Papist But if you ask why we separated from the Papal Church I answer Because first it was no Church of Christ as such And secondly It was a Church of traiterous combination against the prerogative of Christ and therefore by the Protestants called the Anti-christian Church We separated not from Rome either as the Universal Church for that it was not nor as part of the Universal Church for so we hold communion with those that are Christians in it still Nor as a true worshipping Congregation for they consist of many thousand congregations which we had never local communion with And as true worshipping congregations in specie we still hold communion with them in mind so far as they are such indeed But in two senses we separate from them First as a Papal Catholick Church because in that sense they are no Church of Christ but a pack of rebels Secondly as particular Congregations in specie which have mixed Gods worship with false doctrine and Idolatrous bread-worship and other unlawful things which by oaths and practise they would force those to be guilty of who will communicate with them And thus we disown them only as neighbour Churches that never were their lawful subjects but bear our testimony against their sin And our forefathers who were members of their Churches departed to save themselves from their iniquity and because they were refused by themselves unless they would lie forswear be idolaters and communicate with them in their sin Nor would they then nor will they to this day admit any into communion of their particular Churches as such who will not first come in to their pretended Universal Church which is no Church and worse than none If this answer seem not plain and full to you it is because you understand not Christian sense and reason DIRECT X. Expect not that any one lawfully received by Baptism into the Christian Church should be cast out of it or denied the priviledge of members but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keyes that is for obstinate impenitency in a gross or scandalous sin which the person is proved to be guilty of and this after private and publick admonition and tender patient exhortation to Repentance HEre are two things which I desire you to observe First what is Christs appointed way for removing members from the Communion of the Church Secondly how great a sin it is to remove them by a contrary and arbitrary way of our own presumptuous invention First It is here supposed that the person is not a professed Apostate For there needeth no casting out of such He that turneth Turk or Heathen or openly renounceth Christianity or ceaseth the Profession of it doth go out of the Church himself and needeth not to be cast out Unless it be any Tyrant who will come to the Communion in scorn while he professeth but to shew his lawless will He that seeketh the Communion of the Church in sobriety thereby professeth himself a Christian. and for such as being Baptized continue this profession Christs way of rejecting them is plainly described in the Gospel Mat. 18. 15 16. If thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man or a Publican Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject 1 Cor. 5. Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have jâ—dged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan V. 7. Purge out therefore the old leaven v. 11 12 13. With such a one no not to eat Do not ye judge them that are within Therefore pâ—â— away from among your selves that wicked person By all this it is plain that the Church must exercise a regular course of justice with every person that it shall reject He must first be told prâ—vately of his fault and then before two or three unless at least the open notoriety make the private admonition needless And then it must be told the Church And the Church must with compassion tenderness and patience and yet with the authority of the Lord Jesus and the powerful evidence of truth convince him and perswade him to repent And he must not be rejected till after all this he obstinately refuse to hear the Church that is to Repent as they exhort him Note here that no sin will warrant you to cast out the sinner unless it be seconded with Impenitency It is not simply as a drunkard or a fornicator or swearer that any one is to be rejected but as an impenitent drunkard or fornicator or swearer c. Also that it is not all impenitency that will warrant their rejection But only impenitency after the Churches admonition Note also that no private person may expect that any offender be cast out either because his sin is known to him or because he is commonly famed to be guilty till the thing be proved by sufficient witness Yea that the admonition given him must be proved as well as the fault which he committed Yea if all the town do know him to be guilty and witness prove that he hath been privately admonished he may not be rejected till he be heard speak for himself and till he refuse also the publike admonition This is Christs order whose wisdom and mercy and authority are such as may well cause us to take his way as best And yet the ignorance or rashness of many