reade to have had the
Tenet wherein they will be constant ibid. The chiefe Tenets which hitherto they have given out and not yet recalled p. 102 They reject the name of Independents unreasonably and for their owne disadvantage ibid. When it is laid aside the more infamous name of Brownists and Separatists will inevitably fall upon them ibid. They avow a Semi-Separation but a Sesqui-Separation will bee proven upon them p. 103 The Independents doe separate from all the reformed Churches upon far worse grounds then the Brownists were wont to separate of old ibid. Their acknowledgement of the reformed for true Churches doth not diminish but increase their Schisme ibid. They refuse all Church Communion and Membership in all the reformed Churches ibid. They preach and pray in them as they would doe among Pagans only as gifted men to gather materials for their new Churches p. 104. About the matter of the Church and qualification of Members they are large as strict as the Brownists admitting none but who convinces the whole Congregation of their reall regeneration p. 105 Beside true grace they require in the person to be admitted a sutablenesse of Spirit with every other Member p. 106 But in this they are laxer then the Brownists that they can take in without scruple Anabaptists Antinomians and others who both in life and Doctrine have evident blots if so they be zealous and serviceable for their way ibid. About the forme of the Church a Church-Covenant they are more punctuall then the Brownists ibid. They take the power of gathering and erecting of Churches both from Magistrates and Ministers placing it onely in the hands of a few private Christians who are willing to make among themselves a Church-Covenant p. 107 This power of erecting themselves into a compleat and perfit Church they give to any seven persons yea to any three neither admitt they more into a Church then can altogether in one place commodiously administer the Sacraments and Discipline ibid. The Independents will have all the standing Churches in England except them of the Sectaries dissolved and all their Ministers to become meerely private men and any three persons of their way to be a full Church p. 108 Vnto this Church of seven persons they give all and the whole Church power and that independently ibid. Vnto this Congregationall Church alone they give the full power of Election and Ordination of Deposition and Excommunication even of all their Officers and of the finall determination of all Ecclesiasticall causes p. 109 The difference of Iohnson and Ainsworth about the power of the people and Presbyterie distinct one from the other is not yet composed among the Independents ibid. The common Doctrine of New-England is Ainsworths Tenet that the people alone have all the power and may excommunicate when there is cause all their Officers ibid. Mr. Cotton the other yeare did fall much from them and himselfe towards Iohnson teaching that the whole power of Authority is onely in the Officers and the people have nothing but the power of Liberty to concurre That the Officers can doe nothing without the people nor the people any thing but by the Officers p. 110 Yet that both Officers and people or any of them have power to separate themselves from all the rest when they finde cause ibid. The London Independants give more power of Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction then the Brownists unto woemen p. 111 Some of them permit private men to celebrate the Sacraments ibid Brownists and Independents doe perfectly agree iâ— the point of Independency ibid If a corrupt or negligent Congregation doe not censure theâ— owne Members all the Assemblies in the world may not attempt to censure any of them though most apparently they did corrupt a whole Nation with the grosseth Heresies or most scandalous vices p. 112 The point of Independency is either the root or the fruit of many Errours ibid. To temper the crudity thereof they adde to it three moderating Positions but for little purpose ibid. They grant the being of Synods but not of Classicall Presbyteries p. 113 Their Synods are meerely Brownisticall without all Iurisdiction wherein every one of the people may voyce also they are meerely Elective and only occasionall ibid. The Sentence of non-Communion is Mr. Cottons invention to supply that defect which themselves make in the Ordinances of God ibid. It puts in the hand of every man a power to sentence all the Churches of the World p. 114 It carries to the highest degree of Separation ibid. Their supply of the defects of Independency by the power of the Magistrate was a remedy which they learned from the Brownists but now they have cast it aside denying to the Magistrate all power in matterâ— of Religion p. 115 The Independents doe advance their fancies to as high a pitch of glory as the Brownists ibid. They are the Brownists Schollers in many more things beside the constitution and government of the Church ibid. They give to the Magistrate the celebration of Marriage ibid. Mr. Milton permits any man to put away his wife upon his meere pleasure without any fault and without the cognisance of any Iudge p. 116 Mr Gorting teaches the wife to put away her Husband if he will not follow her in any new Church-way which she is pleased to embrace ibid. They are against all determinations of the circumstances of Worship and therefore all Church Directories are against their stomacks ibid. The common names of the dayes of the week of the Months of the yeare of the yeare of God of many Churches and Cities of the Land are as unlawfull to them as to the Brownists ibid. All Tythes and set-mayntenance of Ministers they cry downe but a voluntary contribution for the maintenance of all their Officers they presse to a high proportion with the evident prejudice of the poore p. 117 In their solemne Worship oft times they make one to pray another to preach a third to Prophesie a fourth to direct the Psalme and another to blesse the people ibid. They make it a divine Institution without any word of preface to begin the publick Worship with solemn prayer for the King and Church p. 118 After the Pastors Prayer the Doctor reads and expounds ibid. In preaching they will be free to take a Text or not as they find it expedient ibid. After the Sermon any of the people whom they thinke able are permitted to prophesie ibid. All are permitted to propound in the face of the Congregation what questions upon the Sermon they thinke meet ibid. About the Psalmes they have divers strange conceits but the speciall is their new Ordinance of a singing Prophet who is place of the Psalmes singeth Hymmes of his owne making in the midst of the silent Congregation ibid. They grant the lawfulnesse of read Prayers in diverse cases p. 119 They will have none to be baptised but the children of their owne Members so at one dash they put all England except a very few of their way into the
common in their members are of easy disgestion dd Concerning the other part of the Church essence its forme their Covenant in this the Disciples go much above their Master Mr Cotton hath perfected by an expresse Treatise this part of Brownism ee as many others The Covenants of New â—ngland are much straiter then any that ever we heard of at Amsterdam It is true that of late both in Old and New England the Independents seem much to modify the rigour of their Covenant ff but whatever may be said of their profession I never could learne of their practice to admit any into their society who gave not full assurance of embracing their whole way and all their differences from the Reformed Churches Sure I am they did never admit any upon easier tearms then lately I my self did hear Mr Can admit a member into his Church at Amsterdam yet if Mr Prynnes information be well grounded they are become at London more rigid in their Covenant then ever he tells us that now it is their custome to make it a part of their Oath to oppugne the Government of the Reformed Churches and to defend Independency with armes and violence ff 2. Unto the constitution we may referre the efficient of a Church and the number of its members in both the Schollars follow punctually their Masters As for the efficient it is not only the Brownists but the Independents also who put the power of gathering Churches and joyning together by Covenant in a Church way in the hand of private Christians alone without any Officer or the authority of any Magistrate It is presumption in any Minister if he assay to make up a Church only people must associate themselves into a Church and then create their Ministers and other Officers gg In New England at the erection of a new Church they are content with the presence both of the Magistrate and Ministers of the neighbour Churches but they declare that neither is necessary and that the presence of either gives no authority to the action and the absence of both detracts no authority from it hh That the whole power to gather a Congregation and to erect a Church is alone in the covenanting persons ii As for the number of the members the Independents go as low as the Brownists avowing that seven persons make a full ministeriall and compleatly organized Church kk nor do they extend the number any farther then the Brownists avowing that no Church except the universall may have any more members then conveniently can meet and be accommodated in one place for the exercise of all holy duties ll not only preaching of the Word whereat thousands may be present but celebration of the Sacraments and administring all parts of Discipline to which acts a few hundreds cannot commodiously meet The Independents minde about the gathering and erecting of Congregations may be clearly perceived by their late practice in the Sommer Islands wherein they are applauded by the Churches of New England and defended by Master White against Master Prynnes Fresh Discovery with a great deale of confidence and high language there hee justifies the necessity of the dissolution of all the Churches in the Barmudaes which yet he professes were among the best of all the English Plantations there were above 3000 people in the Isle who had lived without all controversie with any of their Ministers from their first planting till the yeare 1641 when their Ministers perswaded by some writs of the Brethren of New England found it necessary to lay down their charges and become meere private men denying to administer to their old flocks any Ordinance till three of them entring in a Covenant and thereby becomming a new Church did perswade of the 3000 Islanders some thirty or forty at most to joyn with them in their new Church Covenant these covenanted persons did chuse one of their old Ministers for their Pastor and two others of them for Ruling Elders who as gifted men were content to joyne with the Pastor in preaching not only to the Church members but to the whole Isle to fit them to be Church members but all the three refused absolutely to celebrate any Sacrament or administer any Discipline or do any act of a Pastor to any but to the forty named only All this Mr White maintains as just and necessary and petitions the Parliament in print for their countenance and approbation whereby it seems it is the Independents avowed and cleare intention when they have power to dissolve and annull all the Churches of England yea of the world to spoile all Ministers living of their pastorall charge and all people of all Church priviledges and to erect new Churches of their own framing into which they are to admit at most not one of an hundred of those who now do count themselves Christians all this you may see at length in Mr Whites very peremptory Reply to Mr Prynnes Fresh Discovery Leaving the constitution their chiefe Tenets concerne the power of the Congregation so constitute as is said in this they come up fully to their Masters side for they give unto their Church that is their seven covenanted persons the whole Ecclesiastick power and that independently upon any person under heaven First they put it in their hands to create all the Officers they not only give them suffrages in their election mm but the whole power of Ordination also nn the examination of their Pastor in all the abilities requisite for his charge oo the laying all the parts of his Office upon him publique prayer imposition of hands and what other acts are requisite for a regular Ordination are all performed by one of the people whom the rest have appointed for that end pp As they have power to make all their Officers so they have power to unmake them to depose and excommunicate all their Ministers qq to cognosce and finally to determine without any appeal in all cases both in life and doctrine of all Heresies and Scismes of all Truths and Errours to order all things belonging to the worship of God and to do all things else rr which other Churches ascribe to the most Generall Assemblies of the most learned Divines Upon this passage of Power come in the differences which divided the Brownists among themselves whilst Iohnson would give all these acts of power to the Eldership and Ainsworth would keep them for the Congregation these same questions vex the Independents to this day and are likely to divide the Children as they did the Fathers The most of the New English Divines with Ainsworth attribute the whole Ecclesiastick power to the body of the people unto the Eldership they give the preparation of affaires ss but the judgement and determination of all doth passe by the plurality of the peoples voices tt the power of the keyes they put in the hand not of the Presbytery but of the fraternity ww as they speak And in some
to forgive the repentant ccc The propositions 3. prop. The fraternity having authoritative concurrence with the Presbytery in Iudiciall acts ddd Keyes p. 16. Though the Church want authority to Excommunicate their Presbytery yet they want not liberty to withdraw from them eee Keyes Preface p. 5. When we first read this of this learned Author knowing what hath been the more generall current both of the practice and judgement of our brethren for the Congregationall way wee confesse we were filled with wonderment at that Divine hand that had thus led the judgements without the least mutuall interchange or intimation of thoughts or notions in these particticular of our brethren there and our selves here fff Ibid. Onely wee crave leave of the reverend Author to declare that wee assent not to all expressions c. Vide supra ggg Tabula Potestas charitativa merè est primo fratâ—um Presbyterorum charitativè non politicè ambulantium secundo sororum hhh Vide supra Chap. 4. F iii Vide supra Chap. 3. M kkk Bastwicks Independency p. 99. The fifth Quaere is whether the women and people as well as the Ministers have the Keyes and whether the women have all their votes in the Church both for election and reprobation of Members and Officers as well as the men and whether the consent of all the women and the greatest part of them be requisite for the making of any one a member or officer so that if they gain-say it being the greater number or allow of it the most voyces carry the businesse the practice of this the brethren in some of their Congregations hold for Orthodox Mr Prynnes Fresh Discovery in his Dedicatory Epistle to the Parliament p. 5. And to interest the femall Sex and draw them to their party they allow them not only decisive votes but liberty of preaching prophesying speaking in their Congregatitions lll Keyes p. 6. We be farre from allowing that sacrilegious usurpation of the Ministers Office which we heare of to our griefe to be practised in some places that private Christians ordinarily take upon them to preach the Gospel publikely and to Minister the Sacraments Katharine Chidleys Iustification of the Independent Churches p. 28. Yet that the Church must want the Word preached or the Sacraments administred till they have Pastors and Teachers in Office is yet to be proved but that which hath been alledged is sufficient to prove that the family must not be unprovided for either for the absence or the negligence of a Steward mmm Keyes p. 53. A particular Congregation being the first subject of the Church power is unavoidably Independent upon any other Church or body for the exercise thereof for the first subject of any accident or adjunct is Independent upon any other either for the enjoying or for the imploying the having or using of the same nnn Vide supra mmm ooo Answer to the 32 Questions p. 36. For Dependency upon men or other Churches or other Subordination unto them in regard of Church-Government or power we know not of any such appointed by Christ in his Word ppp Welds Answer to Rathband 14. chap. Our Churches are tender to perswade men to act without light much more to command or to compell both which very words though the thing required were lawfull are odious in the Churches of Christ most fitly becomming the Synagogues of Anti-christ qqq Vide Cottons Keyes p. 8. infra zzz rrr Cottons Catechisme p. 13. All the Churches thereabout may meet together and by the Word of God may confute and condemn such errours in doctrine or practice as are offensive to prevent the spreading either of the gangrene of heresie or of the leprosie of sin and if the Church offending shall not yet hearken unto their brethren though the rest of the Churches have not power to deliver them to Satan yet they have power to draw from them the right hand of Fellowship Vide infra sss sss Keyes p. 57. In the Election and Ordination of Officers and censure of offenders let it suffice the Churches consociate to assist one another with their counsel but let them not put forth the power of their Community to take such Church Censures out of their hands let Synods have their just authority in all Churches how pure so ever in determining such diataxeis as are requisite for the edification of all Churches Keyes Preface p. 4. Hee acknowledgeth that Synods or Classes are an Ordinance of Christ unto whom Christ hath committed a due and just measure of power furnishing them not onely with ability to give counsell but also a Ministeriall power and Authority to determine declare and enjoyne such things as may tend to the reducing of Congregations to right order and peace but not arming them with power of Excommunicating either Congregations or their members they are to leave the former act of this censure to that Authority which can only execute it placed by Christ in these Churches themselves which if they deny to doe or persist in their miscarriage then the Synod may determine to withdraw communion from them ttt Ibid. www Keyes p. 50.51 The Magistates addresse themselves to the establishment of Religion and Reformation of corruptions by civill punishments upon the wilfull opposers Iosiah put to death Idolatrous Priests nor was that a peculiar duty of the Kings of Iuda for of the times of the New-Testament it is Prophesied that in some cases capitall punishment shall proceed against false prophets xxx Keyes Preface p. 4. Hee asserteth an association of Churches sending their Elders and Messengers into a Synod so hee purposely chuseth to stile these Assemblies of Elders which the Reformed Churches doe call Classes or Presbyteries yyy Cottons Catechisme p. 3. The office or work of the ruling Elders is to moderate the carriage of all matters of the Church Assembled as to propound matters to the Church and to order the season of speech and silence in the Church zzz Keyes p. 48. The pattern of Synods is set before us Acts 15. There the Apostles assembled together with the Elders and a multitude of brethren together with them the whole Synod being satisfied determine of a Iudiciall sentence and of a way to publish it by Letters and Messengers so the matter is at last judged in a Congregation of Churches in a Church of Churches for what is a Synod else but a Church of Churches ibid. p 57. All the liberties of Churches were purchased to them by the precius blood of the Lord Iesus and therefore neither may the Churches give them away nor many Churches take them out of the hands of one aaaa Keyes Preface p. 6. In all humility wee yet see not that assembly of Apostles Elders and brethren Acts 15 to have been a formall Synod bbbb 1 Ibid. 4. He aâ—knowledgeth a Synod to be an Ordinance of God in relation to the rectifying of male administrations and healing dissentions in particular Congregations and the like cases in such cases
yeelded yet how will they prove that the Scribes and Pharisees were of any other Tribe then of Levi CHAP. IX Whether the power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction belongs to the People or to the Presbyterie THe next Question concernes the power of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction to whom it may be due by Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction is understood the admission of Members into a Church their casting out againe by Excomunication their reconciliation after repentance the Ordination of Officers their deposition from their charge the Determining of Questions the deciding of Controversies and such other acts of Ecclesiastick authority Till of late the state of the Question here was very cleare and plaine the Reformed Churches doe put both the power and the exercise of Jurisdiction into the hand of the Presbytery that is the company of Elders and Colledge of Church Governours The Brownists and after them the Independents did ascribe all these acts to the Church as well without as with a Presbytery but of late Master Cotton in his Booke of the Keyes and his Brethren in their Synodick meetings of New-England have so subtilized and as to me it seemes involved the Question with a multitude of new distinctions that it is very hard to apprehend with any certaintie and clearenesse their meaning and more hard to reconcile any one with himselfe much lesse one with another They would seeme to differ much from the Brownists they stand not to put them in the Category of Morellius the first Patron of Democracie and popular government in the Church they professe a midway of government well ballanced with a prudent mixture of the Officers power with the peoples giving a part to both and all to neither They bring a multitude of distinctions rather to eschew the dint of our former arguments in the darkenesse of these Thickets then to give any light to this very great Question They insist most on two distinctions whereby they thinke to answer all we bring against them First they distinguish betwixt a Church Organized or Presbyterated as they speake and a Church inorganized and unpresbyterated the one is a body Heterogeneous a covenanted people with their Officers framed in a Presbitery the other a body Homogeneous a people in a Church Covenant without Officers at least without a Presbytery They would seeme to plead or else the distinction is for no purpose for the power onely of an Organized and a Presbyterated Church If they would stand to this in earnest and firmely we should be glad for so they should openly desert not onely the whole race of the Brownists but all their owne former Writings practises and enervate the best of these very arguments they still adhere unto for if ye will consider what is written by Mr. Cotton either in his Catechisme or way or answer to the thirty two Questions or the Arguments that still he insists upon in the Keyes or their generall practise in Holland and New-England to this day you will see that they maintaine the Jurisdiction of a Church as well unpresbyterated without a Presbytery without Officers as of a Church Presbiterated for the power of Ordination of Officers and of their deposition the power of admitting and casting out of Members which are the highest acts of Jurisdiction they ascribe expressely to every Church whether it have or want Officers as its proper and undeniable priviledge Their other new distinction wherein openly they applaud so much one another as it were contending who should have the glory of its invention is of a double power one of Authority and another of Liberty ascribing unto a Presbyterated Church the whole power of Jurisdiction and every part of it both to the Officers of their Presbytery and to the people in their fraternity or brotherhood but so that the interest of the Officers in every act is a power of authority which makes that their action only is valid and binding but the interest of the people is a power of liberty to concurre in these acts of Jurisdiction by an obedientiall yet a necessary and authoritative concurrence This new distinction will not serve their turne for first it s not applicable to the chiefe acts of Jurisdiction in question their Ordination of Officers their admission of Members are done ordinarily by their people alone without the concurrence of any Officers who then are not in being Secondly their arguments for the peoples interest in Excommunication Absolution and other acts of Jurisdiction inferre either nothing at all or much more then that which they call a power of Liberty or of an authoritative concurrence Thirdly this distinction involves the Authors in new unextricable difficulties it makes the Keyes Sword of Christ altogether inserviceable in common and ordinary cases wherein they have most neede and occasion to be set on worke Not onely according to their former principles they make every Congregation uncensurable for any possible crime But by this new Doctrine they confesse that every Presbytery in a Congregation becomes uncensurable and that every people of a Congregation becometh uncapable of any censure Yea farther if the most part of the Presbytery suppose two ruling Elders joyne together in the greatest heresies and crimes the whole people with the rest of the Presbitery suppose the Pastor cannot censure these two Elders also if the greatest part of the people should joyne in the greatest wickednesse yet the whole Presbytery with the rest of the people that remaine sincere and gracious cannot censure the wicked In all these and divers such ordinary cases they have no remedy but Separation and alwayes Separation upon Separation till their Church be dissolved into so small portions that it cannot by more Separations be farther divided But let us consider the Arguments upon both sides First we reason thus The people are not the Governors of the Church But the acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction belong to the Governors of the Church Ergo The acts of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction belong not to the people The Minor is cleare from the nature of the very termes for Jurisdiction is either all one with Government or a chiefe part of it now Government is essentially relative to Governors The Major is proved by many Scriptures which make the people so farre from being Governors that they are obliged to be subject and obedient to their Officers as to them by whom God will have them governed Heb. 13.17 Obey them that have the rule over you for they watch for your soules as they who must give an account 1 Tim. 5.17 Let the Elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honour 1 Thes 5.12 Know them which are over you in the Lord and esteeme them very highly in love for their workes sake God hath made them Pastors and the people their flocke them Builders the people the stones laid by them in the building them Fathers the people children begotten by their Ministry them Stewards the people domesticks under their conduct Secondly whosoever
hath the power of Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction to them the Lord hath given the Keys of Heaven for the remitting and retaining of sinnes But to none of the people the Lord hath given these Keys Ergo. The Major is not controverted The Minor is thus proved To whom Christ hath given the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven to retaine and remitt sinnes they are in some Ecclesiasticke Office They are sent out by Christ as Christ was by his Father they have some part of the Apostles ordinary charge but these things are not true of the people Ergo. The Major is proved John 20.21 As my Father hath sent me so send I you and when he had said this he breathed upon them and said receive yee the Holy Ghost whose sinnes yee remitte they are remitted and whose sinnes yee retaine they are retained What was promised to Peter Mat. 16.19 is here performed to him and the rest of the Apostles and to their Successours in their ordinary Office of Elders for this was a power necessary for the Church to the end of the world The Minor also is cleare for these things were not given to all the Disciples but to the twelve and to their Successours What was promised to Peter was not promised to every faithfull person and to every Orthodoxe Confessour for so all and every one should be bearers of the Keys and Ecclesiasticke Officers which is against the Scriptures of the first Argument Thirdly to whom these acts of Jurisdiction doe belong they are the eyes eares hands and principall Members of the Body of Christ for the eminent persons and Officers of a Church are compared to these Members because of these actions But the people are not the eyes eares hands are not the principall Members of the Body of Christ for if so there should be none left in the Church to be the feete or lesse principall Members all should become eyes and hands and the Church should be made a Body Homogeneous contrary to the doctrine of the Apostle 1. Cor. 12 19. If they were all one Member where were the Body but now are they many Members and the eye cannot say to the hand I have no neede of thee nor the head to the feete I have no neede of you Fourthly Who have a right from God to the acts of Jurisdiction they have a promise of gifts needfull for the performance of these acts For a divine right and calling to any worke is backed with a promise of Gods presence gifts and assistance in doing of that worke but the people have no promise of any such gifts For besides that daily experience declares numbers among the people to be altogether destitute of such knowledge wisedome and other gifts which are necessary for the performance of these acts of Jurisdiction The Apostle himselfe teaches that such gifts are not given to all but to some onely Fifthly That is not to be given to the people that brings confusion into the Church for the Lord is the God of Order But the putting of the power of Jurisdiction in the peoples hand brings confusion into the Church for it makes the feete above the head it puts the greatest power into the hand of the meanest it gives power to the Flocke to depose and excommunicate their Pastour Our Brethren were lately wont to digest with the Brownists these absurdities but now they begin to dislike them and rather then to stand to their Prior Tenets they will limit the Minor asserting that the power of Jurisdiction belongs to the people not severally but joyntly with their Officers so that neither they can excommunicate their Officers nor their Officers can excommunicate them But it seemes this new Subtilty will not long please the Inventors of it for as we have saide it makes the Keys of Heaven much more inserviceable for opening and closing then needs must when it hath taken the keys out of the hand of all others and put them in the little weake fist of a particular Congregation it will not permitt them to open or to close the doore neither to the people nor yet to the Eldershippe The Eldershippe cannot remitt nor retaine the sinnes of the Brotherhood nor the Brotherhood of the Eldershippe yea none of the Eldershippe can be censured by all the people without the consentient vote of the Presbytery nor any of the people can either be bound or loosed without the consentient vote of the people In these cases which may be very frequent The Keys of Christ must be layde aside and a new key of the Independents owne invention their sentence of Non-Communion or that much beloved and a little elder key of separation forged by the Brownists must come in the place thereof to be used against any or all other Churches against their owne Church or its Eldershippe or its Brotherhood or any Member of either Our sixth argument concernes Ordination a speciall act of Jurisdiction which all the Independents to this day put in the hands of the people alone when ever a new Congregation is to be erected which to them is no extraordinary nor rare case or when in a Congregation already erected there is no Presbytery which among them is frequent For a Presbytery must consist of more Governours then one and usually their Presbiteryes exceede not the number of three or foure At the death of their Minister suppose one of their two ruling Elders be sicke or absent or the two differ betweene themselves in this case they make no difficulty to cause some of the people out of all office to ordaine a new chosen Pastour Against this very ordinary practice we reason Vnto whom the power of Ordination doth belong they have a Commission from God authoritatively to send Pastours for preaching and celebration of the Sacraments also to lay hands upon them for that effect But people have no such Commission Ergo. The Major is the nature of Ordination for the essence and inward forme of it is the authoritative sending named the outward Forme and Signe used in Scripture is imposition of hands The Minor is proved from three grounds first that the people however they elect yet they doe not send for so they should send to themselves The Senders and they to whom the Preachers are sent should be one and the same Secondly an authoritative mission imports a Superiority in the Sender above the Sent But the Pastours are over the people not under them Thirdly the examples of the New Testament make it evident that the authoritative sending and imposition of hands the signe thereof were never used by any of the people but by the Elders onely 1 Tim. 4.14 With the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery 1 Tim. 5.22 Lay hands suddenly upon no man 2 Tim. 1.6 Stirre up the gift of God that is in thee by the putting on of my hands So it was not onely at the first sending of men to preach but in posterior missions to any
draw on such seditious practises as did well neer overturn both their Church and State Their proud obstinacy against all admonitions was marvellous In the midst of their profession of eminent piety the profanity of many of them was great Notwithstanding all this we desire from our heart to honour and imitate all and every degree of Truth or Piety which did ever appear in any New-English Christian Independency no fruitful Tree in Holland Master Peterâ— the first Planter of that Weed at Roterdam Their Ministers Master Bridge Master Simpson and Master Ward renounced their English Ordination and as meer private men took new Ordination from the people Incontinent they did fall into shameful divisions and subdivisions The people without any just cause deposed their Minister The Commissioners from Arnhem durst not come neer the bottom of the businesse The Schisms at Roterdam were more irreconcileable then those at Amsterdam Anabaptism is like to spoil that Church They of the Church of Arnhem admire and praise themselves above all measure The easinesse of their banishment and afflictions The new light at Arnhem broke out into a number of strange Errours First Grosse Chiliasm Secondly The grossest blasphemy of the Libertines that God is the Author of the very sinfulnesse of sin Thirdly the fancy of the Enthusiasts in knowing God as God abstracted from Scripture from Christ from Grace and from all his attributes Fourthly The old Popish Ceremonies of extreme Unction and the holy kisse of Peace Fifthly The discharging of the Psalms the appointing of a singing Prophet to chant the Songs made by himself in the silence of all others Sixthly The mortality of the soul Seventhly the conveniency for Ministers to Preach covered and celebrate the Sacraments discovered but for the people to hear discovered and to participate the Sacraments covered Their publike contentions were shameful The work of the prime Independents of New England Arnheim and Roterdam these five yeers at London They did hinder with all their power so long as they were able the calling of the Assembly When it was called they retarded its proceedings That the Churches of England and Ireland lie so long in confuon neither Papists nor Prelates nor Malignants have been the cause But the Independents working according to their principles The great mischief of that Anarchy wherin they have kept the Churches of England and Ireland for so long a time Independency is the mother of more Hereresies and Schisms at London then Amsterdam ever knew Independency at London doth not onely bring forth but nourish and patronize Heresies and Schisms contrary to its custom either in New-England or Amsterdam How hazardous it may prove to the State of England Why it is hard to set downe the Independents positions They have declined to declare their Tenets more then has ever been the custome of any Orthodox Divines When they shal bee pleased to declare themselves to the full their principle of change will hinder theÌ„ to assure us that any thing is their settled and firm Tenet wherein they will bee constant The chief Tenets which hitherto they have given out and not yet recalâ—ed are these following They reject the name of Independents unreasonably and for their own disadvantage When it is laid aside the more infamous name of Brownists and Separatists wil justly fall upon them They avow a Semi-Separation but a Sesqui-Separation will bee proved upon them The Independents doe separate from all the Reformed Churches upon farre worse grounds then the Brownists were wont to separate Their acknowledgment of the Reformed for true Churches doth not diminish but encrease their Shisme They refuse all Church communion and membership in all the Reformed Churches they preach and pray in them as they would doe among Pâ—gans only as gâ—ftâ—d men to gather new Churches About the matter of the Church and qualification of members they are large as strict as the Brownists admitting none but who convinces the whole Congregation of their reall regeneration Besides true grace they require a sutablenesse of spirit But in this they are laxer then the Brownists that they can take in without scruple Anabaptists Antinomians others who both in life doctrine have evident blots if so they bee zealous and serviceable for their way About the forme of the Church a Church Covenant they are more punctuall then the Brownists They take the power of gathering and erecting of Churches both from Magistrates and Ministers placing it only in the hands of a few private Christians who are willing to make among themselves a Church covenant This power of erecting themselves into a compleat and perfect church they give to any seven persons neither admit they more into a Church then can altogether in one place commodiously administer the Sacraments Discipline The Independents will have all the standing Churches in England dissolved and all their Ministers to become meerly private men and any three persons of their way to bee a full Church Vnto this Church of seven persons they give all and the whole Church power and that independently Vnto this congregationall Church alone they give the full power of election and ordination of deposition and excommunication even of all their officers and of the finall determination of all Ecclesiastick causes The difference of Iohnson and Ainsworth about the power of the people and presbytery distinct one from the other is not yet composed among the Independents The common Doctrine of New England is Ainsworths Tenet that the people aâ—one have all the power may excommunicate when there is cause all their officers Mr Cotton the other year did fall much from them and himselfe towards Iohnson that the whole power of authority is only in the Officers and the people have noâ—hing but the power of liberty to concurre that the Officers can doe nothing without the people nor the people any thing but by the Officers Yet that both officers people or any one of them have power to separate themselvs from all the rest when they find cause The London Independents give more power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction then the Brownists unto women Some of them permit private men to celebrate the Sacraments Brownists and Independents do perfectly agree in the point of Independency If a corrupt or negligent Presbytery doe not censure their own members all the Assemblies in the world may not attempt to censure any of them though most apparently they did corrupt a whole Nation with the grossest Heresies or most scandalous vices The point of Independency is either the root or the fruit of many errors To temper the crudity of this Tenet they adde to it three moderating positions but for little purpose They grant the being of Synods but not of Classicall Presbyteries Their Synods are meerely Brownisticall without all Iurisdiction wherein every one of the people may vote also meerely elective and only occasionall The sentence of Non-Communion is Mr Cottons invention to supply that defect which themselves make in the
