of that censorious zeal which unchurches Persons or Parishes without just tryal and proof upon rumours of fame or their own surmises DIRECT XI Understand well what is the power of the Keys and what the Pastoral offiae is as they are the Governours of the Church entrusted by Christ with the power of admission and rejection that so you may know how far you are to rest in the judgement of the Pastors and may not attempt to take any part of their office to your selves THe power of the Keyes is the power of taking into the Church and of Governing it and of casting out Both in respect to present Order and in respect to future happiness by a Ministerial declaration of the sense of the Gospel concerning the state of such as they The power of Baptizing is the power of the Keyes for reception into the Church The private members have not the power of baptizing nor were the Pastors ever appointed to do it by their advise consent or vote Therefore the private members have not the power of the Keyes for admission And it is most apparent in the Gospel that the Keyes for admission and for exclusion are given into the same hands and not one to the Ministers and another to the Flock Therefore the people that have not the first have not the later For full proof of this observe the meaning of these Texts Isa. 22. 22. And the Key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder so he shall open and none shall shut and he shall shut and none shall open Isa. 9. 6. The Government shall be upon his shoulder Mat. 16. 19. I will give thee the Keyes of the Kingdome of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven c. Mat. 18. 18. Verily I say unto you whatsoever ye bind on earth shall be bound c. Joh. 20. 23. Whose soever sins ye do remit they are remitted to them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained Math. 28. 19. Go and teach all Nations baptizing them c. Joh. 20. 21. As my Father hath sent me euen so send I you Acts 1. 16 17. Judas was numbred with us and had obtained part of this Ministry Acts 20. 28. Take heed to your selves and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you Overseers to feed the Church of God Rom. 1. 1. Paul a Minister of Iesus Christ called an Apostle separated to the Gospel of God 1 Cor. 4. 1. Let a man so esteem of us as of the Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the mysteries of God Acts 14. 23. They ordained them Elders in every Church Tit. 1. 3. Ordain Elders in every City as I appointed thee V. 7. A Bishop must be blameless as the Steward of God 1 Tim. 3. 5. For if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God 1 Tim. 5. 17. Let the Elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour 1 Pet. 5. 2. Feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof Heb. 13. 7 17 24. Remember them which have the rule over you who have spoken to you the word of God Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls salute them that have the rule over you 1 Thes. 5. 12 13. We beseech you brethren to know them that is acknowledge their power and labours that labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their works sake and to be at peace among your selves Read these with judgement and then believe if you can that the power of the Keys or Government is in the People Shew us what text doth give them that power and where the Scripture calleth them to exercise it by Votes Or where God requireth ability in them for Church-government or where he calleth them to leave their Callings and attend this work When those that must perform it he separateth to it as by office and calleth them to give themselves wholly thereunto 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. Tell us when the people were authorized to baptize or to rule the Church that is themselves Obj. Mat. 18. 15. Tell the Church if he hear not the Church c. Answ. Many Expositors think that by the Church there is meant the Ministers only by this reason The Church that mâ—st teach mâ—st be heard the Church that must be heard must be told But that is only the Pastors and not the People Ergo But I easily grant you that the word Church there signifieth the whole Congregation as Dr. Taylor in his Second Disswasive hath well shewed But it is as an Organized body only And so the Office is to be performed only by the Organical part and not by any of the rest When I say to a man Hear me I do not mean that he should hear me with his eyes but only with his ears And when I bid him See or Read I bid him not do it with his ears but with his eyes Nor do the eyes receive this power from the feet or hands but immediately from the Head Though if they were separated from the body they could not retain it So if another Kingdome send to England to desire an Army of Men to help them they mean the King only as the Commander of them and the people as the executors of his Command So when you are bid to tell the Church it is quâ—tâ—nus aurita that it must be told And when you are bid to hear it it is as Teaching that it must be heard So that this talketh not of any Government in the people either to use or to give Obj. 1 Cor. 5. Paul biddeth all the Church to put from among them that wicked person Answ. Note that Paul passeth the sentence first himself I have judged as if I were present not that you deliver but to deliver such an one to Satan And therefore he doth this in himself in the name of the Lord Iesus and supposeth himself among them in spirit and power when they do it and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ. 2. And I have said He speaketh to an organized Church which had two parts and accordingly two works to do The Ruling part was to put away the Offender by Iudgement or Sentence And the people were all to put him away by actual shunning his Communion which is but the obeying of that sentence If the King send to a Corporation to execute any Law he meaneth not that all persons must do it in the like manner but the Magistrates by Command and the people by obeying them and executing their Commands If I desire a man to transcribe me a Book and bring it me I mean not that every part of him shall herein have the same office But that he read it only with his eyes and
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
this how dare you blame me for writing to save you from confusion and every evil work 6. I will conclude with the repetition of one thing delivered in this Treatise that among all the rest two separating dividing principles will never give peace to the Church where they prevail The one is the confounding mens Title to visible Church Membership and Communion with their Title to Justification and Salvation The other is the Imposing of new terms and titles of Visible membership and Communion and rejecting the sufficiency of the â—erms and title of Christs appointment Christ hath solemnly and purposely made the Baptismal Covenanting with him to be the terms and title to Church membership and Communion And the owning of this same Covenant is the sufficient Title of the adult And the Imposers that come after and require another kind of evidence of Conversion or Sanctification than this do confound the Church and enflame the people and leave no certain way of tryal but make as various terms and titles as there are various degrees of wisdome and Charity and various opinions in the Pastors yea in all the people to whom they allow the judgement of such Causes in the several Churches In this point the sober Anabaptists seem to come nearer the truth than they I add no more but Christs conclusion that a house or Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand The Book it self was written near two years ago but this Preface Feb. 2. 1669. AN ABSTRACT OF THE DIRECTIONS 1. FOrget not the difference between the younger sort of Christians and the Elder The peril of the Church from young Christians 2. Observe the secret workings of spiritual pride and how deep rooted and odious a sin it is and what special temptations to it the younger and emptier sort of Christians have 3. Overvalue not the Common gift of utterance nor a high profession as if grace were appropriated to such alone who are to be called Professors 4. Affect not to be made enâ—lnent and conspicuous in holiness by standing at a further distance from common Christians than God would have you 5. Understand the true difference between the Church as Visible and as Regenerate or mystical and the several qualifications of the Members What Scandals were in the primitive Churches in Scripture times 6. Understand well the different Conditions and terms of Communion with the Church as mystical and as visible and the different priviledges of the members that you may not presume to impose any Conditions which God hath not imposed nor unjustly grudge at 〈…〉 essence of those that are not sincere 7. Get time and sleep apprehensions of the necessity and reasons of Christian Vnity and Concord and of the sin and misery of divisions and discord what Scripture saith herein 8. When any thing needeth amendment in the Church the best Christians must be the forwardest to Reform and the backwardest to divide on that pretence 9. Forget 〈◊〉 the great difference betweene the Churches 〈◊〉 the 〈…〉 and the Godlyes separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty the second usually a great sin Luthers case 10. Expect not that any one lawfully received into the Church by Baptism should be cast out of it or denyed the priviledges of the Church but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keys that is for oâ—stinate impenitency in a gross on scandalous sin upon proof and after sufficient private and publick admonition 11. Understand what the Power of the Keys is and what the Pastors office is as they are the Governours of the Church entrusted by Christ with the power of admission and rejection that so you may know how far you are to rest in the Pastors judgment and may not usurp any part of their office to your selves 12. Study well Christs gracious nature and office and his great readiness to receive the weakest that come to him that so you may desire a Church discipline agreeable to the Gospel 13. Yet lest you run into the worse extream remember still that the destroying of sin and the sanctifying of man to God was the work of our Redeemer And that Holiness and Peace must go together And that our own Church-order and discipline must be subservient to the inward spirituality and prosperity of the Church-regenerate And no such favour must be shewed to sinners as favoureth sin and hindereth Holiness 14. Though your Governours are the Iudges what persons shall be of your publick-Church-Communion yet it is you that must judge who are fit or unfit for your private familiarity 15. Vnderstand how much it hath pleased God to lay all mens happiness or misery upon their own choice And seek not to alter this order of God 16. Though the profession of Christianity which entitleth men to Church-Communion must be credible yet remember that there are various degrees of Credibility And that every Profession which is not proved false is credible in such a degree as must be accepted by the Church 17. Know how far it is that either Grace or Gifts are necessary to a Minister that you may give to both their due 18. Vnderstand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church and wherein it consisteth and how far it is to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church 19. Engage not your selves too far in any divided Sect and espouse not the interest of any party of Christians to the neglect or injury of the universal Church and the Christian Cause 20. Be very suspicious of your Religious passions and carefully distinguish between a sound and sinful zeal least you father your sin on the Spirit of God and think you please him more when you most offend him 21. Lend not a patient ear to backbiters nor hastily believe the most religious people when they speak ill of others 22. Make not your selves selves judges of other mens actions much less of their state before you have a Call or before you have sufficient knowledge of the person and of the Case 23. Mistake not the nature of the sin of Scandal as if it were the bare displeasing of another when it is the laying of a stumbling-block or occasion of sinning before another 24. Make Conscience of Scandalizing one party as well as another and those most who are most in danger by your offence 25. Be not over tender of your reputation with any sort of men on earth nor too impatient of their displeasure censures or contempt But live above them 26. Use not your selves needlesly to the familiar company of that sort of Christians who use to censure them that are more sober Catholick and charitable than themselves Unless you be as much or more with the soberer sort who will shew you the sin and mischief of Love-killing principles and divisions 27. Take heed of misjudging of the answers of your prayers and of taking those things to be from God which
Church but Christ himself 58. Take heed of superstition indiserâ—â—t â—â—al â—â—th been the usual beginner of superstition Mâ—lignity in that age the sharpest opposer for the Aâ—thorâ—s sake Formality in the next age hath made a Religion of it And then the zealous who first invented it have turned most against it for the sake of the last owners And thus the world hath turned round Instances lay'd down of the superstition of Religions people in this age 59. If through the fault of either side or both you cannot meet together in the same assemblies yet keep that Unity in faith love and practice which all neighbour Churches should maintain And use not your different assemblies to revâ—ling and destroying Love and Peace 60. When the Love-killing spirit either cruel or dividing is abroad among Christians be not idle nor discouraged Spectators nor betray the Churches peace by lazy wishes But make it a great part of your labour and Religion to revive Love and Peace and to destroy their contraries And let no censures or contempt of any party take you off But account it as comfortable to be a Martyr for Love Peace by blind Zealots or proud Usurpers as for the saith by Infidels or Heathens And take the pleasing of God whoever is displeased for your full reward The Additional Directions to the Pastors 1. Let it be our first care to know and do our own duty And when we see the peoples weakness and divisions let us first examine and judge our selves and lament and reform our own neglects Ministers are the Cause of most divisions 2. It is needful to the peoples Edification and Concord that their Pastors much excel them in knowledge and utterance and also in prudence holiness and heavenly mindedness that the reverence of their callings and persons may be preserved and the people taught by their Examples 3. Inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace and of the Love of God and Man And that Love is their Holiness it self and the sum of their Religion the End of faith and the fulfilling of the Law And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him so Love to man must unite us to each other And that all doctrine and practices which are against Love and Unity are against God against Christ against the Spirit against the Church and against Mankind 4. If others shew their weakness by unwarrantable singularities or divisions shew not your greater weakness by impatience and uncharitable censures or usage of them especially when self-interest provoketh you 5. Distinguish between them that separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox and Reformed parts of it and those who only turn from the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest 6. Distinguish between them who deny the Being of the Ministry and Church from which they separate and those who remove only for their own Edification as from a worse or weaker Ministry a Church less pure 7. Distinguish between those who hold it simply unlawful to have Communion with you and those who only hold it unlawful to prefer your assemblies before such as they think to be more pure 8. Remember Christs interest in the weakest of his Servants and do nothing against them which Christ will not take well 9. Distinguish between weakness of Gifts and of Graces and remember that many who are weaker in the understanding of church-Church-orders may yet be stronger in grace than you 10. Think on the Common Calamity of mankind what strange disparity there is in mens understandings and will be And how the Church here is a Hospital of diseased souls of whom none are perfectly healed in this life 11. Distinguish still between those truths and duties which are or are not of necessity and between the tolerable and the intolerable errors And never think of a Common Unity and Concord but upon the terms of necessary points and of the primitive simplicity and the forbearance of dissenters in tolerable differences 12. Remember that the Pestoral Government is a work of Light and Love And what these cannot do we cannot do Our great study therefore must be first to know more and to Love more than the people and then to convince them by cogent evidence of truth and to cause the warmth of our Love to be felt by them in all the parts of our ministration and converse As the warmth of the Mothers milk is needful to the good nutrition of the Child The History of Martin 13. When you see many evils which Love and evidence will leave uncured yet do not reject this way till you have found one that will better do the work and with fewer inconveniences 14. When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errors disorders and divisions reflect noâ— any disgrace upon piety it self but be the more careful to proclaim the honour of Godliness and true Conscientious strictness lest the ungodly take occasion to despise it by hearing of the faults of such as are accounted the zealousest professors of it 15. Discourage not the people from so much of Religions exercises in their families and with one another as is meet for them in their private stâ—tions 16. Be not wanting in abilities watchfulness and diligence to resist Seducers by the evidence of truth that there may be no need of other weapons And quench the sparks among the people before they break out into flames 17. Be not strange to the poet ones of your flocks but impartial to all and the servants of all Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate 18. Spend and be spent for your peoples good Do all the good that you are able for their bodies as well as for their souls And think nothing that you have too dear to win them that they may see that you are truely fathers to them and that their welfare is your chiefest care 19. Keep up the reverence of the ancient and experienced sort of Christians and teach the younger what honour they owe to them that are their Elders in age and grace For whilest the Elder who are usually sober and peaceable are duly reverenced the heat of rash and giddy youth will be the better kept in order 20. Neither neglect your interest in the Religious persons of your charge lest you lose your power to do them good Nor yet be so tender of it as to depart from sober principles or wayes to please them Make them not your Rulers nor follow them into any exorbitancies to get their love or to escape any of their censures 21. Let not the Pastors contend among themselves especially through envy against any whom the people most esteem A reproof of ignorant pievish backbiting quarrelsome Ministers 22. Study our great pattern of Love and tenderness meekness and patience and all those texts which commend these virtues till they are digested into a nature in you that healing virtue may go from you