professors is such that they would have all this order of Christ overturned And some of them must have such a drunkard and such a swearer kept away and rejected before ever they admonished them or exhorted them to Repentance or prove that any one else hath done it much more before they have told the Church or proved that he hath neglected the Churches admonition And some go so much further that they must have all the Churches taken for no Churches till they have gathered them a new and must have all the Parish at once rejected till they have gathered out some few again without any such order of proceeding with them as Christ appointeth It may be a thousand shall be cast out at once when never a one of them was thus admonished Obj. They were never members of a true
if we shall sin our selves into suffering and sin in our suffering as we did before even the very same sin of Divisions which brought us to it how heinous is our Crime and how dreadful the Prognostick of our greater ruine And how guilty are those Ministers of the blood of Souls that will not tell men of the sin and danger 6. I know that Dividing Principles and Dispositions do tend directly to the ruine and damnation of those in whom they do prevail That which killeth Love killeth all grace and holiness and killeth Souls That which quencheth Love quencheth the Spirit a thousand fold more then the restraining of our gifts of utterance doth That which banisheth Love banisheth God That which is against Love is against the design of Christ in our Redemption and therefore may well be called Antichristian And if the Roman Kingdom for so it is rather to be called than a Church had not such Moral marks of Antichristianity which Dr. More hath notably opened in his Mysterie of iniquity If they were not the Engineers for the Division of the Christian world by a false Center and by impossible terms of Unity and by the engine of tearing dividing impositions If among them were not found the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Jesus I should in charity fear to suspect them of Antichristianity notwithstanding all the Prophetical passages which seem otherwise to point them out because I should still suspect my understanding of those Prophecies when the Law of Loving my neighbâ—ur as my self is plain to all They are dangerously mistaken that think that Satan hath but one way to mens damnation There are as many wayes to Hell as there be to the extinguishing of Love And all tendeth unto this whicâ— tendeth to hide or deny the Loveliness that is the Goodness of them whom I must Love much more that which representeth them as odious And there are many pretenses and wayes to make my Neighbour seem unlovely to me One doth it as effectually by unjust or unproved accusations of ungodliness or saying Their worship is Antichristian formal ridiculous vain as another doth by unjust and unproved accusations of Schism Disobedience or Sedition And they that love Godliness may be tempted to cast off their love of their Neighbours yea of the truly Godly when they once believe that they are ungodly And the white Devil is a Love-killer as well as the black He is 〈◊〉 mortal an enemy to Love who back biteth another and saith he is Prophane or he is an empty formalist or he is a lukewarm temporizing complying manpleaser as he that saith He is a pievish factious Hypocrite I am sure he was no Malignant nor intended to gird at Godliness nor to grieve good men who told us that it is Satans way to transform himself into an Angel of Light that is one that pretendeth to make higher motions for Light and for Religious strictness than Christ himself doth and that his Ministers are sent forth by him as Ministers of Righteousness 2 Cor. 11. 14 15 16. who will seem more Righteous than the Preachers of truth Satan will pretend to any sort of strictness by which he can but mortifie Love If you can devise any such strictness of opinions or exactness in Church orders or strictness in worship as will but help to kill mens love and set the Churches in divisions Satan will be your helper and will be the strictest and exactest of you all He will reprove Christ as a Sabbath breaker and as a gluttonous person and a Wine-bibber and a friend or Companion of Publicans and Sinners and as an enemy to Caesar too We are not altogether ignorant of his wiles as young unexperienced Christians are You think when a wâ—athful envious heat is kindled in you against men for their faulâ—â— that it is certainly a zeal of Gods exciting But mark whether it have not more wrathâ— than Love in it and whether it tend not more to disgrace your brother than to 〈◊〉 him or to make parties and divisions than to heal them If it be so if St. Iames be not deceived you are deceived as to the author of your zeal Iam. 3. 15. 