vile and debauched that he is more like a Devill than a Disciple then admit him not but excommunicate him Cast him out We cannot thank the man for his remedie It is not worth so much if he had been serious therein which we think he was not being against his own principles for whether shall we cast him unles into the same place Mâ— Hs. deserves to be himselfe cast and it is his lightest punishment for indeed he hath offended the Lords little ones every Math. 18. 6. one of them we thought till we thought of you into the Sea with a mill-stone about his necke for all the dry Land is a Church as you so well know and can make full proofe In the next place SECT III. 3. WE would say in Allusion to excellent Calvin's words Si dimidio Christi convuti effemus if we could be content with half a Christ our work would quickly be at an end and we should agree So if we could be content with an halfe Reformation which will content the Godly party as the halfe of her deare Child the deare mother ye do not bid us the halfe no nor the least part or peice of Reformation for making no separation from the world at the Lords Table where or when will ye seperate All one at the Lords Table and every where one The world and you cannot be two while professedly one at the Lords Table We will take leave to set downe excellent Burroughs his words we have read or heard upon this subject Whensoever you receive the Communion with any Company Reade Master Palmer p. 100. you doe Confesse your selfe to be of the same body with that Company I must professe that I doe beleeve my selfe to be of the same Body that this drunkard is off this Idolater this covetous person is off this whore-master this swearer is off joyning with them to eate Bread at the Lords Table where these uncleane ones must needs be where all are admitted to be professing nothing against them nor taking any Course at all with them for the exclusion of them or purging of them-out Allowance of a thing done is as good as a Commission for the doeing of it Therefore it concernes us very much to looke unto it That it be an holy Communion we receive the bread and wine-in In the last place SECT IV. 4. WE would adde this That we are as unable to keepe silence Inveniar sanè superbus avarus omnium vitiorum reus modo impij silenâ—ij non arguar dum dominus â—atitur as we are to speake as the Learned doe observing the ordinance of our dearest Lord and Saviour so prophaned His owne order in His owne house whereof He is so tender so blasphemed and by those who should be most observant thereof His stewards there We professe we wish our eyes fountaines of teares and that our hearts could melt like wax and our Luth ep ad Staupitium bowells yearne upon these stewards in Gods house who admitt all to his Table come who will all are welcome Surely if they repent not of these horrid doings the Master of the house and Lord of the Table will rise-up against these stewards as once He did in Mount Perazim He will be wroth with them as in Mount Gibeon for by their meanes it is that a brutish sottish people admitted by them to eate and drinke at the Lords Table doe eate and drinke their owne damnation encreasing their guilt there and hardning themselves to their utter ruine and everlasting destruction And is this nothing Nothing saith Mr H s for which some other will deale with him assuredly and bray him in a morter that his folly may depart from him who saith in effect though not in terminis It is nothing to eate and drinke damnation to our selves as all must doe who eate and drinke unworthily upon account onely of Infant Baptism For by Comming or rashly like naturall bruite beasts rushing to the Lords Table before the word of life hath brought life to their soules they eate and drinke judgement to themselves and have put themselves into an utter incapacity or impossibility ever to be wrought upon thereby we meane as to the strength and power of ordinary meanes That worke on other men for their Conversion who have not willfully perverted the holy order of the Lord which He hath prescribed nor presumptuously passed over the ordinary meanes of Conversion They have hard hearts that doe not melt into teares beholding a poore sottish people encreasing their guilt every day and more and more hardning themselves to their eternall ruine Therefore for our deare Lords and Christs sake whose Body and Blood we cannot see with patience thus prostituted to dogges and swine for His Churches and Truths sake the onely two dearely beloved and regarded in the whole world for Soules sake purchased at so deare a rate which argues the pretiousnesse of them for your owne sakes whose foot stands fixed in Mr Hâ— way his owne a way of sin and death have we spoken hitherto and shall speake in these matters before us as we have beleived And as the Church of Christ hath practised in all times