to a beleever Ans not so but as to an Apostle and Elder of the Church 2. Till the Church replies that the people have power of Excommunication Anser The Church here to be told is the Presbytery and not the people according to our Brethrens own grounds 3. The people of Corinth did Judge and Excommunicate the incestuous man Answer Tbe Text will prove no such matter 4. The people of Colosse might censure Archippus their Minister Answer there is no Word in this Text of the peoples censure 5. The whole Church of Pergamus is rebuked for not censuring the Hereticks Answer The power of Censure was in the Angells but the whole Church might be faulty in not incouraging the Angels to doe their duty 6. The twenty foure Elders sit on Thrones with Crownes on their heads Answer This will not prove a regall power of judging in every one of the people 7. The Galatians must stand fast to their Liberty Anser By Liberty hereinothing lesse is understood then a power of presence and concurrence in judgement without all power of Authority 8. The whole Congregation of Israel had power to punish malefactors Answer What the people under the Law did in the State is not a warrant for the people under the Gospell to doe the same in the Church 9. The people elects their Officers Ergo. they may depose and Excommunicate them Answer Election is no act of power or of Jurisdiction 10. The people must be present and consent to every act of Judgement Answer It is not so and if it were yet it inferres not their power of Jurisdiction God is the Author of the union and dependencie of particular Churches From them Morellius and Grotius learned the Tenet Laying aside all prejudice we will reason the matter The state of the Question cleared That single Congregations are not Independent is proved first from the 1 Tim 4.14 because they have not the right of Ordination Ordination belongs to the Presbytery No Congregation is a Presbytery No Congretion hath within it selfe necessarily a Presbytery No single Congregation ought to have within it selfe Pauls Presbytery Onely Pastors lay hands on Pastors The second Argument from the Apostolicke Churches which exercised full jurisdiction the chiefe whereof if not all were Presbyteriall and not Parochiall Such was the Church at Jerusalem How the Church commeth together The Church of Samaria also was Presbyteriall So that of Rome And of Corinth And of Ephesus Also of Antioch and the rest Our third argument from the subordination of the Church of Antioch to the Synod at Jerusalem Act. 15. Answer to the Replies The meeting of Jerusalem was a true Synod It doth not onely advise but command The Decrees of that Synod at their first making had onely Ecclesiastick authority Our fourth argument from the subordination of fewer to moe appointed by Christ Matth. 18. Christs subordination is to be extended to the utmost bounds of the Church universall Our fifth argument from the evill consequents which reason and experience demonstrate to follow Independency necessarily and naturally Neither the duties of charity nor the authority of the Magistrate can remedy these evills Our last Argument Independency is contrary to all the discipline that ever was knowne in Christendome before the Anabapâ—ists The first Objection or Argument for Independency from Matth. 18. The second Objection is taken from the practise of the Corinthians excommunicating the incestuous man The third Objection from the example of the seven Churches of Asia Their fourth Objection from the practise of the Church of Thessalonica and Colosse Their fifth objection from the Episcopall tyranny of the Presbyterie Their sixt Objection from the Congregations right to elect their Pastor Their seventh Objection from pluralitie of cures cast upon one Pastor Their eight Objection from Christs immediate government of his Church The Originall and progresse of Chiliasme The minde of the Independent Chiliasts Our first reason against the Chiliasts is that Christ from his ascention to the last judgement abides in the heaven Our second reason is builded on Christs sitting at the right hand of God till the day of judgement Our third reason is grounded on the resurrection of the dead the godly and ungodly doe all rise together at the last day Our fourth reason is builded on Christs Kingdome which is Spirituall and not earthly Our fift reason is taken from the nature of the Church Which ever on earth is mixt of good and evill And subject to crosses Having neede of Ordinances Because of her sinfull infirmities A Sixt reason from the secresie of the time of Christs comming A Seventh from the heavenly and eternall reward of the Martyrs An eight reason the restoration of an earthly Jerusalem brings backe the abolisht figures of the Lgw. A ninth Antichrist is not abolisht till the day of Judgement The Chiliasts first reason is from Reâ—â—l 20.4 Answer Our new Chiliasts are inventors of a new heaven and of a new hâ—ll Their second reason from Daniel 12. We Answer Their third argument Answer Their fourth place Answer Their fifth place Answer Their sixth place Answer Their seventh place Answer Their eight place Answer The ninth place Answer Their tenth place Answer Their eleventh place Answer The twelfth place Answer Their last place Answer
yea two or three ibid. The erecting of a Church requires neither the Magistrates nor Ministers assistance ibid. They put all Church power in a handfull of people without any Pastor 24 The election ordination deposition and excommunication of the Minister belongs to his flock and to it alone ibid. Every man of the Congragation may preach and publikely rebuke not only the Pastor but the whole flock yea and separate from it 25 Some of them give the celebration of the Sacraments also to private persons ibid. The solemnizing of marriage they give to Parents but Divorces they commit to the parties themselves 26 They make every Congregation independent and of Soveraigne Authority ibid. Their judgement of Synods 27 Their high conceit of their own way and injurious depressing of all others ibid. Churches Bels Tythes Glebes Manses and all set maintenance of Ministers are unlawfull not so much as a Church yard must be kept up for buriall but all must bury in the fields ibid. The dayes of the week the months the yeare of God they will not name 28 No Pulpits no Sand-glasses in Churches no Gowns ibid. All set prayer even the Lords prayer and all Psalms in meeter yea in prose if used as praises are unlawfull 29 Their opinion of preaching and Sacraments ibid. Their strange way of celebrating the Lords Supper ibid. They reject Catechismes the Apostles Creed and all reading of Scripture without exposition 30 After preaching they prophecy ibid. Then come their Questions ibid. After all they attend a very tedious discipline ibid. Brown is for liberty of Conscience ibid. His followers are against it 31 Their carriage towards the Magistrate ibid. They spoyle Kings and Parliaments of their Legislative power ibid. They oblige the Magistrate to kill all Idolaters ibid. But to spare all theeves 32 They will have the Vniversities destroyed ibid. Secular Authors and Learning must be abolished ibid. Preachers must study no other books but the Bible ibid. Chap. 3. The originall and progresse of the Independents and of their carriage in New-England Independency is the smallest of all the Sects of the time for number but greatest for worth of its followers 53 Independents are the Separatists off-spring ibid. When the spark of Brownism was dying out in Holland a little of its ashes carried to New-England broke out there into a lasting flame 54 By what meanes these ashes were kindled ibid. Mr Cotton at first a great Opposite to that way 55 Mr Cotton with little adoe became the great Patron of that Errour ibid Mr Cotton was the mis-leader of Mr Goodwin and others 56 Mr Cotton often deceived hath given his patrociny to divers grosse errours ibid. Why God permits great men to fall in evident errours ibid. His Prelaticall Arminian and Montanistick tenets 57 His Antinomy and Familism ibid. Independency full as unhappy as Brownisme 58 Wherefore so much of the Independent way lies yet in darknesse 59 The fruits of Independency in New-England ibid. First it hath put thousands of Christians in the condition of Pagans ibid. Secondly it hath marred the conversion of Pagans to Christian Religion 60 Thirdly it did bring forth the foulest heresies that ever yet were heard of in any Protestant Church ibid. A few examples of the many abominable heresies of the New-English Independents 61 The greatest part of their Churches were infected with these errours ibid. The piety of these Hereticks seemed to be singular ibid. Their malice against all who opposed them was singular especially against all their orthodox Ministers and Magistrates 62 Their errours in opinion did draw on such seditious practises as did well neare overturne both their Church and State ibid. Their proud obstinacy against all admonitions was marvelous p. 63 In the midst of their profession of eminent Piety the profanenesse of many of them was great p. 64 Notwithstanding of all this we desire from our heart to honour and imitate all and every degree of truth and Piety which did ever appeare in any New-English Christian p. 65 Chap. 4. The carriage of the Independents in Holland at Rotâ—rdam and Arnheim p. 75. Independency was no fruitfull tree in Holland p. 75 Mr Peters the first planter thereof at Roterdam ibid. Their Ministers Mr. Bridge Mr Simpson and Mr Ward renounced their English Ordination and as meere private men tooke new Ordination from the people ibid. They did quickly fall into shamefull divisions and subdivisions p. 76 The people without any just cause deposed their Minister ibid. The Schismes at Roterdam were more irreconcileable then those at Amsterdam p. 77 Anabaptisme is like to spoile that Church p. 78 These of Arnheim admire and praise themselves above all measure ibid. The easinesse of their banishment and afflictions p. 79 The new Light at Arnheim brok out in a number of strange errors ib. First grosse Chiliasme ibid. Secondly the grossest blasphemy of the Libertines that God is the Author of the very sinfulnesse of sinne p. 80 Thirdly the fancy of the Euthusiasts in contemplating God as God abstracted from Scripture from Christ from grace and from all his attributes ibid. Fourthly the old Popish Ceremonies of extreme Unction and the holy Kisse of peace p. 81 Fifthly the discharging of the Psalmes and the apointing of a singing Prophet to chant the Songs made by himselfe in the silence of all others ibid. Sixthly the mortality of the soule ibid. Seventhly the conveniency for Ministers to preach covered and celebrate the Sacraments uncovered but for the people to heare uncovered and to participate the Sacraments covered p. 82. Their publick contentions were shamefull ibid. Cap. 5. The Carriage of the Independents at London p. 90 The worke of the prime Independents of New-England Arnheim and Roterdam these five yeares at London p. 90 They did hinder with all their power so long as they were able the calling of the Assembly ibid. When it was called they retarded its proceedings p. 91 That the Churches of England and Ireland lye so long in confusion neither Papists nor Prelates nor Malignants have been the cause ibid. But the Independents working according to their Principles p. 92 The great mischiefe of that Anarchy wherein they have kept the Churches of England and Ireland for so long a time ibid. Independency is the mother of more Heresies and Schismes at London then Amsterdam ever knew ibid. Independency at London doth not only bring forth but nourish and patronize Heresies and Schismes contrary to its custome either in New-England or Amsterdam p. 93 How hazardous it may prove to the State of England p. 94 Chap. 6. An Enumeration of the Common Tenets of the Independents p. 101 Why it is hard to set downe the Independents Positions p. 101 They have declined to declare their Tenets more then hath ever been the custome of any Orthodox Divines ibid. When they shall be pleased to declare themselves to the full their principle of change will hinder them to assure us that any thing is their setled and firme
if so it fall out that his insuperable obstinacy â—orce them to draw out the terrible Sword their proceeding here also is so exceeding leasurely and full of sensible grief and love to the party of fear and Religion towards God that it is a singular raâ—â—ty among them to see any heart so hard as not to be mollified and yeeld before that stroke be given Excommunications are so strange in all the Reformed Churches that in a whole Province a man in all his life will scarceâ—e witnesse to one and among them who are cut off by that dreadful Sword very few do fall in the States hand to be troubled with any civil inconvenience By this kinde of Government other Reformed Churches with ease have kept themselves pure and clean of all our Heresies and Schisms not onely Scotland Switzerland and divers parts of Germany but France it self which to this day was never blessed with any assistance from the secular Arm by this spiritual and divine adminicle alone have kept themselves safe from the irruption of all erroneous Spirits I confesse that Holland hath been a cage to these unclean birds but the reason is evident the civil State there walking in the corrupt principles of carnal Policy which cannot be blessed with final successe doth imped the exercise of Church-Discipline in its most principal parts these last fourty yeers that Land hath not been permitted to enjoy more General Assemblies then one and how great Service that one did towards the purging of the much corrupted Church and calming the greatly disturbed State all their Friends in Europe did see and congratulate while their foes did grieve and envy it It is not prophecy but a rational prediction bottomed upon reasons and multiplied experience Let England once be countenanced by her superior powers to enjoy the just and necessary Liberty of Consistories for Congregations of Presbyteries for Counties of Synods for larger Shires and National Assemblies for the whole Land as Scotland hath long possessed these by the unanimous consent of King and Parliament without the least prejudice to the civil State but to the evident and confessed benefit thereof or as the very Protestants in France by the concession of a Popish State and King have enjoyed all these four spiritual Courts the last fourscore yeers and above Put these holy and divine Instruments in the hand of the Church of England by the blessing of God thereupon the sore and great evil of so many Heresies and Schisms shall quicly be cured which now not onely troubles the Peace and welfare but hazards the very subsistance both of Church and Kingdom without this mean the State will toile it self in vain about the cure of such spiritual diseases CHAP. I. The Original and Progresse of the BROWNISTS THe greatest without comparison and most admirable work which the hand of God hath brought to passe upon earth in these later Ages is the Reformation of Religion from Antichristian pollution and tyranny No other could have been expected from the Prince of Darknesse but extreme opposition to this so high a prejudice to his Kingdom Incredible is the help which this unclean spirit hath made to Antichrist his chief servant for the upholding of his tottering Throne How many Princes and States hath he stirred up to persecute with Fire and Sword to the cruellest deaths the innocent Witnesses of the Truth How many learned Divines hath he bewitched with his Enchantments to spend their spirits and time in maintaining by Word and Writings the grossest abominations of that Romish Idol But the chief Artifice whereby this crafty Serpent hath most impeded the progresse of the Gospel and kept the Triple-Crown upon the Popes head is his powerful working in the midst of the Children of Light So cunningly hath he insinuated himself into the counsels and actions not onely of the Children of this World but of the Sons of Sion themselves that by their hands more then any other he hath laid in the way of Christs running Chariot scandals insuperable impediments irremovable by any humane might till the Lord from heaven put them out of the way The Light of the Gospel broke out so clear the heat of Zeal the truely heroick and more then humane wisdom and courage of the first Reformers were so irresistable that all the power of Papal Princes and all the learning of their Clergie were not sufficient obstacles unto the Torrent of their spirit all these humane Bulwarks were overflowed with the Flood of the Gifts of Gods Spirit in his Servants The whole Kingdoms of England and Scotland Denmark and Sweden Ireland and Navar were subdued to the Scepter of Christ much of France and Pole the most of Germany both above and below the most of Hungary and Switze were pulled out of the Popes mouth Italy and Spain were entred and fair beginnings of a gracious day did appear to both But behold in the midst of our Conquests and Triumphs while all our enemies without were upon the point of fainting and despair the Dragon and his angels got entresse in the heads of our friends and by their hands drew us back from the pursuing of our foes who were ready to have given over and submitted but remarking our unexpected halt and turning from them one upon another they got a time to breathe and to gather such strength that ever since they have been the pursuers and as long ago they have regained much of their losse so doubtlesse had it not been for the invincible strength of our Captain before this day they had totally ruined us To passe a number of stratagems whereby Satan hath diverted Protestants from carrying on their work against the Popish party I touch but upon two a double erroneous Principle whereby he hath infatuated many a thousand of men otherwise not irrational nor ungracious and brought divers whole Churches to such perplexities and confusions that they lie to this day entangled unable to disengage themselves of those snares and fetters that as all piety and reason do command they may joyn cordially their whole strength with their Brethren against the common enemy In our flight from Rome he got some perswaded to stand too soon before they had past the Territories of the Whore and the Line of her Communication Others he wrought to the contrary perswasion he made them run on too long not onely to the utmost Line of Errour but also far beyond all the bounds both of Charity and Truth Hence our greatest Woes all our Discords and mutual Wounds have sprung from these two Fountains This is the true original of our diversion from following the enemy to attend the worst of Wars our Civil and Domestike Combats By a very evil advice Luther and his followers stuck at the later parts of Reformation they could not down with the whole Body and in this their sensible infirmity they became utterly impatient of all contradiction That Calvin and his Brethren should
had gathered a separate Congregation and drawn up for the defence of his Way these Writings whence ever since the best Arguments for that Schism are drawn B they went over to enjoy their liberty to Middleburgh of Zeland But behold the wrath of God following them at the heels when there was no disturbance from without they fell to such jarring among themselves that soon they broke all to pieces the most turned Anabaptists Brown himself returned to England recanted his Brownism received a Parsonage at the hand of a Bishop The course of his life to his deep old age was so extremely scandalous that more then ordinary charity is needfull to perswade that ever he was led with a good spirit I have heard it from reverend Ministers that he was a common beater of his poor old wife and would not stick to defend publikely this his wicked practice also that he was an open profaner of the Sabbath and that his injustice in not paying the small pittance he was indebted to him whom lazinesse in his Calling made him to keep for the supply of the cure of his Parsonage did bring him to prison in the which for that very cause he continued till death When the wickednesse of this man is objected to Robinson his Scholar he is so far from denial that under his hand he testifieth it abundantly C The third Master of this Sect was Barrow the most bitter and clamorous Censurer of all the Reformed Churches of any that yet hath put Pen to Paper chuse whom you will of the most despiteful Jesuites let their Books which are most besprinkled with Gall be compared with Barrows Discovery this to my taste is nothing sweeter then the bitterest of them all And yet there is small reason why with so great arrogance he should have taken in his hand the Censors rod if all be true of him which his opposites object However before he could gather any formed Congregation his invectives against the Faith Baptism and Laws of England were so excessive that Queen Elizabeth impatient of his Contumelies by the evil advice of the cruel Prelates about her caused him in a morning to be hanged on the Tower-hill The fourth Leader of this Way was Master Johnson who affraid at Barrows execution got over with the Church he had gathered to Amsterdam and there for many yeers was Pastor to the first setled Congregation of Brownists we read of This man with Ainsworth his Doctor sent out to all the reformed Churches the Confession of their Faith in the yeer 1602. But long it was not till it appeared to the world that no better spirit did reign in that company then in the former Societies of this way For incontinent three shamefull Schisms one upon the neck of another broke out among them First many of them turned Anabaptists and were excommunicated Secondly Master Johnson fell to so great oddes first with his brother Master George for small matters and afterward with his father that he excommunicated them both and was cursed by both when he had rejected peremptorily the mediation of the Presbytery of Amsterdam for reconciliation Thirdly the remnant of the company a little after rent in two upon needlesle Questions Master Ainsworth the Doctor with his half did excommunicate Johnson and his half who were not long behinde for they also did quickly excommunicate Ainsworth and all his followers Hereupon the War betwixt these two handfuls of people became so sharp that Amsterdam could not keep them both for Johnson with his side of the house got away to Emden where after his death that little company as I suppose dissolved and vanished Ainsworths's company after his death remained long without all Officers very like to have dissolved yet at last after much strife they did chuse one Master Cann for their Pastor but could not agree til very lately upon any other Officer and even yet they live without an Eldership as they did before without a Pastor The most of these things are the confessions of the party D the rest are notorious and will not be denied The weight and evidence of Gods hand against Johnson and Ainsworth had so far disgraced that Sect that in the opinion of the most no man would ever more look after it Yet two other Divines of very good parts did set under their shoulders to support it for some longer time but so that in the end they did undermine and undo it though in a contrary way Master Smith a man as I have heard of right eminent parts falling to that side and writing against the use of the Lords Prayer was convinced in a publike meeting by Master Hildersham and others for the Unconformists alwayes had the one eye no lesse intent upon the Separatists then the other upon Episcopacy notwithstanding Master Smith for all his conviction and open profession upon his knees of his full satisfaction did relapse and by his perswasion moved a great company to follow him out of England to Ley in Holland There he persevered not long in concord with his Elder Brethren of the Separation but quickly accused them all of Idolatry in their worship for looking upon their Bibles in the time of Preaching and on their Psalters in the time of singing E and of Antichristianism in their Government because in their Presbytery they joyned to Pastors other two Officers Doctours and ruling Elders which to him were humane inventions Neither here did the spirit of errour permit him long to stand But as in the Preface of his Book of difference from the old Separatists he professeth a resolution of inconstancy F So accordingly he did practise falling from Brownism to Anabaptism And as ordinary Brownism when he was a Brownist did not please his taste without his own refinings so turning Anabaptist the common sorts of that way did not please him though of the Anabaptists there be more kindes then of any other Sect this day extant yet by none of them all would his conscience permit him to be Rebaptised but he needs must Rebaptise himself and so draw on the just infamy of a Sebaptist G For a recompence of this wantonnesse in erring behold how the just Lord permitted Satan to lead him yet one step further It is not onely a common report but I have heard it from the gravest and most approved Divines of the Kingdom That upon his death-bed he became a Preacher of his own perfect righteousnesse if not a professed Arrian An example full of horrour which God hath set forth if men will be so wise as to be disciplined in the persons of others to bridle the petulant wits of this age who make it if not their pastime yet their exercise and glory to impugn by their Sophisms the setled Tenents and practices of all Christians before them Master Smiths progresse and end ought to circumscribe their luxuriant spirits within the circle of some moderation lest all the glory of their new inventions be
crown'd with some shameful conclusion When the infamous practices of Master Smith are objected to his party they have no leaf of excuse wherwith to cover them H The other supporter of languishing Brownisme in its dying dayes was Master Robinson the most learned polished and modest spirit that ever that Sect enjoyed it had been truely a marvel if such a man had gone on to the end a rigid Separatist This man having gone over from England to Leyden with a separate Congregation did write for a time very handsome Apologies and justifications of that evil way but Doctor Ames and Master Parker compassionating the man and pitying that so excellent parts should be so ill employed laboured him so by Conferences and Letters that there was great appearance if his days had continued he might have proved a happie instrument for the extinguishing and total abolition of that Schism but God in his wisedom intending some farther use of that great evil was pleased to take him away in the beginning of his good Work He came back indeed the one half of the way he ruined the rigid Separation and was the Author of a Semi-separatism printing in his later times against his former Books the lawfulnesse of communicating with the Church of England in the Word and Prayer albeit not in the Sacraments and Discipline This was a fair Bridge at least a fair Arch of a Bridge for union but the man being removed by death before he could perfect what he had begun his new Doctrine though it was destructive to his old Sect yet it became an occasion of a new one not very good It was the womb and seed of that lamentable Independency which in Old and New-England hath been the fountain of many evils already though no more should ensue as anon shall be declared Onely here we observe that the last two best-gifted Leaders of the Brownists have been the reall Overthrowers of that Way for ever since the time of their conduct these of England whose humour carried them out of the bosome of their Mother-Church have turned either to Smiths Anabaptism or to Robinsons Semi-separating Independency These kindes are multiplied exceedingly but for the old Brownists their number either at London or Amsterdam is but very small and their way is become contemptible not onely to all the rest of the world but to their own children also even they begin to heap coles of contumelies upon their parents heads as may be seen in the Elogies which both Master Cotton I and the five Apologists are pleased to give them in Print K Yea so much are these children ashamed of their fathers that they usually take it for a contumely to be called after their name No Independent will take it well at any mans hand to be called a Brownist either in whole or in the smallest part The Testimonies A Robinsons Justification p. 50. It is true that Bolton was though not the first in this way an Elder of a separate Church in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths days and falling away from his holy profession recanted the same at Pauls Crosse and afterwards hanged himself as Judas did B Giffard against the Donatists about the beginning Whosoever shall read Brown his Books and peruse all his Scholars writings shall see that they have no sharp arrow but which is drawn out of his Quiver C Robinsons Justif p. 50. Now touching Brown it is true as he forsook the Lord so the Lord forsook him else he had never so returned back into Egypt as he did And for the wicked things which Master B. affirmeth he did in this way it may well be as he saith and the more wicked things he committed in this course the lesse like he was to continue long in it D Johnsons Enquiry p. 63. About Thirteen yeers since this Church through persecution in England was driven to come into these Countreys A while after divers of them fell into the Heresies of the Anabaptists and so persisting were excommunicated by the rest Then a while after many others yea too many though not the half fell into a Schism from the rest and so many as continued therein were cast out Also Robinsons Justification p. 51. True it is that George Johnson together with his father taking his part were excommunicated by the Church for contention arising at the first upon no great occasion whereupon many bitter and reproachfull terms were uttered both in word and writing It is to us a just cause of Humiliation all the days of our lives that we have given and do give by our differences such advantages E Smiths Differences p. 4. The reading out of a Book is no part of Spiritual Worship but the invention of the Man of Sin Books and Writings are in the nature of Pictures or Images and therefore in the nature of Ceremonies and so by consequent the reading of a Book is Ceremonial The holy Scriptures are not to be retained as helps before the eyes in the time of Spiritual Worship It is unlawful to have the Book before the eyes in singing of Psalms The Presbytery of the Church is uniform the treeformed Presbytery consisting of three kindes Pastors Teachers and Elders is not Gods Ordinance but Antichristian and the image of the Beast F Bernards plain Evidences p. 19. Smith in his Epistle before his Differences because he is found so unconstant to wipe away the shame thereof and to cut off offence for afterward he without shame professeth to be unconstant and desireth that ever his last writing should be taken as his present judgement G Ibid. He hath founded a new Church he hath if ye will believe him recovered the true Baptism and the true matter and form of a true Church which now onely is to be found pure among a company of Sebaptists Master Smith will hold ever this word Se to himself for going into Brownism he was a Separatist he held differing opinions from them and now that he is in Anabaptism he is a Sebaptist he wholly goeth not with that heretical Sect. H Robinsons Justif p. 53. Master Smith his instability and wantonnesse of wit is his sin and our crosse I Vide caput tertium O. K Ibidem CHAP. II. The Doctrine of the BROWNISTS THe peculiar Tenents of the Brownists wherein they differ from other Protestants are many Those that occur to my minde from some slight and cursory reading of some of their Books shall briefly and plainly be set down but with this premonition That every thing mentioned be not taken for an Article of Brownism for it is needful at some times to interlace Tenents which are common to them with others for the clearing of those which they have peculiar Their differences run most upon the Constitution and Government of the Church They have also divers Singularities about the Circumstances and Parts of the Service of God also concerning the Magistrate and Schools and divers other things Without affectation or curious search of Method we
shall propound matters as they come to hand Concerning the Constitution of the Church consider their judgement first what they think of others then what of themselves All other Churches they condemn so far as to professe and practise a Separation from them The edge of their Arguments is usually directed against the Church of England alone but when their Doctrine or Practise is looked upon a little more neer it appears they shoot their Bolts at all other Churches in the world which refuse their Way For the Church of England they say it ought not to be called a Church or at best that it is a false and Antichristian Church out of the which every one though not persecuted must flee as they would avoid damnation A Sometimes in their calm mood they will give better words and acknowledge it to be a true Church That the Doctrine and Sacraments thereof are true That many thousands of its members are gracious and elect people B But their ordinary language is of another strain to wit That the Church of England is a meer Harlot divorced from Christ C That the Worship thereof is grosse Idolatry and the Service of the devil D That all the members thereof are unclean beasts and the limbs of Antichrist E That her best Preachers that preach most for Reformation are but Pharisees and Deceivers F That the Faith Grace and Comfort which by their Ministery they seem to bring to the hearts of the hearers is but meer delusion G That their Sacraments are Seals not of Grace but of the wrath of God H That all Communion with her even in the Word and Prayer is to be forsaken I The Unconformists did always zealously plead against the Corruptions of that Church but never against the truth of her being or the comfort of her Communion When by the force of persecution they were driven out then they did flee Of their own accord they did never separate but were ever most glad to live and die in her bosome willing to partake of her Worship and Sacraments whenever they were permitted to dissent in Doctrine and to abstain in practice from those things which they conceived to be corruptions K Concerning other Reformed Churches though free both of Liturgies and Bishops and many other of the English stumbling-blocks notwithstanding all their Reformation yet they pronounce their Worship to be idolatrous L their Government tyrannous and Antichristian M yea their very Constitution both in matter and form to be so vitious N that with a good conscience they cannot communicate with any of them O that the reformed Presbyteries and Synods are no better then the English Episcopacy P yea to Episcopacy they are so favourable that they professe their willingnesse to acknowledge all their Civil Power and much of their Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Q 1. that the Presbyterian Divines have ever been as evil as Episcopal Q 2. that the vitious constitution and government of the most reformed Churches in Europe hath flowed from the ignorance and obstinacy of unhappie Calvin R 1. We must not be deceived with their pleasant words when they make fair professions of their hearty agreement in so many things with the other Reformed Churches and of their willingnesse to communicate with them both in Word and Sacraments R 2. These flatteries are contradictory both to their Doctrine and Practice for when they had left England they were so far from joyning with any of the Reformed that they ever erected new Churches after their own way and made it an open and avowed cause of Excommunication for any of their Members to communicate with the Churches of Holland among whom they did live R 3 also the crimes of the Church of Holland which they cry out upon are such which none of the Reformed Divines do condemn S On the other side the Nonconformists whom the Episcopal persecution did banish out of England were ever well content without erecting of a new Church to joyn themselves as Members to any of the forrain Churches Scottish Dutch or French according as they understood their Language or had occasion of abode among them Thus they do judge of others As for the form of that Tabernacle which they professe to build for themselves thus we may conceive it The matter or members of that Church they avow to be Saints but the Members of other Churches they pronounce them for the most part to be wicked and flagitious T The Nonconformists with all the reformed are willing to admit of no others to the Lords Table but these who are Saints by calling in whom they require three qualifications First That they have a good measure of knowledge and professe to beleeve the truth Secondly That in their life and conversation they be without scandal Thirdly That they be submissive to the Discipline of the Church But the Brownists presse a fourth qualification Were a mans profession never so fair and his knowledge never so great In all parts of Doctrine let him be most Orthodox and in his Conversation most harmlesse and inoffensive were he never so willing to joyn in all the Ordinances of God and to be governed according to the strictest Discipline of Christ notwithstanding all this they count him not qualified to be a Church Member except he declare publikely in the face of the Congregation such clear and certain signes of his real Sanctification and true Regeneration as gives full satisfaction not onely to the Minister and Elders and many of the people but to all and every one or at least the major part of the Church V If any prophane person should be admitted he should quickly so far pollute the whole Church that every Member thereof must needs become partaker of his sins X And if upon admonition they did not excommunicate him they themselves ought to be separated from as an infected and leprous Society Y They tell us yet more that not onely the profanenesse of one person doth pollute the whole Church but any one sin or errour of any one Member though godly and regenerate if after admonition he continue therein and be not excommunicate doth so defile the whole that it must be separated from Z To distinguish here betwixt sins greater and lesser to make some errours Fundamental and some preter-Fundamental it is to them a following of the Papists in their absurd distinction of mortal and venial sins the least Errour joyned with obstinacie to them is an Heresie and a just cause of Separation AA They acknowledge it is the fancy of the Anabaptists to separate for every fault and errour but that which alone displeaseth them in this fancy is a fault whereof the Anabaptists seem not to be guilty the not advertising of the Church of the fault and errour of the Member they complain of before they separate If this neglect be helped the rest of the fancy they seem to approve BB Thus much for the matter of their Church the