and sinners Was it not because their Pride and superstition made them think too highly of their own religiousness and to make sins and duties which God never made and then to condemn the innocent for want of this humane religiousness What was the sin condemned in Isa. 65. 5. Which say stand by thy self come not near to me for I am holier than thou What meaneth that command in Phil. 2. 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Read this verse over upon your knees and beg of God â—o write it on your hearts And I would wish all Assemblies of dividers and unwarrantable Separatists to write it over the doors of their meeting places And joyn with it Rom. 12. 10. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love in honour preferring one another that is before your selves But specially read and study Iam. 3. In a word if God would cure the Church of Religious pride the pride of wisdom and the pride of Piety and Goodness the Church would have fewer Heresies and contentions and have much more peace and much more true wisdom and Goodness it self DIRECT III. Overvalue not the common guift of utterance nor a high Profession as if the presence or absence of either of them did prove the presence or absence of true saving grace YET I shall anon tell you that neither of these must be undervalued nor accounted needless useless things But the overvaluing them hath caused great distempers in the minds and affections and communion and practise of many very well meaning Christians When God had first brought me from among the more ignorant sort of people and when I first heard religious persons pray without forms and speak affectionately and seriously of spiritual and heavenly things I thought verily that they were all undoubted Saints and the sudden apprehension of the difference of their guifts and speech from others made me think confidently that the one sort had the mark of God upon them and the other had nothing almost of God at all Till ere long of those whom I so much honoured one fell off to sensuality and to persecuting formality and another fell to the foulest heresie and another to disturb the Churches peace by turbulent animosities and divisions But the experience of this Kingdom these twenty sixe yeares hath done so much to convince the world what crimes may stand with high professions that I know not that I ever met with the man that would deny it seeing every sect casteth it upon all the rest however some of them would justifie themselves But I greatly fear lest the generation which is now springing up and knew not those men nor their miscarriages will lose the benefit of these dreadful warnings and scarce believe what high professours did turn the proudest overturners of all Government and resisters and despisers of ministry and holy order in the Churches and the most railing Quakers and the most filthy and blaspheming Ranters to warn all the world to take heed of being Proud of superficial guifts and high professions and that he that stanndeth in his own conceitâ— should take heed lest he fall When guifts 〈◊〉 utterance in prayer or talking are thus overvalued and high professions are taken to have more in them thâ—n they have men presently moddle their â—ffections and then the Church according to these mis-conceivings And â— talkative person who by company and use hath got more of these guifts than better Christians shall be extolled and admired when many a humble upright soul that wanteth such utterance shall be said to be no professor and so to be unworthy of the Communion of Saints Mistake me not I know that though profession may be without sincerity yet sincerity cannot be without some profession when there is opportunity to make it And I know that Grace is a vital principle and like fire which will work and seek a vent if you would restrain it And that Gifts of utterance are great mercies of God for the Edification of the Church But here lyeth your unhappy errour in this case 1. You take the common profession of Christianity to be no profession at all because there is wanting a profession of greater zeal and forwardness When as the common sort of people in this Land do profess to stand to their baptismal Covenant in which they own the essential parts of Godliness and Christianity and all that is of absolute necessity to Salvation He that truly understandeth the baptismal Covenant and Consenteth to it doth perform all which is necessary to a state of grace If he profess this he professeth both true faith and repentance and sanctification and mortification and all that is necessary to make a man a Christian. How then can you say that these are no Professors I tell you except a few Apostates the common sort of people in this Land are Professors of true faith and godliness Whether they are true Professors without dissembling is another question but they are professors of the truth If you say that Their ignorance and ungodly lives doth shew that they either understand not the baptismal Covenant or Consent not to it I answer Mark well what you say your selves For this doth but shew that they are Hypocrites You cannot say then that they are no Professors but that they are diâ—sembling professors They profess the truth they do not truly and uprightly profess it I tell you all the common sort of the people in England are either Saints or Hypocrites see how I have moved this to them in my Treatise called The formal Hypocrite They all profess enough to save them if they sincerely professed it He that is baptized and professeth himself a Christian and yet is a drunkard a swearer a fornicator or such like is certainly an Hypocrite as going against his own profession The very Creed Lords Prayer and Ten Commandments have enough to condemn him as an hypocrite And will you now come in and justifie these men from their hypocrisie by saying that they are no Professors If they were no Professors they could be no Hypocrites but meer Atheists or Infidels I know that those are the highest sort of Hypocrites who counterfeit the highest zeal and piety by the highest profession But this is but a difference in degree Who ever professeth to be a Christian professeth true Repentance faith and holiness and is an Hypocrite if he be not a Saint And then Consider that if you would exclude any of these from the Communion of the Church it must not be because they are no professors but because they are hypocrites ignorant or scandalous And if so then no man must be shut out but upon sufficient proof An unproved hypocrite or sinner is no hypocrite or sinner in the judgment of the Church and therefore Hypocrites are always a great part of the visible Church Otherwise Church-Communion would be founded on meer injustice
and tyranny if men shall be called Ignorant Scandalous and Hypocrites without proof And therefore to exclude baptized professors by whole Parishes or Multitudes without bringing proof against each person one by one is quite to over-turn Christs rules and order and Church Constitutions and all Church justice I confess it is the thing which I have long lamented and often written of especially in my Treatise of Confirmation that those who are baptized in Infancy are not called to a more explicite understanding profession of the Covenant then made and have not a more solemn transition into the number of adult Communicants And we are not out of hope that this may at last be brought to pass But in the mean time the same persons though less regularly do make profession of the same thing both at the Lords Table and in their publick worship and in their common claim to the faith and honour of Christianity so that all such must be rejected as hypocrites upon accâ—sation and proof of Impenitency in some gross sin and not in the lamp as if they were no professors For professors certainly they are And though I abhor their malignity who would vilisie Religion by over-hasty accusing of higher Professors and would flatter the wicked and ignorant by making an indifferency and tepidity seem sufficient in the things of God yet God would have me bear witness to this truth to cure some mens contrary extream that as this age as is said doth need no proof how heinously high professors may miscarry so in the place where I exercised my Ministry I found some give me a satisfying evidence in their last sickness that they had long lived a truly godly life who were never noted by their Neighbours for any extraordinary zeal at all If you ask me How can it stand with grace to be so much hid I answer They made the common profession of Christianity they usually attended the publick worship they lived blamelesly in their places but they were of silent retired dispositions and were inferiours who by their superiours were restrained from private meetings and some converse with more zealous persons which they desired And for ought you know there may be very many such who must not be rejected as no professors nor without a particular accusation and proof unless you would be used in the like kind your selves DIRECT IV. Affect not to be made eminent and Conspicuous in Holiness by standing at a further distance from these lower Professors than God would have you IT is the loathsome scab of the Romish Church that they who will be taken for Religious must go into a Monastery of Fryars and Nans and separate themselves from the rest of Christians as worldly secular people that so their Religion may be a noted thing they may be set up in their singularity as publike spectacles for the world to admire Though perhaps they come thither but under the gripes of Conscience to expiate the guilt of whoredome murder or some notorious sins which the contemned seculars never committed And it is somewhat easie to proud corrupted nature to enter into a life of greater self-denial than most Monasticks are put upon when by it they shall be thus separated from the rest of mankind as a people of more admired holiness To set our selves up in a separated society as persons whom the world must account more Religious than the common sort of Christians hath so much oftentation in it as is a great allurement to Pride For many a one who perceiveth how childish a thing it is to set out ones self to be observed for fine cloathes or for bodily comeliness or for high entertainments curiosities houses lands or such vanities doth yet think that it is an excellent thing to be honoured by men especially by the wisest and the best as a person of Wisdome and Piety and Goodness And indeed it is the truest and the highest Honour to be Wise and Good And it is exceeding natural to man to desire honour And it is lawful to have a due and moderate sense and regard to our honour And all this being so how easie is it for Pride to take this advantage and to go a little farther while we think that we go but this far and keep within our bounds And the root of the errour lyeth in Atheism Self-fishness and Carnality By the first we neglect the Honouring of God which should be our utmost aim and to which all our own Honour should be purely referred as a means By the second we Idolize our selves and are sunk into and centered in our selves and seek that honour to our selves which we should wholly refer to God alone And by the third we over-value Man and his esteem and live upon the thoughts and breath of mortals and seek the honour which is given by one to another more than the honour which is of God Whereas we should make it our grand care and study to be pleasing to our Maker which is the highest honour and lawful and necessary to be sought and should be more indifferent as to the esteem and thoughts of man as being no further regardable than it conduceth to our divine and ultimate end And when Pride hath thus turned the eye of the soul from God to our selves and to the Creature it is a working sin and will be alwayes seeking to fetch in fewel for its self to feed on and to find out wayes to make our selves conspicuous and observed in the world And to separate our selves into distinct societies that the world may see we are above Communion with the colder duller sort of Christians is one of the most notable means to this self-exalting end And many Christians that are more humble do yet so much mis-understand the Scripture principles of Communion that they think they should corrupt the Church and sin against God if they stood not in a separated state from those of the colder sort And this is caused much by taking those Scriptutes to speak of all cold and carnal Christians which speak only of the Heathen and Infidel world And this cometh to pass by the happiness of their birth and breeding because they are born and bred where there are almost none but professed Christians and they see not the swarms of Heathens that worship idols and creatures or of the Infidels who scorn and persecute the Christian name therefore they live as if there were no such persons They know that the world and the Church comprehend all mankind and that the Church is gathered out of the World And because they see the Church but see not the world out of which it is gathered therefore they are looking for the world in the Church and think that the commoner sort of Christians are the World and the better and more zealous sort only are the Church which therefore must be gathered out of the World And so they gather the Church out of the Church while they think that