and ages though not with that freedome and blessed libertie as by the abundant riches of Gods goodnesse now they can doe for which liberty they blesse God night and day who hath so changed the times Time was and it was a sad time with all the godly Ministers and people all over the Land when there was no barre to keepe any from the Lords Table but one which superstition made And was it a just Greife to borrow Mr Sanders words then that there was no barre And is it your worke now to remove the Barres yea the Lords and his Churches antient Land-markes and lay all Common The Lord God of gods lookes upon this and will require it Therefore in our tenderest respects unto you we would Caution you in our entrance to this Treatise for with that or the like unto it we meane to end this of all murther take heed of Soules De Eccles lib. 2. murther your owne or others It is Salvians Caution It is true your people will be very wroth with you if you will not murther them let them eate and drinke damnation to themselves The most cruell bloody murther though Mr H s will not beleive it to suffer persons one or more to poison themselves with the Sacrament which workes strongly and kills presently as poison mixed with the strongest wine will doe Vineger you have read 't is filius vini and the sweetest wine degenerates into the sharpest * Gospel Coâ—dials to a fowle heart are thâ— deadliest pâ—yson Mr. Foâ—d Sp. Ad. 470. vineger As there are more liberall doles of Grace in time of the Gospell and specially given forth at the Lords Table to the worthy receivers So are there the largest violls of wrath there also given forth to eate and drinke downe by the unworthy
good roote or rather the roote him he is planted in Him he beares upon Him Come when all is said this must stand Let a man beleive truely and truth of beliefe will bring forth truth of holinesse A true faith a true hope true love true obedience all in Truth when faith is in Truth that is truely set and fixed upon its chiefe and proper object Christ Jesus the Lord. O how doth man boast himselfe to be some body when he is nothing nay worse than nothing but knowes it not A Beleiver when he is worse than an Infidell And how secure doth he lye he is many under the shadow of a false faith more secure such is his presumption he is very Confident than a true beleiver such is his infirmity lyes under the shadow of a true faith You may heare these speake like Saints and see them if you narrowly marke them live like Devills so that if their wordâ— doe not bewray them their workes quickly will outside Christians iâ—side Heathens O it is good and but your duty Sir to observe men and search them narrowly before you admit them to the Lords Table for all men have not faith no not they many of them that 1 Thes 3. 2. make a profession and a shew of it You may meete with not a few sottish and brutishly ignorant and then not so meete to sit at the Lords Table as a swine properly so called is to sit â—t yours You may meete with some also that have a pearle of knowledge in their heads their hearts as full of poyson and deadly hatred against the Gospell of the Kingdome and true heires thereof in Christ true Gospellers as the most venomous Serpents are Protestants in doctrine Recusants in lives having a tongue professing for the Truth and a life professing against it faire outsides but within as noysome as a dunghill or an open Sepulchre which yet savoureth with them as a Garden of Spices or bed of Roses something resembling an Heaven in shew when they have an Hell with-in the heart we meane so you may say have the excellent of the Earth too but to them it is an Hell as their dunghill smells like a dunghill but to those their hell is their heaven here as their dunghill smells with them as aforesaid a most certaine Character of a polluted wretch We would not be mistaken here we censure no man we judge him not we dwell at home and our selves must we judge But upon due search thus you 'le finde it to be even as we have said and ye may have found it so by experience we may put downe this for a Conclusion If faith bring Christ the fountaine of Grace into the heart of a man he can no more walke in darknesse of sin and ignorance there is a darknesse of Spirit of sorrow wherein a Childe of light may walke and you have an excellent booke of it but no more walke in darknesse than he can doe that could Isaiah 50. carry the Sun in his hand and he may as well carry fire in his bosome and not feele it burne as carry true Grace in his heart and not cleanse his life But Counterfeits in Grace and contented to continue such and to hold sin the least sin-fast shall become Saints when an Ape comes to be a man and Copper becomes Gold which is never rejected but when it would looke like Gold Beleive it you doe a beleiver can no more be without Holinesse than can a godly