form of it not Accidental but Essential and Constitutive they place in an explicite Covenant CC wherein all and every one of the Members by a voluntary Association without the Authority of either Magistrate or Minister do binde themselves under a solemn Oath to walk in the wayes of the Gospel DD. When two or three or some very few for they require no more then seven to a full and perfect Congregation EE and they professe it unlawful to admit any more then can commodiously at one time in one place partake of all the Ordinances FF If when these few I say have departed not onely from the English and the rest of the Reformed but also from every Church of their own way wherein they finde the least errour or sin of any of the Members whereof they have complained not to be amended either by the Repentance or the Excommunication of the party GG The Association of these men thus separate into a Covenant is the essential form of their Church But the association must be so voluntary and free as not to wait for the countenance of any Authority either Ecclesiastick or Civil to supplicate the Magistrate for his favour in the gathering of a new Church is to them a sin HH and to erect a Church by the help of any Minister to them is a contradiction For the Church newly erected makes the Minister but no Minister can gather or erect a Church II If a person who elsewhere hath been a Minister become the Author or Instrument of erecting a Church he is not then a Minister but a meer private man till the Church so erected by a new call and ordination by themselves doth make him again a Minister Unto their Church so constituted in matter and form were their number never so small before it attain to any Officer either Pastor or Doctor or Elder they ascribe great power and fair priviledges not onely the power of Doctrine but of Ordination and all Jurisdiction even a full right to all the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and every priviledge of any visible Church how perfect so ever KK This their new Church they will have to elect the Pastor and all other Officers if a Pastor should come to them by the presentation of a Patron or nomination of a Presbytery however they did not oppose yea did consent to his admission yet if they were not the Electors and first Nominators the man should be an intruder and a Woolf whom they might not lawfully hear LL The Pastor being chosen and that out of their own number usually some Artificer or Tradesman for they do not require Letters in their Pastors and so far in their Elections they tie themselves to their own Members that if any other were found meet and willing to be an Officer among them he must first enter into their Covenant and become a Member before he were capable of any Office MM When I say they have elected him a Pastor the same and no other then who did elect do give him Ordination for the right and exercise of Ordination NN they ascribe to the people that is according to Ainsworth and others if we beleeve Johnson every Member of the flock even Women and Children OO But according to Johnsons minde onely the men of the flock excluding Women and Children yet including the meanest and most ignorant of all the men who are Communicants To these they ascribe the power of Ordination who in the exercise of it appoint some of their number whom they think fittest to ordain the Pastor that is to examine him in all the needful qualifications of his life and doctrine to exhort him to all the parts of his duty publikely to pray for him and at last to lay hands upon his head PP The Pastor so elected and ordained becomes a servant not onely of Christ but of that flock from whom he hath as they speak originally QQ all his power to Preach or celebrate the Sacraments or to do any other part of his Office wherein if he fail any one of the people hath power to admonish and reprove him publikely RR and the greater part of the people in any Congregation agreeing suppose they were four when the whole makes seven have full power to depose and Excommunicate him SS much more have they power to cognosce and definitively to determine upon the nature of Heresie Superstition Errour or of any crime which procures these censures When the major part of the people have cast out the Minister and all the Officers and so many of the flock as adhere to them no part of their power by this ejection is lost still they keep their full right to all the Ordinances of Christ any of them who is thought able may prophecy that is publikely expound the Word and apply it for instruction reproof comfort and all other uses TT Any of them may pray in the Congregation any may Ordain any may Excommunicate they give expressely a full power to every one of admonition and rebuâ—e yea of censuring so far the whole that if they refuse to follow the just admonition of any one he ought to denounce the judgements of God publikely against them all and separate from them as from an obstinate and cursed society VV The onely question remains about the Sacraments all of them agree that the smallest and weakest Congregation may choose and ordain one of their own number when ever they will to be Pastor and so to celebrate the Sacraments to the rest XX â—ut the most of them say that unlesse they have appointed a Pastor for that end none of the rest can lawfully celebrate a Sacrament YY Yet others of them make a Quaere hereof ZZ for say they since the Church without Officers hath the free exercise of all other power in Preaching Prayer and Censures why may not the like be said of the Sacraments These men after their scrupling for some time as their custome is come up at last to conclude and practise celebrating Sacraments without any Pastorall charge of Baptism it is certain for Master Smith professing himself a meer private man having renounced his former Ministry and Baptism also took upon him to baptise himself and who lawfully may celebrate the one Sacrament may as lawfully celebrate the other When all the power is ascribed by them to their Church yet peremptorily they deny to it the power to solemnize marriage AAA for marriage to them is not onely a contract meerly civil but such a one as concerns the Church nothing at all so they remit it wholly to the Magistrate or else to the Parents BBB to be solemnized in private Families and as their marriage is private so likewise must their Divorces without the cognizance either of Magistrate or Minister CCC They were wont to teach that adultery did so far annul marriage that it was a sin and the cause of excommunication for the innocent party to
whether natural moral or spiritual which are done in faith But herein Master Smith is wiser then his fellows telling us That all Songs in the Church out of a Book whether in Verse or Prose are Idolatry MMMM yet he admits of singing such Psalms as the Spirit dictates to any person immediately without Book NNNN It seems the Brownists at Amsterdam have recanted their error in this point for all of them sing now in strange tunes the Psalms in meeter of Ainsworths exceeding harsh Paraphrase Preaching of the Word to them is no Pastoral act but is common not onely to all the Officers but to every gifted Brother of the Flock OOOO The word Sacrament to them is traditional corrupt and not to be used PPPP The Baptism of the English Church they make to be vain and nul the seal of no grace but onely of wrath and condemnation QQQQ yet they will not have it repeated They teach that the Lords Supper should be celebrated every Lords day RRRR So preparation-Sermons before and Sermons for Thanksgiving after the Lords Table to them are needlesse They will have all to sit at the Lords Table with their Hats on uncovering of the head in the act of receiving to them is Idolatry SSSS In this the present practice at Amsterdam contradicts their Doctrine for however they sit covered in time of all the reading and discourse yet when it comes to the participation of the elements every man during the time of his eating and drinking sits uncovered They count it lawful to joyn with the Lords Table Love-feasts TTTT They reject all Catechisms being set and so unlawful forms of instruction VVVV After a member is once received amongst them they enquire no more for his knowledge having once gotten satisfaction at his admission to Membership of his sufficient knowledge The Apostles Creed they detest as an old Patchery of evil stuff XXXX Christs descent into hell they count a blasphemous Article YYYY They reject all publike reading of the Word which is not backed with present Exposition ZZZZ They do not any way scruple the Office of Readers and Expounders for they give full liberty of publike and ordinary Preaching to any gifted man of the Flock though he have no Office When the exercise of Reading Expounding Singing of Psalms Praying and Preaching by the Pastor is ended they will have one two three or four to prophesie in order AAAAA and all to have a free liberty of continuing so long as they think meet After all this is done they have yet another exercise wherein by way of conference questioning and dispuâ—ation every one of the Congregation may propound publikely and presse their Scruples Doubts and Objections against any thing which that day they have heard BBBBB And as if all these Exercises were not enough to tire out a spirit of Iron the most of them being repeated again in the afternoon for a conclusion of all they bring in the laborious and long work of their Discipline for which the whole Flock must stay till they have heard debated and discerned every cause that concerns either the Officers or any of the people whether in Doctrine or Manners CCCCC Concerning the Magistrate Master Brown teacheth that he hath no right to meddle at all with any matter of Religion but to permit the liberty and free choice of Religion to the conscience of every one of his Subjects DDDDD The most of Browns followers do leave in this their Master making it a great part of the Christian Magistrates Office to suppresse within their own Bounds Idolatry and False doctrine EEEEE To compel all their Subjects if they will not be perswaded to hear the Word preached albeit no way to enter themselves members of any Church or to hinder any to enter in any Church they will or to erect new Churches of their own framing FFFFF Further if the Magistrate be a member of any Church they will have him were he the King himself to be so far subject to their Church-Censures that a little small Congregation shall have power upon his obstinacy in any sin or errour to excommunicate him and that without all delay without any respect to his Crown more then if he were the poorest servant of the whole Flock GGGGG and which is worst of all the Prince his Excommunication by the hands of so small weak a company must be without all possible relief for he hath no liberty of appeal to any upon earth HHHHH an oecumenike Councel may not assay to loose the knot of that Censure which the hand of the Congregation hath tied But their great Tenent about the Magistracie is this That no Prince nor State on the earth hath any Legislative power That neither King nor Parliament can make any Law in any thing that concerns either Church or State That God alone is the Law-giver That the greatest Magistrate hath no other power but to execute the Laws of God set down in Scripture IIIII That the Judicial Law of Moses bindes at this day all the Nations of the world as well as ever it did the Jews KKKKK They tell us that whatever God in Scripture hath left free it may not be bound by any humane Law whether Civil or Ecclesiastike and what God hath bound by any Law in Scripture they will not have it loosed by the hand of any man They lay it upon the Magistrate to punish by death without any dispensation every Adulterer every Blasphemer every Sabbath-breaker and above all every Idolater LLLLL. And here is the great danger that by Idolaters they will have understood not onely Pagans and Papists but the far greatest part of all Protestants all absolutely who are not of their way for the using of a set Prayer were it the Lords own Prayer to them is clear Idolatry MMMMM 1. For all this they will not permit any Magistrate to hang any thâ—ef at all MMMMM 2. Against the learning of the Times they make large Invectives the Universities and all the Colledges in them they will have razed to the ground they professe them to be worse then the Monasteries that justly were abolished NNNNN whatever Arts and Sciences are taught in the Christian Schools they count them idle and vain Grammar Rhetorick Logick Philosophy are all unlawful Arts OOOOO The Heathen Writers which are used in any Faculty such as Aristotle Plato Cicero and the like they would have them all burnt as the Authors of unlawful Arts. They reject all School-Degrees such as Batchelors Masters of Art Doctors of any faculty PPPPP They wil have no Students of Divinity QQQQQ They tell us that youths mis-spend their time and exceedingly abuse themselves by studying of those things which usually are recommended unto them as preparations for the Ministery whether Common places Commentaries upon Scripture or Protestant writers of Controversies all such Books they will have laid aside RRRRR yea it is their
but if the whole Word of God be holy pure and true then is this deep learning of theirs devillish and blasphemous Ibid. They thus to colour their wickednesse make some part of Gods Word Fundamental Substantial necessary other Accidental Superficial needlesse which makes some sins openly and manifestly convinced yet obstinately persisted in without any repentance in this life not to be mortal as the Papists do Barrows refut p. 24. We have learned to put difference betwixt Errour and Heresie Obstinacy joyned to Errour after it is duely convinced maketh Heresie And further we say that any Errour being obstinately holden and taught after it is duely convinced and reproved maketh an Heretike and Heresie in that party and in that Congregation that so holdeth and teacheth doth separate from the Faith and Communion of Christ Ibid. p. 27. It is his Scholastical or rather Sophistical distinction of Errours Fundamental c. They who obstinately hold any Errour or Transgression and will not by repentance be purged there from lose Christ and so hold not the Foundation BB Bar. dis p. 33. Such like detestable stuff hath Master Calvin in his ignorance partly to confute that damnable sect of Anabaptists which fantastically dream to themselves of a Church in this life without spot and for every Transgression that ariseth are ready to forsake the fellowship of the Church without due and orderly reproof CC Rob. Apol. p. 81. Formalis ecclesiae constitutio est ex fidei resipiscentiae confessione orali per adultos facta consociatio in particulares coetus DD Confession of faith p. 34. Being come forth of this Antichristian estate to the true profession of Christ beside the instructing of their own Families they are willingly to come together in Christian communion and orderly to Covenant and unite themselves in visible Congregations A light for the ignorant p. 12. This voluntary uniting is the form and being of the politick and visible Vnion and Communion EE Robins Just p. 107. This we hold and affirm that a company consisting though but of two or three gathered by a covenant made to walk in all the ways of God known unto them is a Church and so hath the whole power of Christ Ibid. p. 111. Two or three thus gathered together have the same right with two or three thousand neither the smallnesse of the number nor meanesse of the persons can prejudice their rights FF Johns plea. p. 250. The constitution of every particular Church should be such that each of them may ordinarily come together in one place for the worship of God and all other duties belonging to them by the Word of God Rob. Apol. p. 12. Statuâ—mus non debere ecclesias particulares ambitu suo plura membra complecti quam quae in unum locum simul coire possunt GG Vide supra X Y. HH Bar. dis p. 190. They suite to bring Christ in by the Arm of Flesh by suiting and supplicating to his vassals and servants If so be they can imagine them Christians that will not suffer Christ to reign over them by his Laws and Ordinances If they judge them no Christians then they suite and stay on his enemies till they will suffer Christ to reign and rule over his own Church II Confession p. 34. Beside the instruction of their Families they are willingly to come together and unite themselves in visible Congregations Then such to whom God hath given gifts to interpret the Scriptures may and ought by the appointment of the Congregation to prophecy and so to teach publikely the Word of God untill such time as God manifest men with able gifts to such Offices as Christ hath appointed for the publike Ministery of the Church but no Sacrament to be administred untill the Pastors or Teachers be chosen and ordained to their Office KK Barr. dis pag. 34. Which people thus gathered are to be esteemed an holy Church and hath power to receive into and cast out of their fellowship although they have attained to have yet among them neither a Ministery nor Sacraments providing it be not by any default in them that they be wanting Ibid. It is manifest that all the Members of the Church have alike interest in Christ in his Word in the Faith That all the affairs of the Church belong to the Body together That all the actions of the Church Prayers Sacraments Censures Faith be the action of them all joyntly and of every one severally although the Body to divers actions uses divers Members which it knows most fit for the same all the charged to watch admonish reprove and hereunto have the power of the Lord the Keyes of the Kingdom even the Word of the most High whereby to binde the Rulers in chains and their Nobles in fetters to admonish the greatest even Archippus to look to his Ministery and if need be to plead with their Mother LL Canns Necessity of Sep p. 29. None may hear or joyn in spiritual Communion with that Ministery which hath not a true Vocation and Calling by Election Approbation and Ordination of that faithful People whereto he is a Minister Ibid. p. 46. So necessary is a right election and calling to every Ecclesiastike Office that without the same it cannot possibly be true or lawful Barr. Refut p. 30. The Minister must not onely be called to a true Office but must have a lawful calling to that Office otherwise he is but an intruder a theef and a murderer Every particular Congregation ought to make choice of their own Pastors MM A Light for p. 17. In the false Church the particular Congregations have no Authority to produce or raise Officers out of themselves for the Clergy is a distinct Body and sent by their Ecclesiastical Heads and bring their Office and Authority with them NN Bar. Refut p. 19. This power of Ordination is not as the unruly Clergy of these dayes suppose derived from the Apostles and Evangelists under the permanent ministery of Pastors and Elders Ibid. p. 130. Ordination is but a publishing of that former contract and agreement betwixt the whole Church and these elected Officers the Church giving and the Elect receiving their Offices as by the Commandment of God with mutual vow to each other in all duties Canns Necessity of Separ p. 29. None may joyn with that Ministery which hath not a true calling by Election and Ordination of that faithful people to whom he is to administer OO Johns Plea p. 316. It is to be understood according to Ainsworth Robinson and Smith of men women and children in their own persons who are boâ—â—d in their own persons to be present to hear and judge controversies PP Rob. Justifi p. 9. also p. 111. QQ Light for the ignorant p. 17. These Officers have not onely their Authority from particular Congregations but do arise originally and naturally out of the same RR Vide supra KK Also Bar. Dis p. 125. The least of the Church hath as much power by the
that new way began first to be dangerous to the rest of the world For Master Cotton a man of very excellent parts contrary much to his former judgement having faln into a liking of it and by his great with and learning having refined it without the impediment of any opposition became the great instrument of drawing to it not onely the thousands of those who left England but also by his Letters to his friends who abode in their Countrey made it become lovely to many who never before had appeared in the least degree of affection toward it Before his departure from England by conferences in London he had brought off Master Davenport and Master Goodwin from some of the English Ceremonies E but neither of these two nor himself at that time did minde the least degree of Separation F yet so soon as he did taste of the New-English air he fell into so passionate an affection with the Religion he found there that incontinent he began to perswade it with a great deal more zeal and successe then before he had opposed it G His convert Master Goodwin a most fine and dainty Spirit with very little ado was brought by his Letters from New-England to follow him unto this step also of his progresse and that with so high an estimation of his new Light that he was bold to boast of it in termes a little beyond the lines of moderation H It had been happy for England that Master Cotton had taken longer time for deliberation before that change of his minde He might have remembred his too precipitant rashnesse in former times both to receive and to send abroad to the world such Tenents whereof after he had cause to repent God in wisedom permits his dearest children to set black marks on their own faces not onely to keep themselves in humility and suspition of their own hearts but to divert others from idolizing their gifts and setting up their persons as a patern for their too sudden imitation I would not willingly detract from any mans reputation I am oft ready enough both to hear with contentment and liberally to speak to the praises of men much inferiour in my thoughts to Master Cotton Yet when his gifts are turned into snares when they become occasions of stumbling and contrary to the minde of the giver are made inducements to follow him in his wanderings I am of opinion that neither Piety nor Charity will hinder to remark his evident and known failings That as his eminent endowments are strong invitations to run after him so the mixture of cleer weaknesse may be a retractive to every prudent man and a caveat from God to beware of his wayes as well as of any other mans I take it for a great mercy of God to simple ones that the most if not all who have offred themselves to be Ringleaders in any Heresie or Schism or other by-way have ever bin permitted to fall into some evident folly to the end that they whose simplicity made them too prone to be misled by the strength of pregnant wits and the luster of excellent gifts which in the most of Sectaries to this day have ever been apparent might be held in the love of the truth and made cautious of being led aside by them in whose footsteps a very blunt eye might perceive the print of an evil spirit Not to speak of Master Cottons long continuance in the Errours of his education sundry whereof stuck to him as he confesseth all the time of his abode in England I Nor of his more dangerous fall into the gulf of Pelagianism some of the Arminian Errours from which the writings of Dr. Twisse are said to have reclaimed him K However the Doctor doth say that he hath no assurance of his recantation to this day and therefore was willing that his Treatise against Master Cottons erroneous writings should be published to the world To passe by also that which I have heard of some gracious Ministers of his old Montanism wherein some think he remaineth to this day That which I point at is another more dangerous fall which as already it hath much humbled his spirit and opened his ear to instruction and I trust it will not leave working till it have brought him yet neerer to his Brethren So to the worlds end it cannot but be a matter of fear and trembling to all who shall know it and of aboundant caution to be very wary of receiving any singularity from his hand without due tryal That which I speak of is his wandring into the horrible Errours of the Antinomians and Familists with his dear friend Mistresse Hutchinson so far that he came to a resolution to side with her and separate from all the Churches in New-England as legal Synagogues The truth of this horrible fall if ye will not take it from the parties themselves the followers of Mistresse Hutchinson who ofttimes were wont to brag of Master Cotton for their Master and Patron L nor from the Testimony of Master Williams M who had as much occasion to know it as any man else and if I mistake not the humor of the man is very unwilling to report a lie of his greatest enemy Yet we may not reject the witnesse of Master Winthrop the wisest of all the New-English Governours hitherto and of Master Wells a gracious Minister of that Land in their Printed Relations of the Schisms there both those albeit with all care and study they endeavour to save Master Cottons credit yet let the truth of Master Cottons seduction fall from their Pens in so clear termes as cannot be avoided for however what they speak of the erring of the most eminent in place might be applyed to the Governour for the time N 1. Yet when they tell us that the most of the Seducers lived in the Church of Boston and that the whole Church of Boston except a few were infected with that Leprosie and that none of them were ever-called to an account by the Presbytery of that Church till after the Assembly though the Pastor of that Church Master Wilson was alwayes exceedingly zealous against them also that in face of the General Court Mistresse Hutchinson did avow Master Cotton alone and Master Wheelwright to Preach the truth according to her minde and that Master Cotton himself before that same Court did openly dissent even after the Assembly from all his Brethren about Wheelwrights Doctrine These and other the like informations are so clear that no art will get Master Cotton freed N 2. I have been also informed by a gracious Preacher who was present at the Synod of New-England that all the Brethren there being exceedingly scandalized with Master Cottons carriage in Mistresse Hutchinsons processe did so far discountenance and so severely admonish him that he was thereby brought to the greatest shame confusion and grief of minde that ever in all his life he had indured But leaving the person of Master
Cotton if not the Author yet the greatest promoter and patron of Independency we will go on with the way it self What Master Cotton and the Apologists his followers have testified of Gods displeasure and judgements upon the way of the Brownists O is as evidently true of the way of the Independents not onely because as it will appear hereafter both wayes really are one and the same But also because in the comparison of the events which have befaln to both wayes it will be seen that the miscarriages and because of them the marks of Gods anger have been more manifest upon this latter way then upon the former Independency brought to the utmost pitch of perfection which the wit and industry of its best patrons were able to attain having the advantage of the Brownists fatal miscarriages to be exemplary documents of wisedom being also assisted and fenced with all the security that Civil Laws of its friends own framing and gracious Magistrates at their absolute devotion could afford notwithstanding in a very few lesse then one week of yeers hath flown out in more shameful absurdities then the Brownists to this day in all the fifty yeers of their trial have stumbled upon The verity of this broad assertion shall be palpable to any who will be at the pains a little to consider their proceedings in any of the places wherever yet they had any setled abode for however much of their way be yet in the dark and in this also their advantage above the Brownists is great that in their Discords none of themselves have proclaimed their own shame none that have fallen from them have of purpose put pen to paper to inform the world of their ways neither have any of them been willing to reply to any of the Books written against them that did put a necessity upon them to speak out the truth of many heavie imputations which with a loud voice by many a tongue are laid on them chusing rather to lie under the hazard of all the reproach which their unfriendly reports could bring upon them then to make an Apologie wherein their denial might bring upon them the infamy of lying or their grant the fastening by their own testimony upon the back of their party the Crimes alleadged against them Notwithstanding so much is broken out from under all their coverings as will make good what hath been said Hitherto they have had but three places of abode New-England Holland London That any where else they have erected Congregations I do not know Of their adventures in these three places we will speak a little In New-England when Master Cotton had gotten the assistance of Master Hooker Master Davenport and sundry other very worthy Ministers beside many thousands of people whom God in his mercy did send over to that new world to be freed from suffering and danger in the day of their Countreys most grievous calamities being there alone without the disturbance of any enemy either within or without What were the fruits of their Church-way First it forced them to hold out of all Churches and Christian Congregations many thousands of people who in former times had been reputed in Old-England very good Christians I have heard sundry esteem the number of the English in that Plantation to exceed Fourty thousand men and women when Master Cotton is put to it he dares hardly avow the one half of these to be members of any Church P But if we do beleeve others who were eye-witnesses also they do avow That of all who are there Three parts of Four will not be in any Church Q 1. To us it seemeth a grievous absurdity a great dishonour to God and cruelty against men to spoil so many thousand Christians whom they dare not deny to be truely religious of all the priviledges of the Church of all the benefits of Discipline of all the comfort of any Sacrament either to themselves or to their children to put them in the condition of Pagans such as some of them professe all Protestants to be who are not of their way Q 2. A second evil of their Way is That it hath exceedingly hindred the conversion of the poor Pagans God in great mercy having opened a door in these last times to a new world of reasonable creatures for that end above all that the Gospel might be preached to them for the enlargement of the Kingdom of Christ The principles and practice of Independents doth crosse this blessed hope What have they to do with those that are without Their Pastors preach not for conversion their relation is to their Flock who are Church-members converted already to their hand by the labours of other men before they can be admitted into their Church Of all that ever crossed the American Seas they are noted as most neglectful of the work of Conversion I have read of none of them that seem to have minded this matter Q 3. onely Master Williams in the time of his banishment from among them did assay what could be done with those desolate souls and by a little experience quickly did finde a wonderful great facility to gain thousands of them to so much and more Christianity both in profession and practice then in the most of our people doth appear R But the unhappinesse of these principles whereof we speak did keep him as he professeth from making use of that great opportunity and large door which the Lord there hath opened to all who will be zealous for propagating of the Gospel S Thirdly the fruits of Independency may be seen in the profession and practices of the most who have been admitted as very fit if not the fittest members of their Churches These have much exceeded any of the Brownists that yet we have heard of first in the vilenesse of their Errours secondly in the multitude of the erring persons thirdly in the hypocrisie joyned with their errours fourthly in malice against their neighbours and contempt of their Superiours Magistrates and Ministers for their opposition to them in their evil ways and lastly in their singular obstinacie stiffly sticking unto their errours in defiance of all that any upon earth could do for their reclaiming or that God from heaven almost miraculously had declared against them All this I will make good by the unquestionable Testimonies of their loving friends For the vilenesse of their Errours They did avow openly the personal inhabitation of the Spirit in all the godly his immediate revelations without the Word and these as infallible as Scripture it self T This is the vilest Montanism They avowed further with the grossest Antinomians That no sin must trouble any childe of God That all trouble of conscience for any sin demonstrates a man subject to the Covenant of Works but a stranger to the Covenant of Grace V That no Christian is bound to look upon the Law as a rule of his conversation X That no Christian should be prest to any
a do these two divided Churches are brought together it may be much doubted if their Union shall long continue Certainly it seems not to be so cordial as that of the two lately divided and now reunited Churches aâ— Amsterdam For among these of Roterdam not onely the grounds of the old division do evidently remain but also the Seeds of a new breach do appear above the ground The liberty of Prophecying which Master Simpsons now Master Simons Congregation did require is not obtained in the way they desired it for they are not permitted to Prophecy in the Congregation nor upon the Sabbath day nor in the place of publike meeting Onely in a private place on a week day where some of the Church who please do meet they have liberty to exercise their gifts On the other part what Master Bridges now Mr. Parks Church did require I mean a Presbytery for Government in the Congregation cannot be obtained For however they professe the lawfulnesse and conveniency of Ruling Elders and of a Consistory for Discipline yet it hath so faln out that for many yeers they have had none neither are like in haste to have unlesse the grumbling of Master Parks and his friends threatning a new breach do force them at last to the use of that Ordinance But that which threatneth not a Schisme alone but a total dissolution of that Congregation is the Pest of Anabaptism which begins of late much to infect them P It is true the Pastors do their best to reclaim all their members from that Errour and when they finde themselves not able to prevail give good words and assurances of a full and Brotherly Toleration for as they scruple not to give the hand of Fellowship to the Brownists of Amsterdam Q so will they not cast out any from their Church for denying of Pedobaptism if the dissenting and erring party be pleased to remain peaceably amongst them But here is the pitty when the Independents have declared their greatest readinesse to tolerate and entertain in their Churches both the rigid Separatists and the Anabaptists R yet the most of those are unwilling to stay but are peremptory to separate from the Independent Churches as more corrupt then that they with a good conscience can abide in them though never so much tolerated and cherished As for their Church at Arnhem howsoever their small intercourse with others during their abode in that remote corner and their taciturnity of their own affairs makes their proceedings to lie under a Cover yet so much of their wayes is come to light upon divers occasions as will not be very inductive and alluring of indifferent spirits to tred in their footsteps First We finde them greater admirers of themselves and proclaimers of their own excellency then is the custome of modest and wise though the best and greatest men They think it not enough to anoint their Masters and Friends of New-England with excessive praises as men who have not been matched by any of the Saints since the dayes of Abraham S but they are also bold to sound out to themselves in Print in the ears of both Houses of Parliament a commendation much above the possible merit of any so small a number of men in the whole world The Synod of Roterdam they equal to the most solemn National Assemblies of either or both Kingdoms T This exceeding great worth upon whose head must it fall but either alone or far most principally upon the Members of the Church of Arnhem For that Synod did consist of no other but the two Doctors of that Church and the two Elders thereof together with Master Bridge and the Members of his Church These last were present in that Synod as persons challenged and guilty of a grievous scandal so to them in that action but a small praise can be due Wherefore the supereminent Excellency of that meeting must fall upon the Commissioners of Arnhem the onely persons which in that meeting were void of offence and free from challenges To themselves therefore it is alone or at least above all others that they ascribe the superlative praises of that Synod In that same place they stick not to take to themselves the honour of so great sincerity as any flesh in the world not onely hath at this present but possibly can attain in any following Age V We wonder the lesse to hear them canonize their Colleague Master Archer after his death among the most precious persons who ever trod upon the earth X This self-overvaluing seems to be the ground why they cry out of their very moderate afflictions as of great calamities they ingeminate to the Parliament over and over their persecution their poverty their miserable exile Y when they who understand the case give assurance that not one of Ten of the most prosperous Ministers of the whole world in the time of their greatest Sunshine do live in more wealth ease honour and all worldly accommodations then these poor miserable exiles did enjoy all the time of that which they call their banishment Z My next observation upon that Church is that an humour of innovating at least if not a spirit of errour did much predomine among them To passe by that wantonnesse of wit which in their Books and Discourses doth much appear whereby they attribute without fear to a number of Scriptures such new and strange senses as before them were never heard of We finde them pleasing themselves in divers Doctrines which no Reformed Church doth assert for truth yea their own Brethren both of New-England and of Roterdam and of Amsterdam do reject as Errours They are not content with some few little touches of Chiliasm which yet Master Cotton tells us are but fleshly imaginations AA But they run themselves over head and ears in the deepest gulph of that old Heresie The glimpse of Sions glory Preached at a Fast in Holland by T. G. which common report without any contradiction that I have heard declares to be Thomas Goodwin averrs That Independency is a beginning or at least a neer antecedent of Christs Kingdom upon Earth BB That within five yeers Christ is to come in the flesh CC and by a Sword of Iron to kill with his own hand the most of his enemies DD and thereafter to passe over a thousand yeers EE as a worldly Monarch FF with his Saints Who shall live with him all that time in all sorts of fleshly delights GG Master Archer the onely Pastor that ever they had whose praises they sound forth so loud in their Apologetick would perswade us of the same and more grosse stories HH Master Burrows in his late Sermons upon Hosea runs in the same way II. Neither is this all the new Light that did shine forth in the Candlestick of Arnhem but there also Master Archer giveth forth for the comfort of his hearers without the reproof so far as yet we have heard of any of his Colleagues