16. and it hath a worse Original than you suspect It is one of the greatest reasons which maketh me hate Romish Church tyranny and Religious cruelties against dissenters because as they come from want of Love so I am sure that they â—end to destroy the Love of those on whom they are inflicted and to do more hurt to their Souls than to their Bodies The Devil is not so silly an Angler as to fish with the bare Hook nor such a Fool as when he would damn men to intreat them openly to be damned nor when he would kill mens Love to intreat them plainly not to Love but hate their neighbours But he doth it by making you believe that there is just and necessary cause for it and that it is your duty and that you should be lukewarm in the cause of God of truth of Godliness if you did not do it that so you may go on without scruple and do so again and not repent Even they that killed Christs Apostles did it as a duty and a part of the service of God Ioh. 16. 2. And Paul himself did once think verily that he ought to do many things which he did against the Name and Cause and Servants of Jesus Act. 26. 9. And as he did so he was done by and as he measured to others it was measured to him again For they that bound themselves in an Oath to kill him did deeply interesse God and Conscience in the cruelty But believe it it is Apostacy to fall from Love your souls dye when Love dyeth The opinions the Church Principles the sideings the Practises which destroy your love destroy your graces and your souls You dye while you have a name to live and think that you grow apace in Religion Therefore better understand the Tempter and when backbiters are deriding or vilifying your neighbours take it to signifie in plain English I pray you love not these men but hate them And I have told you in this Treatise that when one saith unjustly Kill them banish them and another saith Have no Communion with them it is too often the same inward affection which both express but in various wayes They are agreed in the assumption that their neighbour is unlovely And when Love is dead and yet Religion seemeth to survive and to be increased by it it is lamentable to think what a degenerate scandalous hypocritical Religion that will be and how odious and dishonourable to God To preach without Love and to hear without Love and to pray without Love and to communicate without Love to any that differ from your Sect O what a loathsome Sacrifice is it to the God of Love If we must leave our guift at the Altar till we are reconciled to one offended brother what a gift is
Bible But I pray you mark it the way of God is to shame the sinner how good soever in other respects that the sin may have the greater shame and Religion may not be shamed as if it allowed men to sin nor God the Author of Religion be dishonoured nor others be without the warning But the way of the devil is To hide or justifie the sin as if it were for fear of disparaging the goodness of the persons that committed it that so be may thereby dishonour Religion and Godliness it self and make men believe that it is but a cover for any wickedness and as consistent with it as a looser life is and that he may keep the sinner from repenting and blot out the memory of that warning which should have preserved after-ages from the like falls Scripture shameth the Professours though a David Solomon Peter Noah or Lot that the Religion professed may not be shamed but vindicated Satan would preserve the honour of the Profâ—ssâ—urs that the Religion prosessed may bear the shame and so it may fall on God himself When God turneth Lots wife into a Pillar of Salt Satan is willing to seem so tender of the honour of the godly as to take it down that it may be forgotten God saith to the Israelites that when those that pass by shall ask why hath God done all this great â—vil against this people the posterity shall recount their ancestors sins and say Because they sinned against the Lord their God c. But Satan could find in his heart to pretend more tenderness of the names and honour of the Church so he might but undo the present age by impeniâ—ency and after ages by taking Gods publick warnings from before their eyes On these terms he will be all for the honour of professours But God will make men more tender of his honour and less tender of our own and more willing openly to take shame to our selves to vindicate the honour of Religion before he will give us a 〈◊〉 discharge It is the nature of true Repentance to cry out as publickly as we can to all the world and be glad to leave it upon record It was not God or Religion that ever encouraged me to these sins but it was my own doing Religion is clear but I am guilty Pardon this long excursion on this subject And if you cannot bear it I cannot help that I made not the sore nor galled place which is so tender I only mind you in answer to your objection that Faction and opinions will raise persecutions and have done even by such as you yet do not separate from I know none of you that separate from the Anabaptists and Separatists who were the authors of these aforesaid persecutions nor do I urge you to it Therefore do but impartially judge of the sin Obj. But it is one thing to persecute for particular opinions and interests as almost all parties have sometimes done and another thing to perseâ—nte for Godliness it selfe Answ. I confess it is and the difference between these two is very great But I pray you consider first that they are but few