ungodly Sixthly and hence it will follow that either none must make any profession of saving Faith and Repentance and so all appearance of holiness must be driven out of the world or else the Church must be constituted of two sorts of professions and professours tota specie distinct from one another yea more distinct than Infidels are from their new sort of Christians And consequently it must needs be indeed two Churches and not one viz. One Church of those who take Christ for their Teacher only and another of those that take him entirely as Christ. Seventhly and by this rule the Socinians and Mahometans who confess Christ to be a great Teacher but deny him to be the Priest and sacrifice for sin may be baptized and taken for Christians These and many more absurdities follow upon this new conceit But I must desire the Reader who would see more of it to peruse my Disputations about Right to Sacraments where it is handled at large As to their Objections I answer First no man is called to lie nor yet are they fearful to be shut out For as no man is perfectly acquainted with his own heart so no man is to profess a perfect knowledge of it But if a man speak as he thinketh upon faithful endeavours to avoid self-deceit no more can be expected of him He that can say Though I am not certain that there is no secret fraud in my heart yet as far as I can discern it I am willing to be a Christian upon the terms of Gods Covenant and to take Christ for my Teacher Priest and King must offer himself and must be received into the Church Secondly and as to the Jews case I have proved in the fore-mentioned Disputations First that it was no less than a profession of saving faith which was made in the Covenant of Circumcision Secondly that men were then to be put to death for almost all those enormous crimes which we now excommunicate men for And the dead are not members of the Church on earth Thirdly that all that in matter of fact was found among them contrary to this was contrary to Gods Law And to argue against the Law from mans breach of the Law a facto contra jus is very bad arguing Fourthly that it is farre surer and clearer reasoning about the Evangelical state and order of the Church from the Gospel than from the Law of Moses much more than from the violations of that law Fifthly but yet all the corruptions of the Churches as I have cited and proved them before do shew us the difference between the Church as visibly Congregate and as Regenerate and shew us that the presence of scandalous sinners will not warrant us to separate or to unchurch the Church And this may suffice against that errour The true conditions of admittance into the Church and state of Christianity are these First A true belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and a Devoting of our selves sincerely to Him as our reconciled Father our Saviour and our Sanctifier in a resolved Covenant or Consent renouncing the Devil the world and the flesh expresly or impliedly is the whole and the only condition of our Communion with the Church mystical or the living body of Christ which is called The Church in the first and most famous sense Obj. If this must be wrought in us before we are in the mystical Church then a state of holiness may be found in such as are yet out of the body of Christ in the world But if this be after our entrance into the Church than less may sufficiently qualifie us for admittance Answ. It is neither before not after but it is our change and entrance it self To be a member of the Church mystical and to be a Christian is all one And this is Christianity If I should say that the making a man a Rational free agent is the making him a member of the Rational world would you think that this must be either antecedent or consequent to his change which is nothing else but the change it self Secondly That which maketh a man a member of the Vniversal Church as Visible is his Baptism Which is his profession of the same true Faith aforesaid and consent to the Covenant or his visible dedication to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as his Reconciled Father his Saviour and Sanctifier by a Vow and Covenant in Baptism Where note that Baptism hath two parts The Covenant there made and openly declared between God and Man And the Sacramental obsigning and investing sign which is the washing in water The Profession it self or open covenanting with God is the thing statedly necessary to the being of Visible Christianity And the washing with water is necessary as a duty where it may be had and as a means to the orderly and regular entrance by which the Church is commonly to judge who are its admitted members and who not As inward consent and outward profession of consent and publike solemnization are the necessaries to a state of marriage the first being as the soul the second as the body and the third as the wedding garments so is it in this case So that in short if you take Baptism aright for the Covenant and the Sign there is no other entrance into the Visible Church nor any other condition necessary to a title to its communion But if you take Baptism improperly for the wasâ—ing alone there is no title to such washing necessary but Professed faith and Covenanting So that if you require more or invent and impose any further conditions and deny baptized professors of Christianity to be visible members of the Church you are superstitious devisers of a way of your own and makers of will-worship and not obedient submitters to the way of God Profession then of Belief and consent to the Covenant is our title-condition to communion with the Universal Visible Church This profession must be solemn and solemnized under the hand of a Minister of Christ who hath the Keyes of the Church or Kingdom of heaven that it may be satisfactory to the Church and valid at its barre Those that are baptized at age have present Right to communion with the adult Those that are baptized in Infancy upon good right are admitted to such Infant-communion as they are capable of And at years of discretion they themselves must own the Covenant which their Parents entered them into The more solemnly this is done as it was in baptism the better it is But if it be done but by a professing themselves to be Christians and attending Christs ordinances with his Church it is valid unless they forfeit the credit of their profession by proved Heresies or crimes in which they live impenitently But then it must be here observed what a Profession of Christianity is which intitleth to Baptism and Church-communion And objectively it must be the whole Baptismal Covenant that must be professed No less is to be taken
Mystical and as Visible is but One however the Members and their Gifts and degrees of grace are many Sixthly It is One way of Faith and Holiness which all must walk in Seventhly And it is One end and happiness which we all expect and in One Heaven that we must meet and live for ever so many as are sincere in the faith which we profess And in Heaven we shall have one Mind and Heart and One employment in the Love and praise of our Creator and Redeemer and one felicitating fruition of his Glory for evermore Therefore he that seeth not the necessity of Unity knoweth not the Nature of the Church or Faith or true Religion The Honours and Benefits of Unity and the shame and mischiefs of Divisions may appear to him that further considereth the instances which follow First Our Union with the Church is a sign of our proportionable union with Christ And our separation from the Church doth signifie that we are separated from Christ. He that is United but to the Visible Church is but visibly by Baptism and Profession united to Christ such a union is spoken of in Ioh. 15. 2. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away He that is united to the mystical Church of the Regenerate and spiritual is united to Christ by faith and by the spirit For his union to Christ is at the same instant of time with his union with the Church but in order of nature goeth before it He that is divided from this mystical Church cannot possibly at that time be a Member of Christ in the spiritual sense As the member which is cut off from the body is also separated from the Head And he that himself forsaketh the Visible Church as such sorsaketh the mystical Church and Christ himself For to forsake the Visible Church as such is to cease to be a Professor of Christianity One may be a Member of the Visible Church and not of the spiritual but you cannot be a Member of the spiritual Church if you forsake and refuse the visible Church as such For though a man may be regenerate by the Spirit before he make an open profession or be baptized and without baptism in some few cases yet so he cannot be if he refuse to be a Professor It s possible indeed to be a member of the Universal Church both as Mystical and as Visible as spiritual and as professing while we have not opportunity to joyn with any one particular Church or to separate from some particular Church without separating from the Universal But to separate from the Universal Church is to separate from Christ. But then you must understand that the Universal Visible Church is nothing else but all professing Christians in the world as visibly subjected to Christ as their Head And that there is no such thing in being as the Papists call the Catholick or Universal Church that is the universality of Christians subjected to one Vicar of Christ as their Head either Constitutive or Governing Such a pretended Head is an Usurper and no true authorized Vicar of Christ And therefore such a Church as such is nothing but a company of seduced Christians following such a traiterous Usurper And to separate from the Pope is not to separate from Christ or from his Church Secondly Consider also that Union is not only an Accident of the Church but is part of its very essence without which it can be no Church and without which we can be no members of it It is no Kingdome no City no family and so no Church which doth not consist of United members As it is no house which consisteth not of united parts And he is no Member which is not united to the whole It is the great course of mens boldness in dividing ways that they take union to be but some laudable accident while it may be had which yet in some cases we may be without and think that separations are tollerable faults even when they are forced to confess them faults But they do not consider that Vnity is necessary to the being of the Church and to the being of oâ—r own Christianity Read 1 Cor. 12. Ephes. 4. Thirdly Remember also that our Vnion is necessary to our Communion with Christ and with his Church and to all the blessings and benefits of such communion Ioh. 15. 4. Abide in me and I in you As the branch cannot bear fruit of it self except it abide in the Vine no more can ye except ye abide in me for without me ye can do nothing If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered and men gather them and cast them into the fire and they are burned And Col. 2. 19. From the Head all the body by joynts and bonds having nourishment ministred and knit together increaseth with the increase of God The member that is cut off from the body hath no life or nourishment from the head or from the body but is dead He that is out of the Church is without the Teaching the holy worship the prayers and the discipline of the Church and is out of the way where the spirit doth come and out of the Society which Christ is specially related to For he is the Saviour of his body And if we leave his hospital we cannot expect the presence and help of the Physician Nor will he be a Pilot to them who forsake his Ship Nor a Captain to them who separate from his Army Out of this Ark there is nothing but a deluge and no place of rest or safety for a soul. Fourthly The Unity of Christians is their secondary strength Their primary strength is Christ and the Spirit of grace which quickeneth them And their secondary strength is their Vnion among themselves Separation from Christ depriveth men of the first and separation from one another depriveth them of the second An Army is stronger than a man And a Kingdom than a single person A flame will burn more strongly than a spark And the waves of the Ocean are more forcible than a single drop A threefold Cord is not easily broken Therefore it is that weak Commonwealths do seek to strengthen themselves by confederacies with other States The Church is likened to an Army with Banners both for their Numbers their Concord and their Order And therefore Christ saith that a Kingdom divided cannot stand Union is the Churches strength And what good soever they may pretend Dividers are certainly the weakeners and destroyers of the Church And as those means which best corroborate the body and fortifie the spirits do best cure many particular diseases which no means would câ—re whilst nature is debilitated So are the Churches diseases best cured by uniting fortifying remedies which will be increased by a dividing way of Reformation Dividing is wounding and uniting is the closing of the wound There is no good work but Satan is a pretender to it when he purposeth to destroy
it He resisteth Light as an Angel of Light and his Ministers hinder Righteousness as pretended Ministers of Righteousness And he will be a zealous Reformer when he would hinder Reformation And this is the mark of Satans way of Reformation He doth it by by dividing the Churches of Christ and teaching Christians to avoid each other And to that end he zealously aggravateth the faults of every party to the rest that they may have odious thoughts of one another and Christian Love may be turned into aversation As in the Plague time every one is afraid of the breath and company of his neighbour and they that were wont to assemble and converse with peace and pleasure do timerously shun the presence of each other because they know that it is an infectious time and they are uncertain who is free even so doth Satan break the societies and converse of Christians by making them believe that every party hath some dangerous infection which as they love their souls they must avoid And he destroyeth your Love to one another by pretending Love to your selves O how careful will he be for your souls when the Devil would undo you he will do it as your Saviour And when his meaning is to save you from Heaven and from Christ and from his saving grace and from Union and Communion with his Church and from the impartial Love of one another he takes on him that he is saving you only from sin and from Church-corruptions Or rather that it is Christ and not he that giveth you counsel And he can do much in imitating Christ in the manner of his suggestions to make you believe that it is Christ indeed Perhaps his counsel shall come in in the midst of a fervent prayer or presently after it to make you believe that it is an undoubted answer of your prayers And oft times his impulses are vehement and much affecting to make you think that it is something above nature And the pioâ—s pretence will much perswade you to think that sure this can never come from an evil spirit But if you had well studied 2 Cor. 11. 13 14 15. Gal. 1. 8. Luke 9. 55. 1 Ioh. 4. 1 2. 2 Thes. 2. 2. you might be wiser and be saved from this deceit I will not recite the words because I would have you turn to them and seriously study them And in this dividing work the Devil doth as make-bates do who first goes to one man and tell him a tale what such a one said against him and what a dangerous person he is and then go to the other and say as much of the first to him So the Devil saith to the Presbyterian O take heed of the Independents and to the Independents Take heed of these Presbyterians To the Anabaptist he suggesteth Avoid these Protestants Take heed of them for they Baptize infants And to the Protestants he saith Take heed of these Anabaptists for they are against baptizing any till they come to full age To one he saith Away from that Church or think not those persons to be religious for they pray by the book And to the other he saith Take heed of those people as whimsical and proud and brainsick fanaticks for they pray without-book by the Spirit To one sort he saith Take heed of those people for they wear a Surplice or Kneel at the Sacrament or answer the Priests in the Responses of the Common-prayer To the other he saith Take heed of these disobedient stubborn selfconceited people that will sit at the Sacrament and will not conform to the orders of the Church I am not now minding whose opinion is right or wrong among all these parties or any like them But how charitable to your souls the Devil is when he would destroy your charity and your souls and how piously and kindly he would have you take heed when he would lead you to perdition and how great a Reformer he will be if he may but do it by Dividing It may be the young unexperienced Schismatick of what sect soever will distast these words and think I speak like an adversary to Reformation And so the Devil would make him think of all other Christians as well as of me except his party But if one should give such counsel for the preservation of his own health and bodily comfort as the Dividing spirit giveth him for the Church and for his soul he would quickly understand it according to my present sense If one should come in kindness to him and bid him O take heed of that mouth and belly for it getteth nothing but devoureth all that the hands do get by labour Cut off that hand for it hath a crooked finger Cut off that gouty foot that it may not trouble the whole body Rip up those guts which have such filthy excrements he would not swell against me if I advised him to suspect such kindness Fifthly Remember also that the Unity of Christians is their peace and ease as well as their strength and safety Psal. 133. 1. Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity As the amity and converse with friends is pleasant and the concord of families is their quietness and ease so is it as to the amity and concord which is the bond of Church society And the divisions and discord of Christians is their mutual pain and trouble Do you not feel your minds disturbed by it Do you not see the Church discomposed by it The itch of contention doth ordinarily make it pleasant for the time to every Sect to scratch by zealous wranglings and disputes for their several opinions till the blood be ready to follow But the smart and scab doth use to convince them of their folly But if they will go more than Skin-deep they may need a Surgeon Children will claw themselves but it is Madmen that will wound themselves The hurtâ— which we get in the Christian warfare by mortifying the flesh or by the persecution of the malignant enemy is tenderly healed by the hand of Christ and usually furthereth our inward peace But if we will hurt and wound and divide our selves what pity or comfort can we expect Sixthly Consider also that the Unity and Concord of Believers is their Honour and their Divisions and discord are their shame And consequently the honour or dishonour of Christ and the Gospel and Religion is much concerned in it Agreement among Christians telleth the world that they have a certainty of the faith which they profess and that it is powerful and not ineffectual and that it is of a healing nature and tendeth to the felicity of the world But Divisions and discords among Christians perswade unbelievers that there is no certainty in their belief or that it is of a vexatious and destructive tendency or at best that all its power is too weak to overcome the malignity which it pretendeth to resist where did you ever see Christians live in undivided