added it shall begin in the 1650. but it comes not to full head till fourty five yeers more DD Ibid. In the Epistle take this rule That all Texts of Scripture are to be understood literally except they make against other Scriptures or except the very coherence of the Scripture shew it otherwise Ibid. p. 17. Indeed if we be put upon allegorical senses we may put off any Scripture but if we take them literally why should we not Ibid. p. 21. Christ is described in the 19. of the Revelation with his Garments dyed in blood when he doth appear to come and to take the Kingdom when he appears with many Crowns upon his head that notes his many victories Ibid. p. 17. The promise that is made Revel 12. He shall rule them with a Rod of Iron and as the Vessels of a Potter they shall be broken to shivers What shall we make of this EE Ibid. p. 14 15. The raigning with Christ 1000. yeers is not meant of raigning with him in Heaven but it must be meant of Jesus Christs coming and raigning here gloriously for 1000 yeers FF Ibid. p. 17. What shall we make of this except there be a glorious raign of Christ with the Saints Christ is said to make them Kings so as to have power and dominion in the world GG Ibid. p. 13. There is no reason why that of the 26. of Matth. v. 29 I will drink it new with you in my Fathers Kingdom may not be taken litterally HH Archers personal raign p. 5. I call this last state of his Monarchical because he will govern as earthly Monarchs have done that is universally over the world in these dayes known and esteemed and in a worldly visible earthly glory not by tyranny oppression and sensually but with honour peace riches and whatsoever in and of the world is not sinful having all Nations and Kingdoms doing homage to him as the great Monarchs of the World had II Burrows upon Hosea p. 145. These are the new Heavens and the new Earth that are to be created and this is meant of the Church plainly For the Text Verse 12. speaks of building houses and inhabiting them and of planting Vineyards and eating the fruit of them upon these new Heavens and this new Earths Creation Ibid. p. 191. And literally we are to understand many Scriptures that tend this way concerning the fruitfulnesse of the Earth and the outward external glory that then shall be in the Creatures KK Archers comfort for beleevers p. 41. God may as truely and easily have a will and hand in and be the Author of sins as of afflictions Ibid. We may safely say that God is and hath an hand in and is the Author of the sinfulnesse of his people LL Ibid. p. 36. The fear of some of these inconveniences hath made Divines not to acknowledge so much of God in sin as is in sin They have erred on the other hand and made sin more of the Creature and it self and lesse from God then it is They grant that God is willing sin should be and that he permits it and orders circumstances about its production and hath an hand in and is the Author of the Physical or Moral act in and with which sin is but the essence of sin that is the Pravity and Ataxy the Anomy and Irregularity of the act which is the sinfulnesse of it God hath no hand neither is he any Author at all thereof This opinion goes wrong another way and gives not to God enough in sin Let us imbrace and professe the truth and not fear to say that of God which he in his holy Book saith of himself namely That of him and from his hand is not onely the thing that is sinful but the pravity and sinfulnesse of it MM A short Declaration of the Assembly by way of Detestation of the abominable and blasphemous opinion The Order of the House of Lords runs thus Complaint being this day made to the Lords in Parliament by the Assembly of Divines that a certain blasphemous and heretical Book intituled Comfort for Beleevers is printed and published being written by John Archer their Lordships much abhorring the said blasphemies do award and adjudge that the said Book shall be burnt by the hand of the common Hangman NN Doctor Stewarts Duply to M. S. second part pag. 128. Not long since I heard one of the Ringleaders of the Independents Sect deliver this doctrine in a Sermon at the Abbey of Westminster viz. That to a saving knowledge of God it sufficeth not to know him in the Book of nature or secondly as revealed in the holy Scriptures but that we must also know him as abstract from his mercy and all his attributes OO Ibid. If I know God abstracted from his mercy I know him out of Christ and out of the Gospel for God in Christ and in the Gospel is not abstract but concrete with mercy If God be considered as abstract from all his attributes it is no more a knowledge of God but some idol of the Independent brains PP Antap. p. 36. Master Good win did anoint a Gentlewoman whose name I conceal when she was sick and she recovered after it say they QQ Ibid. Anointing the sick with Oyl was held in that Church of Arnhem as a standing Ordinance for Church-Members as laying on of hands was a standing Ordinance for Church-Officers RR Ibid. p. 60. I propound it to you whether a little before your coming over into England some Members of the Church of Arnhem did not propone the Holy Kisse or the Kisse of Love to be practised by Church-Members Nay Whether by some persons in that Church was it not begun to be practised SS 1. Ibid. p. 36. A Gentleman of note in that Church did propone in the Church that singing of Hymns was an Ordinance which is that any person of the Congregation exercising their own gifts should bring an Hymn and sing it to the Congregation all the rest being silent and giving audience SS 2. Antap. p. 262. Some of Arnhem hold strange conceits Daily the Independent Churches like Affrica do breed and bring forth the Monsters of Anabaptism Antinomianism Familism nay That huge Monster and old fleeing Serpent of the Mortality of the soul of man SS 3. Ibid. p. 261. I have been told of some odde things preached by one of you five both in England and Holland and of some points Preached in the Church of Arnhem never questioned there and since Printed not very Orthodox as for instance among others That the souls of the Saints do not go to Heaven to be with Christ SS 4. Archers personal raign p. 23. This Objection supposes the souls of the dead Saints to be in the highest Heavens which is not so It is likely the souls of the dead Saints are not in the highest Heavens but in a middle place which is meant in the New Testament by paradise into this paradise went Christs soul and the theifs which was
grief nor can we chuse but to be covered with confusion and shame when we are forced to taste the most bitter fruits of our Brethrens principles though denied by them in words yet ingenuously avowed by their friends in Amsterdam and constantly practised in New-England to the uttermost of their power E 1. they must oppose the building of a Church any where in the world if it be not after their patern That as in New-England no Presbyterial Church on any condition may be tolerated so in Old-England no Presbyterial Church must ever be erected if all their skill and industry can hinder it Such a Reformation though expresly according to the National Covenant to them is a deformation which they cannot wish much lesse pray for or endeavour but with all their strength must crosse it as a corruption unsufferable where they have power It s plain and demonstrable that their Principles and Way have forced them to oppose the Reformation in hand and will ever force them so to do till they lay new grounds and be changed in the sence of their erroneous minde However the actions of our Brethren did proclame loud enough their intentions to delay so long as they were able the setting up of any Government yet when this evil is become so grosse and palpable that all in words do disclaim it and they who most do procure it do most in shew abominate it it seems a little strange that some of their Divines are now begun in Print expresly to own it and in Print to perswade the delay of this work E 2. It must be a heavie guiltinesse to be a powerful instrument of keeping two so great Kingdoms as England and Ireland without the Fold and Hedge of all Ecclesiastike Discipline for divers yeers together especially in the time of a devouring War How many thousand souls have perished by this means in their ignorance and profanesse who in a wel-governed Church might have been reclaimed Unto this great misery another great unhappinesse addeth much weight Beside their marring of the begun-Reformation they have occasioned the perishing of some millions of poor souls by the unheard-of multiplication of Heresies and Schisms F I believe no place in the world for this mischief is now parallel to London Amsterdam long ago is justified that City hath transmitted hither the infamy of her various Sects Now upon whom shall this blame be fastne◠〈◊〉 It is well known that the Sects at the time of the Independents return hither were inconsiderable in regard of that which now they are by their means It was their work to bring people into distaste with the way of all the Reformed Churches this by their labours was made vile in the eyes of the multitude and people once having leaped over that wall within the which all the Protestant Churches have dwelt in safety by all the skill of their first misleaders could not be holden from running farther away as in New-England Independency was a mother to Anabaptism Antinomianism Familism and many more Heresies We need not wonder to see it any where bring forth the like Brood But hereof indeed do we wonder that in so short a time this Way should change as it were its nature so farre to the worse In Holland and New-England Independency so soon as it had found and discerned the young brats of Anabaptists Antinomians or Familists in her bosom it was her custom incontinently to fling them away as Bastards But Independency at London hath learned not onely to beget but to cherish such children when they are brought forth Not onely the Churches of New-England but the very Amsterdam-Brownists have ever been zealous to cast out of their Society the Heretikes and Schismatickes we speak of but here in London it is far otherwise We have heard that many of the Independents here so soon as they have fallen into Anabaptism or other Errours of the time have quickly of their own accord run away and separated from the Independent Congregations as polluted as false as no Churches But that ever any of the London-Independents did cast out of their Churches any man or woman for Anabaptism Antinomianism or any other Errour we never heard By the contrary Independency here is become an uniting Principle it hath kept our Brethren in the midst of all their bitter Jarrs with the Reformed Churches abroad and the Presbyterians at home in a great entirenesse and familiarity with all the Sectaries that pleased to draw neer them They have by their debates and dissents laboured to hinder the Assembly from giving the least advice to the Parliament to take any order with the most absurd of the Sectaries when complained upon for their greatest Enormities yea they have preached and printed divers Tractates for a full liberty to all Sects G That so soon they should have run thus far out we could never have believed if our own eyes and ears had not been our perswaders As for the third Apple we observed on their Tree The endangering of the State it is no lesse visible then any of the former If there were no more but the keeping of the Church-wounds so long open the health yea the life of the State might justly be feared from this ground alone by all who know the sympathy of these Twins and the inseparable interest of these two much-united Companions But beside the keeping of the Church unsetled the growth of Schisms how pregnant a cause it is of a States ruine we need no other witnesse then the declaration of their Brethren in New-England H We are made here to believe that the Anabaptists and the Antinomians are so tame and harmlesse creatures that there is no danger of any violence from their innocent hands If it be so the General Court at New-Boston hath been extremely unjust who professed their wel-grounded apprehension of a total subversion not onely of all their Churches but of their Civil State also from a far lesse number of these Sectaries then are here among us and avowed to the world their necessity to banish out of that Countrey the leaders of that dangerous Faction whether men or women whether Church or States-men and to disarm many of their followers upon much much smaller provocations and lighter grounds of suspition then by the words and deeds of their kinsfolks have been offered lately unto this State I What more might be said of the London-Independents practices upon the State readily may come to the world ere long by a much better Pen. I for causes at this time abstain totally from writing on this subject The Testimonies A Antap. p. 51. I believe upon good grounds and so do many more you never took any great content or joy in the thoughts of the Assembly but have done your utmost to delay it and to put it by God knows your hearts and men some of your speeches about the meeting of this Assembly But seeing it could not be helped and that you could
Kingdom besides in all the Armies And they were all resolved to have the Liberty of their Consciences or else they would make use of their Swords which they have already in their hands Ibid. p. 68. I know not any Independent in England except one man and his wife that do not as maliciously and implacably hate the Presbyterians as the mortallest enemy they have in the world CHAP. VI. An Enumeration of the common Tenets of the Independents IT is not easie to set down with assurance the Independents positions both because they have to this day declined to declare positively their minds as also because of their principle of mutability whereby they professe their readinesse to change any of their present Tenets How unwilling they are to declare their mind may appeare by their obstinate silence and refusing to answer any of these Books that put them most to it also by hiding of their opinions from their brethren who most earnestly have prest their Declaration These divers yeares the Ministers of London have been dealing with them for satisfaction herein and once by importunity obtained a promise under their hand of a full and free Declaration but these foure yeares they have eluded that promise a Mr. Apollonius in name of all the Churches of Zealand with all earnestnesse did intreat this duty of them b but all in vaine When upon any occasion they have been moved to make any kind of Narration of their way it was ever with an expresse proviso of their resolution to keep up as yet from the World their positive Tenets so they conclude their Apologetick c so they begin their Keyes d And now when the indignation both of the Assembly and Parliament and of many more was likely to break out upon them for this that after so long time no plaine dealing hath been seen in them at last they have engaged themselves to declare their minds and yet since that their publike engagement there are six Months past and the Worlds expectation of understanding at last their mind is still suspended And though that their Declaration should come out to morrow yet with what assurance can we take any thing therein for their constant and settled Tenet so long as they professe it to be one of their cheife principles to be so loose and irresolute in any thing they maintaine for the time that they are ready to leave it and upon occasion to embrace the contrary e So long as this skeptick irresolution is avowed there is no hope there is no possibility of any fixed constancy These things considered no man is able to set down their full mind nor any one of their positions whereto any dare assure they will firmely stand only the chiefe of their singularities which they have been pleased to let come abroad and have not to our knowledge as yet revoked we shall set down as they come to our thoughts It hath been hitherto their earnest desire to decline the infamy of Brownisme and it was the charity of their Brethren to distinguish them from that Sect under the new name of Independents importing their chiefe difference from us to stand not in the point of separation which is our proper quarrell with the Brownists but alone in the point of Church-Government which against all the Reformed Churches they maâ—ntaine to be Independent that is not subject to the Authority and Jurisdiction of any Superiour Synod This was thought to be their proper distinctive and characteristicall Tenet till of late we finde them passionately reject the name of Independents and tell us that the dependency or independency of their Congregations will bee found one of their least differences and smallest controversies In this our long mistake we are content to be rectified albeit our charity should not be reproved who being ignorant of their willingnesse to differ from us in any thing higher or deeper then the Dependency of Congregations upon the Authority of Superiour Assemblies did put upon them no other name then that which implyed this difference alone It seemes that this Title is not only the most reasonable but the most innocent and inoffensive note of distinction which themselves could have chosen The terme not being invented by any of their ill-willers but by their own cheife Leaders f who did think that word most proper to notifie their Tenet of Government and since some name must be given to every eminently differing party it seemes none lesse irritative could bee fallen upon then that which most properly did signifie the chiefe matter in Controversie But now finding they avow their chiefe differences to lie elsewhere for my part I could yeeld to them to have the name of Independents buried did I not feare it behoved to be changed with another Title which would much more displease For since they are gone beyond the question of Independent Government and now doe question the constitution of our Churches so farre as puts them on a necessity of Separation and in this doe place the chiefe of their Controversies with us If a Sect may be denominated either from the Author or principall matter as they make no bones to Print us Calvinians g and Presbyterians h I cannot conceive why they ought not to take it in good part if when the name of Independents is laid by they have in place of it the Title of Brownists and Separatists fastned upon them Of their owne accord they take upon them openly the halfe of the thing we alledge professing themselves to lie halfeway off us towards Brownisme i avowing the truth to consist in this their middle way But whosoever considers better of the matter will find that however in some things they incline to a middle way yet in the chiefe and most they come up close to the outmost line of Brownisme and in many things doe expatiate so much beyond it that in place of the Semi-Separation they mention they may be justly argued to have drawn upon themselves the blot of Seâ—qui-Separation and more also how true this is it will appeare to any who will be pleased to make a paralell of the forementioned Tenets of the Brownists with these of the Independents which here are subjoyned First the worst and uttermost Tenet of the Brownists for which they cook to themselves and had bestowed upon them by others the stile of Separatists was their doctrine and practise accordingly to Separate from the Churches of England In this the Independents goe beyond them For beside that the practice of both is the same both actually Separating from all the Congregations of England the grounds of the Brownists Separation were a great deale more reasonable then that of the Independents albeit neither of them be good and sufficient For the Brownists did build their Separation on the Tyranny of Bishops on the Superstition of the Ceremonies and Service-Book on the grosse avowed and neglected profanenesse of the most in every Congregation if
these corruptions had been removed so farre as I have read in any of their writings they would no more have Separated But the Independents having no such stumbling blocks in their way Bishops and Books being abolished and a barre set up in every Congregation to keep off from the Sacrament every scandalous and ignorant person notwithstanding they will yet Separate The more unjust and lesse cause they have so to doe their separation must bee so much the worse the grosser and more inexcusable Schisme What they say for the avoyding of this challenge will not hold water while they tell us that they are not Separatists because they avow the Church of England to be a true and gracious Church That the Ministry of it is true and saving They should consider that the Brownists when the fit of charity commeth upon them say large as much as all this as before from their own words we have shown k also that some of the Independent Party have gone as farre as that which they confesse makes the Brownists to be justly called Schismaticks l but however suppose their allegation were true it doth not excuse and diminish but much encrease the fault of their separation For it is a greater sinne to depart from a Church which I professe to bee true and whose Ministry I acknowledge to be saving then from a Church which I conceive to be false and whose Ministers I take to have no calling from God nor any blessing from his hand Neither are they cleared from the blot of Schisme by their countenancing the English Assemblies by their preaching and praying therein for beside that they doe no more in this then Mr Robinson hath taught them m They should remember they teach their Schollars that Preaching Prayer Psalmes and all things they doe in the English Congregation are no acts of Church Fellowship n that none of them doth import any Church Membership nor any Ecclesiastick Communion but are such which without scruple they can dispence to very Pagans But we would intreat them to declare if they would be willing to receive any Sacrament in the English Congregations or if they will be content to bee under any part of their Discipline if they will be either Members or Officers in any of our Churches I see indeed the Apologists professe their participation of Baptisme in our Congregations but besides that the Brownists will professe so much of themselves o yet how this is consistent with the constant practice and Doctrine of the Independents I confesse my understanding is too blunt to conceive For however in New-England they give the right hand of Fellowship to the Brownists Congregations p and at London they are said to goe to the Brownists Sacraments q and we did never heare that either in England or Holland they refused any to be a Member for their beliefe of rigid separation or Anabaptisme nor censured any of their Members for falling into these errours yet in formall termes they doe deny the most gracious of their Brethren to live beside them in New-England in the Presbyteriall way of the old Non-conformists r yea in Print they avow that whoever refuseth their Tenet of Independency were they otherwise never so Orthodox and pious they ought not to be admitted to the Sacraments nor enjoy any Church Priviledge s as people who cannot be wholly but at most are in part only converted Yea as such who must be taken for Anti-christian spirits for enemies to Christ and his Kingdome t Neither have I heard that any of them now for many yeares have either celebrated to others or received themselves the Sacraments in any English Church And when it was propounded that they might take charge in some of the best Reformed Congregations of England with a full assurance of a personall dispensation to them for their whole life if they would leave but that one intollerable Tenet of Separation to this day they have disregarded that kind and brotherly Accommodation shewing expresly that in this point of separate Congregations they would be tolerated or nothing else would satisfie their consciences beyond this their best friends were not able by their long and earnest endeavours for divers weeks together to draw them one haires-breadth w if this be not a more cleare and a more inexcusable Separation then was ever yet laid to the charge of any Brownists I professe my utter mistake of the nature of Schisme and desire to be rectified The next singularity of the Brownists their Doctrine of the constitution of the Church in matter and forme the Independents have borrowed to the full and not only enlarged it but when all other grounds faile upon this alone they build the necessity of their separation Concerning the matter of the Church the Independents have learned all their unjust scrupulosity from the other as the Brownists require every Church member to be a Saint really regenerate and justified who at their admission have publikely satisfied the whole Congregation by convincing signes of their true holinesse the other requires the same x. What ever indulgence here the Independents professe to give either to weak ones in whom they finde the least of Christ or to women whom they remit from the Congregation to speak more privately in the Eldership y â— this is no other then the present practise of the Brownists at Amsterdam Only we observe that the Independents here go farther from the Reformed Churches both in the strictnesse and in the loosnesse of their satisfactions The Brownists are satisfied with the signes of personall grace but the Independents require more they proceed to a triall by a long conversation of the sociable and complying disposition of the person to be admitted with the spirits of the whole Church whereof he is to be a member z without this sutablenesse of spirit they will reject them whom otherwise they finde to be Saints aa But their chiefe excesse here is in loosnesse The Brownists will not dispence with known errours and sinnes in the members they will not admit of Anabaptists of proud luxurious contentious people If they finde any such to have crept in among them they professe their judgement is for their casting out by censures But the Independents will here be more wise for the encrease of their party and however they will have nothing to do with Presbyterians bb nor with such people who can live in their confused Congregations yet they make it their rule to hold out none for any errour that is not fundamentall nor for any sinne that is not continued in against conscience cc walking according to this rule they swallow down without trouble the small gnats of Anabaptism and all other Sects who erre not fundamentally and obstinately and against conscience how many Sectaries are thus farre guilty who can determine The little spot of luxury in apparell in diet and many fleshly delights of strife of disdainfull railing and such other faults as are too
relinquish these darlings which they have resolved to keep still in their bosome The fatuity of this Tenet they use to season with the graines of three more sapid positions First they grant the being of Classicall Psesbyteries and Synods sss Secondly they ascribe to them the censure of Non-Communion ttt Thirdly they allow the Magistrate to correct Hereticall and Shismaticall persons www But if they will consider they shall finde that in none of those positions they goe beyond the Brownists and by them all they doe not any whit cure the disease of Independency For the first they admit not of any Classicall Presbytery differing from a Synod for what ever they speak of their granting gladly unto us all the degrees and Subordinations of Assemblies which we could wish yet betwixt a Congregationall Eldership and a Synod they grant not any interposition of a Classis or compounded Presbytery over more Congregations then one xxx which kinde of Presbytery the Reformed Churches make the first and ordinary subject of Ordination and of sundry acts of Jurisdiction esteeming it a Iudicatory specifically different both from the inferiour Eldership of a single Congregation and the Superiour Synod whither of a Shire or a Province or a Nation or of more or of all Nations Besides that Synod whereof they approve is only a Brownisticall one such as needeth not to be moderated by any Preacher yyy at the which any man who pleaseth may be present to debate and vote decisively zzz Yea they goe here much beyond the Brownists and their Brethren of New-England also for they deny that the 15 of the Acts is either a pattern or ground for any Synod aaaa expresly contrary to Mr Cottons latest Doctrine neither will they have any ordinary or set Synods but only occasionall and when the occasion of a Synod commeth they will have it to be meerely elective bbbb 1. consisting of such persons alone as themselves please to chuse not only of the Churches of their own Independent way alone but also of such only among these as themselves think meet to pitch upon bbbb 2 if a Classis or Synod bee of any other temper they count it so corrupt and so tyrannicall a Court that they could not countenance it with their presence yea not so much as they would doe an Episcopall Sea cccc the one being much worse then the other that the Brownists Independency went ever thus farre I doe not know As for their sentence of Non-Communion it is one of Mr Cottons new additions to old Brownisme dddd which it seemes rather to embitter then sweeten for it is a meer humane invention to supply the ordinances of God which men injuriously have cast away when they have denied to Synods the power of these censures which God hath appointed and finde themselves straightned by the absolute necessity of the matter to take up againe either them or their equivalent they will not be so changeable as to resume the censures whereof God is the Author having once cast them away but in their place they are forced to finde out some of their own these their new declarations and abstentions from fellowship and such like new censures of their owne But which is worst of all these their new censures if there be any force in them advance their Independency to the highest degree of power or rather lift it up highly in the aire and by a repugnancy and contradiction make it evaporate to nothing for this Non-Communion giveth power to every one even the smallest Congregation over all the Churches in the World it pleaseth to deale with so farre as to admonish rebuke declare against them all and cast them all out of her Communion eeee The Reformed Churches contend only for a power to a great Assembly for censuring a faulty member of a small Congregation but this Non-Communion gives to the smallest Congregation of any seven persons the power of sentencing the whole Churches and all the Assemblies in the World Howbeit this Non-Communion seemes to be contradictory and destructive of that Independency which it was invented to salve For if every Congregation bee Independent how shall all Congregations be so dependent upon every one that any the least may inflict this high censure upon the greatest yea upon all Beside this Non-Communion is nothing but the highest straine of separation that ever any Brownist aimed at it giveth a power for any Church to deny Communion to all Churches and to live separate without all Communion with any Church for ever This produceth an other power of a farther separation to wit a power to every member of that separate Church upon any grievance not satisfied to separate himselfe and either live there alone as many do or to gather a new Church of any whom they finde willing to associate with them these things are brought not so much for reasons to evert the positions in hand as to shew how unfit limitations they are of the extravagancy which appeareth in Independency and how much they runne out beyond the bounds which they pretend to hem in As for their third Tenet of the Magistrates concurrence to second their sentence of Non-Cummunion besides that the Brownists goe as farre as ever any of them did in this ffff we see now that the chiefe of them have recalled the Tenet though all the Protestant Churches and none more then they of New-England doe maintaine the Magâ—strates power to suppresse errours yet this unhappy love towards liberty whereinto the Independent party here among us have lately fallen makes them to entreat the Magistrate to let alone the affaires of Religion though they runne into all the confusion whither Satan and his Instruments are able to carry them gggg If the Magistrates feare of God doth stop his eare to such impious petitions then they flee up very high even to the deniall and decrying of all the Magistrates power in matters of Religion hhhh which yet the Papists in England and the Arminians in Holland who have been the greatest pleaders hitherto for liberty were never bold to impugne but of this more hereafter I hope I have demonstrated that in the point of Separation and of the constitution and government of the Church the great and only intended Articles of the Brownists our brethren the Independents come nothing behind them Sure in these their conceits they applaud themselves no lesse then the former they put in these things the very Kingdome of Christ all their opposites in these fancies they make them enemies to Christs Kingdome iiii they avow Independency to be a beginning and a part of that glorious Kingdome which Christ for a thousand yeares is to enjoy upon earth kkkk Concerning the worship of God and other heads of Divinity whatever crotchets the Brownists have fallen into the Independents punctually doe follow the most and worst of them and if in any they come short they are sure to exceed in other
solemn debate upon it they speak as if they were either fully or very neere accorded with us professing their utter dislike of the Brownists unreasonablenesse herein but I professe this hath alwayes seemed to me their capitall and fundamentall difference the only cause of their separation from us and wherein if wee could either agree or accommodate there would be a faire possibility of accord in all things else at least so farre as to be united in one and the same Church but this difference is the great partition wall which so long as it stands will force them to continue their intolerable practice of separating from all the Reformed Churches in the world and that for fewer and more unjust causes then any who ever did carry the name of a Separatist to this day did pretend This seemes to bee the reason why both Apollonius and Spanheim very excellent Divines have begun their dispute with this question For the stating of the controversie consider how it stands betwixt us and the Independents at this time the Brownists for their separation were wont to alledge the impurity of our worship the corruption of our Government the open prophanesse of the most in our Congregations By the mercy of God the first is fully Reformed at least so farre according to the minde of our brethren that they have entred no dissenting vote to any one passage of the Directory for worship The Government also is so farre cleared in the Assemblie that they have entered their dissent from no part of it except that alone which concerns the Iurisdiction of Presbyteries and Synods and their dissent herein might and still may well be so carried as not to occasion any breach But the third is the great cause of division wherein they much out-runne the Brownists for they did never offer to separate upon this ground alone and the matter whereupon here they stumbled was only open profanenesse and that incorrigible either through want of power or want of care to remedy it If the profanenesse was not open and visible or if the Church had her full power to execute discipline and according to her power made conscience really to censure scandalls These things as I conceive would have abundantly satisfied the Brownists and cured their separation But the Independents now doe draw them up much higher then they were wont to stand They teach them to stumble not only at open profanenesse but at the want of true grace yea at the want of convincing signes of Regeneration They teach them to require not only a power and care in the Church to censure such profanenesse but also a power in every member of the Church to keep out all others with whom they are not satisfied in the truth of their grace So the question is not as usually it is made of the quality of the members of the Church but of the necessity to separate from that Church wherein we are not satisfied by convincing signs of the true faith and grace of every member at their first admission Wee grant it is earnestly to be wished and all lawfull meanes would diligently bee used both by Pastors and people to have all the members of a Church most holy and gratious and what ever lawfull overture our Brethren can invent for this end we with all our heart will embrace it or else be content to beare much blame We grant also that it is the duty of Church-Governours to keep off every scandalous person from profaning to their own damnation the holy things of the Lord and that it is the duty of these Governours not only to suspend from the holy Table all scandalous persons but farther to cast all such out of the Church without respect of persons in the case of obstinacy when by no meanes they can bee brought to satisfactory repentance we grant also that Church-Governours deficient in these duties ought themselves to be disciplined by the rod of Church-Censures these things were never controverted But the question is whether because of the admission of some to Church-membership who have not given satisfaction to every member of the Church in the point of their reall Regeneration a Church may lawfully be separated from as vitiously constitute for that essentiall defect in its very matter Our Brethrens constant and resolute practice albeit gilded over with many faire words maketh this to be the cleare state of the question against which I reason thus First What to Moses and the Prophets was not a sufficient cause of separation from the Churches of their time is not a sufficent cause for us to separate from the Churches in our times But want of satisfaction by convincing signes of the true grace of many members of the Church was not a sufficient cause for Moses and the Prophets to separate in their times Ergo The minor is cleare and uncontroverted for Moses and the Prophets were so farre from separating from the Churches of their dayes for want of assurance of the true grace of every person in these Churches that they remained still to their dying day in the bosome of these Churches comumnicating with them in the Word Prayer Sacraments and Sacrifices though they were assured of the evident wickednesse of the most of their fellow-members Moses knew the Body of Israel to bee a crooked and perverse generation Isaiah tells the Iewes that they were another Sodom Ieremy sheweth that Israel in his dayes was uncircumcised in heart no better then Moab Ammon or Edom Micah that the godly in his time were very rare as the summer fruits as the grapes after the Vintage of this truth all the Prophets are full yet for all this none of the Prophets did ever think of a separation All the difficulty then is in the major which thus we prove The Church in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets was one and the same with the Church of our dayes The House of God the body of Christ the Elect and redeemed people the holy Nation the peculiar treasure and spouse of the Lamb The difference of the true Church in any age is at most but in accidentall circumstances and not in any essentials so what ever morall evill doth defile the Church now and is a just cause of ejection or separation that must be so at all times especially under the old Testament where all the Ceremoniall differences that are alledged betwixt the Church then and now make for the strengthning of the Argument for then the causes of separation were stricter and smaller a little Ceremoniall pollution would then have kept out of the sanctuary much more a morall uncleannesse would have made the sacrifice abominable If therefore at that time the matter in hand was no cause of separating from the Church much lesse can it be so now when God hath given a greater liberty to the Church in her majority and when Christians are not so easily infected by their neighbours sinnes as of old in the dayes