perhaps not one of all that you separate from that ever persecuted you any way at all Nor can you prove that ever they so much as allowed of it Secondly That they whom you and I do suffer by do not believe that they persecute us for Godliness but think that here the case is more defensible than yours was For you had no just authority over us When the Anabaptâ—sts did pull down the Ministers they pull'd down the Magistrates too And therefore it was a perscution of equals without authority But those that we Ministers suffer by now are our lawful Rulers who have made Laws to require us to subscribe and say and swear and do the things which we do not And therefore they think that we suffer but for a different opinion joyned with disobedience It is not all men whom they forbid to preach but us who dissent and do not obey them It is not all men that are godly whom they imprison but those that meet to worship God in a place and manner differing from theirs and forbidden by them So that how can you say that this is not for differing opinions Obj. But we forbid not them to hold their own Church-communion though we separate from them we never denied them the liberty of their consciences Answ. Some of your judgement denied many of them much of that liberty which consisteth in worshipping of God in their own way when you were in power But suppose they had not it is but another way of uncharitableness The vice expressed seemeth to be the same For you condemn them as unfit for Christian-Communion and therefore you exclude them from yours And you take their Church-communion among themselves to be but a prophanation of holy things which maketh them the more impious and therefore the more odious And you tolerate it in them as you tolerate mens folly and madness or leprosie or plague because you cannot cure it And I pray you judge whether there be any more Christian Love in this kind of dealing than there is in that which you call persecution Or at least wheâ—her it proceed not from the same uncharitableness I suppose you to be spiritual and not carnal persons at least in profession and therefore that you are not so tender of the flesh as to take its suffering to be any great matter to you in comparison of any of the sufferings of the soul. When you refuse Communion with men as judging them unfit for fellowship with the visible Churches of Christ you judge them the visible members of the devil and condemn them to the loss of the greatest priviledges on earth and to be left out with the dogs with Publicans and Heathens Though you think that you have no more to do your selves in the execution of this sentence but to separate from them yet you declare that you think that all others should do the same So that your tolerating their Communion among themselves is no great signification of your charity The sum of all that I say to you is this It is but one and the same sin in the Persecutor and the Divider or Separatist which causeth the one to smite their brethren and the other to excommunicate them the one to cast them into prisons as Schismaticks and the other to cast them out of the Church as prophane the one to account them intollerable in the land and the oâ—her to account them intollerable in the Church the one to say Away with them they are contumacious and the other to say Away with them they are ungodly The inward thoughts of both is the same that those whom they smite or separate from are bad and unlovely and unfit for any better usage When Love which thinketh no evil till it is necessitated and believeth all things which are at all credible and hopeth all things which
because God useth to work by means and vary the success according to the quality of the means and instruments we may well conclude that the Gifts and Holiness of the Pastors is a very excellent and needful help to the peoples setled Piety and Pence And that where this help is wanting that ordinary means is wanting by which God useth to convey this blessing I have met with many who are either insufficient or ungodly themselves or are guilty of bringing such into the Churches who use to make very light of this and say God is not tied to mens goodness or abilities in distributing his graces which is true but nothing to the purpose He is not tied by any force or necessity nor is he so tied as that he cannot do otherwise But yet this is his ordinary way of working which hath made it a maxime that as to means Infused graces are obtained in the same way as acquired gnifts And let the contrary minded answer me these questions First If it be only the Office of the Ministery and not the Gifts and Graces that are ordinarily needful to their success why doth Religion decay and perish in all parts of the world where the Gifts and Graces of the Ministers decay Why are almost all the Greek Churches the Armenians the Russians the Abassians so lamentably ignorant and most of them as vicious as ignorant in so much that the notorious wickedness of their lives and contemptibleness of their understandings doth keep Christianity out of most of the Heathen and Infidel Nations of the world that are acquainted with them