Papist But if you ask why we separated from the Papal Church I answer Because first it was no Church of Christ as such And secondly It was a Church of traiterous combination against the prerogative of Christ and therefore by the Protestants called the Anti-christian Church We separated not from Rome either as the Universal Church for that it was not nor as part of the Universal Church for so we hold communion with those that are Christians in it still Nor as a true worshipping Congregation for they consist of many thousand congregations which we had never local communion with And as true worshipping congregations in specie we still hold communion with them in mind so far as they are such indeed But in two senses we separate from them First as a Papal Catholick Church because in that sense they are no Church of Christ but a pack of rebels Secondly as particular Congregations in specie which have mixed Gods worship with false doctrine and Idolatrous bread-worship and other unlawful things which by oaths and practise they would force those to be guilty of who will communicate with them And thus we disown them only as neighbour Churches that never were their lawful subjects but bear our testimony against their sin And our forefathers who were members of their Churches departed to save themselves from their iniquity and because they were refused by themselves unless they would lie forswear be idolaters and communicate with them in their sin Nor would they then nor will they to this day admit any into communion of their particular Churches as such who will not first come in to their pretended Universal Church which is no Church and worse than none If this answer seem not plain and full to you it is because you understand not Christian sense and reason DIRECT X. Expect not that any one lawfully received by Baptism into the Christian Church should be cast out of it or denied the priviledge of members but according to the rules of Christian discipline by the power of the Keyes that is for obstinate impenitency in a gross or scandalous sin which the person is proved to be guilty of and this after private and publick admonition and tender patient exhortation to Repentance HEre are two things which I desire you to observe First what is Christs appointed way for removing members from the Communion of the Church Secondly how great a sin it is to remove them by a contrary and arbitrary way of our own presumptuous invention First It is here supposed that the person is not a professed Apostate For there needeth no casting out of such He that turneth Turk or Heathen or openly renounceth Christianity or ceaseth the Profession of it doth go out of the Church himself and needeth not to be cast out Unless it be any Tyrant who will come to the Communion in scorn while he professeth but to shew his lawless will He that seeketh the Communion of the Church in sobriety thereby professeth himself a Christian. and for such as being Baptized continue this profession Christs way of rejecting them is plainly described in the Gospel Mat. 18. 15 16. If thy brother shall trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone If he shall hear thee thou hast gained thy brother But if he will not hear thee then take with thee one or two more that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established And if he shall neglect to hear them tell it to the Church But if he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen man or a Publican Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition reject 1 Cor. 5. Ye are puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you For I verily as absent in body but present in spirit have jâ—dged already as though I were present concerning him that hath so done this deed in the name of our Lord Iesus Christ when ye are gathered together and my spirit with the power of our Lord Iesus Christ to deliver such a one to Satan V. 7. Purge out therefore the old leaven v. 11 12 13. With such a one no not to eat Do not ye judge them that are within Therefore pâ—â— away from among your selves that wicked person By all this it is plain that the Church must exercise a regular course of justice with every person that it shall reject He must first be told prâ—vately of his fault and then before two or three unless at least the open notoriety make the private admonition needless And then it must be told the Church And the Church must with compassion tenderness and patience and yet with the authority of the Lord Jesus and the powerful evidence of truth convince him and perswade him to repent And he must not be rejected till after all this he obstinately refuse to hear the Church that is to Repent as they exhort him Note here that no sin will warrant you to cast out the sinner unless it be seconded with Impenitency It is not simply as a drunkard or a fornicator or swearer that any one is to be rejected but as an impenitent drunkard or fornicator or swearer c. Also that it is not all impenitency that will warrant their rejection But only impenitency after the Churches admonition Note also that no private person may expect that any offender be cast out either because his sin is known to him or because he is commonly famed to be guilty till the thing be proved by sufficient witness Yea that the admonition given him must be proved as well as the fault which he committed Yea if all the town do know him to be guilty and witness prove that he hath been privately admonished he may not be rejected till he be heard speak for himself and till he refuse also the publike admonition This is Christs order whose wisdom and mercy and authority are such as may well cause us to take his way as best And yet the ignorance or rashness of many professors is such that they would have all this order of Christ overturned And some of them must have such a drunkard and such a swearer kept away and rejected before ever they admonished them or exhorted them to Repentance or prove that any one else hath done it much more before they have told the Church or proved that he hath neglected the Churches admonition And some go so much further that they must have all the Churches taken for no Churches till they have gathered them a new and must have all the Parish at once rejected till they have gathered out some few again without any such order of proceeding with them as Christ appointeth It may be a thousand shall be cast out at once when never a one of them was thus admonished Obj. They were never members of a true
to a better if you are free But if as servants or children or wives you are under another Government which restraineth you be patient and use such means as God provideth for you This is the true way of your Church-duty and not to think that you must have a knowledge of the Godliness of all that you communicate with or that you must refuse communion if the Pâ—stor he remiss and negligent Obj. But will it not be my sin if I communicate with such as I know to be notoriously wicked when a little leaven leaveneth the lump Answ. It will be your sin if you obey not Christ Mat. 18. 15. in admonishing them and so if it be long of you that they are not removed or if you do not your duty to reform the Pastor or remove him But otherwise if they be there without your fault it is no more your sin to communicate with such men than it is to live and converse with fellow servants that are wicked when it is not you but your Master that hath the choice of them And the leavening of the lump which the Text speaketh of is the tempting of others to the like sin and not that the innocent shall be held guilty of it nor were the words spoken to the people to perswade them to do the Pastors work or to separate from the Church but to the Pastors to perswade them to cast out the sinner and to the people to perswade them to execute their Sentence and the Apostles in particular It would rule and quiet people if they knew the trust and work of the Pastors from their own DIRECT XII Well study the gracious Nature and Office of Iesus Christ and his great readiness to receive those that come to him though weak in faith and his backwardness to refuse such Commers that so you may desire a Church-discipline that is suitable to the Nature and Office of Christ and to the design and tenor of the Gospel CHrists outward Discipline is agreeable to his inward As those that come to him by faith he will in no wise cast out or reject so those that come to him by profession of faith he would not have his Ministers in any wise reject And coming to Christ when he was personally on earth did signifie the following of him in presente as well as believing in him Just so far as men will come so far they shall be received by Christ If they will come but towards him he will not put them back If they will come but to his visible Church by a dead profession he would not have his Ministers repulse them The outward priviledges of the visible Church which they come to they shall possess If they will come over to the Church of the regenerate they shall be saved But where ever they stop it shall be their own doing Many came to Christ when he was on earth whom he never repulsed though he was marvelled at and grudged at for entertaining them Some came so far as to own his Name and did Miracles by it that yet did not follow him whom the Apostles would have hindered but Christ reproved them Mar. 9. 38. Luk. 9. 49. Some came only to receive a Cure of their Diseases from him whom his Disciples sometimes repulsed but so did not he when little children were brought to him his Disciples rebuked those that brought them as thinking them unfit for his reception but Christ rebuked them for their forbidding of such guests When he eat and drank with publicans and sinsinners and when he received the kindness of a woman that had bin a great sinner the Pharisees censured him therefore as ungodly But yet he would not abate his clemency Many at this day can scarce digest it that he sent forth a Iudas to preach the Gospel when he knew that he was a thief and an hypocrite and foreâ—new that he was a Son of perdition and would betray him and that the Devil would enter into him yea knew that he was a Devil Ioh. 6. 70. 13. 2. yeâ— that this Iudas should be one of the twelve select Apostles and one of the Family of Christ. Yet Christ repulsed him not And if he did not partake of the Sacrament at his last Supper it was not because Christ did turn him out but because he went away himself And accordingly the Apostles received 3000 at once into the Church upon their sudden profession of repentance even of such as had killed the Lord of life And though Simon Magus would not come out of the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity yet was he not kept out of the visible Church when he professed to believe and desired baptism Indeed if men will not come so far as to the profession of true faith and repentance they are not to be received into thâ— Church Because the Church is a Society of such Professours And if they will not come they cannot be received The Church and Sacrament must not be altered and made another thing than Christ made it for the receiving of another sort of men We must not do as some that would have no profession of saving faith and repentance but only a consent to learn required of them that are baptized and so baptism changed into another sort which Christ never instituted and the Church never used to this day But if Christians had well studied the compassions of a Saviour and the tenour of his Gospel and his practice upon earth and instead of a surly flying from their neighbours and groundless censuring them were possessed themselves with that love and tenderness which is the Evangelical temper and the image of their Lord it would put in end to many of our divisions and bring us neerer the truth and one another DIRECT XIII Yet left you run into the worse extream remember still that the destroying of sin and the sanctifying of mans nature and life by recovering us to the obedience and Love of God was the design and work of the Redeemer And that Holiness and Peace must go together And that the outward order and discipline of the visible Church must be subservient to the inward spirituality and prosperity of the regenerate Church And no such favour must be shewed to sinners as favoureth and strengthneth their sin and hindereth the increase of holiness IT is woful work which ungodly Pastors make in the visible Church under the name and pretense of Vnity Concord Peace and Order when an enemy to true holiness hath the managing of these you may easily imagine how they will be used But sad experience hath told the Christian world these 1300 years more doleful things thâ—n could otherwise have bin imagined The compassion which Christ shewed to sinners was to convert and save them from their sin But the compassion which caâ—nal Pastors shew them is to harden them in their sin and make them believe that repentance and holiness are but hypocrisie or needless things The Unity and Concord
which Christ intended was a Vnity in himself and â— Concord in holy Obedience to his Lawes But it is a Vnity in the will of man and a Concord in obeying the Dictates of the proud which Treacherous Pastors do require It is a Peaceable progress of the Gospel and unanimous endeavor to convert and sanctifie and save the world which Christ requireth us to promote But it is a Peaceable enjoyment of their own prosperity wealth and honour and a peaceable forbearance of a holy life which Wolvish Pastors do desire It is an Orderly management of holy doctrine worship and conversation for the edification of the flock and the increase of godliness which Christ commandeth But it is an absolute obedience to their wills and an exact observance of their new-made Religions and needless scandalous inventions and an adoring of their titles and robes of honour covering their ignorance pride and sensuality which Church-yrants call the Order of the Church All Christâ— indulgent tenderness and Discipline are but to further his Holy designe of killing sin and sanctifying souls But the Images of Piety Government Unity Peace and Order which Hypocrites and Pharisees set up are devised engines to destroy the Life and serious practice of the things themselves and are set up in enmity against spirituality and holiness that there might be no other Piety Government Unity Peace or Order in the Church but these lifeless Images It is far from the mind of Christ that no difference should be made between the Holy and the profans the precious and the vile Oâ— that serious piety should be suppressed or discouraged or faithful preachers hindered from promoting it on ignorant graceless Ministers countenanced under pretence of Peace or Order The design of Christ was not like Mahomet's to get himself an earthly Kingdom and numerous followers meerly to cry up his name And therefore he will not indulge men in their sinâ— nor abate oâ— alter the conditions of his Covenant to win disciples He will have his Ministers deal plainly with all to whom they preach and let them know that without self-denial and forsaking all in estimation and resolution and a willing exchange of earth for heaven they cannot be his true Disciples Nor without a Profest consent to thus much they cannot be his visible profest Disciples But all that will not repent must perish And therefore in their Baptism they must profess a renunciation of all competitors His Ministers also must impartially exercise the Keyes which he hath committed to their trust and must not fear the faces of men who at most are able but to kill the body Luk. 12. 4. They must discern between the righteous and the wicked and draw all scandalous sinners to repentance or else exclude them from the communion of Saints that the world may see that Christ is no friend to prophane persons or sensual â—leshly bruits As Chrysostome commandeth the Presbyters not to give the body and blood of Christ to the unworthy though he were the greatest Commander or wore a Diadem and professeth that he would suffer his own blood to be shed before he would give the blood of Christ to the unworthy And as blessed Paul would become all things to all men to win them and commandeth us not to please our selves but to please our neighbours for their good to edification And yet when it came to the flattering of men in their sins he saith that if he should so please men he should be no longer the servant of Christ. And as to his own interest in mans esteem he saith With me it is a small thing to be judged of you or of mans judgment Rom. 15. 1 2 3. 1 Cor. 10. 33. Gal. 1. 10. 2 Tim. 2. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 3. Take heed therefore of pretending Unity order peace or charity against the strictest obedience of Godâ—laws or against the faithful preaching of the Gospel and exercise of true Church-discipline or against the necessity of the ancient profession of saving faith and true-repentance in all that will be admitted to the communion of the Church It is not an ungodly unity peace or order that we plead for DIRECT XIV Though your Governours and not you must judge what persons shall be of your publike Church-communion yet it is you that must judge who are fit or unfit for your private company and familiarity Here therefore exercise your strictness in your own part AS it is not you but the King that must judge who shall be of the same Kingdome with you nor the servant but the Master that must choose who shal be in the family with him Nor the scholler but the Schoolmaster that must choose who shal be of the same School with him So it is not you but your Pastor that must judg who shall be of the same Church with you As to the Universal visible Church this is confest by all And there is no reason why it should be denied of particular Churches as is proved But who shall be your Pastors or your Masters your husbands or your wives if you are yet free you your selves must be the choosers And who shall be your intimate companions or your bosome friends Here therefore make as strict a choice as you can If you meet a prophane person at the Lords Table it is his own fault or the Pastors But if you keep company needlesly with such or marry such it is your own fault If the Pastor do not excommunicate them you may choose not to be familiar with them Though you must meet them at the Church and pray with them you need not meet them at the Ale-house and drink with them Though you may not with a few of the most godly separate from the publike communion of all the rest yet may you keep a more intimate familiarity with those few than with all the rest And if you will consider this is all that is necessary to your own duty and that which is best for your own edification Keep thus to a strictness within the bounds of your own place and calling and God will bless you in such a strictness DIRECT XV. Understand well how much it hath pleased God to lay all mens good or evil happiness or misery upon their own choice And observe the reasons of it that you may not oppose this order of God THough God by his grace must change the perverse disposition of mens wills before they will make a gracious choice yet it is most certain that the teachings commands exhortations and reproofs of God are directed to the Will of man And that the promises and threatnings mercies and judgements are used to move and change the will And that in the tenor of his Laws and Covenants Christ hath set Life and Death before men and put their Happiness in their own choice and that no man shall have better or worse than he made choice of that is none shall be either happy or miserable but as they did choose or refuse
furtherance of the right and successful use of gifts For ordinarily he that speaketh from the heart speaketh to the heart when an unexperienced hypocrite speaketh without life But sometimes a dulness and want of utterance in the sincere and a natural and affected servency in the hypocrite with a voluble tongue do obscure this difference and make the hypocrite the more profitable to the Church DIRECT XVIII Understand well the necessity of your Communion with all the Universal Church and wherein it consisteth and how far to be preferred before your Communion with any particular Church WIth the Vniversal Church mystical you must have communion by the same spirit the same regeneration the same Faith and Love and the same Laws of God and obedience thereto With the Universal Church visible you must have communion in the same Profession of faith and repentance and the same baptism and the same sort of ministry and publike worship so far as they are universally determined of by Christ. And though you are absent in body you must be as present in spirit by consent with all the Churches of Christ on earth You must have spiritual communion with the whole spiritual Church and visible communion in kind in the same Rule of faith and kind of workship with all the visible Church and Lâ—cal-presential communion with that particular Church where you are present and with any other where your presence afterwards may be needful unless they hinder you by unlawful terms So that it is not the same kind nor measure of Communion which you are obliged to hold with all But you must have Communion with all men as a man and with neighbours as a neighbour and with relations according to the relations civil or domestical and with all true Christians as a true Christian and with all professed Christians as a professed Christian and with the particular Church of which you are a part as a part of that Church And with your bosome Friends and intimate Companions as a Friend and Companion And yet in all this you must communicate with no Church or person in their sin it self and yet not refuse their Communion in good though mixt with sin You must own all the prayers of all the Churches in the world so far as they are good and joyn in spirit by consent as if you concurred with them in presence and made all their prayers to be your own As you do by the prayers of the Church where you are present If there be disorders or imperfections or sinful blemishes in their prayers you must disown all those faults but not therefore disown any part of all their prayers which are good but desire to have a part in them and desire the pardon of their failings And here you may perceive what a mischief pievish separation is on both sides It hindereth you from prâ—ying aright for others as the members should do for all the body And it hindereth you from partaking in the benefit of the prayers of most of the Church of God on earth Indeed God may hear those prayers for you which you your selves disown But whether this may be expected according to the ordinary course of his dealing is much to be doubted seeing he hath made every mans will or choice the ordinary condition of his participation of such benefits it is hard to conceive that he that abhorreth the prayers of other men or taketh them for such as God abhorreth or will not accept and in his mind disowneth all participation and communion in them should yet have a part against his will But of this more anon As your Baptism maketh you Members of the Universal Church in order of nature before you are members of a particular Church so your relation to the Universal Church is more noble more necessary and more durable than your relation to any particular Church It is more noble because the Society is more noble The whole is more excellent than a little part It is more necssary because you cannot be saved and be Christians without being members of the Universal Church But you may be Christians and be saved without being a member of any stated particular Church It is more durable because you can never separate from the Univeâ—sal Church or cease to be a member of it without being separated from Christ But divers occasions may warrant your removeall from a particular Church Live not therefore in those narrow and dangerous principles as if your Congregation or your party were all the Church of Christ or as if you had no Christian relation to any other Ministers or People nor owed any duty to them as Members of the same Body But remember that all Christians Persons and Congregations are but the Members of the Kingdom of Christ. DIRECT XIX Take heed of engaging your selves too far in any divided Sect or of espousing the interest of any party of Christians to the neglect or injury of the common interest of the Universal Church or cause of Christianity I Doubt not but among several ranks of Christians the soundest and most upright are to be best esteemed and caeteris paribus their Communion to be preferred before theirs that are more unsound and scandalous But it s one thing to prefer the eye or hand before the foot a noble member before a more ignoble and another thing to own a Sect as such or a party as they either divide from others or take up a dividing opposite interest You are sure that the Universal Church of Christ can never erre against the essentials of Christianity nor against any truth or duty necessary to their salvation For then the Church were no Church and then Christ were not its Head And then the body of Christ might perish And then Christ were not the Saviour of his body But you cannot say of any one part that you are sure that part shall never fall away and perish There may fall out a necessity which may warrant the Body to cut off a hand or leg to save the rest But no corporal necessity can warrant you to destroy the whole nor any one member to forsake the Body before it is forcibly cut off He that seeth not how the espousing of parties and divided interests doth corrupt most Christians in the world and lacerate and deface the Church of Christ doth not understand or not observe the condition of mankind It is somewhat rare to meet with any serious Christians who are not so deeply engaged into some Sect or Side or party as to darken their judgements and pervert their affections as to all the rest and to corrupt their converse in the world How blindly do such look on all that is good in those that differ from them How partially do they judge of the judgements and practises of others How small a thing will serve the turn to excuse the faults of any of their party And how small and common a good seemeth excellent in them And how perversly do they
not be tryed by the Scripture Or when it driveth you to use means which God forbiddeth in his Word and putteth you upon ways which the sealed Law and Testimony condemn It cannot be of God which is against Gods Word 10. Lastly it is a suspicious sign when it is contrary to the judgement experience and zeal of the generality of the most wise experienced tryed sober godly Christians and so to the ordinary working of Gods Spirit in other men who are as good as you For Gods Spirit is not contrary to it self By all these signs you may easily perceive how the dividing zeal of a Sect as a sect doth differ from the genuine Christian zeal The one is a zeal for some singular opinion The other is a zeal for Godliness and Christianity The one is kindled by some interest of our own religious reputation the other is kindled by the interest of the will and glory of God The one is for the strengthning of a Party The other is to increase the Church Universal and promote the common cause of Christianity even when some particular truth or duty is the Matter of it yet the general cause of godliness is the end The one is a burning hurting zeal even the same which hath made matter for so many Martyrologies and frightful Histories by inquisitions torments prisons flames massacreâ— and bloody wars And the same which hath silenced so many faithful Ministers and disturbed so many States and Churches The other is a zeal of Love which maketh men fervent in doing good to others The one causeth men to revile and despise and censure and backbite and zealously to make all dissenters seem odious that the hearers may abate their love to them The other maketh us value all that is good in others and to hide their nakedness and to make them better and to provoke the hearers to love and to good works The one tendeth to divisions and sidings and separations and distances from our brethren and to feed contentions The other is a zeal for unity amity and peace The one is the complexion of the weak and childish the proud and self-conceited the peevish and surly sort of Professours The other is the zeal of solid knowledge and of the prudent humble meek and well grounded sort of Christians The one is a zeal which flyeth most outward against the sins of other men and can live with pride and covetousness and selfishness and sensuality at home such serve not the Lord Iesus but their own bellies Rom. 16. 16 17. The other beginneth at home and consumeth all these vices in the heart and as zeal increaseth humility and meekness and love and self-denyal and temperance and heavenly mindedness increase The one is easily got and easily kept and hardly kept under O how easie is it to get and keep a contemptuous censorious backbiting dividing or persecuting â—eal But the other is not so much befriended by Satan or the flesh and therefore must be preserved by prayer and meditation and very great diligence How hard is it to keep up a zealous love of God and Man and a fervour in all our heavenly and spiritual desires Abate but your diligence and this will presently decay when the fierce contending hurting separating and persecuting zeal doth need no such fuel or labour to maintain it The one is kindled by the enflaming censures of some rash and passionate Preacher that knoweth better how to kill Love than to cause it or by the singular conceits of some Sectary or Divider or by the backbitings of some Doâ—g or malicious Calumniator The other is kindled by the humble and heavenly preaching of the Gospel and by the meditations on Christs example and a study to imitate him and his Saints in patience forbearance foâ—giving others and doing good The one is a zeal which carrieth men from the Scripture to pretenses of such revelations and inspirations and impulses as have no proof but the feeling and fancy of the person or at least to abuse the Word of God and plead it for that which it condemneth It provoketh men to some unlawful practâ—se under pretense of misinterpreted texts and of good ends and meanings The other still putteth you upon good and striveth against evil and goeth for tryal of every cause to the Law and to the testimony Lastly the one is a zeal which pretendeth the spirit and yet goeth contrary to the common workings of the spirit in the most part of the best and wisest Christians But the other is the common vital heat which animateth all the body of Christ and actualeth all his living members and keepeth up love and holiness in the Church and is the same in all humble heavenly Christians in the world It will be of great use to you in order to your own and the Churches peace to understand and observe the difference between these contrary sorts of religious zeal DIRECT XXI Lend not a patient ear to back-biters much less must you hastily believe them when they speak ill of others But shew your detestation of that sin though they should be most religious people that use it and do it upon a religious pretence I Do not say that it is always unlawful to speak that which is ill of another behind his back Sometime wicked men will take occasion to justifie sin it self by the advantage of a sinners name And sometime they will magnifie the vertues of some wicked man or of some of their sect on purpose to cast reproach on godliness or to make others odious by the comparison Yet in such cases we must repress their malignity more by a defensive than an offensive opposition But the usual course of back-biting in all sorts of men is sinful The back-biter how great or learned or religious soever is but the devils minister to preach down the love of others and to exhort you to hate your brother or to abate your charity to him And he that patiently hearkeneth to such is a partaker of their sin And he that believeth them hath taken the infection Most of our odious thoughts of others and our false and uncharitable censures do come in this way For the most part men censure and separate and persecute most where they are acquainted least but go by hear-say and judge of men by back-biters mis-reports And acquaintance and familiarity usually reconcileth them and sheweth them their errour You think it is a fair excuse for you when you either believe or report evil of another to say that you heard it from very honest and religious or reverend persons or you heard it from many and confidently uttered But God hath not allowed you to receive back-biters because they are godly or because they are many This very age and time doth experimentally confute this excuse In which it is so common a thing for false reports and news to be uttered with confidence and that by multitudes and many of them religious and yet neither truth nor ground