of the Churches infancy they were Idolatry false doctrine open profanenesse were then most abominable and more terribly punished then now by the totall destruction of whole Cities and Countries wherein they were entertained also the duty of mutuall inspection and admonition the contempt whereof is made the grand cause of separation was most clearly enjoyned in the Old Testament What here is replyed that all separation from the Iewish Church was simply impossible because then there was no other Church in the whole earth to goe to We answer that the Replyers themselves will say that a separation must be where there is just cause and where a person cannot abide without pollution and sin although there be no other Church for him to go to for they make it better for men to live alone separate from all then to abide in any Church where they cannot live without the participation of their neighbours sinnes We answer further That it was easie for the godly under the Law to have joyned together in the service of God and to have excluded the wicked thence and whereas it is said that this could not bee done because the Censure of Excommunication was not then in being We answer the Gospel makes it cleare That casting out of the Synagogue which was reall Excommunication was frequent in the Old Testament as also the keeping off from the service with a great deale of circumspection all who were unfit by any legall pollution much more by any known morall uncleannesse Kings themselves when polluted were removed from the Altar and put out of the Sanctuary Again I reason thus That which moved not Christ and his Apostles to separate from the Church of their time is no cause to us of separation but want of satisfaction by convincing signes of the true grace of every member of the Church was to them no cause of separation from the Churches of their times Ergo. The major is cleare except we desire a better pattern for our practices then Christ and his Apostles what ever carrieth us beyond their line must be high presumption and deep hypocrisie The minor is cleare by many Scriptures the Scribes and Pharisees were a generation of vipers Ierusalem worse then Sodom and Gomorrah Corasin and Bethsaida was worse then Tyrus and Sidon and to be cast lower in Hell then these yet the Lord did not give over to preach to pray to go to the Temple with them Iudas when a declared Traytor did not scarre him nor any of his company from the Sacrament After he went from the Table when his wickednesse was revealed that a Devill was in him yet none of the Apostles offered to cast themselves out of the body because this wicked member was not cut off Many members of the Apostolick Churches were so farre from convincing signes of true grace that the works of the flesh were most evident in their life In the Corinthians fundamentall errours open Idolaty grievous scandall bitter contentions profanation of the Lords Table In the Galatians such errours as destroyed grace and made Christ of none effect In the Church of Ephesus of Laodicea and the other golden Candlesticks divers members were so evidently faulty that the Candlestick is threatned to be removed yet from none of these Churches did any of the Apostles ever separate nor gave they the least warrant to any of their Disciples to make a separation from any of them A third Argument The want of that which never was to bee found in any Church is no just cause of separation But satisfaction by convincing Arguments of the true grace of every member was never to be found in any Church The major is unquestionable for what is not cannot have any operation non entis nulla sunt accidentia The minor is demonstrable from the nature of a visible Church it is such a body whose members are never all gracious if we believe Scripture It is not like the Church invisible the Church of the Elect. It is an heterogeneous body the parts of it are very dissimilar some chaffe some corne some wheat some tares a net of fishes good and bad a house wherein are vessels of honour and dishonour a fold of sheep and goats a tree of green and withered branches a table of guests some with some without a wedding garment in a word every visible Church is a society wherein many are called few chosen except therefore we will alter the nature of all visible Churches whereof Scripture speaks we must grant that in every Church there are some members which have no true grace and if so how can they give convincing and satisfactory signes of that which is not to be found Hypocrites may make a shew without of that which is not within but shall we lay an obligation upon every hypocriticall member of a Church to be so eminently skilfull in the art of counterfeiting as to produce in the midst of his gracelesnesse so cleare so evident and satisfactory signes of his true grace as may convince the hearts of every one of the Church that the thing is within the mans breast which certainly is not there The fourth Argument The want of that which cannot reasonably be supposed of every member of a Congregation is no just cause of separation from any Church but satisfaction c. Ergo. The major is cleare for if the want of such satisfaction be a just cause of separation from the Church Then the presence of such a satisfaction is very requisite to be in every member as a necessary meane to keep it in union with that Church The minor that such a satisfaction may not justly be supposed in every member of a Congregation for this would import these foure things all which are unreasonable First that every member of a Congregation is to have power to try all its fellow-members to let them in or hold them out according as in this triall he is satisfied This is a large limb of the Brownistick Anarchy putting the key of Authority and Iurisdiction into the hand of every Church-member if all the Independents will defend this let them speak it out plainly Secondly it requires a great deale of more ability in every member of every Church then can be found in any mortall man for not to speak of the impossibility of a grounded and certaine perswasion of true grace in the heart of an Hypocrite who hath no grace at all how is it possible to attaine unto any grounded certainty of true grace in the heart of any other man for the hid man of the heart and the new name are not certainly known to any but to such as have them The grounds of a mans own certain perswasion the act of his faith either direct or reflex the witnesse of his conscience or the seale of the spirit cannot go without his own breast all the demonstrations which can be made to another are so oft found false that in understanding men they
of Rome shall we throw them away upon every Independent Congregation how unstable Rocks these Congregations are and how easily by small tentations shaken in pieces themselves may remember Secondly the Rock whereupon the Church is builded is Christ whom Peter did confesse we may not make any mans profession were it never so cleere and never so zealous the foundation of the Church in such a fashion that the ignorance or hypocrisie of any man may remove the foundation of any Church Thirdly shall no man be a member of a Church till the holy Ghost dictate unto him such a confession of Faith as he did unto Peter if none but the Elect and those who are filled with the holy Ghost may be members of Churches the Anabaptists have won the field However what here is alledged is not true of Peter himselfe who long before that confession was a member of the Church The second place mis-applied is the reproofe of the guest for his comming to the Lords Feast without the wedding-garment whereupon is inferrd the duty of the Church to hold out all who want the wedding-garment of true grace Answ This conclusion is not only beside but against the Text vers 9.10 the servants are commanded to invite as many as they could finde both good and bad they had no commission to hold out any for want of the wedding-garment for that garment was within upon the soule unperceptible by any but his eye who searches the heart and the reynes The Apostles in their search went not beyond a blamelesse profession and experience may teach our Brethren that themselves are able to reach no farther finding after all their triall so many in their purest Congregations whom time declares to want that garment The third place mis-applyed is the parable of the Tares as if the Tares came into the Church by the sleepinesse of the servants Answ This also is a bold addition to Scripture it is not said while the servants sleeped but while men sleeped noting no negligence in men who did sleep when it was seasonable and necessary for them to sleep but only the secret and dark time of the night or the secret dark and imperceptible way of Satan his working in hypocrites and corrupting the Church However this part of the parable is no wayes argumentative for Christ in his full application toucheth not at all upon this circumstance but the maine scope of the parable declareth to us the nature of the visible Church upon earth contrary to the argument in hand That Christ doth not intend to have upon earth any Church wherein the Tares shall not be mixed with the wheat for if he did not finde in his wisedome the expediency of this administration hee could in his power easily alter or prevent it Their fourth argument is drawn from the second to Timothy 3.5 who have a form of Godlinesse but deny the power of it from such we must turne away Ergo who are not found to have positive and satisfactory signes of regeneration ought not to be admitted members of any Church Answ The consequent is naught for the strength of it will lie in this proposition Every professor who bringeth not demonstrative signes of his regeneration and true grace is a man who hath the forme of godlinesse and denyeth the power thereof How false this is both the Text and our Brethrens practice will evidence The Text puts it out of doubt that the men whom the Apostle calls the denyers of the power of godlinesse are persons openly scandalous and flagitious as the verses both before and after doe demonstrate even such whom the Apostle describes Tit. 1. abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Now it is cleare that many professors who are not able to bring out any convincing signes of their regeneration are notwithstanding free from all scandall and however many hypocrites can goe beyond them in making faire and satisfactory shewes to men yet sundry of them may be the elect children of God and really most gracious in his eyes how unable or unwilling soever they be to make this much appeare to the world Secondly the men whom the Apostle speaks of are to be cast out of the Church after their admission but our Brethren will not cast out all of whose regeneration they are not convinced after once they are admitted for if so Excommunication in every Church would become too frequent Their fifth argument is this No hypocrite none who at last will leave their first Love are to be admitted in the Church for all such will ruine the Church and procure the removing of the Candlestick but all that cannot prove their regeneration convincingly are such Answ This is a bold and rash argument laying a necessity to exclude all hypocrites from the Church and all such as may fall away from any degree of their first love We answer then that the minor is very false for many gracious persons farre from hypocrisie and free from all decay of their first love may be unable to satisfie themselves or others in the certaine truth of their regeneration But the major is more false against the practise of Christ and the Apostles who did alwayes receive divers hypocrites and our Brethren dare not deny that they do so also for their Churches consist not all of reall Saints However the very Text alledged proveth our Tenet for Ephesus to Christ there is a most true Church notwithstanding their fall from their first Love and his threatning of them with the removall of their Candlestick if they did not repent Unto this fifth they subjoyne as appendices two other arguments taken from the ancient types under the Law The first The stones in Solomons Temple were not laid rough in the building Ergo men irregenerate must not bee admitted members of a Christian Church Answ This is a wanton argument though the Temple might be a type of every Congregation and the stones of Temple of the members of a particular visible Church yet that the roughnesse of the stones should be a type of irregeneration and above all that the place of hewing these stones should be a type and that argumentative to inferre that the place of our vocation regeneration justification and sanctification must be without the Church and that it is necessary we be like a stone perfectly hewen before wee be laid in the Church building this is a kinde of Ratiocination which solid divinity will not admit The other typicall argument is this The porters excluded uncleane persons from the Temple therefore the Officers ought to keep the irregenerate from the Church Answ There is no argumenting from symbolick types except where the spirit of God in Scripture applies a type to such a signification and use Where did our Brethren learne to make the porters of the Temple types of the Church-officers Their people will not bee content to be cheated of the Keyes by such symbolizing If they will
make the Temple a type not only of Christs body and the Church universall but of every Congregation yet by what Scripture will they make legall uncleannesse typifie the estate of irregeneration And above all how will they make the exclusion from the Temple for legall uncleanesse a type of rejection from Church-membership for irregeneration Nothing more common then legall cleanesse in a person irregenerate and legall uncleanesse in a person regenerate Legall uncleanesse did never hinder any from Church-membership under the old Testament albeit for a time it might impede their fellowship in some services but irregeneration did never hinder communion in any service It is a question whether very scandalous sins did keep men ceremonially clean from the Temple and Sacrifices but out of all doubt irregeneration alone was never a bar to keep any from the most holy and most solemn services whether of the Tabernacle or Temple There are two other arguments couched in the conclusion of the debate First from the 3 of Matth. Iohn the Baptist excluded the Scribes and Pharisees and the profane people from his Baptism Ergo the officers and body of the people should not admit irregenerate people to be members of the Church Ans The consequence is not good from Iohn the Baptist to all the officers and body of the people nor from Baptism or any Sacrament to Church-membership nor from the Scribes Pharisees and profane people to every irregenerate person what loosnesse is in such reasoning But the worst is that the antecedent is clearly against the places of Scripture alledged Iohn the Baptist did not exclude either the Scribes or the Pharisees or the common people from his baptism but received all that came both the Scribes and Pharisees and Ierusalem and all Iudea and all the region about Iordan requiring no other condition for their admission to his Sacrament then the confession of sinne and promising of new obedience acts very feasable to irregenerate people His last argument is from Acts 8. Philip admitted none to his baptism but upon profession of Faith Ergo none should be admitted members of a Church without an evidence of their regeneration For shortnesse I mark but one fault in the consequence yet a very grosse one That profession of faith is made a certain argument of true grace and sanctification Will any of our Brethren be content to admit their members upon so slender tearms as Philip or any of the Apostles did require of their new converts Will the profession that Iesus is the Christ or such a confession of faith as Simon Magus and all the people of Samaria men and women after a little labour of Philip among them could make be an evident and convincing signe of regeneration Thus we have considered all Mr Cottons arguments let any man according to his conscience pronounce what strength he findes in any of them whether or not in them all together there be such firmnesse as to sustaine the unspeakable weight that is in the conclusion builded upon them I mean a necessity of separation from all the Reformed Churches except these of the Indepent way I may adde from them also and all else that ever have been in the world from the beginning to this houre for in none of them these hard conditions of satisfactory evidences of regeneration before persons can be admitted members were ever so much as required and among the Independents where these conditions have been required they were never found nor possibly can be found as they doe require them CHAP. VIII Concerning the right of Prophecying THe second question I propounded concerneth the dogmatick power so to call it of their Church-members They teach that the power of prophesie or publike preaching both within and without the Congregation belongeth to every man in their Church who hath ability to speak in publike to edification The Reformed Churches give this power only to Pastors and Doctors who are called by God and the Church to labour in the Word They do not deny to every Christian all true liberty in private as God gives them occasion in an orderly way to edifie one another nor do they deny to the sons of the Prophets who are fitting themselves for the pastorall charge to exercise their gifts in publike for their preparation and triall but publike preaching they do not permit to any who are not either actually in the Ministry or in the way unto it The Socinians and Arminians the better to advance their design of everting the publike Ministry do put it in the hand of any able man to preach the Word and celebrate the Sacraments The Brownists upon the mistake of some Scriptures give liberty to any of their members whom their Church thinks able to preach Mr Cotton and his Brethren in New-England did follow for a long time the Brownists in this practise yet of late feeling as it would seem the great inconveniency of this liberty of prophecying they are either gone or going from it for in their two last books The way of their Churches and the Keyes they not only passe this popular Prophesying in silence but also do evert the chiefe grounds whereupon before they did build it our Brethren here of Holland and London seem not yet to be accorded about it these of Arnhem did to the last day of their Churches standing maintaine it their gentlemen preaching ordinarily in the absence of their Ministers but at Roterdam Mr Bridge would never permit it yet Mr Simpson thought it so necessary an ordinance that the neglect of it was the cheife cause of his secession from Mr Bridge and erecting a new Church neither ever could these two Churches be united till after both Mr Bridges and Mr Simpsons removall their Successor did find a temper in this question permitting the exercise of prophesie not in the meeting place of the Congregation but in a private place on a week day our Brethren at London are for this exercise not only upon the former grounds but especially to hold a doore open for themselves to preach in the Parish-Churches where they neither are nor ever intend to be Pastors only they preach as gifted men and Prophets for the conversion of these who are to be made members of their new Congregations The reasons we bring for our tenet are these First Who ever have power to preach the word ordinarily have also power to baptise But only Ministers have power to baptise Ergo only Ministers have power to preach the Word ordinarily The Minor how ever the Arminians and some few of the late Brownists deny yet all the Independents grant it but they deny the Major which we prove by two Scripturall reasons first Christ conjoyns the power of baptism with the power of preaching Ergo who have the power of preaching have also the power of baptising which Christ hath anexed to it Matth. 28.19 Go and teach all Nations baptising them Their Reply that Christ speaks
out of office did ordinarily preach in the Congregation Ergo it is lawfull to doe so still Answ We may either deny or distinguish the antecedent They that preached in the place alledged were Prophets and so not out of offâ—ce Secondly they who preached there were men endued with extraordinary gifts whose practice can be no pattern to the Churches now a dayes where these gifts are ceased That it is so vers 30. makes cleare where the Prophets doe preach extemporary Revelations Also Mr Cotton himselfe in his last book of the Keyes p. 20. doth grant this and expresly recals what himselfe in his Catechism and both he and his Brethren in their Answer to the 32 Articles had delivered about prophesying This ingenuity is amiable and if it might please God to bring our Brethren off the other points of Brownisme as fairely there might be hope quickly of an happy Accommodation Their second Argument Iehoshaphat and his Princes did preach the word But Iehoshaphat his Princes were not Church-officers Ergo some who are no Church-officers may preach the Word Ans We deny the major for that which is recorded of Iehoshaphat Chro. 2.19 was nothing but the Kings exhortation to his subjects to stirre up the Levites and Iudges to a faithfull discharge of their office this was no exposition of the Law nor any dispensing of that knowledge which the Priests lips were appointed by God to preserve What is spoken of his Princes preaching Chron. 2.17 6. beside that it was but once in the time of an extraordinary Reformation the way of that teaching is expounded in the following words not to have been by themselves but by the Levites who carried the Book of the Law they only did preach the Princes accompanied them and by their Civill authority countenanced and assisted them in their preaching That thus it was Mr Cotton confesseth in the above-mentioned place of his Keys avowing that in the Church of Israel none did preach either in the Synagogue or Temple but Priests and Levites except they had an extraordinary call to Prophesy Thirdly What we are commanded to regard is lawfull But the preaching of men out of office we are commanded to regard 1 Thes 5. Despise not prophecying Answ We deny the proofe of the minor for the prophecying spoken of by the Apostle is not the preaching of men out of office but either of such extraordinary Prophets as were in the Church of the Corinthians and other Churches in those primitive times or else of ordinary pastors who oft in Scripture are called prophets Mat. 11.9 He that receiveth a Prophet in the name of a Prophet shall receive a Prophets reward a Prophet is not without honour but in his owne Countrey A Pagan poet by the Apostle is called a Prophet Rev. 18.24 In her was found the blood of the Prophets and Saints and 22.9 I am thy fellow-servant and of thy brethren the Prophets Fourthly our Brethren of New-England bring no more arguments The rest of Robinsons stuffe is not so considerable he reasoneth thus The sons of the Prophets did preach 1 Sam. 15.5 2 Kings 2.7 also 4.1 But the sons of the Prophets were men out of office Answ The major is not proved by the places alledged for the first speaks of the Prophets but not of their sons the other two speak of the sons of the Prophets but nothing of their preaching yet we do not deny the major for we think it may be proved from other Scriptures but we deny the minor That the sons of the Prophets were men altogether out of office for their call from God and appointment by the Prophets to wait on that service did give them such a begining and entrance into the office of a Prophet that made them capable of an initiall exercise of their begun gifts so we deny not in the New Testament to men who are destinate to the Ministry and in their preparations for it a power to preach for attaining an habit of that gift wherunto initiall Sermons are a necessary means without which neither the gift nor the calling can be obtained without a miracle Fifthly Robinson reasons thus All these whom we ought to wish to be Prophets may lawfully preach But we ought to wish all the people of God to be Prophets Num. 11.20 Would God that all the people of the Lord were Prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them Ans We deny the major because our desire for the enlargement of Gods honour and the propagation of his truth that many more then are were sent out to preach and baptize giveth not to any man either a gift or a power or a calling to preach and baptize till God and man give the calling Moses wish was not that all the people should prophecy but that all might have the office of Prophets and the spirit of God to enable them for prophecying Sixthly the Apostles before Christs resurrection did preach But the Apostles before Christs resurrection were not in the office of Apostleship Answ The minor must carry that they were men out of all Church office which is evidenâ—ly false for beside that Mat. 10.1 they are called expresly Apostles at their first mission and Iudas Acts 1.25 is said to have had the ministry and the Apostleship they did celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism which the adversary will grant could not lawfully be done by men out of office Seventhly Paul and Barnabas were invited to preach where they were in no office and by those who did not know them to be in office anywhere Acts 13.15 Men and Brethren if yee have any word of exhortation for the Brethren say on Ergo men out of office may lawfully preach Answ The antecedent is false for Paul and Barnabas were men in office true Prophets and Apostles their bounds were as large as all Nations Beside a Pastor in one Church for the relation he hath to the Church universall upon a lawfull call may preach in any Church Also that the rulers of the Synagogue did not take Paul and Barnabas for Preachers is as easily deny'd as affirmd the same both of their preaching miracles might easily have come before or with them from Cyprus into Pysidia Lastly the Scribes and Pharisees did expound and preach the law but the Scribes and Pharisees were in no Church office for all the offices of the Church under the old Testament were in the hands of Levites alone now the Scribes and Pharisees were not Levites but of other tribes Ans The minor is false for the Lord tels us that the Scribes and Pharisees were in Church office that they sate in Moses chaire and were doctors of the Law The confirmation is not good for how will they prove that in these times of great confusion the Levites alone had all Ecclesiastick offices not only in the Temple about the sacrifices but in the Synagogue about the doctrine and discipline Also though this were
the Keys to every beleever for some beleevers are not Members of any Church and the Keys are onely for Domesticks Neither doe they put the Keys into the hands of beleevers alone for so Judas and many Pastours for want of true fayth could not validly either preach or baptize The Keys therefore are not promised to Peter under the notion of a beleever but in the quality of an Apostle and Elder of the Church as is cleared in the paralled places of Math John where the gift here promised is actually conferred upon all the Apostles who all were Elders and whose Office of opening and closing the doores of Heaven was to remaine in the Church to the worlds end not in the hand of every beleever but of the Governours of the Church joyned in that Presbytery which other Scriptures doe mention Secondly they reason from Maâ— 18. who ever is the Church to whom scandalls must be told and which must be heard under the pain of Excommunication they have the power of Church Censures But the people are that Church Ergo. Ans we deny the Minor with the good leave of our Brethren for albeit they are wont to make the people alone without their Officers the Church in this place proving hence the peoples power of Jurisdiction before they have any Officers also their power to cast out all their Officers when they have gotten them yet now they have gone from the Separatists thus farre as to say that the people alone cannot be the Church here mentioned but the Church must be the people with their Officers whom now they will be loth as sometimes to make meere accidents and adjuncts of this Church for now they hold them for integrall Members so necessary that without them no censure at all can be performed upon any They goe here a little further telling us that the Church in this place cannot be the people though with their Officers but must be taken for the Officers with the people because both the Power and the Execution of censures belongs to the Officers alone though in the presence of the people and with their consent and concurrence They tell us that the Right and Authority of censures is given onely to the Presbytery of governours in such a manner that the Presbytery can be censured by no others neither can any other be censured not onely without their consent but not without their action We adde a third steppe whether our former arguments must draw them that the Church here meant must be the Governours alone without the peoples concurrence for if Excommunication the great act of government did belong to the people either by themselves alone or joyntly by way of concurrence with their Officers it would follow that the people were either sole governours above their Officers or joynt governours with their Officers which albeit our Brethren did hold lately with the Separatists yet now they will not assert so much the more as they declare it to be their judgement and practice that the Elders alone without the People doe meete apart in their Presbytery to heare all offences and to prepare them for publicke Judgement whence I thus argue They to whom offences are to be told immediatly after the two or three witnesses are not heard They are the Church to whom in this place the power of excommunication is given but the Elders alone without the People being set apart in their Presbytery are they to whom offences are to be told c. Ergo The Major is cleare from the Text for it speaks but of one Church which must be told and heard under the paine of censure The Minor is their own confession and practice and if that meeting of the Elders to whom they tell the offence for preparation of the processe to their peoples voice be not the Church here mentioned Then their ordinary practice of bringing scandalls first to the Presbytery before they be heard in the Congregation shall be found not onely groundlesse beside the Scripture but altogether contrary to the Scripture in hand for the method here prescribed is that the Church be told when the witnesses are not heard if therefore that company which is told after the witnesses are contemned be not the Church Christs order is not kept and the Church gets wrong Thirdly they reason from 1 Cor. chap. 5. ver 4.5.7.12.13 They who are gathered together with the Apostles Spirit and the Power of Christ to deliver the incestuous man to Sathan Who were to purge out the old Leaven and to judge them that are within and put away the wicked Person they have power to excommunicate but the People doe all these things Ergo. Answer the Minor is denyed First that gathering together might well be of the Presbytery alone which our Brethren grant most meete in divers preparatory acts to censure Secondly if it were of the whole people which can not be supposed in Corinth where the People and Officers were so many that the Congregations as in Jerusalem and else where were more then one yet suppose that all the people did meete to the excommunication of that wicked man this proves not that every one who did meete unto that censure had either the power or the execution of it more then of the Word and Sacraments to which they did more frequently meete Thirdly the purging out of the old Leaven and the putting away the man is commended indefinitely to these unto whom the Apostle wrote which our Brethren grant cannot be expounded without sundry exceptions First none doubt of women and children againe in the next chapter it is written indefinitely you are sanctifyed you are justifyed your Bodyes are the Temples of the Holy Ghost this must be restricted to the elect and regenerate except we will turne Arminians Everywhere in Scripture indefinite propositions must be expounded according as other Scriptures declare the nature of the matter in hand so here the act of purging and putting away ascribed indefinitely to the Church must be expounded not of all the Members but only of the Officers of the Church For the Brownists themselves make not every Member to be a ruler nor doe our Brethren give the formall authority and power of censures to any other but Officers ascribing to the rest of the Members onely a Liberty of concurrence so that the next word of Judging is expounded by them of a Judgement of discretion not of any judiciall and authoritative Judgement which alone is in question Fourthly from Coll. 4.17 they reason the people of Colosse had power to admonish their Minister Archippus to fullfill his Ministery Therefore the People of any Church have power if neede be to excommunicate their Minister Answer First That however our Brethren pretend to have come off from the extremity of the Brownists halfe way towards us yet their arguments drive at the utmost of their old extremities at no lesse then a power for the people to excommunicate their Ministers