man be without godlinesse or a true Christian without Christ or than can the Sunne be darke or the fire Cold. We shall crave leave to speake further to you about these three grave matters The feast of the Gospel The Covenant And Faith but we shall deferre it till the Last and therewith close-up this Treatise We proceed now in our argueing against this free admission to the Lords Supper In the fourth place SECT IV. IT is not according to the practise of Christ He gave it to Disciples onely it is not possible we conceive to make it out That He gave it to Judas yet if it could be made out we have enough to say were this a place for it He gave it to Disciples onely Judas himselfe if there looked like a Disciple being very like one and by so doing he prescribes his Ministers what they are to doe so we conceive as to those administrations to Ea quae perspiâ—ua sunt difficilia sunt â—â—â—â—ticis Mark 14. 23. the worlds end And here we are not bold to say that Mr H s your Champion doth fearefully pervert Scripture wrest and Crooke His blessed Lords practise to the Countenancing of his owne cursed and crooked doings and they all dranke of it Well what then his inference now hold your Nose if you cannot endure the deadly stinke of the Dragons excrements Therefore let all Come that will Come to the Lords Table Good Sir Give us leave to pause a little while we take these things into our thoughts is there not a Cause we should so doe When we heare this Reasonable Creature we call a man a schollar and a Minister too as he calls himselfe and would be called speake thus unreasonably as if he was as much wanting of Reason as he is of Grace unreasonably said wee Is it not too slight a word doth not he speake blasphemy doth he not blaspheme the Blessed practise of our Lord and Saviour which He hath set as a patterne for all His people to practise after And they all dranke of it So may ye all ye drunkards and yee all ye uncleane persons and you all you worse than Infidells and you all despisers of the Gospell and yee all that never thought of any other Covenant but that which ye have made with sin death and hell And ye all that have faith though it have no more life than a polished Stone hewen timber or a doore-naile no-matter how dead it be 't is a faith that will serve the turne to entitle them to these holy things drinke ye all of this as we read those Disciples did and they all dranke of it But Sir is not this Blasphemy Wee are willing to make you Judge here because you judge so well of the man Come in here all ye of the world for whome that sacred person John 17. 9. never opned His mouth and prayed Come in hither ye knowne enemies of the Crosse of Christ ye belly-servers ye that minde Earthly things drinke ye all of this ye that Crucifie to your selves the Son of God afresh and put Him as they doe by their Heb. 6. vile usage and abhominable Conversation to an open shame drinke ye all of this and ye all who have trodden under-foote as they can The Son of God and have counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith they professed themselves sanctified an unholy Heb. 10. thing and have done little lesse than despight to the Spirit of Grace All ye
be followers of their deare Lord in this perticular so farre from refusing the weake in faith as that they doe invite and encourage such The least Breathing after Christ the enjoying of Him how desireable a sight is it how acceptable with them how encouraged promoted countenanced by them how pleasing and welcome to them even as the bruised reed was and the smoaking flax to their Lord and Master Not the weake but the dead To use that good man's words not Children but Bastards not comers towards Christ but resisters of Him in the meanes of drawing to Him doe these Brethren purposely refuse where they see any measure of true godly feare any degree of graciousnesse they gladly admit God forbid they should refuse the meanest as to the world or in Grace no they Covet the purest and take the weakest CHAP. V. WE should now in the next place set downe the Charge of the Lord to all those that have the Charge of the Sanctuary of those holy things there that they make a separation betwixt the pretious and the vile But this is so legible every where all along the Scripture that we might save our selves and you the trouble And indeed this second part of our worke exceeding its proportion we will deferre what we should have said here to the Last Treatise And so we come to that we promised therewith to close the result of this second debate as we did the former and so to close up this part We have made bold to give you a word of exhortation once already we are bold againe to give you another word and to proceed in it we know the manner of an humble person he takes that pearle thankfully as given him from God though brought unto him as the