is ready to over-run his consideration and abuse his conscience in the extent of his compliance with all impositions through the indignation or contempt against the unreasonable humours of the Sectaries And thus mens own judgement and practise is depraved while they think more from whence to go than whither Secondly you lose your advantage of doing good to those you flye from And therein disobey the will of God and have a hand in the loss of the souls of men Paul became a Jew to the Jews and all things to all men to save some 1 Cor. 9. 19 20 21 22. I pray you mark his words It had been no strange thing if he had become wise to gain the foolish and shewed himself strong to win the weak c. But to become a Iew as when he circumcised Timothy and shaved his head because he had a vow c. and to be as under the Law to them that are under Law and as without Law to them that are without Law and to become as weak to them that are weak to gain the weak and to be made all things to all men to save some this is far from the religion of the Separatists What abundance of things do many now blame and censure others for as temporizers which they have nothing against that may be called Reason but only that their neighbours use them If a man stand up at the profession of the Belief or if he stand up when the Psalms and Hymns of Praise to God are uttered they say he conâ—ormeth to the gestures of the Congregation and make that his dispraise which is his praise And what Is not standing a fit gesture to profess our Faith in and a fit gesture to praise God in Or is it praise-worthy to be odd and singular in the Church and not to do as the rest of the Church doth Austin professed his resolution in all such gestures and lawful orders to do as the Church doth where he is And Paul would have us with one mouth as well as with one mind to glorifie God I entreat these men to mark whether it was Christ or the Pharisees that came nearest to their way and whom they now imitate Was it for going too far from sinners that the Pharisees did censure Christ Or was it not for eating and drinking with Publicans and sinners though he did it not to harden them in their sin but as a Physician conversing with the sick to heal them was it not for Sabbath-breaking and not being strict enough in such matâ—ers that they were offended with Christ and his disciples The case is plain But corrupted nature more favoureth the separating zeal of the Pharisees than the Loving winning zeal of Christ And will easilier suffer us to be imitators of the Pharisees than of Christ. Thirdly This going too far from those whom we should win doth not only lose our advantage to do them good but greatly tendeth to harden them in all their prejudices against a religious life and to hinder their conversion and to undo their souls When they hear and see us place any of our Religion in avoiding a lawful recreation or a lawful use of words or a lawful fashion of apparel or a lawful gesture or circumstance in Gods worship they will judge of the rest of our Religion by that part And this is one thing that hath hardened thousands especially of the rich who are enclined to excesses in a scornful contempt of strictness in Religion under the name of Puritans and Bigots and Precisians and such like They think they are but an ignorant humorous sort of people who are almost mad with a pride of their singularity in Religion And think that when you tell them of a Conversion you would have them become such whimsical fanaticks And that the difference between their Religion and yours is but whether such a form of prayer or such a gesture or such a fashion of apparel or such musick or other recreation be lawful or unlawful In which they are confident that they are in the right And what greater cruelty can you shew to souls than thus to harden them in their sin and misery Little do such persons think how many be in Hell through these scandals and snares which they have set before them And yet they take on them that is because they would not encourage men in sin that they thus flye from them When they do their worst to make all the world believe that strict religiousness is but the whimsie of a giddy sort of people who are almost out of their wits with pride And what greater injury can men do to Christ and to Religion than this To make it the scorn and contempt of the world I know they will say that Religion was ever scorned by the wicked and ever will be But if it be scorned for its genuine nature its heavenly wisdome purity and goodness this is the disgrace only of them that scorn it Or if they maliciously and causelesly call wisedome folly or call good evil this will redound to the speakers shame where true Reason hath but leave to work But if you will therefore do as the Jews did and cloath Christ in a fools Coat and put a Reed in his hand for a Scepter to expose him to the laughter and scorn of the beholders it is you that will be found his deriders and crucifiers If you blind-fold him and others smite him and say Read who smote thee his buffetting will prove to be caused by you If you will paint a saint in the garb of a mad man the countries hatred and abuse of saints will be imputed unto you Fourthly yea I may add that you are the great cause of the persecutions of the godly and of the damnation of the persecutors While godly people appear in their own likeness in wisdome and love and humility and meekness and sobriety the world doth usually bear some reverence to them though it hate them But when you have made men believe that those that call themselves Godly people are but a company of superstitious Pharisees that cry Touch not tast not handle not or a sort of melancholly humorists who must sit because their neighbours stand or must go out of the way because their neighbours go in it This maketh them justifie all their cruelties to you and others and think persecution to be their duty and to say that the whip is for the fools back and wanton children must be made wise by the rod and that it is no wrong to a mad man to lie in Bedlam If you say that Godliness hath been alwayes perseâ—uted I answer But if you are the causers of it though it must needs be that scandal or offence come yet wo to him by whom it cometh Math. 18. 7. Luk. 17. 1 2. The way of heavenly wisdome is pure but peaceable and gentle and easie to be entreated The way that Christ and his Apostles have led us is to draw as
dangers and more solicitous of its safety than the private members are I think that the chief part of the Duty is incumbent upon us which must be done in order to the prevention of these maladies and to the cure And therefore I think that the principal work of a Director or Counsellor in this case must be with the Ministers of Christ themselves The Churches peace lieth most upon our hands And if we miscarry and will not understand instruction nor bear admonition nor do our parts how little hope will be left of our tranquility The body must needs languish when the Physician is as bad as the disease DIRECT I. Let it be our first care to know and do our own duty for the strengthening and uniting of the people And when we see their weakness and divisions let us first examine and judge our selves and lament and reform our own neglects THat the state of the flocks doth usually follow the state of the Pastors is known by the experience of all the Churches in all ages and places of the world Where there is a holy faithful able diligent concordant Ministry there is usually a reformed and agreeing people And where there is an ignorant lazy formal ungodly and contentious Ministery there is either a people divided or else agreeing in ignorance formality and ungodliness At least if such a Ministry have been long among them And we need no other proof of this and of the chief cause of the peoples divisions and mistakes than the accusations and charges of the Ministers against each other On every side it is the Pastors of the flocks that are accused by those of the adverse party as the chief offenders One side saith It is you that teach the people errours and put scruples into their minds and lead them into contempt of order and authority And the other side saith It is you that proudly usurp authority which Christ never gave you and lord it over Gods heritage and by your own inventions lay snares before the people to divide them and will not suffer them to unite in their proper center and agree in the primitive simplicity And that bring the Ministery into hatred and contempt by your cruelty and vicious lives And whilest each side is thus accused by the other they have all the greater cause to suspect themselves Because it seemeth to be agreed on all hands that it is the Pastors who are principally in the fault though it be not agreed what the fault is nor which party of the Pastors must bear the blame And indeed where are there any sects or factions but there are Ministers that head them and that caused them at first and keep them up Is it not the Bishops that have caused the long division between the Greek and Latin Churches Was it not principally a contention for their interests which of them should be the greatest so little doth Câ—rists own decision of that controversie among his Apostles signifie with those men who are contending about a successive infallible Judge Is it not their Councils and their contentious writings and practises which have been the grand causes of this woful schism And are not the dividing snares which cause most of the rest of the schisms of Christendome the meer usurpations and impositions of the Roman Prelates It was the Bishops of each party with their Presbyters who headed the diviâ—iâ—â— in the second Council of Ephesus and in the Council of Ariminum and many others And by them the Heresâ—es of the Arrians the Nestorians the Eutychians c. with the schisms of the Novatians Donatists and most others have been maintained And among our selves most parties have their Leaders who first made the breach and still keep it open It is therefore but reasonable that we all suspect and search our selves And perhaps the lot may find out that Achan who is thought most innocent and Ionah who is not the worst in the ship may be the man and he may be the Iudas who is last in asking Master is it I And it is ten to one but the leaders of every party will be found blame-worthy in part though not in equality Besides all that shall be intimated in the following Directions these causes of the peoples weakness and Divisions are so openly manifest in too many Pastors that they cannot be concealed or excused First There is so much Ignorance in many that they are not able judiciously to edifie the flocks nor to teach sound principles in a suitable manner and method to their hearers Who can teach others that which they never learned themselves Secondly Too many are strangers to the people whom they teach and know not the weaknesses of the vulgar and therefore neither justly resolve their doubts nor answer their objections nor indeed speak that language which the people understand They have been bred from their childhood in the Universities among Schollars and have little conversed with Plow-men and poor people and ignorant persons who have quite other conceptions and expreâ—â—â—ons than schollars have Their accurate stiles and well-couched words and elegant phrases are most of them like an unknown tongue to the greatest number of their auditors And that which they use as congruous to the matter is so incongruous to their hearers that its little to their benefit Thirdly And some in avoiding this exream do fall into the contrary and never go beyond the present understanding of the people and teach them nothing but what they know already And hereby they bring themselves into contempt entising the hearers to think that their Teachers are as ignorant as they and know no more than they teach And they tempt the people to be puffed up and think themselves worthy to be preachers because they can do as much and as well as their teachers use to do Fourthly And how cold and unskilful are many in the application of that doctrine which they have tolerably opened And speak the truths of the living God without any affecting reverence or gravity And talk as drowsily of the evil of sin the need of grace the love of God in Jesus Christ yea of death and judgement Heaven and Hell as if it were their design to rock the auditors asleep or to make them believe that it is but an histrionical fiction which they act and that nothing which they say is to be believed There is no need of any more forcible means to entice men to sin than to hear it preacht against so coldly Nor is there need of any more to teach men to set light by Christ and Grace and Heaven it self than to hear them so hearteslly commended We speak a few good words to the people in a reading tone like a child that is saying his lesson as if we believed not our selves and then we blame the people for their being no more edified by us and we look they should be much affected with that which never much affected the speakers If Christ himself who preached
strength of his arguments but were all the while thinking what to say against him or how to go on as they had begun Lastly not to run into any more causes there is an universal lamentable cause of differences that almost all people naturally are apt to be very confident of all their own apprehensions And very few have any due suspicion of their own opinions or an understanding submission to wiser men Yea boyes that are once past their Tutors dictates and the weakest women are usually as confident that they are in the right as the most learned and experienced persons Yea none are so apt to be too doubtful and diâ—â—ident of their own understandings as the Learned who are next the highest form For they have knowledge enough to know what can be objected against them and to see an hundred difficulties which the ignorant never saw So that the more weak worthless and erroneous any ones judgment is usually the more furious are they in their prosecution of it as if all were most certain truth which they apprehend These are the boldest both in schisms and persecutions as being so sure that their conceits are right that they dare censure or separate or scorn or despise or afflict dissenters It is a common thing to hear religious people speak meanly and humbly of their own understandings in the general But when it cometh to particulars it is the rarest part of humility in the world to find Very few do shew any competent modesty except the grosly ignorant who have no pretence to wisdome What abundance of good people of the darker sort have I been fain to rebuke for their over-valuing me and my understanding who when I have but crost their opinions about any thing which most groundlesly they took for a duty or a sin have held as fast their vain conceits and made as much of their most senseless reasonings and as passionately and confidently rejected the most unquestionable proof which I have offered them as if they had been infailible and had taken me for an errant fool And this is not the case of one or two Sects only but naturally of almost all men till God hath taught them that rare part of humility to have Humble Understandings and low thoughts of their own judgements and a due suspicion of their apprehensions And their cure is the harder because they know not how to have a humble suspicion of themselves without running into the contrary extream of scepticism and being cold and unfaithful to the truth They know not how to hold fast that which is good and to be constant in religion without holding fast all which they have once conceited to be good and being constant in their errour Especially when good or evil is voted to them by that party whose piety they most esteem and reverence Nor is this a Religious distemper only but it is so natural to mankind that even in common matters neighbours and neighbours masters and servants husband and wife and almost all have a strange diversity of apprehensions One thinks that this is the best way and another that the other is best and let them reason and wrangle it out never so long usually each party still holdeth his own and hardly yieldeth to anothers reasons And when they do yield they are so unhappy that they are as like to yield to one more erroneous than themselves and to change into a worse opinion as to yield to the truth For commonly Appearance Advantage Interest and a taking tone and voice do more with them than solid evidence of truth Out of all this if you infer a necessity of Government so do I. But if a necessity of force and rigor think on it again and first hear what I shall further say And consider what I have said already Distinguish between the common frailties of mankind and special enormities And forget not that you are men and live among men And let not men be cast out for Original sin nor punish a few for that which is common to all the world Nor condemn not your selves in condemning others Of which I further add DIRECT XI Evermore distinguish between the necessary truths and duties and those which are not of necessity and between the Tollerable and the intollerable errours And never think of a Common Unity or Concord but upon the terms of necessary points and of the primitive simplicity of doctrine discipline and worship and the forbearance of dissenters in tollerable differences IF I were to speak but once to the world whilest I lived this should be my Theam And yet for ought that I can perceive by any visible effects I never spake of any thing with less success One party writeth copiously of the mischiefs which will â—ollow Tolleration And they say true iâ— they mean the tolleration of things intollerable The other write as copiously of the necessity of Tolleration and Liberty of Conscience And they say true if they mean only the Tolleration of things tollerable But neither of them saith true if they mean universally and speak in any other sense There is nothing more plain and sure than that the tollerating of all errours and faults which conscience may be pretended for or of none at all are utterly destructive of Christian and humane peace and safety He is scarce well in his wits that holdeth either part universally and unlimitedly For the one would have no Government and the other would have no subjects to be governed Seeing therefore bounds and limits there must be we may reckon them as the third sort of distracted persons who think that the bounds are so undiscoverable that the mention of them is in vain and therefore either All or None must be tollerated according as Rulers are disposed or their interest seemeth to require And therefore they say What points be they that are necessary and what unnecessary What errours are tollerable and what are intollerable Can you name and number them Or who must be the judge To which I answer First Let it be first supposed that God hath given us a Law to judge by and then we shall quickly tell you who shall be the Judge A question which the confused world doth further their confusion by when they are a thousand times answered past all rational contradiction Iudgement is private or publick The judicium privatum discretionis which is but the guide of rational acts belongeth to every private man which none that is a man did ever yet deny The judicium publicum is either in foro civili determining in order to corporal coaction and this belongeth only to the Magistrates Or it is in foro Ecclesiae determining in order to Church-communion or Excommunication and this belongeth only to the Church but under the coactive Government of the Magistrate the Pastors being the Governors and the people in part the executioners He that requireth more understands not this Secondly And what if therâ— be a difficulty what points are necessary