Thus farre the most of their reasons doe carry if they have any force at all Secondly the Antecedent may well be denyed all that the Apostle speaks to the Collossians indefinitely must not be expounded of every one of the people This precept of speaking to Archippus could not be better performed then by the Presbytery whereof Archippus was a Member Thirdly the consequence is invalid They might admonish therefore excommunicate Every admonition is not in order to censure it is a morall duty incumbent to every one to admonish lovingly and zealously his Brother when there is cause it is a sinne and disobedience to God if we let sinne lye upon any whom we by our counsell and admonition can helpe but to conclude that we have power to Excommunicate every man whom in duty wee ought to admonish is an absurdity which none of the Separatists will well digest Fifthly From Revel 2.14.20 The whole Churches of Pergamus and Tâ—yatira are rebuked for suffering wicked Hereticks to live among them uncensured Ergo it was the duty of all the Church to censure them Answer First the conclusion is for a power to the people to censure which our Brethren now deny Secondly The Antecedent may be denied for the fault of that impious Toleration is not laid upon the whole Church but expresly upon the Angell Thirdly the consequence is not good The whole Church might be reproved for a neglect of their duty in not inciting and incouraging their Officers to censure these Hereticks but a reproofe for this neglect inferreth not that it was the peoples duty to execute these censures Thus much our Brethren will not avow Sixthly They reason from Revel 4.4 The foure and twenty Elders sate on Thrones in white Robes with Crownes on their heads Ergo Every one of the Church hath a power of judging as Kings with Crownes sitting on their Thrones Answer First the conclusion ever inferres the full Tenet of the Separatists Secondly the consequence is very weake except many things be supposed which will not be granted without strong proofes first that this Type is argumentative for the matter in hand secondly that this place is relative to the Church on earth rather then to that in heaven thirdly that these Elders doe typifie the people rather then the Officers fourthly that the Thrones and Crownes import a Kingly Office in every Christian to be exercised in Church censures upon their brethren more then the white robes doe inferre the Priestly Office of every Christian to be exercised in Preaching the Word and celebrating the Sacraments Seventhly They reason from Galatian 5.1.13 the Galatians were called unto Liberty whereto they behoved to stand fast as to a priviledge purchased by Christ his blood Ergo Every one of them had a power to cut off their Officers Answer This is the Scripture whereupon our Brethren have lately fallen and make more of it then of any other I confesse their reasoning from it seemes to me the most unreasonable throwing of the holy Scripture that I have readily seene in any Disputant The whole scope of the place carrying evidentty a liberty from the burthen and servitude of the Law Their fathering upon it a new and unheard of sense to wit a priviledge of Church censures without any authority or proper power therein is very strange they cannot produce any Scripture where the word Liberty hath any such sense and though they could yet to give the word that sense in this place where so clearely it is referred to a quite diverse matter it seemeth extremely unreasonable Eightly Thus they reason The whole Congregation of Israel had power to punish Malefactors as in the case of Gibea in the message of Israel to the two Tribes halfe also the people had power to rescue from the hands of the Magistrates as in the case of Jonathan from Saul Answer The consequence is null for the practise of the Israelites in their civill state is no sufficient rule for the proceedings of the Church of the New Testament Our Brethren would beware of such Arguments least by them they entertaine the jealousie which some professe they have of their way fearing it be builded upon such principles as will set up the common people not onely above their Officers in the Church but also above their Magistrate in the State That it draw in a popular government and Ochlocracie both in Church and State alike Ninthly They thus reason Who ever doe elect the Officers they have power to ordaine them and upon just cause to depose and excommunicate them But the people do elect their Officers Ergo. Answer The major is denied for first election is no act of power suppose it to be a priviledge yet there is no Jurisdiction in it at all but Ordination is an act of Jurisdiction it is an authoritative mission and putting of a man into a spirituall Office The people though they have the right and possession by Scripturall practise of the one yet they never had either the right or the possession of the other Secondly suppose the Maxime were true whereof yet I much doubt unlesse it be well limited Ejus est destituere cuius instituere that they who give authority have power to take it backe againe yet we deny that the people who elect give any authority or office at all their election is at most but an Antecedent Sine quo non it is the Presbytery onely who by their Ordination doe conferre the Office upon the elect person Finally They argue No act of Jurisdiction is vâ—lid without the peoples consent Ergo to every act of Jurisdiction the peoples presence and concurrence is necessary Answer The antecedent in many cases is false a gracious Orthodoxe Minister may be ordained a Pastor to a Hereticall people against their consent an Hereticall Pastor who hath seduced all his flocke may be removed from them against their passionate desires to keepe him but the Consequent is more vitious where ever consent is requisite their presence much lesse authoritative concurrence is not necessary all the souldiers are not present at the Counsell of War and yet the decrees of that Counsell of War can not be executed without the consent and action of the Souldiers every member of the Church of Antioch was not present at the Synod of Jerusalem diverse members of the Independent Congregations are absent from many Church determinations to the which upon their first knowledge they doe agree CHAP. X. Independencie is contrary to the Word of God THe Divine Wisedome which found it expedient for man before the Fall not to live alone hath made it much more needfull for man to live in Society after his weakning by sinne Woe to him that is alone for if he fall who shall raise him up The best wits of themselves are prone to errors and miscarriages and left alone are inclined to run on in any evill way they have once begunne But engagement in
fellowshippe especially with the Saints is a preservative against the beginnings of evill and a retractive therefrom when begunne Every gratious neighbour is a Counsellour and Pedagogue the greater the incorporation is of such the better is every Member directed and the more strengthened Hence the goodnesse of God hath ordained not onely the planting of particular men into a small body of one single Congregation but for the greater security both of Persons and Congregations the Lord hath increased that Communion of Churches by binding neighbour Congregations in a larger and stronger Body of a Presbytery or Classis yea a number of Presbyteryes by the same hand of God are combined in a Synode neither this onely but for the strengthening of every stone and of the whole building the Lord hath appointed the largest societies that are possible the very Church universall and the representation thereof an Oecumenick Assembly This congregative way is divine the dissolution of humane societies especially of Ecclesiasticke Assemblyes must be from another Spirit The first we know to have opposed the holy Societyes we speake of were Anabaptists who liking a Catholicke anarchy in all things and pressing an universall liberty did strive to cut in peeces all the bands as of Politicke and Oeconomick union whereby Kingdomes and States Cities and Familyes did stand so also of the Ecclesiasticke conjunction making every person at last fully free from all servitude and simply independent or uncontrolable in any of his owne opinions or desires by any mortall man Their first follower among the reformed was one John Moreau a Parisian who in the French Churches did vent the Independency of Congregations from Synods and the popular government of these Independent Congregations But his scismatick pamphlet came no sooner abroad then the French Divines did most unanimously trample upon it In their generall Assembly at Rochell most Reverend Beza Moderator for the time and in their next Assembly Learned Sadeell with others did so fully confute these Anabaptistick follies that thereafter in France this evill Spirit did never so much as whisper only in Holland in the Arminian times it began to speake by the tongue of Grotius and others of his fellowes who being conscious to themselves of Tenets whereunto they despared the assent of any Synode yea fearing to be prejudged in the propagation of their errours by a crosse Sentence of a Nationall Assembly did set themselves to call in question and at last to deny the Authority and Jurisdiction of all Church meetings But when the goodnesse of God in that happy Synode of Dort did crush the other errours of that Party this their fansie did evanish and since in these bounds hath beene buried in Oblivion By what meanes this Anabaptistick roote which neither France nor Holland could beare when Grotius and Morellius did assay to plant it doth thrive so well in England after Browne and Barrow with their followers did become its dressers I have declared at length before However the Novelty of the Tenet the Infamie of its Authours the evill successe it hath had whereever yet it hath set up the head doth burden it with so just contempt that all further audience might be denyed thereto yet in this impudent and malapertage where the greatest absurdityes will importunately ingyre themselves and require beleefe as unanswerable and most covincing truths unlesse in a full hearing their naughtinesse be demonstrate we are content without all prejudices to reason the matter it selfe from the ground and to require no man to hate this errour for its Authours or any externall consideration unlesse it be cleerely showne to be contrary to the revealed will of God The state of the Question hath no perplexitie if its termes were cleared The Brownists affirme that every Parish Church that every single Congregation is Independent from any Presbytery any Synod any Assembly This we deny affirming the true dependence and subordination of Parochiall Congregations to Presbyteries and of these to Synods to which we ascribe power authority and Jurisdisdiction Before wee fall to reasoning let us understand the words which in this debate doe frequently occurre First what is a Parochiall Church or single Congregation Secondly What is its independence Thirdly What is a Presbytery and a Presbyteriall Church Fourthly What is a Synod Fifthly What is Authoritie and Jurisdiction Ecclesiasticall We intend no definitions but such popular descriptions as may make cleare what the parties use to understand by these words A particular Church a Parish or Congregation in this Question is taken for a company of faithfull people every one whereof in the face of the whole Congregation hath given so cleare tokens of their true grace and regeneration as hath satisfied the minde of all A company I say incorporate by a particular Covenant and Oath to exercise all the parts of Christian Religion in one place under one Pastor Our Opposits affirme that in one Church there must be but one Pastor assisted indeede with a Doctor and three or foure Elders yet no more Pastors but one They will admit into a Church no more people then commodiously and at their ease may convene in one house how few they be they care not ten families or forty persons to them are a faire Church you have heard that some of their Churches have beene within the number of foure persons Independencie is the full liberty of such a Church to discharge all the parts of Religion Doctrine Sacraments Discipline and all within it selfe without all dependence all subordination to any other on earth more or fewer so that the smallest Congregation suppose of three persons though it fall into the grossest heresies may not be controlled by any Orthodoxe Synod were it Oecumenicke of all the Churches on earth A Presbytery as it is called in Scotland or a Classis as in Holland or a Collogue as in France is an ordinary meeting of the Pastors of the Churches neerly neighbouring of the ruling Elders deputed therefrom for the exercise chiefely of discipline so farre as concernes these neighbouring Churches in common A Presbyteriall Church is a company of Professors governed by one Prysbytery who for the exercise of Religion meete in diverse places or who have moe Pastors then one A Synod is a convention of Pastors and Elders sent and deputed from diverse Presbyteries meeting either ordinarily or upon occasion for the affaires that are common to those that sent them Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction is a right and power not onely by advice to counsell and direct but by authority given of God to injoyne and to performe according to the rule of Scriptures these things which concern the Ordination of Ministers the deciding of Ecclesiasticall Causes the determination of Doctrines the inflicting of Censures c. The signification of these words being presupposed the state of the Question or minde of the parties can not be obscure The first Argumen for the truth I cast into this Forme Every Independent
full exercise of all Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction that all such were Presbyteriall and not Congregationall We prove it thus A Church which cannot all convene in one house for the publicke Service of God a Church which hath more Pastours then one is Presbyteriall not Congregationall according to the grounds of our Adversaryes But all the Churches we reade of in the New Testament to have had the full exercise of all Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction did meete in more places for divine worshippe and had more Pastors then one This we demonstrate of the cheife the Church at Jerusalem Samaria Rome Corinth Ephesus Antioch neither can a reason be given why the rest of the Scripturall Churches should not be of the same kind Beginne with the Mother-Church of Jerusalem A company consisting of many thousand persons and wanting a publicke house of meeting could not convene into one place for worshippe for this very day when Christians have gotten most stately and spacious Palaces for Churches hardly one thousand can commodiously be together for solemne worshippe and if we looke to the practise of the Adversaries a few scores of men will be a large Church As for the State of the Church at Jerusalem First It is granted that for many yeares after the Apostles neither it nor any other company of Christians in any part of the world had a publicke place of meeting Secondly That this Church did consist of many thousand people the following places prove Acts. 2.41 The same day were added unto them about three thousand Also chap. 4.5 The number of the men were five thousand And where there were so many men if yee looke to the ordinary proportion there were of women and children twice or thrice so many Neither did that Church stand at the named thousands for Acts. 5.14 more multitudes both of men and women were added to the Church and the number of the Disciples was yet more multiplyed chap 6.1 Also that which we reade chap. 2.47 The Lord added to the Church daily seemeth to have continued for a long time To that which is replyed by some that a great part of the named multitudes were strangers and not Inhabitants at Jerusalem and so no Members of that Church We answer that this is said without warrant That of the three thousand mentioned in the third chapter some part were strangers we will not deny to be likely but that the most part were so or that of all the thousands named in the fourth fifth and sixt any one was a stranger it cannot be proved from the Text. As for that which they bring from the 2 chap. 44. All who beleeved were together as if the whole Church had alwayes come to one place for the publicke worshippe We say that it was simply impossible for three thousand people not to speake of twenty thousand and above to meete in one private house for they had none publicke neither did they in the streetes celebrate their Sacraments So we are necessitated to take the Churches being together one of three wayes either for the conjunction of their minds as the following words doe import they continued with one accordin the Temple or else their meeting together must be understood distributively in divers places not collectively in one as the words in hand will also beare where the celebration of the Lords Supper and breaking of bread is said to be not in any one house onely but from house to house The Church meete thin a third way together when not all the members but the Officers with a part of the people convene in a Presbytery as appeareth from the 15 and 21 chapters The case is no lesse cleare of the Church of Samaria Acts 8.6.10.12.14 verses the People of that City with one accord from the least to the greatest both men and women did beleeve in such a number that the cheife of the Apostles Peter and John were sent from Jerusalem to assist Philip in their instruction Could this whole City which was amongst the greatest of Canaan convene all to Gods worshippe in one private roome or be served with one Pastor who required for a time the attendance not onely of Philip but further of two prime Apostles Come to the rest The Roman Church was one Body Rom. 12.6 yet so great that it could not meet in one private roome For in the 16. chap. beside the Church which met in the house of Aquila v. 5. there are a number of houses set downe in which besides divers Saints named there were many others also unnamed which worshipped with them v. 14 15. So great were the multitudes of Christians then at Rome that their fame was spread over all the world chap. 1.8 and chap. 16.19 In the City of Rome were many hundred thousand men the halfe of which according to Tertullian were Christians the age after the Apostles and a little after Cornelius recordeth that more then forty preachers did attend the instruction of that people who yet had no publick place of meeting The same was the case of the Church at Corinth at its very beginning Acts. 18.8 It did consist of a multitude both Iewes and Gentiles beside all which God had much people in that City v. 10. which by the continuall labours of Paul for 18 monthes were converted v. 11 for whose instruction beside Paul Apollos Timotheus a great number of other Doctors attended 1 Cor 4.15 not to speake of a multitude of false Teachers they had also a number of idle and vaine Teachers who kept the foundation but builded upon it hay stubble and timber Could all these meete together in one private place unlesse yee would understand their meetings distributively or for the convention of their Officers with a part of the people for discipline Also at Ephesus was but one Church For Acts. 20.17 Paul called to him the Elders of that Church in the singular yet that in Ephesus there was so great a number of Christians as could not commodiously serve God in one private roome it seemes most cleare for in that most noble Mart Town Paul did preach whole two yeares Acts 19.10 yea he ceased not day nor night for full three yeares cha 20.31 The feare of God fell on all that people both Jews and Gentiles and the name of Jesus was magnified cha 19.19 So great a multitude even of Scholars was converted that the Professors of curious arts alone did make a fire of Bookes to the value of 50000 peeces of silver so mightily grew the word of God there v. 20. Further in the Church of Ephesus were many Pastors for Acts. 20.17 Paul called for the Elders not one onely That divers of these if not all were Pastors and Doctors it appeareth from v. 28. where they are appointed by the Holy Ghost to be feeders of the flocke and get a Commission to oppose false Doctors about the which they went faithfully as the Lord beareth them witnesse Revel 2.2 Now the charge
of the Doctrine to try and examine false Teachers lieth principally on preachers This is alike true of the Church of Antioch The hand of the Lord was in the City and a great number beleeved Acts 11.21 Thereafter by Barnabas labour there was much people added v. 24. yea by the joyned paines of Barnabas and Paul for a yeare together there was such a multitude converted that the name of Christians was first imposed upon them Here as in the Metropolitane City not onely of Syria but all Asia beside Barnabas Paul and other Prophets v. 27. Peter also and many other Doctors had their residence Gal. 2.11 It were too long to speake of the rest of the Apostolicke Churches whose condition was not unlike the former Our third Argument No Synod hath authority to impose Decrees upon an Independent Church But some Synods have authority to impose Decrees upon particular Churches whether Presbyteriall or Congregationall Ergo Particular Churches whether Presbyteriall or Congregationall are not Independent The Maior is not controverted our adverse party acknowledgeth the lawfull use and manifold fruits of Synods They grant it is the duty of every good man and much more of every Church and most of all of a Synod consisting of the Messengers of many Churches to admonish counsell perswade and request particular Curches to doe their duty But that any company on earth even an Oecumenicke Synod should presume to injoyne with authority the smallest Congregation to leave the grossest heresies under the paine of any censure they count it absurd Upon this ground that every Congregation how small soever how corrupt soever is an Independent body and not subordinate to any society on earth how great how pure how holy soever The Minor thus is proved The Synod of Jerusalem imposed with Authority her Decrees upon the Church of Antioch Ergo Some Synod and if you please to make it universall every lawfull Synod may impose its Decrees upon particular Churches The Antecedent is to be seene Acte 15.20 It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay no further burden on you then these things necessary The Consequence is good for Antioch was among the chiefe of the Apostolicke Churches in it Barnabas Paul and other Prophets inspired of God were Preachers If this Church was subject to the Authority of Synods what Church may plead a freedome from the like subjection Many things are here replied as usually it hapneth when no solid answer can be brought The chiefe heads of the Reply are three First that the meeting at Jerusalem was no Synod Secondly What ever it was that it did injoyne nothing authoritatively to any other Churches Thirdly That other Synods may not pretend to the priviledges of that meeting since its Decrees were indited by the Holy Ghost and stand now in the holy Canon as a part of Scripture To the first we say that the meeting at Jerusalem is either a true Synod or else there is no paterne in all Scripture for Synods even for counsell or advice or any other use But this were inconvenient for they acknowledge that Synods are lawfull meanes for many gracious ends in the Church Now to affirme that any Ecclesiasticke meeting is lawfull necessary or convenient for gracious ends whereof no patterne no example can be found in Scripture were dangerous But beside this argument towards our adverse party we reason from the nature of the thing it selfe A meeting consisting of the Deputies of many Presbyteriall Churches is a true Synod but the convention at Jerusalem Acts 15. was such a meeting The Maior is the essence of a Synod there are many accidentall differences of Synods for according to the quantity and number of the Churches who send their Commissioners the Synod is smaller or greater is Provinciall Nationall or Oecumenicke according to occasion the Churches sending Commissioners are sometime moe sometime fewer sometime neerer sometime further off also according to the commodity of place and necessity of affaires they come from one Church moe and from others fewer all these are but accidentalls which change not the nature of the thing Unto the essence of a Synod no more useth to be required then a meeting of Commissioners from moe Presbyteriall Churches The Minor is cleare That the Church of Antioch and Jerusalem were moe Churches no man doubts that both were Presbyteriall it was proved before that from both these Presbyteriall Churches Commissioners did sit at that meeting it is apparent from that oft cited Acts 15. Yea that from the other Churches of Syria and Cilicia besides Antioch Commissioners did come to Jerusalem may appeare by conference of the 2. vers of the 15. chap. with vers 23. for that with Paul and Barnabas Commissioners for the time from the Antiochians others also did come it is certaine that those others at least some of them were Deputed from the Churches of Syria and Cilicia it is like because the Synodick Epistle is directed expresly no lesse to those than to this of Antioch also those no lesse than this are said to be troubled with the Questions which occasioned that meeting But to passe this consideration it is cleare that in the Convention at Jerusalem were present not onely the Commissioners of some few Presbyteriall Churches but also they whom God had made constant Commissioners to all the Churches of the world to wit the Apostles their presence made all the Churches legally subject to the Decrees of that Synod though they had no other but their grand and constant Commissioners to Voyce for them in that meeting The second Answer is clearely refuted from the 28. vers where the Decrees are not proposed by way of meere advice but are injoyned and imposed as necessary burdens with Authority not onely of the Synod but of the holy Ghost Concerning the third we say that the meerely Divine and more than Ecclesiastick Authority of these Decrees in their first Formation is not made good from this that now they stand in holy Scripture and are become a part of the Bible for a world of Acts meerely indifferent and which without doubt in their Originall had no more then Ecclesiasticke Authority are Registred in Scripture Was the Presbytery of Lystraes laying on of hands on Timothy any other then an act of Ecclesiastick Ordination The Decree of the Church of Corinth for the incestuous mans Excommunication or relaxation after Repentance was it any more then an act of Jurisdiction meerely Ecclesiasticke Pauls circumcision of Timothy his Uow at Cenchrea the cutting off his haire at Jerusalem were free and indifferent actions The nature of these things and many moe of that kinde is not changed by their Registring in the Booke of God Neither also is the meerly Divine Authority of the Decrees at Jerusalem proved by this that in their first framing they were grounded on cleare Scripture and after proclamed in the name of the holy Ghost for that is the condition of the
erect their Congregation the successe was no better their Ship scarce well set out was quickly splitupon the Rocks was soone dissipate and vanished When Johnstoun Ainsworth would make the third assay and try if that tree which neither in England nor Zealand could take roote might thrive in Holland at Amsterdam where plants of all sorts are so cherished that few of the most maligne qualite doe miscarry yet so singular a malignity is innate in that seede of Independency that in that very ground where all weedes grow ranke it did wither within a few yeares new Schismes burst that small Church asunder Johnstoun with his halfe and Ainsworth with his made severall Congregations neither whereof did long continnue without further ruptures Behold who please with an observant Eye these Congregations which have embraced Independency they shall finde that never any Churches in so short a time have beene disgraced with so many so unreasonable and so irreconcileable Schismes Against these inconveniences they tell us of two remedies the duties of charity and the authority of the Magistrate but the one is unsufficient and the other improper The duties of charitie are but mocked by obstinate Hereticks and heady Schismaticks to what purpose are counsells rebukes intreaties imployed towards him who is blowne up with the certaine perswasion that all his errors are divine truthes that all who deale with him to the contrary are in a cleare error that all the advices given to him are but the words of Satan from the mouthes of men tempting him to sinne against God As for the Magistrate oft he is not a Christian oft though a Christian he is not Orthodoxe and though both a Christian and Orthodoxe yet oft either ignorant or carelesse of Ecclesiasticke affaires and however his helpe is never so proper and intrinsecall to the Church that absolutely and necessarily she must depend thereupon Now all our Question is about the ordinary the internall the necessary remedies which Scripture ascribes to the Church within it selfe as it is a Church even when the outward hand of the Magistrate is deficient or opposite Our sixth and last Argument That which everteth from the very foundation the most essentiall parts of discipline not only of all the reformed but of all the Churches knowne at any time in any part of the world till the birth of Anabaptisme it can not be very gracious But this doth Independency The Minor is cleare by induction That the Government of the Scottish Church by Synods Presbyteries and Sessions sworne and subscribed of old and late by that Nation in their solemne Covenant that the same discipline of the Churches of France Holland Swiiz Geneva as also the Politie of the High Dutch and English and all the rest who are called Reformed is turned upside downe by Independency no man doubts for this is our Adversaries gloriation that they will be tied by no Oathes Covenants Subscriptions they will be hindred by no authority of any man no reverence of any Churches on earth to seperate from all the reformed that so alone they may injoy their divine and beloved Independency If you speake of more ancient times either the purer which followed the Apostles at the backe or the posterior impurer ages that the Politie of these times in all Churches Greeke and Latine is trodden under foote by Independency all likewise doe grant and how well that new conceit agreeth with the discipline practised in the dayes of Christ and his Apostles or in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets the preceding arguments will shew I confesse such is the boldnesse of the men against whom we now dispute that although they glory in their contempt of the authoritie of all men dead and living yet they offer to overwhelme us with testimonies of a number as well ancient as late Divines But who desire to see all that dust blowne back in their own eyes who raised it and the detorted words against the knowne mind and constant practise of the Authors clearely vindicated and retorted let them be pleased to take a view of Mr. Pagets Posthume Apologie where they will finde abundant satisfaction in this kinde For the other side a great bundle of arguments are also brought we shall consider the principall First To whom Christ hath given the right of excommunication the greatest of all censures they in all other acts of Jurisdiction and in all acts of Ecclesiastick discipline are Independent But Christ hath given the right of excommunication to every Congregation and to these alone Ergo c. They prove the Minor Unto the Church Christ hath given the right of excommunication Mat. 18. Goe tell the Church if he heare not the Church let him be to thee as an Ethnicke But every Congregation and it onely is the Church because in the whole Scripture the word Church where ever it is not taken for the Church universall or invisible is ever understood of a single Congregation which in one place with one Pastor serveth God Answer Passing the Majors we deny the Minors and affirme that no where in Scripture the word Church may be expounded of their Independent Congregation and least of all in the alledged place If we will advise either with the old or late Interpreters or with the best and most learned of the Adversaryes themselves who affirme with us that by the Church Math. 18. no Congregation can be understood unlesse we would bring in among Christians most grosse anarchy except we would set down on the Judgment seates of the Church every member of the Congregation men women young old the meanest and weakest part of the people to decide by the number not the weight of their voyces the greatest causes of the Church to determine finally of the excommunication of Pastors of the nature of haeresie and all doctrine and that with a decree irrevocable from which there may be no appeal no not to an Oecumenicke Synod Wherfore beside the rest of the Interpreters a great part of the Adversaries by the Church in this place understand no whole Congregation nor the most part of any Congregation but a select number thereof the Senate or Officers who cognose and discerne according to the Scriptures This is enough for answer to the argument but if further it be inquired the Senate of which Church is pointed at in this place whether of a Parochiall Church or Presbyteriall or Nationall or Oecumenicke or of all these Ans It seemeth that the Senate of all the Churches must here be understood and especially of a Presbyteriall Church at least not of a Parochiall onely and independently as our Adversaries would have it By no meanes will we have the Session of a Parish prejudged and are well content that the authority of Parochiall Sessions to handle their own proper affaires should be grounded upon this place onely we deny that from this place a Church-Session hath any warrant to take the cognition of things common to it selfe
with the Neighbouring Congregations or yet to governe her proper affaires absolutely and independently so that none may attempt to correct her when she erreth or by censure to put her in order when she beginneth by heresie schisme and tyranny to corrupt her selfe and others That in this place principally the Senate of a Presbyteriall Church is understood is cleare for of such a Church Christ here speaketh as were the Churches at Jerusalem Antioch Corinth and others in the new Testament which we proved before to have bin presbyteriall The Senate of such Churches attending on government and discipline is here called the Church as elsewhere Act. 5.20 It seemed good to the Apostles Elders and whole Church The Church met to cognosce on the questions from Antioch cannot be understood of all the thousand Christians at Jerusalem it must then be taken of the Presbytery to which the cognition of such questions doth belong In the fourth verse of the same chapter Paul is said to be received of the Church the word may well be expounded not of the whole Body but of a select number thereof even the Presbytery as in the 21 he is said to be received of the Apostles and Elders before the multitude had met together Only observe that however we affirme the Senate of a Presbyteriall Church cheifely here to be established yet we understand not this in a way independent from provinciall Nationall or Oecumenick Synods for all these meetings in their owne place and order are also grounded on this passage as before hath beene declared Their second Objection The practise of the Church of Corinth approved by the Apostles is the due right of every Parochiall Church and single Congregation But the censure of Excommunication was the practise of the Church of Corinth approved by the Apostle 1 Cor. 5.12 13. Do we not judge them that are within therefore put away from you that wicked person This judgement is authoritative and this putting away is the censure of Excommunication cutting off from the body of Christ which censure is here committed unto the Corinthians being gathered together in one vers 4. and so to them all and every one of them for to them all the Epistle is written and not to the Presbytery onely Answ The Maior must be denied for two causes First The practise of the Corinthians was grounded not onely upon the expresse command of the Apostle but also on the singular presence of the Apostles Spirit and authority with them in pronouncing the sentence of Excommunication against that incestuous person v. 3. I as present in Spirit have judged already This singular priviledge of the Corinthians is not a ground of common right to every Church who wants the authority of the Apostles expresse command and singular presence Secondly we may not argue from the Church of Corinth to every Congregation for it is proved before that the Church of Corinth was not Congregationall but Presbyteriall consisting of so many as could not meete commodiously in one private roome also it had within it selfe a Colledge or Senate of many Pastors Elders and Prophets to such a Church we grant willingly the exercise of all acts both of Ordination and Jurisdiction The Minor also cannot be admitted but with a double distinction the act of Excommunication is given to the Church of Corinth not according to its whole but acording to the select part to wit the Presbytery thereof It maketh nothing against this that the Epistle is written to the whole Church for what is written to the whole Church indefinitely must be applied according to the matter and purpose sometime onely to the Pastors excluding the people sometime onely to the people excluding the Pastors sometimes to both together to Pastors and Flock The first Epistle Chap. 1. vers 12. Every one of you saith I am of Paul I am of Apollos and I of Cephas this cannot be taken of the Pastors but of the people following Schismatically some one some another of the Pastors Likewise Chap. 4. vers 1. Let a man so count of us as of the Ministers of Christ must be taken of the people as Chap. 3. vers 12. Now if any man build on this foundation gold silver precious stones is to be understood of the Pastors as Chap. 4. vers 2. Also it is required in Stewards that a man be found faithfull but the most of the other places are to be expounded of both Now that the preceding passages concerning the Church-censures are not true of the whole Congregation it appeares for beside the absurdity of confusion Anarchy it would follow that very women have right judicially to Depose and Excommunicate by their voyces their Pastors which the very Adversaries professe to reject as absurd albeit not congruously to their Tenets for it is not reasonable that the right which from these places they ascribe to every member of the Church should be taken away from women upon this onely reason that in 1 Tim. 2.11 a commandement is given to the women not to teach but in silence to learne for as the brethren of our Adversaries the Anabaptists have marked that place taketh away from women the publicke charge of Preaching but not of speaking in judgement or giving their voyce in Church-judicatories Surely nowhere absolute silence in Church-judicatories is injoyned to women we truly give the power of witnessing and of selfe-defence as well to women as to men in all Church-judicatories However that the censure of the incestuous man was not inflicted by the whole Church it appeares from the 2 Epist Chap 2. vers 6. Sufficient to such a man was the punishment which was inflicted of many Who were these many but the Officers who were set over the Church in the Lord Another distinction also would be marked that whatsoever right we ascribe to the Church of Corinth whether according to its whole or according to any of its parts whether we take it for a Presbyteriall or a Parochiall Church all that right is to be understood not absolutely nor independently which here is the onely question For the Church at Corinth had no greater priviledges then the Church of Antioch Now that in a dubious and controverted case and in a common cause the Church of Antioch was subordinate unto a Synod it was before proved Their third objection That which the Holy Ghost gives unto the seven Churches of Asia must be the right of every single Congregation But the Holy Ghost gives unto the seven Churches of Asia all Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction within themselves Revel 2.2 Thou canst not beare with them which are evill and thou hast tryed them which say they are Apostles and hast found them lyars And ver 14. I have a few things against thee because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam And ver 20. I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest the woman Jezabell to teach Here the Churches of Ephesus Pergamus and Thyatira are praysed