good Prophets meate was by a Raven A reproofe to him is welcome for what he hath done amisse much more an exhortation that he may not so doe being taken from the mouth of God as you shall finde we hope this to be withall we are every one taxed to pay a Contribution towards the good of soules and well-fare of That Body whereof the Lord Christ is the head and the Saviour and this we can doe no other way but this Sir we can clearely speake this unto you we wish you Gaius his prosperity that you may prosper as your soule prospereth They you with your people they with you may walke in the Truth by Gospell rule we doe Consider with you That you being a Minister of note and we hope a Godly Man The same may be said of you as you reade was said of a Godly Noble-Man You are norma publica a publique Standard unto your people who indeed for the most part are very Apes taken by imitation by what they heare you say or see you doe Non ad rationem sed ad similitudinem vivimus was the old Complaint we take words upon trust our Minister saith it and there is an end Those brave discreete and generous Bereans did not so They heard Paul and Silas with all readinesse of minde yet they did not receive the word upon their word as spoken from them though they might have been beleived before any but they searcht the Scriptures dayly whether those things were so therefore many of them beleived This is out of use in these dayes whence it is there are so many beleivers in name and Infidells indeed You are we hope the more carefull what you say before them for we question not your doings out of Gods house and so to make way to what we farther intend First Wee humbly entreate you you would forbeare to doe what we know others doe gather-up all the filths once visible now legible in the Church of Corinth and Creete to beare-out the filthinesse of their owne To alledge their want of order and good discipline thereby to justifie their owne disorders and no discipline at all To make their defects and faileings to plaisterover their owne more than faileings their abominable doeings in God's House Remember we should they had but the dawnings of the day of the Gospell we have the noonetide thereof And that wee are to walke not by the darke side of the Cloud And let us tremble to justifie sin by sinne as we should at that judgement which the Lord God makes up of sin punishing sin with sin Bid your people follow holinesse studie to be quiet and to be pure a course cleane contrary to the world or commonly called the Church there they follow unholinesse and study impiety Secondly Tremble oh that you could to be found in the number of the Corrupt Ministers all over the Nation these alwayes did now doe and alwayes will oppose Reformation the Discipline of Christ in His Church the breathings of all His Saints in the world That all things may be done according to patterne as visibly held out now before them as was that in the Mount as to all Church-administrations Thirdly And Sir If you looke after this way looke for persecution in it and from your Brethren As sure as it is an holy Isa 66. 5. Jer. 40. 7. John 16. â— Acts 26. 9. way so sure it is a persecuted way contradicted and Blasphemed and this specially by Brethren But can this discourage you It was ever so The Lord Christ was opposed Cheifely by the Preists Scribes and Pharisees And Luther professed that he â—â—k 6. 26. found more enemies in the Clâ—ysters and Monasteries than he did out of prophane and wicked places persecution is as the hand that points you there is the way of holinesse walke in it If oâ— finde no persecution then ye are out of the way for so persecuted they the true Prophets pointing them to this way but for the false Teachers that had bid the people runne-on in their owne way of sin and death pleasing in their owne eyes all spake well of Act. 7. 52. 2 â—â—m 3. 11 12. them You will find it to be so and fore-warned fore-armed And the Nominall Beleivers titular Disciples and Saints so accustomed to their owne way a loose and evill way the way of the world of a Nationall Church there these will deale most despitefully with you A just judgement shall wee say or rather a fatherly Correction if the Father of mercies make it so to you That so they should returne your kindnesse to them in admitting them when time was to the Lords Table upon this score onely They were borne in England and Baptized there CHAP. VI. WE come now to that we mainely intended and you know we cheifly insisted upon to prove That your free admission to the Lords Table is Crosse to the holy rule we should walke by to the practise and minde of the Lord and deare Saviour and as contrary to the minde and manner of all those that are followers of Christ and cannot stint themselves with any degree of holinesse 1 John 3. 3. their Lords owne purity being their Coppy And here we