thus to seek themselves and overvalue their own esteem If it be the former 2 Why doth it not please you then that they are edified by others though not by you Do you think that it is not the same Gospel which others preach to them And may not that Gospel edifie and save them by the Preaching of another as well as by yours And if their dis-esteem of you be a sign or means that they are not edified by you is not their great esteem of others who are as faithful a sign and means that they are or may be edified by them Thirdly And why are you not much more troubled at the state of all those who are not converted or edified by you though they do not slight you or forsake you How many be there that seem to love and honour you and yet do not love and honour God but despise religion and their own Salvation If it be for their sakes and not your own that you are offended you will grieve most for them that are most ungodly though they honour you never so much and you will be glad for them that are faithful and Godly whose Ministery soever it be that they most esteem Fourthly But suppose them yet so foolish and faulty as to run from you to their own perdition The question is What is the way to câ—re them Is Love caused by hard words or stripes Will you say to them Love me or you shall be fined or imprisoned Christ doth not teach you to use such arguments when you speak for him but to beseech men in his name and stead tobe reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5. 19 20. But your own work will be done in your own way Obj. But Christ threatneth Hell to the impenitent and Paul pronounceth him Anathematized that loveth not the Lord Iesus and he talketh to his hearers of coming with a rod. Answ. No doubt but the corrupted mind of man hath need not only of Love to draw them home to God and work the cure but of Threatnings to drive them and to help on the cure And though it be Love that causeth Love which is their Holiness yet Fear removeth many impediments But still remember that it is Love which is predominant and fear is but subservient And that the fear which is contrary to Love is a vice and hindereth theâ—r salvation And remember that Fear and Love towards God will better stand together than Fear and Love to you will For men know Gods Soveraignty and Iustice and know that he is not to be questioned or resisted But if they suffer by you it will not be so digested nor will it so consist with love A patient will not bear to be whipt by his Physician to force him to take his medicâ—nes though a child will bear it from his parents whose Love and Power are more unquestionable to him I desire you but to mark your own experience and let your Love be predominant in all your ministrations and use no force or hurting course which will really abate their Love to you and then I shall leave you in the rest to your discretion Secondly Yet still we grant that Christs threatnings may be preached by you and must be Thirdly And that the rod of discipline must be used But this must be done only on the scandalous and such as more dishonour Christ than you And it must be so done that it may appear to be Christs own work and done by you upon his interest and at his commund and not either arbitrarily or for your selves And I shall be bold with confidence to add that in those cases where violent restraint or â—oaction is necessary the Pastor is the unmeetest person to meddle in it It is the Magistrates work to drive and force where it must be done and the Pastors to perswade and draw The flock of Christ is led by himself the Lamb of God and his Ministers must go before with him and attend him in the conduct and the Magistrate must come behind and drive and it is the hindermost and not those before that must be driven Pastors should be so far from calling out for the help of violence unless it be to keep the peace that they should rather shew their love and tenderness by seeking as far as they may to mitigate it And they should desire that no such ungrateful work be at all imposed upon them as to seem the afflicters of their flocks because when once they have lost their love they have lost their opportunity and advantage of edifying them And it is not Pilate's hypocritical washing of his hands that will excuse him Nor the Romish Clergies disclaiming to meddle in a judgement of blood which will reconcile the minds of sufferers to them as long as they are Masters of the Inquisition or deliver them up to the secular power and excommunicate and depose the temporal Lords who will not do such execution as they require Though I have some where else mentioned it I will again request the Reverend Pastors of the Church to peruse the story of Idacius and Martin in Sulpitius Severus The sum of it is this Priscillian and many others some Bishops and some Presbyters and some private persons were zealous in religion but heretical Gnosticks saith Sulpitius Ithacius and Idacius were two Orthodox Bishops who were very hot against these herâ—ticks Both of them men of rash and haughty spirits and one of them at least saith Sulpitius an injurious person that scarce cared what he said or did by others see what persons a good cause may be defended by These Bishops drew in the Bishops of the neighboring Churches in their Synods first condemned the Priscillianists and next provoked the Emperour against them The Priscillianists found that if that were the way an Emperours Court was not so Orthodox or constant but there might be as good hopes for them And therefore they got a powerful friend in Court to undertake their business and got the better of the Bishops The Bishops being born down for a time at last Maximus was proclaimed Emperour and came over with power and victory into Germany such another as Cromwel who by the Bishops was accounted a very Religious Christian but usurped the Empire and fought against and killed one of the Emperours and pretended that the souldiers made him Emperour against his will This Maximus whether sincerely or for his own advantage is unknown did take part with the Orthodox and greatly honour the Bishops and promote Religion and got a great deal of love and honour Ithacius and Idacius and the rest of the Bishops apply themselves to Maximus against the Priscillianists who hearkened to them and to please them put Priscillian and some others to death and punished others by other wayes of violence The more rude ungodly sort of Christians so far concurred or over-went the Bishops that they turned their fury against any that seemed more Religious than their neighbours so that if any one
of Israel that when they were rooted out the land should keep her Sabbaths Was that a mercy or a judgement Would you so cure Sabbath-breaking and disorder and take a solitude for Peace Fourthly is not the work to be done the saving of mens souls And shall any be saved against his will And then should not all force be meerly such as is subservient to the ends of Love Fifthly will stripes change the judgement in matters of Religion Sixthly is he any better than a Knave or an hypocrite who will say or swear or do that through fear which he verily thinketh God forbiddeth him and is displeâ—sed for and feareth it may damn his soul Seventhly Is it the honour and felicity of soâ—ls to be such or of Church or Kingdome to be composed of such Eighthly is not a conscientious fear of sinning against God a thing well pleasing to him and necessary to mens salvation and to the Churches welfare and to the safety of the lives of Kings and of the Kingdoms peace And is there not then great cause to cherish it though not the errours that abuse it And should not all care be used to cure the ungodly world of impiety and â—earedness of conscience which makes them make a mock of sin And if conscience were once debauched and mastered by fear and the people be brought to prefer their their fleshly interest before their spiritual and to fear mens punishment more than Gods would not such debauched consciences have a great advantage to make such men the masters of the estates and lives of others And are the lives of Kings and the estates of neighbours and the peacâ— of Kingdomes competently secured where God is not feared more than fines or corporal penalties Ninthly if force be so far followed till it have changed mens judgements or conquered conscience or exterminated and destroyed all that will not be thus changed or conquered who differ from superiors in unnecessary things will it not all things well considered prove a dear price for that which might be had at much cheaper rates Are not the most conscientious necessary helpers of the Ministery by their example to cure the unconscionableness of the rest And therefore should be countenanced encouraged Tenthly would not the cessation of unnecessary impositions cast out the most of the scruples of conscientious people and cease the saddest divisions of the Churches If Rome could have been content with a Religion of no more Articles than the Apostles was and would on those terms have held Communion with other Churches O what rends and ruines had it prevented in the Christian world Are not the old Apostolical rules and terms sufficient to the safety and peace of Christians Were those worthy persons B. Vsher B. Hall B. Davenant B. Morton with the Bergii the Crocii and all the great pacificators deceived who wrote and preached and cried out to the world that so much as all Christians are agreed in is sufficient matter for their concord if they would lay it upon no more vid. Vsh. serm before King Iames at Wansted Or do you think it was their meaning Let all Rulers multiply unnecessary scrupled impositions in their own dominion and for scrupling them let them silence imprison and banish at home And then let them send to their neighbour Churches for Unity Peace and Concord and tell them that the subscribing to the Scriptures generally and to the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue and Sacraments particularly are terms sufficient to this end Supposing that good order deconcy and peace be kept up by suitable discipline both Ecclesiastical and Civil And why would not this serve for all the world Or why should more scrupled things be called necessary to order and decency than indeed are so My desire of the Churches peace which caused me to write all the rest provoketh me to touch this subject briefly which will scarce endure to be touched DIRECT XIV When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errours disorders or divisions reflect not any disgrace or contempt upon Religion and conscientious strictness but be the more careful to proclaim the innocency and honour of serious Godliness lest the prophane and ungodly take occasion to despise it by your opening the faults of such as are taken for the zealous Professours of it HOnest hearers take most notice what is the main scope which the Preacher aimeth at and the business which he driveth on Some men take occasion by the errours and faults of such as have seemed seriously religious to make all seriousness and diligence for our salvation to seem to the hearers to be meer hypocrisie and not only a needless but a hurtful thing and to perswade the people that an ignorant carelesness of their souls with good neighbour-hood quietness and mirth is better than all this ado Which is no more or less than to preach for Atheism and Ungodliness in practise so it be veiled with the hypocritical profession of the Christian faith And this unhappy sort of Preachers do seldome miss to fall upon the real and supposed miscarriages of men that are or seem religious in some part of their sermons and familiar discourse which being done to so odious an end as to bring seriouâ— Religiousness it self into dislike it maketh the best of the hearers abhor such reflections because they abhor the scope of them Believing that Holiness need not to be preached against in the world till mens hearts are more enclined to it and till all its enemies abate their opposition And if it were to be done yet not by a Minister of Christ He that preacheth against Holiness how covertly soever preacheth against God Whereas if a mans designe be to promote Religion the sober hearers though partly guilty will bear his reproof of the faults of professours with much more patience when they see it is for God and godliness that he doth it I speak by experience and must give them this testimony that I have many and many a time poured out my soul in earnest reprehensions of the errours and disorders of rash dividing zeal and the hearers have taken all with patience when the same persons could not bear the tenth part so much from some preachers whom they imagined to aim in it at the depressing of the honour of true and serious religion Therefore be sure what sort of men soever you are reproving that you say nothing which tendeth to make the ignorant or ungodly sort of your auditors think that it is zeal or strictness or careful diligence about their souls which you condemn But still put in sufficient caution for the necessity of a holy heart and life DIRECT XV. Discourage not the Religious from so much of Religious exercises in their families or with one another as is meet for them in their private stations BY this means many Pastors have been very great causes of schisms and separations Some of them are so carnal and selfish that they make