Body But every single Congregation is the Kingdome of God c. Answ Passing by the Minor The Major is false and Anabaptisticke for by the same reason the Anabaptists exempt from all authority both Ecclesiasticke and Civill not onely every Congregation but every single person who are the members of Christ and his Spouse and in whom the Kingdome of God doth dwell The high and excellent stiles of honour which the Scripture gives not onely to whole Churches but to every particular Saint exempts neither the one nor the other because of their immediate subjection to God and Christ from the bonds and yoake of any authority either Ecclesiasticke or Civill which the Lord hath appointed in holy Scripture Christs internall government of soules by his Spirit albeit never so immediate taketh not away the externall administration of men either in the Church or Common wealth Who please to see much more upon this Question let them consult with Mr. Rutherfoord his Peaceable Plea with Appolonius and Spanheim with the Author of Vindiciae Clavium especially with the Divines of the Assembly their Answers to the Reasons of the dissenting brethren of purpose I have abstained from making use of any of these Writings at this time waiting for the Independents last Reply for their Reasons and the Modell of their positive Doctrin which they have made the world to waite for too too long a time CHAP. XI The thousand yeares of Christ his visible Raigne upon earth is against Scripture AMong all the Sparckles of new light wherewith our Brethren doe intertaine their owne and the peoples fancie there is none more pleasant then that of the thousand yeares a conceit of the most Ancient and grosse Hereticke Cerinthus a little purged by Papias and by him transmitted to some of the Greeke and Latine Fathers but quickly declared both by the Greek and Latine Church to be a great error if not an heresie Since the dayes of Augustine unto our time it went under no other notion and was imbraced by no Christian we heare of till some of the Anabaptists did draw it out of its grave for a long time after its resurrection it was by all Protestants contemned onely Alstedius after his long abode in Transilvania began in his last times to fall into likeing with some parts thereof pretending some passages of Piscator for his incouragement Alstedius Heterodox Writings were not long abroad when Mr. Meade at Cambridge was gained to follow him yet both these Divines were farre from dreaming of any personall raigne of Christ upon earth onely Mr. Archer and his Colleague T. G. at Arnheim were bold to set up the whole Fabricke of Chiliasme which Mr. Burrowes in his London Lectures upon Hosea doth presse as a necessary and most comfortabe ground of Christian Religion to be infused into the hearts of all children by the care of every parent at the Catechising of their family Our Brethrens mind in this point as I conceive they have Printed is this That in the yeare 1650. or at furthest 1695. Christ in his humane nature and present glory is to come from heaven unto Jerusalem where he was crucified at that time the heaven and earth and all the workes therein are to be burnt and purged by that fire of conflagration mentioned by Peter 2 Epist Chap. 3. At the same time all the Martys and many of the Saints both of the Old and New Testament are to rise in their bodies The Jewes from all the places where now they are scattered shall returne to Canaan and build Jerusalem in that City Christ is to raigne for a full thousand yeares from thence he is to goe out in person to subdue with great bloodshed by his owne hand all the disobedient Nations when all are conquered except some few lurking in corners then the Church of Jewes and Gentiles shall live without any disturbance from any enemy either without or within all Christians then shall live without sinne without the Word and Sacraments or any Ordinance they shall passe these thousand yeares in great worldly delights begetting many children eating and drinking and injoying all the lawfull pleasures which all the creatures then redeemed from their ancient slavery can afford In this Earthly happinesse shall the Church continue till the end of the thousand yeares when the relicks of the Turkish and Heathenish Nations shall besiege the new Jerusalem and Christ with fire from heaven shall destroy them afterwards followeth the second resurrection of all the dead good and bad for the last judgement Thus farre the Independent Preach and Print further Cerinthus himselfe went not if you will except the Polygamy and sacrifices of the old Israelits What truth may be in these things let the arguments which are usually brought either pro or contra declare Against the mentioned Tenet I reason first He that remaines in the heaven unto the last Judgement comes not downe to the earth a thousand yeare before the last Judgement But Christ remaines in the heaven unto the last Judgement Ergo. The Maior is unquestionable the Minor is proved from the Article of our Creede From that place he shall come to judge the quicke and the dead importing that Christ from the time of his ascention doth abide in the heaven at the right hand of the Father and commeth not downe from that place to the earth till he descend in the last day to judge the quicke and the dead I know they are not moved with the authority of any humane Creed yet they would doe well to speake out their minde of this Article as they doe of some others Surely to say that Christ shall come from heaven in his humane nature to abide a thousand yeares on the earth and then to returne againe to the heaven that he may discend the third time from the heaven in the last day to judge the quicke and the dead is so evident a perverting of that Article that Mr. Mead their great Doctor and leader in this Tenet to eschew it falleth into a very strange and singular conceit wherein I doubt whether any of the Independents will be pleased to follow him with all other Orthodox Divines he makes but two commings of Christ from the heaven to the earth the first at the Incarnation the second at the day of Judgement but this day of Judgement he extends to a round thousand yeares and this day to him is the onely time of the Millenary raigne We neede not refute this fancie for the best arguments which are brought for it are some testimonies from the Talmudicke Rabbins and these as I conceive understood against the true sence of the Authors The streame of Scripture and Reason runne more against this conceit then any other part of Chiliasme as the most of the Chiliasts themselves will confesse However what I brought from the Apostolick Creed of Christ his aboade in the heaven till the last day I prove it from Scripture Acts. 3 21. Whom
till the last day when Christ renders up his Oeconomicke Kingdome having destroyed all his enemies especially death fully perfected the work of his mediation This Resurrection is after the sound of the last Trumpet when all the godly rise and are changed and put on incorruption and immortallity when death is swallowed up into victory and the godly inherit the Kingdome of God these things are done at the last day not a thousand yeares before it as John 6. Christ avoweth thrice in the end ver 39.40.44 I will raise him up at the last day At that time the judgement is universall both of the godly and wicked and the execution of both their sentences is immediately by the present glorification of the one and the destruction of the other as we have it Math. 25.31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory before him shall be gathered all Nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepheard divideth his sheepe from the Goats Fourthly we reason from the nature of Christs Kingdome The conceit of the thousand yeares makes Christs Kingdome to be earthly and most observeable for all worldly glory but the Scripture makes it to be Spirituall without all wordly pompe neither doth the Word of God make the Kingdome of the Mediator of two kindes and of a different nature but one uniforme from the beginning to the end Luke 1.32 The Lord shall give him the throne of his Father David and he shall raigne over the house of Jacob for ever 1 Cor. 15.25 He must raigne till he have put all things under his feete here there is but one Kingdome and one way of ruling a Kingdome meerely Spirituall and nowise worldly Luke 17.20 The Kingdome of God commeth not with observation neither shall they say loe here or loe there but the Kingdome of God is within you John 18.36 My Kingdome is not of this world if my Kingdome were of this world then would my servants fight but now is my Kingdome not from hence Rom. 14 17. The Kingdome of God is not meate and drinke but righteousnesse peace and joy of the holy Ghost Ephes 1.20 He raised him from the dead and set him at his right hand in heavenly places and hath put all things under his feete and gave him to be head over all to the Church The Millenaries make his Kingdome to appeare in Armies and Battells in feasts and pleasures in worldly pompe and power and will not have his Kingdome to stand in any of that spirituall power which since his ascention he hath executed on principalities and powers or shall performe upon the soules of men till these thousand yeares of worldly power and earthly glory visible to the eyes of men shall begin We take our fifth argument from the nature of the Church Scripture makes the Church of God so long as it is upon the earth to be a mixed multitude of Elect and Reprobate good and bad a company of people under the crosse and subject to various temptations a company that hath neede of the Word and Sacraments of Prayer and Ordinances that hath Christ a High Priest within the vaile of heaven interceding for them But the Doctrine in hand changes the nature of the Church and makes it for a thousand yeares together to consist onely of good and gracious persons without all trouble without all Ordinances without any neede of Christs intercession For the first That Scripture makes the Church alwayes to be a mixed company See Matth. 13.40 As the tares are gathered and burnt in the fire so shall it be in the end of the world The Sonne of man shall send forth his Angels and they shall gather out of his Kingdome all things that offend and that doe iniquity and vers 49. So shall it be in the end of the world the Angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the just Also Chap. 24.11 Many false Prophets shall arise and deceive many because iniquity shall abound the love of many shall waxe cold Luke 18.8 When the Sonne of man commeth shall he finde faith upon the earth These places declare the mixture of the wicked with the godly in the Church to the worlds end and most about the end As for Crosses See Psal 34.20 Many are the afflictions of the righteous Mat 5 4. Blessed are they that mourne and that are persecuted for righteousnesse Acts 14.23 By many tribulations we must enter into the Kingdome of heaven Rom. 8.17 If so we suffer with him that we may be glorified together 2 Tim. 3.12 All that will live godly in Christ Jesus must suffer persecution Heb. 12.6 Whom the Lord loves he correcteth and he scourgeth every child that he receives Many such places shew the condition of the Church in this life that she is ever subject to tribulation Concerning Ordinances that they must continue to the last day See Ephes 4.11 He gave some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the worke of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to a perfect man And for the continuance of the Sacraments 1 Cor. 11.26 As often as you eate this bread and drinke this cup yee doe shew the Lords death till hee come That in the most godly while they live on earth sinne doth remaine and that alwayes we have neede of Christs intercession in the heaven with the Father it is cleare from 1 John 1.8 If wee say we have no sinne the truth of God is not in us And Chap. 2. ver 1. But if any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Heb. 9.24 Christ is entred into the heaven it selfe now to appeare in the presence of God for us Thus the Scripture describes the condition of the Church on earth but the Doctrine in hand alters much the nature of it for a great part of its time here for of the 2650 yeares which they give to the Church from the comming of Christ to the last judgement they make her to consist for a whole thousand yeares only of godly persons without the mixture of any one wicked and all the millions who are borne in the Church in that large time they are free from their birth to their death of all crosses of all sorrowes of all temptations and as it seemes of all sinne also for that is the time of the restitution of all things when old things are past and all things become new They make them to have neede neither of Word nor Sacraments or any Church-Ordinance neither of Christs Intercession in the heavens with the Father for they have him among them in the earth and they are freed from all sinne and all misery A sixth Argument Scripture makes the time of Christs second comming to be secret and hid not onely to men but to the very Angels and to Christ himselfe as he is man Marke 13.32 But of that day and that
of the Gentiles how much more their fullnesse Ans There is nothing here for the point in hand we grant willingly that the Nation of the Jewes shall be converted to the fayth of Christ and that the fullnesse of the Gentiles is to come in with them to the Christian Church also that the quickning of that dead and rotten member shall be a matter of exceeding joy to the whole Church But That the converted Jewes shall returne to Canaan to build Jerusalem That Christ shall come from the heaven to reigne among them for a thousand yeares there is no such thing intimated in the scriptures in hand Master Burrous fifth place is Acts 3.20 21. He shall send Iesus Christ whom the heavens must receive unto the times of the restitution of all things Ans That these words are to be understood of Christs comming to the last Judgement and not of his comming to any Temporall Kingdome on earth we did before prove His sixth place is 2 Pet. 3.10.13 But the day of the Lord will come as a Theife in the night in the which the heavens shall passe away with a great noyse and the Elements shall melt with fervent heate the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up neverthelesse we according to his promise looke for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousnesse Ans First it would be remembred that our Brethren do adde among many other things this also unto the Tenet of the old Chiliasts That before their golden age the earth and all things therein must be destroyed That the earth wherein they are to reigne that the Beasts Foules Fishes Trees and all other creatures they are to make use of in their thousand yeares are to be of new created all the old creatures in their whole kindes being burnt to ashes and destroyed We say secondly That this place is miserably misinterpreted for all that the Apostle is saying is in answer to the scoffers cavill verse 4. requiring in scorne the performance of the promise of Christs comming not unto this thousand yeares raigne but to the day of Judgement and perdition of ungodly men as the Apostle speaks expressely vers 7. Now all the Chiliasts confesse that this Judgement and that perdition is not till after the thousand yeares so the burning of necessity according to their owne grounds cannot precede but must follow them Thirdly the time whereof the Apostle speakes is called the day of the Lord the usuall discription of Christs comming to Judgement also the day that comes on the world as a theefe in the night which phrase oftentimes in scripture is attributed unto Christs comming unto Judgement but is not true of his comming to the Millenary reigne for the calculation of that time is so well knowne that it is preached and printed to be at such a yeare if not such a mounth or day Also this dissolving of the heavens and Elements with fire is a concomitant of Christ his comming to the last Judgement as is expressely intimated 2 Thes 1.8.9 As for the words whereupon alone they ground their argument the new Earth wherein dwells righteousnesse As if these words could not be true after the last Judgement no righteous man then dwelling upon the earth If they had looked upon the originall they would have seene the weakenesse of their collection for the words runne thus We in whom righteousnesse dwells looke for new Heavens and a new Earth The habitation of righteousnesse referring neither to the heavens not to the earth but to the godly and righteous persons who did waite for the performance of the promise of new heavens and a new earth as our late annotations doe observe And though you would reade them according to our English Translation yet that inhabitation needes not referre to the earth but to the heavens onely as Junius well observes For it is not in qua terra but in quibus coelis and our Brethren if they beleeve Mr. Archer must referre the Pronoune not to both the Substantives but onely to the one for he teaches That during the thousand yeares no righteous soule inhabites the heaven and thereafter that no righteous soule does inhabit either the earth or the heavens wherein now the soules of the godly are all these being turned into hell the habitation of unrighteous men and divells Mr. Burrows seventh place Isa 65.21 And they shall build houses and inhabit them and they shall plant Vinyeards and eate the fruit of them and ver 17. Behold I create new heavens and a new earth c. Hence concluding not onely a new heaven and a new earth for the Millenary reigne but a planting of Vinyeards a building of houses which cannot be after the day of Judgement Ans First Master Burrowes referres this place to the former passage of Peter if therefore Peters new heavens and new earth must be understood of the life to come Isaiahs new heavens and new earth must be understood of the same Secondly It s very new and harsh divinity to say that after the heavens have passed away with a noyse and the earth with all the workes thereof are burnt up that men shall plant Vineyards and build houses upon the new earth Therefore Master Burrows notwithstanding his argument and reference of Isaiah to Peter seemes in that same place to retract and acknowledge that the new heavens and the new earth must be expounded by a Metaphor and import no more then the doing of so glorious things by God for the Church in the latter days as shall manifest his glorious and creating power as if he did make new heavens and a new earth This is farre from the burning of the heavens and earth that now are It is no more then what the Apostle Peter brings from the Prophet Joel Acts. 2.19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above and signes in the earth beneath bloud and fiâ—â— and vapour of smoake the Sunne shall be turned into darknesse and the Moone into bloud All which Peter makes to be performed upon the day of the Pentecost It is no more then that of Haggay 2.6 Yet once it is a little while and I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the dry land which the Apostle Heb. 12.26 27. makes to be performed at the first comming of Christ Thirdly That the matter of this 65. chap. of Isai v. 16. is to be referred to Christs first comming and the Apostles first prâ—â—ching unto the Gentiles is cleare by comparing the first verse of this chap. I am found of them that sought me not with the 20 verse of the tenth to the Romanes But Isaiah was very bold and sayth I was found c. Fourthly to expound the Prophets in this fashion were to stumble the Jewes and to give them too great an excuse for their long misbeliefe and too pregnant arguments for to delay their fayth while the Messias come to performe
these promises upon earth till their Ierusalem were againe builded and they put in possession of the holy land to build their houses and plant their Uineyeards therein till they saw themselves put in possession of their present carnall legall hopes Yea T. G. his literall exposition of this and the like places goes beyond the most of the Iewish apprehensions For that any of the Talmudists do dreame that at the comming of the Messias the Lyon shall eate straw that the Leoparde and the Lambe the Serpent and the sucking childe shall be brought to such a sympathy of natures as not to have the least disposition to doe harme the one to the other That the life of men shall be so much at that time prolonged as one of an hundred yeares must be taken but for an Infant and a childe that the most fabulous of the Rabbins have gone thus farre in a litterall beleefe I doe not know His eight place is Heb. 2.5 8. For unto the Angells he hath not put in subjection the world to come but now we see not yet all things put under him whence he inferres that Christ in the world to come is to reigne and to have all things put under his feet which is not now performed the Apostle saying expressely that now all things are not put under him neither is this true in the life to come for then the Kingdome of Christ is rendred up to the Father Ans The world to come is not that imaginary world of the 1000 yeares whereof the Scripture speaks no thing but the dayes of the Gospell of which the Apostle is there speaking and shewing that the Gospell was administred not by Angells as the Law had beene upon Mount Sinai but by the Sonne of God himselfe This new world under the Gospell did differ more from the old world under the Law then the earth in the dayes of Noah and the Patriarchs after the floud from the earth in the dayes of Noah before the floud This new world of the Gospell began with Christs first comming in the flesh it was demonstrated in his Resurrection When all power in heaven and in earth was given to him Math. 28.18 When all the Angells of God did worshippe him Heb. 1 6. When he was set farre above all Principalities and Powers Ephes 1.21 The accomplishment of this world is not till the Last day when Death Hell and Satan which yet are not made Christs footstoole shall fully be conquered These things cannot be verified of the thousand yeares For according to Mr. Burrowes grounds before they begin many things are annihilated and so not made subject The heavens and elements are melted with fervent heate The earth and the workes thereof are burnt up with fire Also during these thousand yeares Christs chiefe enemies are not fully subdued death still hath dominion over men the devill is onely bound but yet alive and not cast into the lake His ninth place is Ier. 3.16.17 They shall say no more the Arke of the Covenant of the Lord neither shall it come to minde neither shall they remember it at that time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord and all the Nations shall be gathered unto it neither shall they walke any more after the imagination of their evill heart Hence he inferres A state of the Church in the Last dayes so glorious that all things by-past shall be forgot That Judah and Israel shall returne from their captivity to Jerusalem That all Nations shall joyne with them That they shall no more walke after their old sinnes That Jerusalem which before times was at best but the footstoole of God shall then become a throne of glory Answer There is no word here of Christs abode upon earth for a thousand yeares Secondly the old things that are to be forgotten are expressed to be the Ceremonies of the Law but no Ordinance of the Gospell The Prophet names the Arke and the Temple which by Christs first comming were removed Thirdly The walking of Iudah and Israel together and the Nations joyning with them Imports no more but the calling of Iewes and Gentiles by the Gospell to the Christian Church the heavenly Ierusalem The same which the Prophet Esay hath in his second Chap. vers 5. The establishing in the Last dayes of the House of God on the top of the mountaines the flowing of all Nations thereto for out of Sion shall goe forth a Law and the Word of the Lord from Ierusalem These Last dayes were the dayes of the Apostles when they from Sion and Ierusalem did blow the Trumpet of the Gospell to all the Nations These were the times whereof Ieremy in the 15 verse of the Chapter in hand doth speake I will give you Pastors according to my heart which shall feede you with knowledge and understanding The Pastors there promised were Christ and his Apostles better Pastors then these God never sent neither ever shall send to his Church Fourthly Walking after Gods owne heart doth not import a freedome from all sinne but onely a state of grace wherein according to the new Covenant God gives his people a newheart and writes his Lawes upon the same Fifthly That whereupon the greatest weight of the argument is laid seemes to be a very groundlesse conceit That Ierusalem when it is a throne of glory must be the old Ierusalem builded againe as if Ierusalem under the Law and Ierusalem in the dayes of the Gospell the Church in the new Testament the mother of us all were but the footestoole of God This is a doctrine expresly against Scripture for in divers places Ierusalem Sion and the Arke even in the old Testament are called not onely the footstoole but the throne of God Ier. 14.21 Doe not abhorre us for thy names sake doe not disgrace the throne of thy glory Also Chap. 17.12 A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our Sanctuary The Lord did as it were sit upon the Mercy Seate as upon a chaire of State under the Canopy of the wings of the Cherubins within the Sanctuary the chamber of his most Majestuous presence Ierusalem under the new Testament is called not onely the throne of God but his footstoole Esay 40.13 To beautifie the place of my Sanctuary and I will make the place of my feete glorious This place our Brethren expound of the Sanctuary during the time of the thousand yeares However it is cleare it must be expounded of the Church in the same times whereof Ieremiah speakes in his third Chapter whence the Argument in hand is brought The tenth place is Dan. 2 44. And in the dayes of these Kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdome which shall never be destroyed and it shall stand for ever Whence is inferred an everlasting Kingdome of Christ a joy of Ierusalem unchangeable to any sorrow Answer Christs Everlasting Kingdome is meerely spirituall and heavenly That dominion which
the Father gave to the Son at his Incarnation Luke 1.32 33. The Lord shall give unto him the throne of his Father David and he shall raigne over the House of Iacob for ever This Kingdome for the matter of it is truely everlasting being the glory which Christ and his Saints injoy for ever in the heavens albeit for the manner of the administration thereof it be rendred up by the Sonne to the Father when the worke of mediation is perfected and all enemies are fully destroyed To deny the beginning of Christs Kingdome over his Church unto the thousand yeares is many wayes absurd And because of the eternall indurance of his dominion and glory in the heavens to make the Church on earth in which he raignes to be voide of all tribulation of all changes to have a perpetuall day without any darkenesse is contrary to the Scriptures alleadged in the former arguments In the eleventh place he alledgeth Revel 19.13 And he was cloathed with a vesture dipped in blood And Ezek. 21 28. And there shall be no more a pricking brier unto the house of Israel nor any grieving them of all that are round about them Whence they inferre That in the beginning of the thousand yeares Christ with his owne hands shall kill so many of the wicked that his garments shall be dipped in blood and not one of them left to trouble the Church Answer It is a very strange conception to make the Lord Jesus embrue his holy hands in the blood of so many men That these battells are not fought with the hands of Christ in a literall way will appeare by a paralell place Isay 63.1 Who is this that commeth from Edom with died garments from Bozra Unto Christ here are ascribed garments died in blood because of the slaughter of the Edomites a little after the Babylonish captivity at which time Christ had neither a body nor a garment in propriety of speech As these battells were fought by Christ not in his owne person nor upon the earth so neither these battells of the Revel-which so much the lesse can be literally expounded as in the 14 and 15 verses of that 19 Chapter the instrument whereby Christ is said to fight these battells is not any Sword in his hand but the two-edged Sword of his mouth and the Souldiers whom he leads out to these battells are not armed with Sword and Speare but ride upon white Horses cloathed in fine linnen white and cleane As for that of Ezechiel if you consult either with the originall or the best Interpreters it must be expounded first and principally if not solely of the Towne of Sidon which the Lord was to destroy that it might no more be a thorne in the side of Israel From this to inferre the purging of the Christian Church of all other enemies in this life and that by killing of them all as cursed Canaanites were a dangerous conclusion farre from the justice and innocence of Christians in all by-gone times the beleefe whereof would quickly renew unto us the horrible tragedies of the Anabaptists In the twelfth place he cites Rev. 21.23 24. And the City had no need of the Sun neither of the Moone to shine in it and the Kings of the earth doe bring their glory and honour unto it also chap. 22. ver 1 2 3. and he shewed me a pure river of the water of life c. Ans The Divines who apply these two chapters to the condition of the Church upon earth after the calling of the Jewes take the most of the passages in a figurative and allegoricall sence To expound them literally and properly of any Church on earth the Text will not permit Shall ever the Church on earth be so free of sorrow and death as not to sorrow for sinne or to have none of its members mortall Shall they so immediately see the face of God as the use of Temples Tabernacles or any ordinance shall be needelesse shall ever man upon earth be without the Sunne and the Moone These things are true in a proper sence onely of the Saints of heaven What is here alleadged to the contrary That the Kings of the earth bring not their riches and honours to the Heavens we say it is but a part of the Allegorie to expresse under that similitude the glory wealth of the life to come as in the same place the Spirit of God expresses the happinesse of heaven by the Metaphors of gold and pretious stones of rivers and fountaines of trees and fruits To expound all these in a literall sence of any Church either in earth or heaven were incommodious except our Brethren would put us upon more fancies then any of them yet have spoke of In the last place they cite for the gifts of the Saints Zach. 12.8 He that is feeble among them in that day shall be like David and the house of David shall be as God and for the honour of the Saints that in the thousand yeares they shall be taken into private familiarity by Princes and great men Rev. 11.12 And they heard a great voyce from heaven saying unto them come up hither and they ascended up to heaven in a cloud and their enemies beheld them Ans The gifts meant by Zachary are such as are powred upon all the Saints of the New Testament with the spirit of grace and supplication which makes the least of the Kingdome of Heaven to be like unto David to Elijah and greater then John the Baptist as Christ speakes But what is this unto the imaginary glory of the Chiliasticke Kingdome The honour they speake of cannot be fetched out of that eleventh of the Revel For who but themselves will expound heaven in that place of the Thrones of Kings of the Privie Chambers of Princes and great men The calling up of the two witnesses to heaven by none else but them will be taken for the Saints familiarity with great States-men And according to their own Tenets in the Chiliasticke Kingdome there is no such degrees of honour as in this world For there Christ in his owne Person is King and all the Saints doe shine at least as the firmament and the glory of these Saints is greatest whose grace is most eminent Familiarity with Princes and worldly States-men is then for no purpose Beside the ascention of the two witnesses to the heavens is before the fall of the tenth part of Rome and so before the thousand yeares beginne There be yet some more places cited by Master Burrowes and others for their Tenet but these which we have answered are the principall and if they be cleared there is no difficulty in the rest Besides Scriptures Master Burrowes takes from the Glimpse of T. G. sundry testimonies of antiquity all which T. G. does borrow from Alstedius To the which I answer That no Protestants build their fayth upon humane testimonies and no men in the world make so small account of
antiquity as our Brethren It is marvellous if in earnest they should encourage themselves in their Tenet by such testimonies of the Fathers as by the Catholick consent of all posterior antiquity and the unanimous profession both of Protestants and Papists this day are censured of error Who pleases to know the minde of antiquity in this subject Let him consult especially with Augustin de civitate dei Booke 20. almost through the whole and the Commentaries of Vives and Coqueus thereupon If humane authorities either ancient or moderne could give our Brethren any satisfaction in this question it were easie to present them with great store thereof Thus farre had I proceeded when by my Superiours I was called away from these Studies to an other imployment so what I intended to have spoken to the Anabaptists the Antinomians the Erastians and especially to the remainder of the Popish and Prelaticall Malignants I must remit it to another Season FINIS Isa 2. â— Mic. 4.3 Ioel 3. â— The first and chief Mean to extinguish the flames of our War is the waters of the heart poured out in prayers to God Lam. 2.3 Reformation after mourning is the second step to a solid peace Prov. 16.7 Psal 81.15 2 King 9.22 The corruption of the Church is the fountain of our present Misery The State cannot be 〈◊〉 til the Church be sâ—â—â— reformed Every man must help what he can to recover the languishing Church from her desperate Disease The offer of a strange and easie remedy of a â—ooking-glass The malignity of Errour 2 Tim. 2.17 â— Pet. 2.1 2 3 4 The Authors intention is to set down in a Table for the clear view of all the Errors which trouble us And that with justice loâ—â— towards all persons Onely forth is râ—gaâ—nâ—ng to the Truth The partition of the ensuing â—reatise Episcopacy was the Mother of all our present Sects Presbytery will be their Grave The Presbyteriall way of proceeding What England 〈◊〉 may expect from Presbyteries and Synods Satan is the great enemy of the Churches Reformation His chief instruments always have been professed friends to Religion Reformation at the beginning did run with an impetuous current What was its first stop The fountain of Protestant Dâ—scord The unhappy Principle of the Lutâ—eranes And the more unhappy Principle of the Anabaptists Somewhat of both these ways was entertained in England The original of the English Ceremonies and Episcopacy The original of the Separatists Brownism is a daughter of Anabaptism Bolton the first known Separatist in England hanged himself Brown the second Lâ—ader of that way â—ecanted his Schism and to his death was a very scandalous person The humour of Barrow the third Master of this Sect. The strange carriage of Johnson and Ainsworth the next two Leaders of the Brownists The horrible ways of Smiâ—â— their sixth Master The fearful end of Smith his wandrings A remarkable vengeance upon an erring spirit Robinson the last grave and learned Doctor of the Brownists did in the end undermine his Party Robinson the author of Independency They hold that all Churches in the world but their own are so polluted that they must be separate from Their injurious slanders of the Church of England Yet sometimes they say that communion may be kept therewith both in preaching and prayer Their like dealing with all the other reformed Their stâ—ing of 〈◊〉 Chu◠〈…〉 The matter of a Church they make to be real Saints onely Their unreasonable stricknesse in this one point is the great cause of their Schism The least sin of any Member of a Church defended is a just cause of Separation They place the Form of their Church in an expresse Covenant Seven may make a perfect Church yea two or three The erecting of a Church requireth neither the Magistrates nor Ministers assistance They put all Church power in a handful of people without any Pastor The Election Ordination Deposition and Excommunication of the Minister belongs to the flock and to it alone Every man of the Congregation may Preach and publikely rebuke not onely the Pastor but the whole flock yea and sâ—parate from it Some of them give the power of the Sacraments also to priâ—ate persons The solemnizing of marriage they give to parents but divorces they commit to the parties themselves They make every Congregation Independent and of soveraign Authority Their Judgement of Synods Their high conceit of their own way and injurious depressing of all others Churches Bells Pulpits Tithes Glebes Manses and all set maintenance of Ministers are unlawful Not so much as a Church-yard must be kept up for burial but all must bury in the fields They drive the abolishing of Church-rents so high as to make all goods common The days of the weâ—k the moneths the yeer of God they will not name No pulpits no hour-glâ—sses no Churches no Gowns All set prayer even the Lords prayer and all Psalms in meeter yea in prose if used as praises are unlawful Their opinion of preaching Sacraments Their straâ—ge way of celebrating the Lords Supper They reject catechisms the Apostles Creed and all reading of Scripture without exposition After preaching they prophesie Then comes the conference Brown for liberty of conscience His followers against it Their carriage towards the Magistrate They spoil Kings and Parliaments of their Legislative power They obliege the Magistrate to kill all Idolaters But to spâ—re all theeves They wil have the Universities destroyed Secular authors and learning must be abolished Preachers must studie no book but the Scriptures Independency the smallest of all the Sects of the time for number but greatest for worth of its followers The division of the following matter Independents the Separatistâ— off-spring When the fire of Brownism was dying out in Holland a little of its ashes carried to New England broke out there into a lasting flame By what means these ashes were kindled Master Cotton at first a great opposite to that way Master Cotton with little ado became the great patron of that Errour Master Cotton the misleader of Master Goodwin and others Master Cotton often deceived hath given his patrociny to divers grosse Errours Why God permits great men to fall in evident Errours His Prelatical Arminian and Montanistick Tenents His Antinomy and Familism Independency large as unhappy as Brownism Wherefore so much of the Independent way lies yet in darknesse The fruits of Independency in New England 1. It put thousands of Christians in the condition of Pagans 2. It marrs the conversion of Pagans to the Christian Religion 3. It did bring forth the foulest Heresies that ever yet were heard of in any Protestant Church A few examples of the many abominable Heresies of the New-English Independents The greatest part of thâ—ir chief Churches were infected with these errours Thâ— piâ—â—ty of these Hereticks seemâ—d to be singular Their malice against all who opposed them was singular especially against all their Orthodox Ministers and Magistrates Their Errours in opinion did