and keepeth up the reputation of Mahometanism and Heathenism Is not the experience of all the Christian world a sufficient proof The Greeks and other such corrupted Churches have a truly ordained Ministery as well as we if that were enough to serve the turn Secondly What is more evident among our selves than that Parishes do much vary in piety and concord as their Pastors vary in ability piety diligence and fidelity Thirdly Though Parents have all equal authority to instruct and rule their children and families is any thing more notorious than that notorious ignorance and impiety prevaileth in most families where the Rulers are ignorant and impious Yet they have as true a power from God to do their duty as the Pastor hath to do his yea and promises from God for the success Fourthly What is the Office but an Authority and Obligation to do the Ministerial work And will work succeed well that is not done Or will it be done by bare Authority and Obligation to do it Will it serve to the building of your house to the conduct of an Army to the healing of your sores or sicknesses that you have an Architect a Captain a Chyrurgeon and Physician whose office is to do these works Fifthly What need men study or bestow so many years at the University if Ordination and Office be enough Sixthly Interpreting the Original Text is one part of the Ministerial work If the bare Office without the Tongues did never make any of you a good Translator and Expositor why should the bare office serve turn for other parts of the work without proportionable abilities Seventhly Why do you lay so much blame on the Ministers who dissent from you or that are the teachers of the dissenting people as if all the divisions were caused by them if the difference of teachers make no difference in the work and flocks Eighthly Why is it that in most ages of the the world the Pastors of one mind have desired the silencing or deposing of those that were against them as being injurious to the flocks if all Ministers be alike to them what need there so much silencing imprisoning and banishing as the world hath seen if the Office alone do make sufficient Pastors Ninthly Why also is there so much difference between the Pastors reputations and their labours when they are dead Why is the name and works of an Augustine a Hierome a Basil a Nazianzen more honourable than of any other Pastor who had as true ordination and office as they Tenthly Why should the Kingdome be at so much cost upon the Ministery And why should one have more maintainance than another If the Office alone be all that 's necessary one Abâ—na may serve for ordination in all the Empire of Abassia and a few Priests may be had for ten pounds a year who have the same ordination as the ablest men But having sufficiently shamed this errour I dismiss it If the reverence due to the Office be once lost the labours of all the Ministery will be obstructed And if only the Person lose the reverence of his place his own labours will be hindred The contempt of the Office and so the whole Ministery tendeth to Infidelity or Atheism And the contempt of particular Ministers tendeth to Schism and to the ignorance and corruption of their flocks And though the contempt of the person is bad enough of it self yet if it fall on many and there remain not a considerable number who preserve their necessary reputation it turneth to the contempt of the Office it self and consequently of the Gospel And it must be apparent worth that must preserve the persons honour The silver lace did make the Apprentices in Apelles shop to reverence a foolish gallant a while but when he began to talk they all fell on laughing at him Our grave attire will go but a little way to keep up our reputation without some better testimony of our worth An empty head a stumbling and hesitant tongue dry and dull and disorderly preaching and sensless cold or confused praying a vain and frothy kind of talk a common and carnal conversation all these or any one of these will more abate the reverence of our persons than the title of Doctors or the length of our clothing or the enlarging of the philacteries will advance it Math. 23. 5. Mark 12. 40. Luk. 20. 47. It is their double measure of the spirit of wisdome and Goodness which must procure a double measure of honour to the Ministery And if we excel them never so much in Learning it will not suffice unless we excel them in our proper Ministerial gifts of preaching exhortation and prayer which are the works of our Office it will neither preserve the honour of our Office nor attain its ends When many of the people can open the case of their souls in prayer in more orderly clear and congruous expressions than the Pastor can it tendeth to bring down the honour of the Pastor in the peoples esteem Some think to repair this by casting out all prayer except that which is read out of a book or recited by memory alone that so there may be no observable difference of mens abilities But this is so far from curing the peoples disease that it increaseth it And they still say all this is no more than we can do our selves or then a child of ten years