were but to take their tythes and honour and to be reverenced by the people and to preach once or twice a week a sermon which tendeth to their applause they could submit to this much But Paul's exhortation Act. 20. seemeth intollerable preciseness But souls will not be informed or reformed at so cheap a rate Sin hath corrupted them more than so If we will sleep the envious man will not sleep but when we awake we shall find that he hath sowed his tares Sometimes grievous Wolves will enter not sparing the flock and sometimes of our own selves will men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them Therefore watch Study hard and meditate on these things and give your selves wholly to them that your profiting may be known to all that you may be able to stop the mouths of gainsayers and to edifie and stablish all the flock that they be not as children tossed to and fro and carried up and down by every wind of doctrine by the câ—nning slight and subtilty of men by which they lie in wait to deceive For to this end did Christ give offices and gifts Study therefore to shew your selves workmen that need not be ashamed rightly dividing methodizing opening and so defending the word of truth Act. 20. 20 28 29 30. Eph. 3. 12 14. 1 Tim. 4. 15 16. 2 Tim. 2. â— 15. DIRECT XVII Be not strange to the poor ones of your flock but impartial to all and the servants of all mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate Rom. 12. 16. ALL souls are equally precious unto Christ whether rich or poor O set the strange example of Christs condescension still before your eyes Was it the high or the low that were his familiars Did he live in fulness and ride in poâ—p and associate only with the rich and great O see him washing his disciples feet And hear him teaching them by that example what they ought to do for one another He came not to be ministred unto but to minister How sharply did he rebuke his disciples when they strove who should be greatest And setting a little child before them hath taught us what must be our ambition And that he that will be the greatest must be the servant of all Our greatness lieth in the greatest of our humility and usefulness Math. 18. 1 2 3 4. 23. 11. Luk. 22. 24 25 26. Math. 20. 28. It is lawful and meet that men in power should be honoured by us and also that the people be taught to honour them and that you keep such interest in them as is needful to the publick good and therfore all converse with them is not unlawfull But when Ministers only attend on the rich and are strange and seldome among the poor it makes them accounted carnal worldly men and is unsuitable to their Lords example and to the work of their calling The poor are far more numerous than the rich and therefore our work is more among them And death will quickly level all And when we have all done we shall find that the poor receive the glad fidings of the Gospel and the poor of the world may be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdome which God hath prepared for them that love him Mat. 11. 5. Iam. 2. 5 6. And that the rich do hardly enter into the Kingdome of heaven Iam. 2. 6 7. But ye have despised the poor Do not the rich men oppress you and draw you before the judgement seats It is the poor that must be the chief crown and comfort of your labours Therefore be not strangers to them if you would not have them account you lordly worldly and self-seeking men If you will leave them to themselves and think your selves too good to be their companions or to come into their smoaky Cottages and then think that a lordly command or rebuke should serve the turn to keep them from errour and schism and disorder you may find your errour to the Churches cost when it is too late And it will be but a pitiful excuse for your pride or laziness to cry out of seducers for creeping into such houses which you disdained to come into your selves what do you by avoiding them but invite any others thither that will come and leave them as it were swept and garnished for such evil spirits DIRECT XVIII Spend and be spent for your peoples good and do all the good that possibly you can for their bodies as well as for their souls and think nothing that you have too dear to win them that they may see that you are truly Fathers to them and that their well-fare is your chiefest care and business ALl men love themselvs and naturally and necessarily love those that they know do greatly love them And all men are sensible of their bodily concernments and consequently of that good that is done to their bodies He that setteth himself to relieve the poor and to put on others to relieve them to visit the sick and help those that are in trouble and to comfort the afflicted to do what good he can to all and hurt to none shall find that their ears will be open to his doctrine and that they will follow him towards heaven with much less resistance than otherwise he must expect Few such Ministers do ever want success of their labours And the covetoâ—s close handed self-seeking and cruel are alwayes hated And let his mony perish with him who thinketh it better than the souls of men and the work of God DIRECT XIX Keep up the Reverence of the ancient and experienced sort of Christians and teach the younger what honour they owe to those that are their elders in age and grace For whilest the elder who are usually sober and peacaable are duly reverenced the heat of rash and giddy youth will be kept in order USually where the elder bear the sway the Church hath peace Though I know some deceive is grow worse and worse And it is where the young and rash are become the predominant most esteemed party that schism and disorders do prevail And though some tell the people what honour they owe their Elders by office yet few acquaint them what honour youths owe both to the Elder in age and in experience and grace It will therefore be much of the prudence of the Pastors to keep up the honour of the Elders of the people and to preserve in the younger a due esteem and reverence towards them DIRECT XX. The Pastors who will preserve the Churches Peace must neither neglect to preserve their interest in the Religious persons of their charge nor yet be so tender of it as to depart from sober principles or wayes to please them nor to make them their rulers nor follow them into any exorbitancies to avoid their censures BOth these extreams will tend to confusion First They that care not at all what men think of them do but despise their advantages to do
forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved to fill up their sin alway for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost ☞ Luk. 9. 54 55. Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them even as Elias did But he turned and rebuked them and said ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of for the son of man is not come to destroy mens lives but to save them I conclude as I began that the consciousness of our own ordinary and lamentable infirmities and the greatness of the Churches sufferings thereby in all fore-going ages and in this will condemn us of impudent self-ignorance if Ministers be not compassionate and tender towards the weaknesses of the people who cannot be expected to equal them in knowledg Alas Brethren what are we even after so many years study preparation that we should be supercilious and cruel to the infirm what difficulties puzzle us what a loss are we at in our ordinary studies How weakly do we preach and pray and write How easily do we see this in one another as our mutual censures and severities shew Who troubled Paul and the first Churches but erroneous Teachers Who prated malitiously against Iohn and cast out the brethren but a Diotrephes Who brought in the errours of the Millenaries the corporeity of Angels the errours of the Arrians Eunomians Nestorians Eutychians Macedonians and almost all the rable ine Epiphanius Augustine and Philastrius but Bishops or Presbyters Who have caused and kept open the wounds of the Churches of the East and West so long Who introduced all the errours about praying for to the dead c. that are in most of the Liturgies of the Churches in East and West And all the errours that are found in so many Councils and Confessions of Churches and in so many Volumes of Controversie as are extant Who set up the Roman Usurpation and Tyranny Who set up the Papal power above Princes and determined in the Laterane Council for their power to depose them and alienate their dominions Who set up Usurpers and raised wars against Emperors and Kings upon these grounds Who brought in Transubstantiation with the rest of the Roman absurdities Who have been the Masters of the bloody Inquisitions And who hindereth the preaching of the pure doctrine of the Gospel in all the Romanists dominions Is it not an erroneous Clergy You 'l say Those are Papists and so are not we Ans. No God forbid we should But they are a mistaken Clergy which sheweth us that the Clergy are as liable to be dividers and troublers of the Church as the Laity are and have done much more If any hence would infer that the Pastors must be vilified or deprived of their just liberties and power I would more largely tell such a one that it is also the Clergy that have opposed all these Heresies and sins and that have maintained obedience to Princes and that have preserved the Scriptures and the Christian saith and that have been the salt and lights of the world without whom Christianity never long continued in any nation And that have been the chief instruments of bringing all the souls to Heaven that have passed thither from the militant Church But I have done this in two sheets for the Ministery long ago So that our faults consist with the honour of our function and of our necessary labours and with the praise of the more blameless And even so though the peoples weakness and inclinableness to unwarrantable separations and schisms be blameworthy as a fruit of their infirmity and injudiciousness Yet must we remember that they are the members of Christ and we must â—ot deny his interest in them nor judge or use them hardlier than Christ himself hath done or alloweth us to do But study his Love and tenderness and forbearance that we may follow him in serving him and not follow our uncharitable passions and call it a serving of him who liketh no such hurtful service He that loveth Christ in none of his Infants or weaker members but in the strong and more prudent sort alone doth love him in so few that he may question whether he loveth him indeed at all And whether ever he shall hear In as much as ye did it to the least of these my brethren ye did it unto me April 14. 1668. The way of Division by Violence I. Depart from the Apostolical primitive simplicity and make things un-necessary seem necessary in Doctrine Worship Discipline and Conversation II. Endure no man that is not of your mind and way But force all tâ— concord upoâ— these terms of yours what ever it cost III. â—rand all Dâ—â— â—ters with the 〈…〉 maticks â—â—ereticks or â—â—ditious Reâ—els that the◠〈◊〉 become â—teful to high â—nd low IV. When this â—ath greatly â—ncreased their â—isaffection to â—ou accusâ—â—heir Religioâ— of all the expressions of that disaffection to make iâ— odious also V. Take thosâ— for your enemies that arâ— their friends â— those for your friends which are their enemies And cherish those be thâ—y never so bad that will be against them and help you to rooâ— them out But remember that for all this you must come to judgement And read these following words of Mr. R Hookers which he useth of some part of the History which out of Sulpitius I before mentioned Eccles. Pâ—l Epist. Dedic The way of Peace by Love and Humility I. Adhere to the ancient simple Christianity and make nothing necessary to your Concord and Communion which is not necessary II. Love your neighbors as your selves Receive those that Christ receiveth and that hold the necessaries of Communion be they Episcopal Presbyterian Independants Anabaptists Arminians Calvinists c. so they be not proved Heretical or wicked III. Speak evil of no man and especiaâ—ly of Dignities Ruâ—lers Revile not when you are reviled speak moâ—â— of the good that is in Dislenters and do them all the Good you can IV. If any wrong you be the more watchful over your passions opinions and tongues lest Passion carry you into extreams Love your enemies â—less them that curse you do good to themâ—hat â—hat hate you and â—ray for them that despâ—ghtfully use you and persecute you And do noâ— evil â—hat good may come by it V. Impartially judg of men by Gods inâ—erest in them and â—ot your own or your parties Reprove the wayes of Love-killers and Backbiters and let not the fear of their Wrath or Censures carry you into a compliance with them or cause you by silence to encourage them But rejoyce if you should be Martyrs for Love and Peace For Blessed are the â—eek for they shall inherit the earth Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God Blessed are they which are persecuted for Righteousness sake for theirs is the Kingdome of heaven The way of Division by Separation I. Depart from the Apostolical Primitive simplicity on pretence
Church and therefore need no casting out Ans. Were they never baptized or is not baptisme Christâ— appointed means of admission into his Church Obj. They were baptized in their Infancy and afterward bred up in ignorance and profaneness know not what their baptisme is nor ever soberlyâ—wned it Answ. Either they still profess themselves Christians and attend Gods ordinances with the Church or not If not then they are Apostates If they do then they do own their Baptismal Covenant by a continued profession If you accuse them of not understanding this profession or of living contrary to it you must proceed against them one by one as Christ appointeth and first admonish them and then tell the Church and not say they are ignorant and profane and expect upon your saying so they should all be unchurched Yeâ— if you prove them ignorant if they be willing to learn it is fitter presently to instruct them than to excommunicate them nor do you reade of any excommunicated for meer ignorance But we confess that in gross ignorance they may shew themselves uncapable of sacramental Communion and may be denied it while they are learning to know what they do But the mercy of God hath made points absolutely necessary so few that this may be done in a short time if the Persons be willing and the Teachers diligent and sufficiently numerous for that work And though it is to be lamented that in many great City-Parishes the Ministers are not enough to catechize the twentieth part of the people yet for the generality of Parishes through the Land if Catechizing were used as it might be there would not any great numbers be long kept away for meer ignorance And he that is the cause of his Parishes ignorance by neglecting Catechizing and personal conference then unchurcheth them for the ignorance which he is guilty of doth take but a preposterous course for his own account and comfort or for the peopleâ— good Obj But they refuse to learn or be instructed Ans. If that and their gross ignorance be proved together as you may delay them for the later so you may reject them for the former because it sheweth their impenitence But this must be proved of them and not affirmed without proof Obj. But their Baptisme made them members only of the Universal Church and not of any particular Church And therefore will not prove them such Answ. True But he that is a member of the Universal Church is fit to be received into a particular Church And there wanteth no more but mutual consent And if he have statedly joyned with a particular Church in ordinary communion Consent hath bin manifested and he is a member of that particular Church and must not be rejected by it but in Christs way And this is the common case in England The persons who were baptized in Infancy were at once received into the Universal Church and into some particular Church have held communion at age with both and have right to that communion till they are publikely proved to have lost their right And if we had no Churches but particular Churches were to be gathered anew yet he that is a baptized member of the Universal Church and consenteth to communion with that particular Church in all the ordinances of Christs appointment doth lay a sufficient claim to his admission and cannot lawfully be refused unless he stand justly censured by a Church which formerly he was in Yet this we confess that he can be no member of that particular Church who subjecteth not himself to the particular Pastors of it and to the necessary acts or parts of their Office and Ministration Because he denieth his own consent 11. The sinfulness of unchurching Persons or Parishes without Christs way of regular process consisteth in all these following parts 1. It is a casting off the Laws of the great Law-giver of the Church and so a contempt of his authority wisdome and goodness and a making of our selves greater or wiser or holâ—er than he 2. It is gross injustice to deprive men of so great Priviledges without any sufficient proof of their forfeiture It is worse than to turn whole Parishes out of their Houses and Possessions without any lawful process or proof upon rumours or private affirmations that they are Delinquents It is not doing as we would be done by what if any should say of you that you are Heretical and deny Fundamental Truths Or what if they should say of a separated Church that they are generally Hereticks or of wicked lives as the Heathens did of the ancient Christians and therefore that they are no Church nor to be communicated with would you not think that they should every one personally be accused and proof brought against them and that they should speak for themselves before they were thus condemned 3. And it is an aggravated Crime in them that so much cry down Church-tyranny in others to be thus notoriously guilty of it themselves what greater injustice and tyranny can there be than that all mens Christiâ—nity and Church-rights shall be judged Nâ—ll upon the censures and rumours of suspitious men without any just proof or lawful tryal That it shall be in the power of every one who hath but uncharitableness enough to think evil of his neighbours or to believe reports against their innocency to cast them out of the Family of God and to unchristen and unchurch men arbitrarily at their pleasure That any man that is but unconscionable enough to say They are all ignorant and prophane shall expect to have his neighbours excommunicated 4. It maketh all Churches to be lubricous and uncertain shadows when a censorious person may unchurch them at his pleasure What you say of others another may say of you and as justly expect to be believed 5. It unavoidably bringeth in uncurable divisions For there is no certain rule of justice with such persons and therefore they know not who are to be received to their Communion and who not And the same man that one thinketh is to be rejected and kept out another will think is to be received And who knoweth which of them is to be obeyed If one say that a Parish is a Church and another say that they are to be unchurched who knoweth which of them to believe 6. It is a reproach to the Church and Christian religion when we tell the world that that we have not so much justice and equity among us as Heathens have in their worldly societies 7. It depriveth the Church of the solace of her Communion when the best man is not sure but a censorious person may at his pleasure turn him out as unworthy 8. It greatly wrongeth Jesus Christ who so dearly loveth the weakest of his flock and hath purchased their priviledges at so dear a rate and whose body is maymed when any of his members are cut off and who taketh the wrong that is done them as done unto himself These are the great virtues