Ordinances of God It puts in the hand of every man a power to sentence all the Churches of the world It carries to the highest degree of Separation Their supply of the defects of Independency by the power oâ— the Magistrate was a remedy which they learned from the Brownists but now they have cast it aside denying to the Magistrate all power in matters of Religion The Independents doe advance their fancies to as high a pitch of glory as the Brownists They are the Brownists scholars in many more things beside the Constitution and Government of the Church They give to the Magistrate the Celebration of marriage Mr Milton permits any man to put away his wife upon his meer pleasure without fault and without the cognisance of any Iudge Mr Gorting teaches the wife to put away her husband if he will not follow her in any new Church way which she is pleased to embrace They are against all determinations of the circumstances of worship and therfore all church Directories are against their stomacks The common names of the dayes of the week the months of the year of many Churches and Cities of the Land are as unlawfull to them as to the Brownists All tithes and set maintenance of Ministers they cry down but a voluntary contribution for the maintenance of all their Officers they presse to a high proportion with the evident prejudice of the poore In their solemn worship oft times they make one to pray another to preach a third to prophesie a fourth to direct the Psalm and another to bless the people They make it a divine institution without any word of preface to begin the publike worship with solemne prayer for the King and Church After the Pastors prayer the Doctor reads and expounds In preaching they will bee free to take a Text or not as they find it expedient After Sermon any of the people whom they think able are permitted to prophesie All are permitted to propound in the face of the Congregation what questions upon the Sermon they think meet About the Psalms they have divers strange conceits but the speciall is their new Ordinance of a singing Prophet who in place of the Psalms singeth Hymnes of his own making in the midst of the silent Congregation They grant the lawfulnesse of read prayer in divers cases They will have none to be baptized but the children of their owne members so at one dash they put all England except a very few of their way into the state of Pagans turning them all out of the Christian Church denying to them Sacraments Discipline Church-Officers and all that they would deny to the Pagans of America They open a door to Anabaptism by 3 farther positions 1. They require in all to bee baptised a real holiness above a foederall which in no Infant with any certainty can be found 2. They esteem none for their Baptism and Christian education a member of their Church till they have entred themselvs in their church covenant 3. They call none of their members to any account before their Presbytery for obstinate rejecting of Paedo-baptism although the Brownists doe excommunicate for that sinne They participate with none of the Reformed Churches in the Lords Supper yet they scruple not to communicate with Brownists and Anabaptists Their way of celebrating the Lords Supper is more dead and comfortlesse then any where else They have no Catechising no preparation nor thanksgiving sermoÌ„s ordinarily they speak no word of the Sacrament in their Sermons and prayers either before or after They have only a little discourse short prayer in the consecration of both the Elements there after in the action nothing but dumb silence no exhortation no reading no Psalme They require none of their members to come out of their Pewes to the Table And they acknowledge no more use of a Table then the Brownists at Amsterdam who have none at all They teach the expediency of covering the head at the Lords Table They are as much for the popular Government as the Brownists All Discipline must be executed in the presence and with the consent of the whole people all must passe by the expresse suffrage of every one Dissenters not only lose their right of suffrage for the time but are subjected to censure if they continue in their dissent They are much for private meetings for it is in them that they usually frame the members of other mens Congregations into their new mould but the Brownists and they of New-England having felt the bitter fruits of such meetings have relinquished if not discharged them They flatter the Magistrate and slander the Reformed Churches without cause Some of them are for the abolition of all Magistracy All of them are for casting out and keeping out of the Christian Church all Princes all Members of Parliament all Magistrates of the Counties Burroughes that now are and that ever have been and are ever like to be hereafter except a very few These few Magistrates whom they would admit have no security but by the errour or malice of a few to be quickly cast out of the Church without any possibility of remedy When they have put all out of the places of Magistracy yea out of all civill courts who are not of their mind the greatest Magistrates they admit of bee they Kings or Parliaments they subject them all to the free-wil of the promiscuous multitude When Magistrates wil not follow their new erroâ—â—s they have bin very ready to make insurrections to the great hazard of the whole State Many of them deny to the Magistrate any power at all in the matters of Religion Their principles do spoile Princes and Parliaments of their whole â—egislative power they abolish all humane Lawes that are made and hinder any more to be made The Civill Lawes which Mr Cotton permits men to make bind no man any further then his own minde is led by the reason of the Law to obedience They put the yoak of the judiciall Law of Moses on the neck of the Magistrate They give to their Ministers a power to sit in civill Courts to voyce in the Election of the Magistrats and to draw from Scripture Civill Lawes for the government of the State They offer â—o perswade the Magistrate contradictory principles according to their own interest In New England they perswade the Magistrats to kill all Idolaters and Hereticks even whole Cities men women and children But here they deny the Magistrate all power to lay the least restraint upon the gâ—ossest Idolaters Apostats Blasphemers Seducers or the greatest enemies of Religion No great appearance of their respect to secular learning and Schools Independency much more dangerous then Browniâ— The Independents prime principles Their Tenet about the qualification of members is the great cause of their separating from all the Reformed Churches though they doe dessemble it In this they goe beyond the Brownists The true state of the question is whether it be necessary
to separate from a Church wherein wee get no satisfaction of the true grace of every Member at their first admission For the Negative we reason first from the practice of Moses the Prophets who did never offer to separate for any such reason The causes of a just separation were smaller under the Law nor under the Gospel The weaknesse of their Reply Our second reason is from the example of Christ and his Apostles who did not separate for any such causes The third reason it is impossible to find true grace in every member of any visible Church that ever was or shall be in the world The fourth this satisfaction in the true grace of all to be admitted is builded on foure errours first that the power of Ecclesiastick Iurisdiction is in the hand of every one of the people Secondly that one man may attaine to the certain knowledge of the true grace in the heart of another Thirdly that it is a duty of every member of a Church to seek and finde satisfaction in the true grace of all his fellow-members Fourthly that all the Reformed Churches must once bee dissolved and unchurched that they may bee reformed according to the new mould of the Independents The fifth argument Their Tenet is followed with divers absurdities As first it is necessary to separate from all Churches that are this day in the world except it be from these of the Independents Secondly it was necessary to separate from all Churches that ever have been Thirdly there can be no rest for any till they turne seekers and leave all societies that are called Churches Cottons reasons to the contrary are answered His first reason put in form All the parts of it are vitious the conclusion proves not the question It stands upon a chief ground of Anabaptism and presupposes the nullity of all the Reformed Churches The major is many wayes vitious But the minor is the most faulty part of the Argument The proofes of the minor are answered The first The second The third and maine proof of the minor This driveth to universall grace and Apostacy of the Saints Yea to Socinianisme and further His second Argument The Conclusion is faulty The minor is false It s proofe is unsufficient His third Argument Pâ—eters Confession much mis-applyed The guest without the wedding-garment more mis-applâ—ed The parable of the Tares is thrown against its principall scope His fourth argument that all who cannot demonstrate the truth of their regeneration deny the power of godlinesse is not true His fifth that no hypocrite is to be admitted a member of a Church is a very rash argument His sixth from the roughnesse of the stones of Solomons Temple is a wanton reason His seventh from the porters exclusion of uncleane persons from the Temple has no strength His eight that Iohn the Baptâ—st excluded the Pharisees and people from his Baptism is expresly against the Text. His ninth that Philip required the Eunuchs confession before baptisme infers not the conclusion All his nine or twelve reasons pâ—t in one will be too weak to beare up the weight of his most heavy conclusion The state of the question The first authors of this question The Independents difference among themselves here anent That none but Ministers may ordinarily prophecy wee prove it first by Christs joyning together the power of baptism and the power of preaching Secondly these that preach must be sent to that work Thirdly every ordinary preacher laboâ—rs in the Word and Doctrine Fourthly none out of office have the gift of preaching for all who have that giâ—t are either Apostlâ—s Evangelâ—sts Prophets Pastors or Doctors and all these are officers Fifthly no man out of office might sacrifice Sixthly all who have from God the gift of preaching are obliged to lay aside all other occupations and attend that work alone Seventhly the Apostles appointed none to preach but Elders Eighthly the preaching of men out of office is a means of confusion and errour The contrary Arguments which Mr Cotton in his Catechism and Answer to the 32 Questions borrows from Robinson are First in the Church of Corinth men out of office did Prophecie Ans these men were officers or their preaching was extraordinary Secondly Iehoshaphat and his Princes did preach Answ The Kings exhorting of the Levites to doe their duty and the Princes câ—untenancing of them therein was not properly preaching Thirdly wâ—e must not despise prophecy Ans The Apostle speaks of the preaching of men in office Fourthly the sons of the Prophets did preach Answ Their designation to be Prophets gave them right to initiall and preparatory exercises towards that office Fifthly Moses wished all the people to bee Prophets Ans But not without Gods calling to that offiâ—e Sixthly the Apostles before the Resurrection did preach Ans At that time they were true Apostles and did baptise Seventhly Paul and Barnabas were invited to exhort Ans they were men in office Eighthly the Scribes and Pharisees did preach Answ They were officers and sate in Moses chaire What is meant by Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction The state of the Question wont to be cleare the Reformed Churches putting the power and exercise of Jurisdiction in the hand of the Presbytery alone the Brownists Independents in the hand of the people onely but Mr. Cotton his followers the other yeare have perplexed the Question with their many Schole distinctions If they put the power of Jurisdiction onely in a Church organized and Presbyterated they fall from much of the Brownists and their own both doctrine and practise Their last and best beloved invention of the power of Authority and power of Liberty is for no purpose but to involve the Authors in new difficulties As they wont to make their smallest Congregations Independent uncensurable for any crime so now by this distinction they divide all their Congregations in two parts and make every one of these parts Independent also and uncensurable for any imaginable sinne For the negative that the people have no power of Jurisdiction we reason First the Officers alone are Governors and the people are to be governed 2. The people have not the Keys of Heaven to bind and loose 3. The people are not the eyes eares in in Christs Body for so all the body should be eyes and eares 4. The people have not any promise of gifts sufficient for government 5. The popular government bringeth in confusion making the feete above the head 6. The people have not the power of Ordination They have no Commission to send Pastours to themselves to impose hands to examine their Pastours to pray publickly and exhort 7. This power in the people would disable them in their callings 8. This power of the people would bring in Morellius democracy and anarchy in the Church 9. This power of the people will draw upon them the power of the word and Sacrament Mr Cottons contrary arguments answered First Christ gave to Peter the Keys of Hâ—aven as
God alone for any tollerable subsistence and their very being albeit we are hopefull the Lord is reserving good things for them who had so much Faith charity and Courage as to venture all for the cause of God and their Brethren the more unkind men have proved unto them The Lord who hath been witnesse to all their intentions actions and sufferings will in his owne time accordingly reward them and will not let them be ashamed of their first hopes and constant desires upon the which himselfe for a long time did shine so evidently from the Heaven as ever upon any enterprise on the Earth Though now that brightnesse be much ecclipsed and overclouded yet we are expecting with passionate desires and confident hopes the dissolution of these clouds and the dispelling of the present darkenesse by the strength of the Beames of his ancient and undeserved kindnesse towards that now suffering and much distressed Nation But insensibly my pen hath runne beyond the bounds of a short Epistle albeit my experience of your Lordships readinesse to dispence with your friends indiscretion makes me secure of my pardon I will detaine your Lordship no longer I lay downe my Booke at your Lordships feet to be given to the world by your Lordships hand If it be received with so much candor and charity by every Reader as I know it is offered it may possibly prove serviceable Thus wishing to your Lordship in these dayes of deepe and dangerous tryalls and too great defection of many constancy and daily increase of affection to all truth Piety Iustice and every Vertue I remaine Your Lordships in all Christian duty to be commanded R. Baylie London Novemb. 19. 1645. The Principall Authors whose Testimonies are cited in the case of the Brownists 1 THe Brownists confession of Faith printed by themselves 160â— 2 The Brownists Apoâ—ogy printed 1604 3 Robert Brownes Life and manners of true Christians printed 1582 4 Henry Barrow his briefe discovery of the false Church 1590 5 Henry Barrow his plaine refutation of Mr Gifford 1590. 6 Francis Iohnsons enquiry and answer to Thomas Whites Discovery of Brownism 1606 7 Francis Iohnsons Christian plea 1617. 8 Iohn Cann his guide to Sion 1638 9 Iohn Cann his necessity of Separation 1638. 10 Apologia Iusta quorundam Christianorum c. per Iohannem Robinsorum 1619 11 Robinsons justification against Bernard reprinted at London 1640 12 Syons royall prerogative 1641. 13 A Light for the Ignorant 1638. The Principall Authors whose Testimonies are cited in the case of the Independents 1. An Apologeticall Narration by Thomas Goodwin c. 1643 2 Iohn Cottons Keyes published by Thom Goodwin and Philip Nye 1644. 3 Iohn Cottons way of the Churches in New-England 1645. 4 Iohn Cottons Sermons upon the seven Vialls 1642. 5 Iohn Cottons Catechisme or the Doctrine of the Church 1644. 6 An Answer to thirty two Questions by the Elders of the Churches in New-England published by Mr. Peters 1643. 7 An Apology of the Churches in New-England for Church-Covenant or a discourse touching Church-Covenant 1643. 8 A glimpse of Syons glory in a Sermon at a generall Fast-day in Holland by T. G. printed at London 1641. 9 Ieremy Burrowes Sermons upon Hosea 1644. 10 The personall raigne of Christ by Io Archer Pastor of the Church at Arnheim 164â— 11 Io Archers comfort for Beleevers 1645. 12 Mr. Burtons vindication of the Independent Churches 1645. 13 Iohn Goodwins Theo-machia 1644. 14 A short story of the rise reigne and ruine c. published with Mr. Welds large Preface 1644. 15 Mr Welds answer to Rathbans narration 1644. 16 Mr Cottons Letter to Mr. Williams 1643. 17 The Anatomist anatomised by Mr Simson 1644. We cite also for some matters of fact to which no satisfactory Answer hath been made hitherto by the Parties 1 Mr Edwards Antapologie 1644. 2 Mr Williams examination of Cottons Letter 1644. 3 Mr Williams bloody Tenet 1644. 4 Plaine-dealing or Newes from New-England by Thomas Lechford 1642. 5 The Anatomy of Independency by a Learned Minister of Holland 1644. 6 Doctor Bastwicks Postscript 1645. 7 Mr. Prinns fresh discovery 1645. The CONTENTS of the following Treatise The Preface THe chiefe and first meane to extinguish the flames of our warre is the waters of our heart poured out in prayers to God pag. 1 Reformation after mourning is the second step to a solid peace p. 2 The corruption of the Church is the fountaine of our present misery ibid. The State cannot be setled till the Church be first reformed 3 Every man would help what hee can to recover the languishing Church from her desperate disease ibid. The offer of a strange and easie remedy of a Looking-glasse 4 The malignity of Errour ibid. The Authors intention is to set down in a Table for the cleare view of all the errours which trouble us ibid. And that with Iustice and Love toward all persons 5 The partition of the ensuing Treatise 6 Episcopacy was the mother of all our present Sects ibid. Presbytery will be their grave 7 The Presbyteriall way of proceeding ibid. What England rationally may expect from Presbyteries and Synods 8 Chap. 1. The originall and progresse of the Brownists Satan is the great enemy of the Churches Reformation 9 His chiefe instruments alwayes have been professed friends to Religion ibid. Reformation at the begining did run with one impetuous current ibid. What was its first stop 10 The fountaine of Protestant discord ibid. The unhappy principle of the Lutherans ibid. And the more unhappy principle of the Anabaptists 11 Somewhat of both these wayes was entertained in England ibid. The originall of the English Bishops and Ceremonies ibid. The originall of the Separatists 12 Brownism is a daughter of Anabaptism 13 Bolton the first known Separatist in England hanged himselfe ibid. Brown the second leader of that way recanted his schism and to his death was a very scandalous person ibid. The humour of Barrow the third master of this Sect 14 The strange carriage of Iohnson and Ainsworth the next two leaders of the Brownists ibid. The horrible wayes of Smith their sixth master 15 The fearfull end of Smith his wandrings 16 Robinson the last grave and learned Doctor of the Brownists did in the end undermine his party 17 Robinson the authour of Independency ibid. Chap. 2. The Doctrine of the Brownists They hold that all Churches in the world but their own are so polluted that they must be separate from 20 Their injurious slanders of the Church of England ibid. Yet sometimes they say that communion maybe kept with her both in preaching and prayer ibid. Their like dealing with all the other Reformed 21 Their flattering of forraign Churches is not to be regarded ibid. The matter of a Church they make to be reall Saints only 22 Their unreasonable strictnesse in this one point is the great cause of their Schism ibid. They place the forme of their Church in an expresse Covenant 23 Seven may make a perfect Church
eeeee but the greatest difference is that the Independents of Arnheim did stop the mouthes of all but one who did sing the Hymne which himselfe had composed in the midst of the Congregation for their edification fffff In Prayer they fall short of their masters for however they use no set Prayer yet they are so farre from esteeming of it Idolatry that they professe both set and read Prayer to be lawfull ggggg The Lords Prayer they commend to be said even in publike and they permit private men to read prayer in their families hhhhh in this they have Mr Robinson for their guide yet at London their pactice is constantly to forget the Lords Prayer In the Sacrament of Baptism the Independents lay a path-way to Anabaptism for first they come close up to the most rigid Brownists denying Baptism to the most part of Christian Infants yea they will grant it to a very few to these alone whose immediate parents are members of their Congregation iiiii who are a wonderfull poor handfull all other Infants they will have unbaptized till they come to the yeares of understanding and declare not only their actuall faith and holinesse but their subjection to the Kingdom of Christ that is to their Independency they will have no stipulation made for the Infants education they dispute much for dipping though they deny not the lawfulnesse of sprinkling kkkkk But that which maketh men most afraid for their Anabaptism is their open deserting all the Reformed Churches and the Brownists themselves in three grounds First they deny the federall holinesse of Christian children against this Tho. Goodwin did preach and deny openly that common distinction of Protestants of reall and federall holinesse requiring in every Infant to be baptized a reall and inherent sanctity If this ground be maintained I see not how Anabaptism or else Arminianism will be avoyded for if this reall holinesse above foederall be the great ground of Baptism and this cannot be asserted in the judgement of verity of any Infant for whatever we say of the judgement of charity yet in the judgement of truth and with the certainty of faith wherewith we must assent to every Scripture who can say that any particular Infant is holy and so that any Infant should be baptized or if we can say in the judgement of truth that every baptized Infant is really sanctified as it seems Mr Robinson hath taught Mr Goodwin if Mr Rathband understand right the 309 p. of Rob. justification kkkkk 2 the Arminians have wonne the field for no man doubts but many baptized Infants even in their way do fall away totally and finally from whatsoever holinesse can be supposed to be in them If these inextricable difficulties did move Mr Goodwin to stop the Presse that it went not on with his Sermons against the Anabaptists himselfe doth know Secondly they esteem not baptized Infants to be members of their Church before they have entred into their Covenant till then they hold them from the Lords Table and all the acts of Discipline as people without the Church and not members of it lllll If it be so their Baptism was of so small use that well they might have wanted it to the time of their admission to be members Thirdly they account Anabaptism a very tolerable errour so farre as ever we heard to this day they did never so much as rebuke any of their members for it much contrary to the practice of the Brownists and of their Brethren in New England who ever have removed the Anabaptists from their Churches as Sectaries of a speciall evill note We have long observed the great affection of Independents here towards them who professed opposition to Paedo-Baptism but did never expect to have heard them declare any thing towards the Arminian errours of the Anabaptists The Lords Supper they desire to celebrate at night after all other Ordinances are ended mmmmm albeit the Brownists now take it in the forenoon In the persons who do communicate they are as strict as any of the Brownists for notwithstanding all that their Brethren of New England and themselves also and their Apology do professe of their communicating of the Sacrament with the rest of the Reformed Churches which sometimes also is the Brownists profession yet it is told them without reply to this day that in London however they have admitted Brownists and Anabaptists to their Sacrament and they have communicated in the Brownists Congregations nnnnn yet that none of them have ever offered to participate of the holy Communion in any other Congregation nor have admitted any to communicate with them who were not of their owne way ooooo For the manner of their celebration they who have seen it professe it to be in a very dead and comfortlesse way it is not as in New England once in the month but as at Amsterdam once every Lords day ppppp which makes the action much lesse solemn then in any other of the Reformed Churches and in this too much like the daily Masses of the Church of Rome They have no preparation of their flock before they are so happy as to have all their members prepared alwayes sufficiently for the Lords Table from their first entrance into their Church to their dying day for all this time there is no catechising among them this exercise is below their condition altogether needlesse in any of their Congregations They will have no Sermon in the week before nor so much as any warning of the Communion This practice of New England to give warning the Sabbath before is disliked now at London nor must there be any Sermon of Thanksgiving after that Sacrament They use not so much as a little application of the Doctrine in the Sermon before it to that occasion qqqqq When they come to the action there is no more but one little discourse and one short prayer of the Minister all the time of the participation there is nothing in the Congregation but a dumb silence no reading no exhortation no Psalmes their people need no such meanes to furnish them in their Sacramentall meditations they have also learned from the Brownists a double and distinct consecration one for every element apart They have another difference from all the Reformed and in a part also from their Brethren of New-England That their Conformity with the Brownists may bee full the New-English doe count sitting at a Table not only to bee necessary but to be a part of our imitation of Christ and a Rite significant of divers heavenly Priviledges and Comforts rrrrr but as the Brownists at Amsterdam this day have no Table at all as they send the Elements from the Pulpit the place where the Minister preacheth and celebrateth the Sacrament by the hand of the Deacon to all the Congregation where in their meeting house they sit up and down in their severall places So the Independents at London doe
vehemently contend for the needlesnesse of any to come to the Table what ever be the practice of all the rest of the Reformed Churches But they will have the holy Seales carried from the place where the Minister preaches to the people in their Pews or where ever else they have their ordinary places for hearing of the Word although most easily in their small Congregations without any disturbance all might bee brought to the Table sssss But their maine difference from all the Reformed and greatest consonancy with the Brownists is in this that as they teach all outward signes of Worship in the time of the Celebration to be Idolatry and hereupon declare the necessity of all men who will follow the example of the first Communicants to keep on their Hats all the time of this holy action so likewise the Independents begin to teach their disciples for however at Amsterdam this day the named Doctrine bee not fully practised the men there covering their heads in the time of the Celebration but every one uncovering during the time of their own personall participation of the Elements yet we are now taught at London that covering is most requisite at the time of participation That this act is a Rite significant to the Communicants of their Table-honor and fellowship with Christ also that the Minister in all his Celebration must be uncovered and that in sign of his service to the Communicants as the Lords much honoured children sitting covered when they eat of their Fathers meat ttttt After all the Worship is ended the Congregation may not yet be dismissed but one ordinance more in the end of the day must be attended the exercise of Discipline in this the Independents come up fully to their masters the whole people must be present to heare judge and voyce at every act of Discipline wwwww In any Congregation the acts of discipline when best managed are very tedious and long but with them more then anywhere else for their contentions are more and more tough as we may see in the best ruled Congregations that ever they had That of Arnheim and Roterdam if the praise given by the Apologists to them be just there the exercise of discipline hath bin very tedious the whole Congregation to their extreme wearinesse and fretting have been forced to lay aside the works of their ordinary calling for many dayes of the week to attend the Iudging of these causes which on the Sabbath dayes could not be ended xxxxx In the Cognition of these causes every member of the Congregation must be satisfied in his own minde concerning every passage of every action for they doe not proceed by the plurality of numbred voyces but with the harmonious consent of all who have right to voyce yyyyy And if it fall out that any doe dissent from the most they appoint in that case paines to be taken for the information of the dissenters that they may consent but if these paines prove fruitlesse and the Dissenters refuse to joyn with their brethren they are declared obstinate and to have lost the right of voycing for that time zzzzz Yea which is worst of all and which puts these Congregations upon the smallest occasions upon unavoydable and remedilesse divisions they appoint all who continue in their dissent in any matter of weight to be farther proceeded with for their contumacy aaaaaa The publike meetings of the Brownists are so long and tedious that we doe not heare of their stomack for any private but the Independents are yet for private meetings how long they will be in love with them we cannot say for in New-England where they were most in request their fruits have been very bitter these meetings of a middle sort betwixt Congregationall and Domestick were the occasion very neere to ruine both that Church and State for in these it was where under the pretence of religious conference and re-petition of Sermons false doctrine and wicked calumnies against the most Orthodox of the Ministers and Magistrates were spread for the renting and had not God prevented it the destroying of the State both Civill and Ecclesiastick bbbbbb For the present where they are in gathering of their Congregations these meetings in private houses of all who will are a very pregnant meanes to steale away men and women from their own Pastors but if once their gathering of Churches were at an end and their greatest care were for the keeping and edifying of what they had gotten it is like that then they would be as cautious as now all other Churches are even the Brownists and these of New-England of such meetings which except well moderated and limited under faire pretences are exceeding fit to make new divisions and ever to frame new Societies of some as it were more select and eminent Christians out of the common Congregation Concerning the Magistrate the Tenets of the Independents would bee well considered because of their open proclamation of their loyalty beyond and above all which the principles of any Reformed Church will permit them cccccc Had they magnified never so much their own vertues without the expresse disparagement of others had they put in the ballance with themselves an equall or a double number of the greatest men in any of the Reformed Churches who yet would be very ponderous when they lie in the Scales against five particular men the Authors of that comparison had they preferred themselves before all the Reformed Churches in a casuall contingent action not in a maine duty which their very principles are alledged to diminish had they whispered all this in the eares of their friends and not made a Proclamation of it to both the Houses of Parliament and that in print to be trumpeted out in the eares of all the world it might have been past over with the lesse either observation or offence But since in so publike a manner they have required the Magistrate to believe their great deferences to him and the smaller respect he can expect from any out of their way it seemeth very necessary to produce not these particular respects which the Reformed Churches professe according to their principles to give unto the Magistrate continually have given according to their professions for these are well known to the world long before any of our new Censors were in being but what these singular duties may be which the Independents above all other men by their principles are forced to performe to Magistrates while they may be at leisure to publish them to the world I will here present unto them the materialls of some few short observations for that purpose First that divers of their party and those of very eminent note though miscarrying in other things yet keeping fast to the way of Independency have denyed to the Magistrate all power over any of the Godly dddddd And others of them with the grossest Anabaptists have denyed the lawfulnesse of any Magistrate at all
particular Service of the Ministery Acts. 13.1 There was in the Church certaine Prophets and Teachers and the Holy Ghost sayd Separate me Barnabas and Saul to the worke whereunto I have called them and when they had fasted and prayed and layd their hands on them they sent them away Fourthly None of the people ordinarily have the gifts requisite for this action as skill to examine the Minister in all things he must be tried in a gift of publicke prayer a faculty to instruct and exhort the Pastour and people to mutuall duties Seventhly That power belongeth not to the people which disableth them both in their Christian and Civill duties But the power of Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction doth so The Major is grounded on the nature of all power and all gifts which God doth give for all are for edification and none for the hurt of these to whom they are given The Minor may be demonstrated by this That it layes a necessity upon all the people to attend in the Sabbath day upon the exercise of discipline which by the very length will make the Sabbath-Service insupportably burdensome and also will fill the mindes of the people with these purposes which naturally occurre in the agitation of Ecclesiasticke causes and cannot but cast out of common weake mindes much of the fruite of the preceding worship Further the peoples necessary attendance on all Ecclesiasticke causes will make the processe in the most causes so prolix as cannot but robbe the people of that time which they ought to imploy in their secular callings for getting of bread For every one of the people being a Judge must be so satisfyed in every circumstance of every action as to give their Suffrage upon certaine knowledge and with a good conscience now before this can be done in a few causes of the smallest and best ordered Congregations much time will be spent as the Church of Arneim found it in one cause alone though but a light one and betwixt two onely even of their cheife and best Members Eighthly That power is not to be given to the people which brings in the popular government of Morellius into the Church but the power in question doth so The Major is the common assertion of all the Brethren that they are farre from democracy and further from Morellius anarchy and that they are ready to forsake their Tenet if it can be demonstrated to import any such thing The Minor thus we prove That which puts the highest acts of Government in the hands of the multitude brings in the popular government for in the greatest democracies that are or ever have beene there were divers acts of great power in the hand of sundry Magistrates but the highest acts of power being in the hands of the people alone such as the making of Lawes the creation of Magistrates the censure of the greatest Offendors these were the sure signes of Supremacy that gave the denomination to the government Now we assure that the Tenet in hand puts the highest acts of Ecclesiastick Authority in the hands of the people For the Ordination and Deposition of Officers the binding and loosing of Offendours are incomparably the highest acts of Ecclesiasticke Jurisdiction These they put in the hand of the people That they doe conjoyne with the people the Officers to expound the Law and declare what is right and to give out the sentence makes nothing against the peoples Supremacy for in Rome and Athens at their most democraticke times and this day in the States of Holland in all the Provinces and every City where the people are undoubted Soveraignes they have their Magistrates and Officers in all their proceedings to goe before them to declare the case to take the Suffrages and to pronounce the Sentence As for them who of late have begun to put the whole Authority in the Officers alone and to give the people onely a liberty of consenting to what the Officers doe decree of their owne Authority wee say they are but few that doe so and these contradictory to themselves Also these same men give absolute Authority to the people in divers cases further that liberty of consent they come to call an authoritative concurrence Lastly the most of the arguments even of these men doe conclude not onely a liberty to consent and to concurre but an authoritative agency in the highest acts of Jurisdiction Ninthly They who have the power of Jurisdiction have also the power of preaching the word and celebrating the Sacraments unlesse God in his word have given them a particular and expresse exemption from that imployment But none of the people have power to preach the word and celebrate the Sacraments Ergo. The Major is built on these Scriptures which conjoyne the administration of the Word Sacrament and Discipline in one and the same termes and upon these Scriptures which lay a part of these administrations upon some men with an expresse exception of another part of them Math. 16.19 under the name of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven is comprehended the whole Ecclesiasticke power of the Word Sacraments and Discipline what there is promised Joh. 20. it is performed in these termes as the Father hath sent me so I send you But 1 Tim. 5.17 where this power is separated and distinguished the one part of Jurisdiction is ascribed to the ruling Elders with an expresse intimation of their freedome from preaching the Word and by consequence from celebration of the Sacraments The Minor was that none of the people have power of the word and Sacraments For the power of the Sacraments it is confessed not to belong to the people That the power of preaching the Word belongeth no more to them was proved in the former Chapter None of our Brethren doe ascribe the power of preaching to all the People but onely to a few of them who are able to prophesie so the power of Jurisdiction according to the ground in hand could be ascribed to none of the people but these few Prophets alone For the other side the Separatists and Master Parker in this point as farre wrong as the other bring many arguments but I will meddle onely with these which Master Cotton doth borrow from them in his way of the Churches and answer to the 32. Questions First from Math. 16.19 he reasons thus The Power of the Keys is given unto Peter upon the confession of his faith Ergo every Beleever hath the Power of the Keys Answer I deny the consequence for however upon the occasion of his confession the Keys are promised to him yet they are not promised to him because of his confessing nor under the relation of a beleever for if so then all and onely beleevers should have the full Power of the Keys but our Brethren will be loth to avow this direct Assertion of Smith the Sebaptist for they doe not ascribe the Power of the Sacraments to any beleever out of Office nor any power of